We asked Mr Norton his opinion. He had, he said, during the last day he was on board examined a chart, and he could afford us but little hope that we should reach any shore where we might obtain a new mast and sail and be able to return the way we had come. “There are islands a long way off; but as the inhabitants, I fear, are savage in the extreme, it would be dangerous to land amongst them,” he added. “Still, though we speak of the dangers we may have to encounter, let us continue, trusting firmly that God is watching over us, and though we cannot yet see the way by which He intends to save us—if such is His good will—He has nevertheless got it ready, while we on our part are bound to make every exertion to preserve our lives. As we may not for a considerable time reach land, I must therefore, in the first place, strongly urge the people to place themselves on an allowance of food and water. We should use as little as will suffice to sustain life, that we may the longer be able to hold out.”
I explained what the young Englishman said to Abela; and she and Tofa spoke to their countrymen, and persuaded them to do as he advised. The wind had somewhat abated, but as it was still too strong to permit of our making head against it, we continued to drive on as before. We read the Bible, and prayed several times during the day, and occasionally some of the heathen crew came, and, kneeling down near us, listened while I read.
Abela, although she had not begun her studies till about two years before this, read very fairly, but she was especially powerful in prayer, and her whole heart and soul seemed lifted up as she poured forth her petitions—seldom failing to exclaim, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.”
The hours passed on, and we felt that an all-powerful hand was protecting our frail bark from the fury of the seas. When the water washed into the canoe beneath the platform, it was quickly bailed out again, and everything was so firmly secured, that in spite of the tossing and tumbling of the vessel she held as tightly together as at first.
Another day and another and another passed by, and still the strong wind prevented us from attempting to return. Many of the heathen crew appeared to have resigned themselves to their fate, and had it not been for the influence Abela exerted over them—supported as she was by the young Englishman and Tofa—I believe that they would quickly have consumed all the provisions, and have then laid down to die.
We were already feeling the ill effects of the small amount of food we could venture to eat. The sun too, burst forth, and its burning rays striking down upon us; we now, in addition to hunger, began to feel the fearful sufferings of thirst. What must it be should a calm come on! And although the crew might then use their paddles with effect, their strength would be gone, and very many days must pass before we could regain the island from which we had been driven.
Often and often I thought of my poor father. I persuaded myself that he had certainly remained with Mr Hilton, and that had we arrived in safety we should have had the happiness of seeing him. Now should he return to the settlement, what would be his feelings to find it desolate, and to suppose, as he must, that we had shared the fate of the other inhabitants.
Our condition was also becoming, humanly speaking, fearful in the extreme. As I looked at Maud’s pale countenance I feared that she could not long endure such suffering. I was not aware that I looked equally ill. The young Englishman treated us with the most gentle and constant attention; he even insisted on our taking a portion of his scanty allowance of food and water, and when we refused to deprive him of it I am sure that he took means to add it unseen to our shares. At length the gale ceased, the canoe no longer tumbled about, and the heat of the sun’s rays—as they shone upon the glass-like surface of the ocean on which we floated—was intense in the extreme. Abela urged the crew to get out their paddles, but they answered, as I had expected, “we cannot live to reach the island, and when our food and water are exhausted, we will lie down and die. There is nothing else for us to do.”