rched on the mesa in the distance. He could not see their eyes now,
yet he was aware that they held fear--cold, numbing fear--fright so
great it binds the entrails, makes a stone statue of a man, even a
dwarf.

They held their poses even after the dying sounds of the strange rumble
had passed in the distance. When Jenkins spoke, it took several seconds
for them to bring their attention to him:

"Where am I and who are you?"

Their answering voices were childish pipings, making even less sense of
a confused situation:

"I am Loti ..." said the smallest, who wore a fringe of beard from his
forehead all the way around a pointed, slat-like chin.

"I am Gaino," said the second. He had a hooked nose so long it almost
touched his chin.

"I am Mikas," said the third, who had a round face, a bulbous nose whose
color was that of a ripe tomato, flapping pointed ears too large for his
face, and a pair of perfectly round eyes.

"Yeah? But where am I?" Jenkins persisted.

"In the land of Gnat," all three piped in unison.

Slowly the brain-fog was clearing for Jenkins. The miracle of his
landing safely was still not quite clear, nor could he understand the
presence of these odd beings. But as reason returned to Jenkins, it told
him something had happened which would perhaps be unexplainable.

He pointed toward the castle and said: "Who lives there?"

"Lucretia ..." they answered again in unison.

Now there's a familiar name, Jenkins thought, while at the same time a
horrifying idea occurred to him. If it were Lucretia Borgia, he thought,
then he might be dead. Suddenly, there was a spine-chilling roar, a vast
crashing in the underbrush close by, and a tremendous boulder sailed by
and disappeared over the lip of the chasm. Its crashing echoes could be
heard for a long time afterward. When Jenkins recovered his balance, the
gnomes had disappeared.

Jenkins' eyes narrowed in search of them, but after one look at the
thick underbrush, he turned aside and began to search for a path leading
either through the brush or down the steep sides of the cliff. There
wasn't much choice, he discovered. In fact, there was no choice at all.

* * * * *

"Ho-ho!" a stentorian voice bellowed, seemingly from at his very heels.
"Look what we have here!"

Once more Jenkins did a pirouette. Facing him were three men. They
seemed to come in series of threes in this screwy place, he thought. But
these were quit