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Our stock of water was contained in a dozen cocoa-nut-shells, prepared as bottles by poor Tamaku. This stock would not last us many days; and should it be exhausted before we could reach another island, or fall in with a ship, we must starve.
Tamaku at once began to ask him questions, which he answered with apparent readiness in the same language, differing but slightly in sound. "Can you make out how he came to be among the natives?" asked the commander, when Tamaku and the boy had ceased speaking. "He not know much," answered the Kanaka; "long time wid dem say dey find him in a boat at sea, and bring him here and make him slavey."
"Why, you must be English; you have thoroughly understood what I said," I exclaimed. "Me tink so too," observed Popo. The commander, who had been listening to what we had been saying, now called Tamaku aft, and desired him to try if he could understand the white boy, who after he had last spoken seemed abashed, and could not be got to utter a word.
Leaving Tillard to look after the boat and to make preparations for repairing her, we set out. Mudge led the way, Tom and Harry and I followed, Tamaku and Popo brought up the rear. We proceeded along the sea-shore, which was more level than the interior, and presented few impediments to our progress.
"I hope that Tamaku will have managed to light a fire," said Tom; "for though the oysters and cocoa-nuts are nice enough as they are, I don't like raw eggs; and I have an especial fancy for some roast-duck." As we approached the bay we saw a cloud of smoke ascending from the sand, and we found Tamaku busily employed in blowing up a fire which he had kindled there.
It was sad, indeed, to think that the poor lad had gone overboard at a moment when it was utterly impossible to render him any assistance. Under other circumstances he might easily have been saved, as the sea, though rough, was not sufficiently so to prevent a boat being lowered. Now, however, we could not go back to look for him; indeed, as Tamaku said, he must long before this have perished.
It was singular that they should have joined us much in the same way. Tamaku was likely to prove of service in acting as interpreter with the natives of Polynesia; for the language of the Sandwich group differs but slightly from the dialects of the other brown-skinned races inhabiting the numerous archipelagoes which dot its surface.
Tamaku replied that one of them belonged to the ship, and that the other desired to remain on board, so that they could not be given up; but the English commander would make a present to them if they would inform him honestly how they came to have the white boy among them.
Tamaku sat down with his knife to cut the wood he had found into the required shape for producing fire; Tillard proceeded with the arrangements for his forge; while Harry and Tom and I agreed to go along the shore to look for shell-fish, and to obtain a further supply of cocoa-nuts. We had not gone far when we came to a creek, or narrow bay, running inland for some distance.
The Sandwich Islanders can thus generally make themselves understood wherever they go. Tamaku being a merry, obliging fellow, became a favourite with the crew, and we hoped that we should be able to retain him on board even after our visit to the Sandwich Islands, to which we were now bound.
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