Our food also had grown very short, though we had eaten only just
enough to keep life in us. It seemed a doubt whether we should have
enough to reach one of the islands we had seen. After sleeping for some
hours, the crew seized their paddles, and we began to paddle back the
way we had come. The next day it was a dead calm, and we saw right
ahead a large vessel, barque rigged. Bill and I both thought she was
English and Matua agreed to go alongside. As we drew near, I saw that
she was a whaler from the cut of her sails, from her being high out of
the water, and the number of boats shaped stem and stern alike. We were
now alongside. I told the captain, who asked us what we wanted, how we
had been driven out of our course, and begged him to tell me how we
could best reach Matua's island.

"As to that, you have been driven three hundred miles to the westward of
it, if it's the island I fancy from your account," he answered. "It
will take you a pretty long time to get there; but I'll tell you what
I'll do, I'll give the canoe a tow for a couple of hundred miles, and
then take my advice,--do you ship aboard here; I shall be bound home in
six months or so, and you won't have a better chance of getting there.
If you wish to serve your friends, you can let your wages go in payment:
I can't undertake to help these savages for nothing."

The last part of this speech did not please me, but still I did not
think we could do better for ourselves or for Matua; so, after talking
it over with him, we agreed to Captain Grimes' offer. I first bargained
that some food and water might be given to our friends, for had I not
done so, I fear that they would have had a scant allowance. To tow is
to drag a boat or vessel by a rope through the water. We now went
aboard the ship, which was called the _Grampus_. She was a very
different looking craft from the _Rose_, and her officers and men were a
very rough lot. The wind was fair, and the canoe towed very easily.
Still Captain Grimes grumbled at having to take her so far. At last I
said that I was ready to go back in the canoe if he wished to be off his
bargain. I found that he really wanted us, as one of the ship's boys
had died of fever, and another had been washed overboard with two of the
men. "No, no; that will not do," was his answer. "I'll take the
savages as far as I promised, and you two lads shall stay aboard."

On the evening of the third day, Captain Grimes said th