Cubina also made stop—as before concealing himself within the black shadow of the bushes.
He had scarcely crouched down, when his ears were saluted by a shrill whistle—not made by the lips, but proceeding from some instrument, as a reed or a common dog-call. It was plainly a signal, sounded either by Cynthia or the Jew, Cubina could not tell which.
Only once was it given. And there was no answer—for that similar sound, that came like an echo from the far forest, was a counterfeit. It was the mimic-note of the mock-bird.
Cubina, skilled in these voices of the night, knew this, and paid no heed to the distant sound. His whole attention was absorbed in watching the movements of the two individuals still standing upon the edge of the cliff. The white sky was beyond them, against which he could see their dark silhouettes outlined with perfect distinctness.
After about a minute’s time, he saw them once more in motion; and then both appeared to vanish from his view—not wasting into the air, but sinking into the ground, as if a trap-door had admitted them to the interior of the earth.
He saw this without much surprise. He knew they must have gone down the precipice, but how they had performed this feat was something that did surprise him a little.
It was but a short spell of astonishment. In a score of seconds he stood upon the edge of the precipice, at the spot where they had disappeared.
He looked down. He could trace, though dimly, a means of descent among the wattle of boughs and corrugated creepers that clasped the façade of the cliff. Even under the fantastic gleam of the moon, he could see that human hands had helped the construction of this natural ladder.
He stayed not to scrutinise it. An object of greater interest challenged his glance. On the disc of the lagoon—in the moonlight, a sheet of silver, like a mirror in its frame of dark mahogany—moved a thing of sharp, elliptical shape—a canoe.
Midships of the craft, a form was crouching. Was it human or demon?