that Toby had been treated in the same
friendly manner as I had been, and yet all their kindness terminated
with his mysterious disappearance. Might not the same fate await me?--a
fate too dreadful to think of. Stimulated by these considerations,
I urged anew my request to Marnoo; but he only set forth in stronger
colours the impossibility of my escape, and repeated his previous
declaration that the Typees would never be brought to consent to my
departure.

When I endeavoured to learn from him the motives which prompted them to
hold me a prisoner, Marnoo again presumed that mysterious tone which had
tormented me with apprehension when I had questioned him with regard to
the fate of my companion.

Thus repulsed, in a manner which only served, by arousing the most
dreadful forebodings, to excite me to renewed attempts, I conjured him
to intercede for me with the natives, and endeavour to procure their
consent to my leaving them. To this he appeared strongly averse; but,
yielding at last to my importunities, he addressed several of the
chiefs, who with the rest had been eyeing us intently during the whole
of our conversation. His petition, however, was at once met with the
most violent disapprobation, manifesting itself in angry glances and
gestures, and a perfect torrent of passionate words, directed to both
him and myself. Marnoo, evidently repenting the step he had taken,
earnestly deprecated the resentment of the crowd, and, in a few moments
succeeded in pacifying to some extent the clamours which had broken out
as soon as his proposition had been understood.

With the most intense interest had I watched the reception his
intercession might receive; and a bitter pang shot through my heart
at the additional evidence, now furnished, of the unchangeable
determination of the islanders. Marnoo told me with evident alarm in his
countenance, that although admitted into the bay on a friendly footing
with its inhabitants, he could not presume to meddle with their
concerns, as such procedure, if persisted in, would at once absolve
the Typees from the restraints of the 'taboo', although so long as
he refrained from such conduct, it screened him effectually from the
consequences of the enmity they bore his tribe. At this moment, Mehevi,
who was present, angrily interrupted him; and the words which he uttered
in a commanding tone, evidently meant that he must at once cease talking
to me and withdraw to the other part of the hou