506 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



one of the sentinels, observing five savages creeping toward him, 

 fired over their heads and put them to flight. The cutter of the 

 Discovery was stolen, toward morning, from the buoy where it 

 was moored. At daylight, Cook loaded his double-barrelled 

 gun and ordered the marines to prepare for action. It had 

 been his practice, when any thing of consequence was lost, to 

 get the king or several of the principal men on board, and to 

 keep them as .hostages till it was restored. His purpose was to 

 pursue the same plan now. He gave orders to seize and stop 

 all canoes that should attempt to leave the bay. The boats of 

 both ships, well manned and armed, were therefore stationed 

 across the mouth of the harbor. Cook went ashore in the 

 pinnace, obtained an interview with the king, satisfied himself 

 that he was in no wise privy to the theft committed, and invited 

 him to return in the boat and spend the day on board the 

 Resolution. Tereoboo readily consented, and, having placed 

 his two sons in the pinnace, was on the point of following them, 

 when an elderly woman, the mother of the boys, and a younger 

 woman, the king's favorite wife, besought him with tears and 

 entreaties not to go on board. Two chiefs laid hold of him, 

 insisting that he should go no farther. The natives now col- 

 lected in prodigious numbers and began to throng around 

 Captain Cook and their king. Cook, finding that the alarm 

 had spread too generally, and that it was in vain to think of 

 kidnapping the king without bloodshed, at last gave up the 

 point. 



Thus far, the person and life of Cook do not appear to have 

 been in danger. An accident now happened which gave a fatal 

 turn to the affair. The ships' boats, in firing at canoes attempt- 

 ing to escape, had unfortunately killed a chief of the first rank. 

 The news of his death arrived just at the moment when Cook, 

 after leaving the king, was walking slowly toward the shore. 

 It caused an immediate and violent ferment : the women and 

 children were at once sent off: the warriors put on their breast- 



