Betts had pushed off, and made sail, as soon as assured of this fact.  He knew the pinnace could outsail anything the islanders possessed, more especially on a wind, and he manoeuvred about the flotilla for an hour, making his observations, before he left it.  This was clearly a war party, and Bob thought there were white men in it.  At least, he saw two individuals who appeared to him to be white sailors, attired in a semi-savage way, and who were in the same canoe with the terrible Waally.  It was nothing out of the way for seamen to get adrift on the islands scattered about in the Pacific, there being scarcely a group in which more or less of them are not to be found.  The presence of these men, too, Bob regarded as another evil omen, and he felt the necessity of throwing all the dust he could into their eyes.  When the pinnace left the flotilla, therefore, instead of passing out to windward of the island, as was her true course, she steered in an almost contrary direction, keeping off well to leeward of the land, in order not to get becalmed under the heights, for Bob well knew the canoes, with paddles, would soon overhaul him, should he lose the wind.

It was the practice of our colonists to quit Rancocus just before the sun set, and to stand all night on a south-east course.  This invariably brought them in sight of the smoke of the volcano by morning, and shortly after they made the Peak.  All of the day that succeeded, was commonly passed in beating up to the volcano, or as near to it as it was thought prudent to go; and tacking to the northward and eastward, about sunset of the second day, it was found on the following morning, that the Neshamony was drawing near to the cliffs of Vulcan’s Peak, if she were not already beneath them.  As a matter of course, then, Bob had not far to go, before night shut in, and left him at liberty to steer in whatever direction he pleased.  Fortunately, that night had no moon, though there was not much danger of so small a craft as the Neshamony being seen at any great distance on the water, even by moonlight.  Bob consequently determined to beat up off the north end of the island, or Low Cape, as it was named by the colonists, from the circumstance of its having a mile or two of low land around it, before the mountains commenced.  Once off the cape again, and reasonably well in, he might possibly make discoveries that would be of use.

It took two or three hours to regain the lost ground, by beating to windward.  By eleven o’clock, however, the Neshamony was not only off the cape, but quite close in with the landing.  The climate rendering fires altogether unnecessary at that season, and indeed at nearly all seasons, except for cooking, Bob could not trace the encampment of the savages, by that means.  Still, he obtained all the information he desired.  This was not done, however, without great risk, and by a most daring step on his part.  He lowered the sails of the boat and went alongside