Suddenly Jack cried:
"Ah, at any rate no one can say that this coast is deserted! There are people over there, and fine people, too!"
All eyes turned towards the beach and the rocks where Jack's keen eyes detected numbers of living creatures.
"What do you mean, my boy?" his mother asked. "You see men there—savages perhaps?"
It was of savages, the fierce Indo-Malay savages, that Mme. Zermatt was always and quite reasonably, most afraid.
"Come, Jack, answer!" said his father.
"Don't be uneasy! Don't be uneasy!" Jack replied. "I did not say anything about human beings. These have got two legs, but they have feathers too."
"Then they are penguins?" Ernest enquired.
"Or auks."
"It is easy to confuse them, Jack," said Ernest, "for those birds are closely allied in the order of palmipedes."