What was feared was, that in his anxiety to help his comrades, he would run into a peril from which he could not extricate himself.
The real hope for the youth was centered on Ziffak.

Believing he had gone forth to look after Ashman, they were confident he would speedily get upon his track.

If so, he would not permit him to return to the village.
From what the reader has been told, it will be seen that the defenders were not far off in their conjectures.
But, when they came to speculate upon the part that the head chieftain was likely to take, affecting Grimcke and Long, they were all at sea.
It would ever be a source of wonder that he had been transformed from a relentless enemy into the strongest of friends, but they fully realized that such friendship must have its bounds.
Ziffak might not shrink from using very plain speech when talking face to face with his brother, but it was hardly to be supposed that he would raise his arm against his authority.

At the time Ziffak made known the probability that the explorers might be compelled to take their departure that evening, he gave no intimation of any purpose of helping them to resist such an order.
Accustomed as he was to lead the warlike Murhapas in battle, he might well hesitate to ask them to turn their weapons against the king, and if he should presume on such treason, all the probabilities were that such weapons would be turned against the head chieftain himself..