and there was still no sign
of the captain's boat. On the shore an ominous silence prevailed,
though now and then it would be broken by the weird, resonant boom of
a conch-shell. The night was passed in the greatest anxiety by all on
board, every man, musket in hand, keeping a keen lookout.

Almost as the dawn broke, two canoes were seen to put off from Nukualofa
beach, and come towards the ship. They were manned by young Tongan
"bucks" who, in reply to the mate's questions as to the whereabouts of
the captain and his crew, answered him with gestures which the ship's
company rightly enough construed as meaning that their comrades had all
been killed, and that _their_ turn would come shortly. This so enraged
the seamen that they tried to induce Mr. Wright to open fire on the
canoes, destroy them, and get the ship away before worse happened. But
the mate, hoping that his people on shore were still alive, and that he
could yet rescue them, refused to comply, and the whole of that day and
night passed without further happening.

On the following morning several canoes came within hail and then
lay-to. In one of them was the Malay, who asked the mate to come ashore,
as the captain and the supercargo wished to see him. The mate temporised
and requested the Malay to come on board and explain matters, but he
refused and returned to the shore.

In a few hours he reappeared at the head of a fleet of canoes, and
then, to Mr. Wright's intense astonishment, he saw that the Malay was
accompanied by a young white woman, who was sitting on the forward
outrigger of the canoe of which the Malay was steersman. The flotilla
brought to within pistol-shot of the ship, and the woman stood up and
called to him in English--

"Come on shore and see the captain. He wants to speak to you."

The mate made no answer, but beckoned to the fleet of canoes to come
nearer. And then, mercifully, as he took another look at the white
woman, he saw her, when the surrounding savages were not watching, shake
her head vehemently to him not to comply with the request she had made.

The flotilla came still nearer, and again Elizabeth Morey was made
to repeat the request for him to "come on shore and see the captain."
Wright, surmising that she was acting under coercion, appeared to give
little heed to her request, but told the Malay, who seemed to direct the
natives, that he would wait for the captain. Then the fleet of canoes
turned, and headed for the sh