Rock Castle? After all, if M. Zermatt and Mr. Wolston and their wives and children had fallen into the hands of the natives, and if their lives had been spared, it was there that they would be, for the smoke proved that Rock Castle was occupied.
“Go to Rock Castle, eh?” Captain Gould replied. “All right; but go there all together.”
“All together? No,” said Fritz; “only two or three of us, and after dark.”
“After dark?” Frank began again, more set than ever upon his idea. “I am going to Rock Castle now.”
“And how do you expect in broad daylight to escape the savages who are prowling round about it?” Fritz replied. “And if you do escape them, how will you get into Rock Castle, if they are there at the time?”
“I don’t know, Fritz. But I shall find out if our people are there, and when I have found out I will come back!”
“My dear Frank,” Captain Gould said, “I quite understand your impatience, and I sympathise with it. But do give way to us in this matter; it is only common prudence that makes us think as we do. If the savages get you, the hunt will be up; they will come to look for us, and there won’t be any more safety for us, either at Wood Grange or anywhere else.”
At last they succeeded in making Frank listen to reason. He had to bow to the authority of one who already perhaps was the head of the family.
So it was decided that they should wait, and that as soon as darkness permitted Frank and the boatswain should leave Falconhurst. It was better that two should make this reconnaissance, fraught with many dangers. They would glide along the quickset hedge that bordered the avenue, and both would try to get to Jackal River. If the drawbridge were withdrawn to the other bank, they would swim across the river and attempt to get into the court-yard of Rock Castle through the orchard. It would be easy to see through one of the windows if the families were shut up inside. If they were not, Frank and John Block would come back at once to Falconhurst, and they would all try to get to Sugar-cane Grove before daylight.
Never did the hours drag by more slowly! Never had Captain Gould and his companions been more profoundly dejected—not even when the boat was cast adrift upon an unknown sea, not even when it was smashed upon the rocks in Turtle Bay, not even when the shipwrecked company, with three women and a child amongst them, saw themselves threatened by winter on a desert coast, shut in a prison whence they could not escape!