Month after month passed away in the quiet little village of Leassé without the writer seeing anything of his former shipmates in the Leonora. Sometimes Hayes's boats would come to within a mile or so of the entrance to Coquille Harbour in their quests for coco-nuts, but, fortunately for the peace of the villagers, their crews never ventured so far as the village itself. Perhaps, indeed, they did not know where it was, for the high-peaked, saddle-backed houses were embowered in a thick grove of breadfruit and durian-trees about half a mile from the beach; and only the white curling smoke arising from the fires as the women cooked the morning and evening meals would have revealed its presence.
One peaceful, monotonously happy day followed another till at last, in the first flush of one bright tropic sunrise, a stately British man-of-war rounded the north end of the island, and furling her snow-white canvas—for she made the land under sail—steamed into Lelé Harbour. And the next day Hayes fled from the island in an open boat, and I, with three others of the Leonora's company, saw from the decks of the corvette the blue peaks of Kusaie sink into the sea.