This was about the third day of their stay at Tongatabu and that night they hoisted anchor, and steamed out of the harbor.
Then began a wearying search. No spot of land was too small to deter Tom, and at every large island he spent some days, hiring natives to make a circuit of it, and interviewing, through interpreters, the chief men.
But all to no purpose. There had been no wrecks in some time, and no castaways had come ashore. Tom was beginning to get discouraged.
“Oh, there are lots more islands,” Captain Mosher assured him. “We’ll find ’em yet!”
“H’if the bloody cannibals ain’t het ’em!” said the mate.
“Keep still!” commanded the captain, emphasizing his words with a dig in the ribs that made his chief officer grunt.
They came one night to the small island of Tahatoo, hardly more than a dot in the big ocean. But there was a good harbor, in a coral lagoon, and, as there were signs of a storm, Captain Mosher decided to lay to there over night.
“And while we’re here we may as well go ashore and see if there is any news,” spoke Tom. His voice was despondent, for the search had been wearying and disappointing.
“White mans? No hab white mans and womans here,” said the head native in his broken English, when Tom and the captain put the question to him. “No hab wrecks here. If had, Walla he be kind to um. Kind to white mans and womans. Me is Walla. Walla bery kind. When you sail away, captain?”