oes but desperately trying to pretend he wasn't.

"It was a warning sent by them," Peg-leg whispered, gesturing up toward
the cliff in the darkness. "A warning to us to mend our ways."

"It was no such thing!" Retch shouted.

Peg-leg did not argue. He got slowly and silently to his feet. The group
was silent, perturbed, and afraid. Even Gotch was silent. Whatever had
passed overhead, had cast a pall of fear over them.

"You bilious, yellow-livered cowards!" Retch raged at them.

They made no response. The fear the Jezbro had inspired in them seemed
to have made even his anger unimportant.

"But what is the Jezbro?" Parker questioned again. "I mean--"

"I told you it's nothing and that's enough of an answer. Hey!" The guns
that Retch held came up sharply as another figure came soundlessly out
of the forest and moved toward them. An old, bent, wrinkled Indian who
hobbled along with the aid of a staff.

"Oh, it's you, Pedro!" Retch said. "What the hell do you want?"

For all the sign he gave, the Indian, Pedro, did not hear Retch's
question. He hobbled straight to Parker.

"_En la manana Padre Rozeno huit nole el hombre e la mujer._ Father
Rozeno will see the man and the woman in the morning." The voice was
broken with age.

"I don't get it," Parker said. The Indian was already turning. He had
delivered his message, his errand was finished.

"That damned Rozeno is not going to see anybody in the morning!" Retch
yelled.

The Indian staffed his way into the forest. He still seemed not to hear
Retch.

"Tell him they won't be there!" Retch screamed.

Pedro's back went out of the firelight as he moved into the trees.

Retch seemed almost to go mad. His face turned purple. Both guns came to
focus on the spot where the Indian had disappeared.

"Why shoot him?" Parker said. "He was just a messenger."

"Damn it!" Slowly, while the group watched impassively, Retch got
himself under control. Suddenly he began to laugh. Strangely his
laughter in this moment was more horrible than his anger had been.

"He sent for you, and the woman. All right, he'll get you. But I'll go
with you. If he wants you, I'll take you to him." Again the laughter
sounded.

"Who is Rozeno?" Parker asked.

"He is, or he was once, a Spanish priest. He and Ulnar think they rule
this island. They are the two men we saw watching us from the shore.
You'll see them in the morning."

That was the last word Retch said on the subject. He took G