"No, thank you, but I feel much better now. You have been very good to me."
Seeing that she was much recovered, although her face was still drawn and pale, Barry put his first question to her.
"You are in great distress, and are not yet strong enough to talk very much; but will you tell me how you came to be living here, and how I can help you?"
She clasped her hands together tightly, and tried to speak calmly. "My story is a very strange one indeed. I was landed here by an American whaleship five months ago. She brought me from Ocean Island. I came here in the hope that my husband--if he is alive--would come here. But I fear he is dead--murdered;" and the tears began to steal down her cheeks.
"Murdered! Is he a trader in this group?"
"No; he was captain and owner of a trading vessel, a small brig. I was with him. One night, when I was on deck, I overheard two of the officers and a man who was a pa.s.senger plotting to seize the ship and get rid of us both. They discovered me, and one of them threw me overboard to drown."
"Good Heavens! What was the ship"s name?"
"The _Mahina_."
Barry"s heart thumped so violently that for a moment or two he could not speak; then he said hoa.r.s.ely--
"My G.o.d! Who are you? What was your husband"s name?"
"John Tracey! And you, who are you? Why do you look like that? Ah, you know something. Quick, tell me. Is he dead?"
There was a pause before Barry could bring himself to reply. The woman, with pale face and quivering lips, waited for his answer.
"Yes. He is dead."
Mrs. Tracey bent her head and covered her face with her hands.
"I knew it," she said, after one sob. "I knew I should never see him again--that they would murder him as they tried to murder me. Will you tell me how you knew it?"
"I saw him lying dead in Sydney. I was told that he shot himself in a fit of melancholy. He was lying on board the _Mahina_--and the _Mahina_ is here at anchor in this lagoon. I am the chief officer."
"And the captain?"
"His name is Rawlings."
"Ah!--he is one of them, he was the pa.s.senger; and who are the other officers?"
"Barradas, a Spaniard, and a Greek."
"Paul, the boatswain! He it was who threw me overboard. Now tell me all you know about my husband. See, I am not crying. My grief is done. I will live now to take vengeance on these cruel murderers."
Barry was about to send his boat"s crew out of hearing, but Mrs. Tracey begged him not to do so.
"Let them stay. It can do no harm; and if they are men, they will help me."
"I think you are right, Mrs. Tracey. And here is my hand and solemn promise to do all in my power to retake the _Mahina_, for now I begin to suspect that your husband did indeed meet with foul play."
[1] A _foli_ is a huge mussel, with an edge as keen as that of a razor.
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. TRACEY TELLS HER STRANGE STORY.
Mrs. Tracey listened with the most intense interest to Barry"s account of his first meeting with Captain Rawlings, of the strange, mysterious midnight sailing of the _Mahina_ from Sydney Harbour, and of the story of her husband"s suicide as related by the captain to his newly-engaged chief mate on the following day, when he came on deck and said that Tracey was dead.
"It may be that my poor husband did indeed take his own life," she said, "but I do not believe it."
"Yet why should they--Rawlings and the others--have spared him so long?" inquired Barry.
"Neither Barradas nor Rawlings were navigators," replied Mrs. Tracey quickly.
"Ah, I see," and the chief officer stroked his beard thoughtfully; "but yet, you see, Rawlings would have sailed without a navigator on board had he not met me on the wharf that night."
"Perhaps so--yet I do not think it. He has the cunning of Satan himself."
"Indeed he has, ma"am," broke in Joe. "Why, sir," turning to Barry, "the night we sailed he drugged the Custom House officer and flung him into the dinghy. Then when you was for"ard heavin" up anchor the Greek and two of the native chaps took him ash.o.r.e, and chucked him down on the wharf."
"The scoundrel!" exclaimed Barry, thinking of the letter he had written to Rose Maynard that night. "But how do you know this?"
"I been tell Joe jus" now," said one of the native seamen; "de captain give me an" Billy Onotoa ten shilling to take that man ash.o.r.e with the bos"un. An" he say if we tell any one he kill us by an" by."
"The ruffian!" muttered Barry.
"Now that you have told me your own story, Mr. Barry," said Mrs. Tracey excitedly, "let me tell you mine from the beginning, and show you how this heartless wretch has imposed upon you from the very first. The tale he has given you is a tissue of lies, interwoven with a thread of truth."
"I can well believe it now. Many things which have hitherto puzzled me are now clear enough."
"Nearly two years ago," began Mrs. Tracey, "my husband owned and sailed a small cutter of thirty tons, trading among the Marshall and Caroline Islands. His headquarters were at Jaluit, in the Marshall Islands, where he had a store, and where I lived whilst he was away on his cruises. During the seven years we spent among these islands I would often accompany him, for it was very lonely on Jaluit--only natives to talk to--and he would sometimes be away many months at a time.
"On our last voyage in the cutter we called in at Port Lele on Strong"s Island. Old Gurden, the trader there, and my husband had had business dealings with each other for many years. He was a good-hearted but very intemperate man, and several times we had taken him away with us in the cutter, when he was in a deplorable condition from the effects of drink, and nursed him back to health and reason again. On this occasion we were pleased to find him well, though rather despondent, for he had, he said, an idea that his last carouse had "done for" him, and that he would not live much longer.
"That evening the old man told us the story of his life. It was a truly strange and chequered one. When quite a young man he had been flogged, and then deserted from H.M.S. _Blossom_, Captain Beechy, in 1825, and ever since then had remained in the South Seas, living sometimes the idle and dissolute life of the beach-comber, sometimes that of the industrious and adventurous trader. My husband was interested, for he liked the old fellow, who, in spite of his drunken habits, had many excellent qualities. For myself he always professed the greatest regard, and that evening he proved it.
"After he had finished his story he turned to my husband, and said--
""You and your wife have always been true friends to drunken old Jack Gurden. Now, tell me, did you ever know me to tell a lie except when I wanted to get a drink and hadn"t any excuse?"
"We both laughed, and said we knew he was a truthful man.
""Did you ever hear me talking about a lagoon full of pearl sh.e.l.l--when I was mad with drink?" he inquired.
"We laughed again, and said that he had done so very often.
""Ah," he said, "but it is true. There is such a place, and now that my time is coming near, I"ll tell you where it is, and you, Mrs.