to silence as the sound came again.

The chirp was louder now. It was no longer one bird chirping in the dark
night, it was a dozen. And it wasn't quite the sound of a bird any
longer, it was a musical tinkle, an air-borne throbbing somewhat similar
to the sound of a harp, a softly ringing chime. Parker could easily
imagine that somewhere among those dark trees was a harper, moving
closer.

The harpist did not seem to be upon the ground. He--or she--seemed to be
up in the air, somewhere near the tree tops, moving in the dark night.

As the sound came louder, a man in the village suddenly went down on his
knees, then another and another, until the whole group, including Gotch,
were kneeling. Even Mercedes went to her knees in response to deep
internal, superstitious pressures. Only Retch and Parker stood erect as
two men strong enough to face the sound coming from the night.

"Get down, you fools!" Peg-leg's voice had real anguish in it.

"Get down, hell!" Retch answered. He had a gun in each hand, his own and
the one he had taken from Parker.

"Beel! Beel!" Mercedes was jerking at Parker's leg. "What is 'appening?"

"Something," Parker answered. "I don't know what." There was fear in
him. He could feel it in his heart, sense it in his bones, taste in his
mouth. He rose above it.

The sound swept through the air. It came out over the trees above them.
On the ground, the kneelers moaned in response.

The harping sound leaped up, became a melody of weird notes filling the
night air. Mingled with the eerie music were the moans from the
prostrate humans.

Looking upward, Parker caught a glimpse of something moving through the
sky. It blotted out the light of the stars and it looked a lot like a
bird but like no bird he had ever seen before. It was too big to be any
bird that had ever flown through Earth's air, but yet it flew. As it
flew, it made the sound of a gigantic harp.

* * * * *

The bird passed over the village, moving along the cliff. As it slid
into the distance, the harp music faded slowly away, became again the
sound of a sleepy bird.

Around the village, the prostrate humans moaned, stirred, began to rise.

"What the hell was that thing?" Parker gasped.

"The damned fools call it the Jezbro!" Retch snarled. "The yellow
cowards are afraid of it. I don't know what it is."

Parker was silent. To him, Retch sounded like a man scared right down to
the soles of his sh