They watched him crawl along the balcony, to the side overlooking Deliverance Bay. Then he moved the leaves aside, put his head through them and drew it back precipitately.
“What is the matter?” Fritz asked.
“Savages!” John Block replied.
CHAPTER XIII
SHARK’S ISLAND
It was now half-past two in the afternoon. The foliage of the mangrove was so dense that the rays of the sun, though almost vertical, could not penetrate it. Thus Fritz and his companions ran no risk of being detected in the aerial dwelling of Falconhurst, of the existence of which the savages who had landed on the island had no idea.
Five men, half naked, with the black skins of natives of Western Australia, armed with bows and arrows, were coming along the path. They had no notion that they had been seen, or even that there were other inhabitants of the Promised Land besides those of Rock Castle.
But what had become of M. Zermatt and the others? Had they been able to make their escape? Had they fallen in unequal combat?
Of course, as John Block remarked, it could not be supposed that the number of aborigines who had landed on the island was limited to these few men. Had they been so inferior numerically, they could not have got the better of M. Zermatt and his two sons and Mr. Wolston, even if they had made a surprise attack. It must have been a large band that had invaded New Switzerland, whither they must have come in a fleet of canoes. The fleet was doubtless lying at the present moment in the creek, with the boat and the pinnace. It could not be seen from the top of Falconhurst because the view in that direction was cut off by the point of Deliverance Bay.
And where were the Zermatts and the Wolstons? What inference must be drawn from the fact that they had not been encountered at Falconhurst or thereabouts?
That they were prisoners at Rock Castle, that they had had neither time nor opportunity to seek refuge in the other farms—or that they had been massacred?