As he watched, the boat veered abruptly, slowed, almost came to a halt as if its occupants had suddenly discovered the presence of the island. Ulnar shook his fist at the boat. "_Vondel me sego!_" he said. "No, no, Ulnar," Rozeno spoke hastily. "You must not _vondel_ them. They are just some people who have stumbled through the veil and now are bewildered." "Me make 'em more frightened," the Indian spoke. He brought one fist down into the other fist, a smacking sound. "What is _vondel_?" Parker spoke. Rozeno seemed not to hear him. The priest was already moving from the room. "We do not know who cut these passages here," Rozeno said. "We do not know who cut these rooms into the rock. Some race that lived a long, long time ago--perhaps the legendary Murians, perhaps some other race--had this island as an outpost. I think, also, they used it as a scientific laboratory; a dangerous laboratory that they put far away from their homeland. A place where their wise men--their philosophers--could seek out the mysteries of nature." "Um," Parker said. There was cold in him. He tried to force it away, discovered it would not go. "There is something else that is very strange about this island," the priest continued. "Time is different here." "How is time different?" "In this way," Rozeno answered. "I came to the New World with Cortez." "I see," Parker said. "You take it very calmly." "I do not doubt my own eyes nor do I doubt you." The old priest glowed. "Good. Good. Tell me, my son, are there many men like you in the world of today? I have a dream, a secret private dream, that the scientists from your world might come here and study the strange things on this island." "They would come here in droves if they knew about it. And so would everybody else. You would be over-run by hordes of the curious." "Yes, we know that. That isn't quite what I meant. It was my hope that perhaps we could make this island what it was in the olden days--secret place where the wise men could come to study." The priest's face glowed again. "There is so much here to be learned and here, also, is the time in which to learn. Here great discoveries might be made. Here could possibly be discovered not only the secrets of nature but the secrets of the minds and the hearts of men. From this place, as the centuries passed, there might be fed out, little by little, knowledge that would change the world; knowledge that would change the hearts and the minds of men; knowledge that would eliminate poverty, stop wars, knowledge that would help the human race become what it must one day be." The glow on Rozeno's face was bright. The dream he dreamed was suddenly, in Parker's mind, a living, breathing vital hope, the hope of all honest men everywhere, that tomorrow might be better! "Would you, my son, help me achieve that dream? Will you go back through the veil and explain to some of your greatest scientists what we have here?"