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As soon as the question of citizenship was decided, and all the engagements were duly made, the governor laid his question of conscience before the general council. For a long time it had been supposed that the Rancocus could not be moved.
Mark had no occasion for the money, owning all the vessels, with most of the cargo of the Rancocus, as well as having brought out with him no less a sum than five thousand dollars, principally in change halves, quarters, shillings and six-pences.
It was far easier, however, for Waally to gain his canoes, than to know which way to steer after he had reached them. The Mermaid cut off his retreat by the western passage, and the Rancocus was coming, fast along the northern.
In consequence of the revolution that had put Waally up again, every one of the Kannakas who had gone out in the Rancocus on her last voyage, refused to go home, knowing that they would at once be impressed into Waally's service; and they all now cheerfully shipped anew, for a second voyage to foreign lands.
The Neshamony had come in for provisions and gone out again, and the Rancocus would stand up without watching, with her hundred and eleven barrels of oil in her lower hold. The governor expressed his sense of Betts' services, and reminding him of his old faculty of seeing farther and truer than most on board, he asked him to go up into the brig's cross-trees and take a look for whales.
About sunset of the third day after the arrival of the Rancocus, the Abraham sailed for the Peak, having on board somewhat less than a hundred of the immigrants, including females and children. The Neshamony preceded her several hours, taking across the governor and his family.
Thus did it now prove with the good ship Rancocus. Instead of struggling hard with the seas to get three knots ahead, she now made her six, and kept all, or nearly all, she made. When she saw the land again, it was found there was very little to spare, but that little sufficed.
It was near sunset when the Neshamony left Snug Cove, as Mark had named his little haven, at the foot of the ravine, which, by the way, he called the Stairs, and put to sea, on her way to Rancocus Island. The bearings of the last had been accurately taken, and our mariners were just as able to run by night as by day.
He carried the best glass of the Rancocus with him, in all his excursions, not knowing at what moment Providence might bring a vessel in sight, and he had it now slung from his shoulders. With this glass, therefore, was every part of the visible surface of the island swept, in anxious and almost alarmed search for the abodes of inhabitants. Nothing of this sort, however, could be discovered.
It appeared that some signs of the hostile canoes had been seen from the Peak, as Waally was crossing from Rancocus Island, and, after a council, it had been decided to send the Abraham across, to notify the people on the Reef of the impending danger, and to aid in repelling the enemy.
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