y have? Johnny Retch, even if given Montezuma's
gold, would not leave anyone alive except possibly Mercedes and Effra.

"Do--do you know anything we can do to stop those men?" Parker said.

Light seemed to come into Effra's eyes.

"We might--we might use the Jezbro!"

From the shelter of the trees, Johnny Retch operated like a general in
charge of a force of Commandos engaged in attacking a miniature
Gibralter. He was a very deliberate general. When the first shot from a
slot in the cliff had driven the two men downward, he met them at the
bottom of the ledge, a cigarette dangling from his lips, a sub-machine
gun in his hands. "Okay, boys, go back on up."

"There's a guy in there with a gun," one of the two protested. "He's
inside and we're outside. We're sittin' ducks for him."

"We're covering the slots with rifles in the trees."

"But--" Neither of the men wanted to go up that ledge again. They might
be hardened killers but they did not like the idea of facing a gun they
could not see.

"Go on back up, boys," Retch said. He lifted the muzzle of the gun he
held.

"But--"

"Either go back up or you'll stay down here a long time!"

They went back up the ledge. Retch retired to the shelter of the trees
and watched.

No shots came until they reached the mouth of the tunnel leading into
the cliff. There, one of the men was killed. He fell backward from the
ledge, screaming as he turned over and over.

The falling man broke his way through the top of a tree and sprawled
thudding on the ground. He did not move after he hit. Retch did not
waste a second glance on him.

Muffled but clearly audible, the blasting roar of the machine gun came
from the tunnel.

"He got in," Retch said. "Okay. Two more of you go up."

Two more men went up the ledge.

The entire population of the village had gathered to watch this storming
of the cliff. They regarded Retch with wonder and with awe. Some of
these men had been pirates in their day, they had known how to loot a
tall ship, to kill its crew, to take over any wealth and any women it
happened to carry.

Watching Retch, they discovered they had been amateurs in the fine art
of attacking and killing. They had needed a man from the modern world to
show them how the job ought to be done. They were greatly impressed,
Gotch most of all.

Waving his sword, Gotch explained what he would do to that black priest,
Rozeno, and to that cowardly Indian, Ulnar. Of all the listeni