Watching, Johnny Retch felt panic tumble through him, panic that was like a sudden touch of an ice cold hand. They had warned him about the Jezbro. Old Peg-leg had tried to tell him. Gotch had trembled in fear.

They had all insisted that there was _something_ here that did not belong in the world as he knew it.

He had laughed at them, he had called them superst.i.tious fools. To him, there was nothing that was not of this world.

Nor was there now, when the moment of wild panic had pa.s.sed. As the Jezbro swept upward through the air, rising along the face of the cliff, Retch jerked up the Tommy gun.

Smoke and lead blasted from the muzzle. The Jezbro was unharmed. Taking careful aim this time, Retch fired again, a furious blast of rattling sound.

The Jezbro swerved, the harp notes missed a beat.

From the suddenly loosened talons a figure plummeted downward, screamed as it fell, stopped screaming as it crunched against the ground.

The Jezbro circled in the air. It rose upward, swooped. Huge wings flapped, a tail structure was extended. From the gaping, extended mouth, a scream arose. The Jezbro seemed to leap toward the summit of the sky.

A flash of light as brilliant as the explosion of a miniature atom bomb flared for a brief second. Thunder clapped, rolled around the horizon; echoed back. In the distance the veil that circled the island shimmered and twisted as if it was about to collapse. It righted itself.

Except for a puff of swiftly dissipating white vapor, the air was clear.

Where wild harp notes had once flooded now was silence. Where a creature that had once looked like a giant bird had flapped through the air now there was nothing.

On the ledge, Johnny Retch wiped sweat from his face. From his pockets, he methodically refilled the almost empty clip of the gun. He looked down at Gotch, who was sitting up.

"You killed the Jezbro!" Gotch was whispering. His eyes were searching the sky as if he still did not believe what he had seen happen.

"Sure," Retch answered. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l it was, but it could be killed. Anything can be killed, Gotch. Remember that." The sting of acid crept into his voice. "Get up. We're going on up the ledge."

"By G.o.d, Johnny, you can do anything!" Gotch spoke. He rose with suddenly renewed confidence. "Wait'll we get to them--" He looked up the ledge toward the mouth of the tunnel.

Effra was seated in the operator's chair in front of the complex control panel that resembled the key board of a strange organ. She had been watching an image move in the screen directly in front of her eyes.

This image--it had been that of a great bird--had suddenly vanished.

"The Jezbro was destroyed!" she whispered. "The core of it was struck.

When that happens, the complete projection is torn to pieces!" Her face was white with strain.

Parker took his eyes off the screen where he had been watching something that he did not pretend to understand.

"Sometimes they are very difficult to control," Effra continued, her voice a whisper. "Once set in motion, they seem almost to achieve life of their own. I did not send the Jezbro against the men on the ground, I sent it against the man on the ledge, against this Retch. But--" her voice faltered.

"I saw it get away," Parker said. There was turmoil in his mind, confusion. He was in a place where miracles came to life. The secret of the ability to walk on the water lay here in this room. Effra, in swift sentences had explained to him that the men who walked on the water carried little pieces of metal in their pockets; pieces of metal which increased tremendously the surface tension of the water where they stepped on it. She had also told him that Ulnar, working this equipment, had _vondeled_ his helicopter, had sent out a tiny Jezbro that had struck at the ship, wrecking it. The Jezbro, the secret of the men walking on the water, had come from this room. The striking of the Jezbro was to Ulnar the act of _vondel_. Even the veil that surrounded the island was generated here; in the power being generated in the slowly circling pool of mercury; power that was changed and modified by the other equipment.

Here was the heart and the secret of the magic of this island; here even time was set aside.

Ulnar poked at Effra, grunted harshly. "I know," the girl said quickly.

"In just a minute."

Ulnar grunted again. He hovered over her like some ma.s.sive brooding spirit. He was eager to get his hands on the control board but his old fingers were no longer sufficiently flexible to play on that key board the tune that had to be played.

"_Pater noster_--Our Father--" In the silence came Rozeno's voice as he knelt in prayer. Bewildered and hurt and horrified, Rozeno and Ulnar had come back into the room to find Parker and Effra and Mercedes already there. Mercedes knelt beside him.

Pedro thrust his head through the opening behind them. "Him two more men, him man that kill Jezbro, him still coming up ledge."

"That's Johnny Retch," Parker said. "He's still coming. And there are probably others already inside here, looking for us in the rooms and corridors. We've got to move, Effra."

"I know, Bill." Her fingers started toward the control board, drew back.

"I called you Bill. Is that your name?"

"Yes."

"It's a nice name."

"But now we must hurry," Parker said. As he spoke, Ulnar grunted a single sound that set the girl into motion.

Her fingers went to one of the little statuettes, an eagle, a perfect thing in its way, a marvelous representation of the bird of prey. Effra had told Parker, in hasty sentences, how these images were made, deep down in the mountain, of a particular kind of metal that was almost weightless. He watched her slip the eagle into a slot, held his breath as her fingers darted across the key board.

A soft hum sounded--currents moving--a glow sprang into existence surrounding the little image. Slowly, the statuette began to glow with a silver light. The glow played over it, it shifted, changed, was one thing this instant, was something else the next instant. It looked like a moth emerging from a coc.o.o.n and becoming a b.u.t.terfly. The tiny wings came free, the head moved.

The cheeping of a sleepy bird was in the room.

At the sound, a wave of cold from the deepest depths of s.p.a.ce seemed to sweep over Parker. Here was magic beyond the comprehension of the mind.

Only it wasn't magic, it was a scientific achievement of the highest caliber.

At the cheeping sound, Effra's fingers moved swiftly on the control board, playing a symphony that only she understood. The little eagle moved out of the slot, it spread its wings, they fluttered, it moved upward into the air of the room.

With each circling of the room, it grew larger. The cheeping sound became louder, there was a touch of harp music in it now. Effra's fingers moved like lightning over the control panel. The growing eagle seemed to pick up its controls, it swirled, circled, went through the open slot, went out of the room, and into the air outside. It was now the Jezbro.

Its image appeared on the screen. It shot high into the air, still growing. The scene on the screen revealed in miniature the whole island, the sea lapping its sh.o.r.es, the boat lying at anchor. Effra's fingers moved frantically over the controls. "This is one of the hardest things to do. They seem to be attracted to the sun, when first released. They struggle desperately to escape into s.p.a.ce--There! I've got it under control."

The scene changed, became a group of men climbing the ledge. Parker saw these men suddenly jerk their heads toward the sky as they became aware of the Jezbro. He could imagine the fear that was shooting through them.

They had seen Johnny Retch destroy the Jezbro, only here the Jezbro was again.

From their viewpoint, it had miraculously come back to life and was diving again upon them from the sky. Guns were fired upward. But these men did not have the cool, hard nerves of Johnny Retch, did not have his shooting eye. They missed. The Jezbro dived among them.

They scattered, screaming. Two went off the ledge, three raced down it.

One mounted to the sky to the triumphant harping of the Jezbro.

Parker felt a wave of relief flow through him. Here in the Jezbro was actually a most potent weapon, the means of stopping an attack. "Girl!

You've done it!"

A second later he caught himself. "But Johnny Retch wasn't in that bunch. He must already be inside the cliff."

A gun roared three times inside the mountain. Footsteps faltered in the corridor outside. Pedro stumbled into the room. His face was a b.l.o.o.d.y mask.

"Him men inside." As he coughed out the words, he coughed out blood--and his life. He stumbled, caught himself, stumbled again, went down the way a dead man goes down, never to rise again.