I waded into the water to examine the boat as well as I could by the light of the fire, but I could see little, and was obliged to defer my examination till the next day. Before the supper was cooked and eaten, I did, however, gain the following information.
That they were a portion of the crew of a whaler, which had struck on a reef of rocks about seventy miles off, and that they had been obliged to leave her immediately, as she fell on her broadside a few minutes afterwards; that they had left in two boats, but did not know what had become of the other boat, which parted company during the night. The captain and six men were in the other boat, and the mate with six men in the one which had just landed—besides the lady.
“What’s a lady?” said I.
“I mean the woman who sits there; her husband was killed by some of the people of the Sandwich Isles, and she was going home to England. We have a consort, another whaler, who was to have taken our cargo of oil on board, and to have gone to England with that and her own cargo, and the missionary’s wife was to have been sent home in her.”
“What’s a missionary?” inquired I.
“Well, I don’t exactly know; but he is a preacher who goes out to teach the savages.”
By this time the supper was cooked, and the odour from the pitch-kettle was more savoury than anything that I had ever yet smelt. The kettle was lifted off the fire, the contents of it poured into a kid, and after they had given a portion in the small kid to the woman, who still remained huddled up in the blanket by the fire, they all sat round the large kid, and commenced their supper.
“Come, boy, and join us,” said the mate, “you can’t have had your supper; and as you’ve found one for us, it’s hard but you should share it with us.”
I was not sorry to do as he told me, and I must say that I never enjoyed a repast so much in my life.
“I say, boy, have you a good stock of them dried chickens of yours?” said the mate.