No notice was taken of the signal, and presently through his glass Mr. Wright saw that the captain's boat was lying broadside on to the beach, surrounded by a crowd of islanders, and without a boat-keeper. This was sufficiently alarming. It was now late in the afternoon, and Captain Pendleton had been absent five hours. He at once came to the conclusion that the people who had gone ashore in the boat were either prisoners or had been murdered. To send another boat after them, he felt sure, would only lead to the destruction of the whole ship's company in detail, and the ultimate loss of the ship without there being the least chance of effecting any good. So he called the hands aft, explained the situation, and began to prepare to resist capture. All the available firearms were loaded, heavy stones which formed the ship's ballast, were placed along the waterways fore and aft in readiness to smash the canoes which he anticipated would come alongside, the trying-out works fires were lighted, and the huge try-pots filled with water, which when boiling would add to their means of defence, by pouring it down in bucketsful upon the savages; the cable was prepared for slipping, sails loosened, and every other precaution which suggested itself to him made.

The sun dropped into the western sea-rim, 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 shore, and the captive white woman gave the mate a despairing, agonised look that not only filled him with the deepest commiseration for her, but almost convinced him that poor Pendleton and the others were dead.

Another night of wearing anxiety passed, and again with the dawn a single canoe came off, manned by half a dozen armed natives steered by the Malay and carrying Miss Morey. This canoe was followed by many others, but the leading one alone came close enough to the whaleship to communicate. Little by little her savage crew drew nearer, watching every movement of those on board with the utmost suspicion; the mate, who was standing at the break of the poop on the starboard side, desired them to come closer, holding in his hand a loaf of bread, which he said he wanted to give to the white woman. The loaf was enclosed in a piece of white paper, on which he had written these words—

"I fear that all on shore are murdered. I will wait here a few days in the hope that you may be able to escape to us."