He heard the laughter and chatter of the young party growing fainter. All right, good-bye for the present. But they might have taken him with them. He knew of nests that he could have taken them to, wonderful hidden holes in the rock, where lived birds of prey with tufts on their beaks. And once he had seen a stoat.
He shoved the boat off and started to row round to the other side of the island. He had rowed a good way when they shouted to him:
"Row back. You're scaring the birds."
"I only wanted to show you where the stoat lives?" he answered tentatively. He waited a moment. "And then we could smoke out the snakes' nest? I've got some matches."
He got no answer. Then he turned the boat and rowed back to the landing-place. He drew the boat up.
When he grew up he would buy an island of the Sultan and forbid any one to approach it. A gunboat should guard his shores. Your Lordship, the slaves would come and tell him, there's a boat aground on the reef; she has struck, the young people in her will perish. Let them perish! he answers. Your Lordship, they are calling for help; we can save them yet and there is a woman in white among them. Save them! he commands in a voice of thunder. Then he meets the children of the Castle again after many years and Victoria throws herself at his feet and thanks him for her rescue. Nothing to thank me for, it was but my duty, he answers; go freely where you will within my domains. And then he has the gates of the palace thrown open to the company and feasts them on golden dishes and three hundred brown slave girls sing and dance the whole night long. But when it is time for the children of the Castle to leave, Victoria cannot go. She throws herself in the dust before him and sobs because she loves him. Let me stay here, thrust me not away, Your Lordship, let me be one of your slaves....
He began to walk quickly across the island, thrilled through with emotion. Very well, he would rescue the Castle children. Who knows, perhaps they had lost their way? Perhaps Victoria had got stuck between two rocks and could not get out? He would only have to reach out his arm to set her free.
But the children looked at him in astonishment when he came. Had he left the boat?
"I hold you responsible for the boat," said Otto.
"I could show you where there are some wild raspberries?" suggested Johannes.