Turning towards the south, the eye could only see, about two miles and a half away, the entrance into Deliverance Bay, near the wall of rock which sheltered the dwelling of Rock Castle.
Of that house, and its annexes, nothing was visible except the green tops of the trees in the kitchen garden, and, a little more to south-west, a line of light which indicated the course of Jackal River.
Fritz and John Block came down to the balcony again, after spending some ten minutes in the first examination. Making use of the telescope which M. Zermatt always kept at Falconhurst, they had looked carefully in the direction of Rock Castle and the shore.
No one was to be seen there. It seemed that the two families could not be on the island now.
But it was possible that M. Zermatt and his people had been led by the marauders to some farmstead in the Promised Land, or even to some other part of New Switzerland.
To this suggestion, however, Captain Gould raised an objection which it was difficult to meet.
“These marauders, whoever they may be,” he said, “must have come by sea: must even have landed in Deliverance Bay. Now we have observed none of their boats. The conclusion would seem to be that they have gone away again—perhaps taking——”
He stopped. No one ventured to make answer.
Certainly Rock Castle did not seem to be inhabited now. From the top of the tree no smoke could be seen rising above the fruit trees in the kitchen garden.
Captain Gould then suggested that the two families might have left New Switzerland voluntarily, since the Unicorn had not arrived at the appointed time.