"It was nothing, Beel. Anyone could have done it."
"Thanks, anyhow," Parker said. "But what have we got ourselves into here?"
"I do not know for sure, Beel. Johnny, he like me, and he ask me to come along. He say we will both get reech—"
"Shut up!" Retch spoke.
Parker, sitting in the raft, watched the three men tow it toward the shore. He watched their feet. Where they stepped, the water seemed to grow firm. Pirates, cut-throats, killers, they certainly were. But added to that was the equally obvious fact that they could walk on water. In all history, Parker had only heard of one man who could do that, and he hadn't been a man, but a God.
Ahead of them, the island loomed in the sunset; a long strip of white, sandy beach; behind it a thick growth of trees; behind the trees the rocky central mass of the island rising up into the sky. Off to the right, Parker caught a glimpse of a wreck that lay against rocks jutting from the shore. He stared at it. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, it was the wreck of a Spanish galleon, a ship that belonged to the days when Spain had been draining the gold and silver and jewels of the new world into her coffers.
The men stopped, stared uneasily at the shore. Parker could make out two men barely visible between the beach and the grove of trees.
"Rozeno and Ulnar!" Gotch spoke. "Watching us." His lips curled and his hand went automatically to the hilt of the sword he was wearing. "Some day I will slit the throats of that priest and that Indian." Gotch spat into the sea.
"They're not causing any trouble," Peg-leg spoke.
"They're witches, by Gad!" Gotch answered. "They're warlocks, wizards."