r, staring at him. The
sword in his hands still showed faint traces of red from the blood of
the shark.

"We do not need any more men on the island!" Lifting his blade, Gotch
glared at Parker.

"Do you, per'aps, need women?" Mercedes spoke quickly. Gotch turned his
eyes on her. As he looked, some of the anger seemed to go out of him.

"Perhaps what you need on the island are more women," Mercedes said. She
smiled boldly.

* * * * *

Gotch broke into a grin. "But definitely, we need more women, if they
are like you."

"Hey, lay off of her, she belongs to me!" Retch spoke violently.

"Come, let us pull the boat to the island," Peg-leg spoke quickly. "We
have too many things to do to stand waiting here."

Grumbling, Gotch allowed himself to be persuaded to get in front of the
raft and join the other men in pulling it.

Not until then did Parker dare to breathe. "Thanks," he spoke to
Mercedes.

"It was nothing, Beel. Anyone could have done it."

"Thanks, anyhow," Parker said. "But what have we got ourselves into
here?"

"I do not know for sure, Beel. Johnny, he like me, and he ask me to come
along. He say we will both get reech--"

"Shut up!" Retch spoke.

Parker, sitting in the raft, watched the three men tow it toward the
shore. He watched their feet. Where they stepped, the water seemed to
grow firm. Pirates, cut-throats, killers, they certainly were. But added
to that was the equally obvious fact that they could walk on water. In
all history, Parker had only heard of one man who could do that, and he
hadn't been a man, but a God.

Ahead of them, the island loomed in the sunset; a long strip of white,
sandy beach; behind it a thick growth of trees; behind the trees the
rocky central mass of the island rising up into the sky. Off to the
right, Parker caught a glimpse of a wreck that lay against rocks jutting
from the shore. He stared at it. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, it
was the wreck of a Spanish galleon, a ship that belonged to the days
when Spain had been draining the gold and silver and jewels of the new
world into her coffers.

The men stopped, stared uneasily at the shore. Parker could make out two
men barely visible between the beach and the grove of trees.

"Rozeno and Ulnar!" Gotch spoke. "Watching us." His lips curled and his
hand went automatically to the hilt of the sword he was wearing. "Some
day I will slit the throats of that priest and that Indi