A profound silence encompassed him all the time, except once, just as he got down the ladder with Tony in his arms, when a faint groan reached his ears.

It seemed to come from the pitch-black space between the posts on which the house was built, but he did not stop to investigate.
"It's no use telling you in detail how Davidson got on board with the burden Anne's miserably cruel fate had thrust into his arms; how next morning his scared crew, after observing from a distance the state of affairs on board, rejoined with alacrity; how Davidson went ashore and, aided by his engineer (still half dead with fright), rolled up Laughing Anne's body in a cotton sheet and brought it on board for burial at sea later.

While busy with this pious task, Davidson, glancing about, perceived a huge heap of white clothes huddled up against the corner-post of the house.

That it was the Frenchman lying there he could not doubt.
Taking it in connection with the dismal groan he had heard in the night, Davidson is pretty sure that his random shot gave a mortal hurt to the murderer of poor Anne.
"As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single one of them.
Whether they had concealed themselves in the scared settlement, or bolted into the forest, or were hiding on board Niclaus's prau, which could be seen lying on the mud a hundred yards or so higher up the creek, the fact is that they vanished; and Davidson did not trouble his head about them.
He lost no time in getting out of the creek directly the _Sissie_ floated.

After steaming some twenty miles clear of the coast, he (in his own words) 'committed the body to the deep.' He did everything himself.
He weighted her down with a few fire-bars, he read the service, he lifted the plank, he was the only mourner.