“I thought something was wrong when I saw the native dragging the boat along. Lend us a hand to get under weigh, will you?” and the mate sprang forward.
In another five minutes the Starlight's anchor was up, and then Blount and Banderah, with a hurried farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Deighton, sprang into the boat and pushed off.
“May God bless and keep you,” called out the missionary to Blount, “and may we meet again soon;” then sinking on his knees beside his wife, he raised his face to heaven, and the trader saw that tears were streaming down his worn and rugged cheeks.
Blount never heard of the missionary and his wife again. Long, long afterwards he did hear that some wreckage of a vessel like the Starlight had been found on Rennel Island, and that sovereigns were discovered among the pools and crevices of the reef for many years after. Whether she ran ashore or drifted there dismasted—for a heavy gale set in a week after she left Mayou—is one of those mysteries of the sea that will never be solved.