Happy Re-Unions.
Several weeks passed away, and no vessel appeared in which the voyagers could obtain a passage to Honolulu. They were rapidly acquiring a knowledge of the language of the island, and Harry and Tom employed much of their time in instructing the natives. Bass did not make so much progress as the rest, and began to grow very weary of the life he led.
“The truth is, Dickey,” observed Harry to him one day, “your heart is not in the matter. I wish to reach home, I confess; but if it were not for the dear ones there, I should be content to labour on as I am now doing. I never find the day too long.”
“I wish I were like you,” said Bass; “but I cannot bring myself to care about the people.”
“My dear Dickey,” said Harry, “you must pray for grace, then, to do what you know to be right. Think of the great value of human souls, and of the inestimable price which was paid that they might enjoy the happiness of heaven, and then you will become more anxious to win them.”
Bass tried to do as his friend advised, and in a short time he was almost as eager as Harry to instruct the natives, and found himself rapidly acquiring their language to enable him to do so.
One day Tom and the two boys set off to visit a village at some distance along the coast. After going some way they saw, by the appearance of the sky, that a storm was threatening, but they hoped to reach their destination before it broke. It came on, however, more rapidly than they had expected.
As they doubled a headland they caught sight of a ship close in with the land, in nearly the same dangerous position that the Swordfish had been. Tom stopped and looked at her.
“She appears to be a whaler, and pretty full,” observed Harry.
“A whaler she is; there is no doubt about that,” answered Tom. “Just do you scan her narrowly, and tell me if you have ever seen a ship like her.”