k. The ends of all the running ropes,
with the exception of the signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove
through snatch-blocks, and led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a
yard was braced or a sail set without the assistance of machinery.

Her hull was encrusted with barnacles, which completely encased her. Three
pet sharks followed in her wake, and every day came alongside to regale
themselves from the contents of the cook's bucket, which were pitched over
to them. A vast shoal of bonetas and albicores always kept her company.

Such was the account I heard of this vessel, and the remembrance of it
always haunted me; what eventually became of her I never learned; at any
rate she never reached home, and I suppose she is still regularly tacking
twice in the twenty-four hours somewhere off Buggerry Island, or the
Devil's-Tail Peak.

Having said thus much touching the usual length of these voyages, when I
inform the reader that ours had as it were just commenced, we being only
fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late arrival, and
boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was little to
encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as I had always
had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate voyage, and our
experience so far had justified the expectation.

I may here state, and on my faith as an honest man, that some time after
arriving home from my adventures, I learned that this vessel was still in
the Pacific, and that she had met with very poor success in the fishery.
Very many of her crew, also, left her; and her voyage lasted about five
years.

But to return to my narrative. Placed in these circumstances, then, with
no prospect of matters mending if I remained aboard the _Dolly_, I at once
made up my mind to leave her: to be sure, it was rather an inglorious
thing to steal away privately from those at whose hands I had received
wrongs and outrages that I could not resent; but how was such a course to
be avoided when it was the only alternative left me? Having made up my
mind, I proceeded to acquire all the information I could obtain relating
to the island and its inhabitants, with a view of shaping my plans of
escape accordingly. The result of these inquiries I will now state, in
order that the ensuing narrative may be the better understood.

The bay of Nukuheva, in which we were then lying, is an expanse of water
not unlike in figure the space included