noon
`` All right , Mr. Sherry , '' he said , `` please yourself ; '' and then over another bottle of wine , he gave me some further particulars about the great atoll , and told me of how it had taken him two months to get into communication with the few inhabitants ; and of the particular island on which their village was concealed amid a dense grove of pandanus palms . But that was two years ago , and I had forgotten much that he had told me . However , as I intended to remain at Ujilon for two or three days , it was likely that we might come across them -- they were very quiet and inoffensive people , so there was no danger to be apprehended from a meeting . By noon we had our temporary camp made comfortable , and were having dinner when five natives made their appearance -- three men and two women -- coming towards us in a canoe . They landed without the slightest hesitation , and sat down with us ; but we found that they spoke the Marshall Island dialect , which none of us but Niâbon could speak , and she but slightly . However , we managed to worry along , and to our surprise learned that Hayes had been at the island in his famous brig , the _ Leonora _ , only a month before , and that for a year and six months previously , seventy Line Island natives had been working on the islands under the supervision of a white man , making oil for the captain , but most of them , and the white man as well , had left the atoll in the brig , for Hayes had been so well pleased with the result of their work that he invited forty of the seventy to come on board and go with him to Ponapé , in the Carolines , for a month 's recreation and `` feasting '' on that beautiful island . -LSB- Illustration : He had sailed 188 -RSB- So with forty of his sturdy Line Islanders , and seven hundred barrels of coco-nut oil , he had sailed ; and now , said our five friends , he would soon be back -- perhaps in two days -- perhaps in ten , or twenty , or more , for how could one tell what the winds would be ?