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Presently a great shout went up from the watchers on the hill. The frigate had been sighted as she emerged from behind a distant headland. She was four or five miles offshore, and the dying wind was so light that we knew she could not make the land before dark. Evidently her captain realized this, for shortly afterward the ship hove-to under her topsails.

Some of the Indians remained on the hill, but most of them, seeing that the vessel did not intend to come in that night, descended with us. On our way to Teina’s house we met Skinner and Coleman, who had been on an excursion into the mountains and had only just heard the news of the frigate. Coleman was deeply moved when I told him that the ship was, almost certainly, English. More than any of us, with the exception of Morrison, had he longed for home. He had a wife and children there and had formed no alliance with any of the Tahitian women. Tears of joy dimmed his eyes, and without waiting for further information he rushed up the hill for a sight of the vessel that would take him to England.