Edward Barry, George Lewis Becke [lightweight ebook reader txt] 📗

sugar, and condensed milk. And I did not even forget a teapot."

"How kind of you!" she said. "The little provisions the captain of the Golden City gave me are quite exhausted. I am an Australian born and can't exist without tea, so do let me make some tea now. There is a native well here among the jack-fruit trees, with good water."

"The other bundle contains calicoes, prints, and all that sort of gear, with two pairs of canvas shoes--the smallest I could get--you mustn't cut your feet again, you know."

"How thoughtful you are!" she said, touching his hand gently; and then she asked artlessly, "Are you married, Mr. Barry?"

"No; but I hope to be when we return to Sydney. I'll tell you the story by and by, Mrs. Tracey, if you care to hear it."

"Of course I shall," she said brightly, "and I shall see her too, shan't I?"

"I hope so," answered Barry, with a smile. "But we may have a long spell here yet before we can settle up matters with Rawlings and the others and get possession of the Mahina."

"I will wait patiently. Now let me see about the tea, and then we'll have a long talk. You'll stay all night, won't you?"

"And all to-morrow as well. The men have three days' liberty, and Rawlings thinks I am going pig-hunting to-morrow."

As they ate their supper Barry told her all that had happened since he had seen her: of the richness of the pearl beds then being worked, and of the suspicions of Joe and Velo that Rawlings and his fellow conspirators intended some mischief against him. Then when he mentioned Warner and described his appearance and Joe's recognition of him, she started--

"Warner! His name is not Warner. He is Billy Chase, an American. I know all about him, and that which Joe has told you is perfectly true. He was brought to Sydney for trial in the Alacrity, surveying sloop, about ten years ago, and I have often heard my husband speak of him as one of the most blood-stained ruffians in the Pacific. We heard that he had, through want of evidence against him, escaped hanging with a sentence of seven years' imprisonment; and then about a year and a half ago some one in Honolulu told us that a man supposed to be the infamous Billy Chase had turned up in the Carolines with fifteen or twenty 'niggers'--as they call the Melanesian natives in these parts--and settled down as a trader. It must be the same man, and no doubt he is an old acquaintance of Rawlings'."

"No doubt whatever, Mrs. Tracey. No doubt but that the whole precious quartette are steeped in villainies, and there is no doubt that they have now reached the end of their tether, and that with God's help we shall bring them to a reckoning. But we shall have to act with caution, for this man Warner, or Chase, with his crew of bloodthirsty savages will certainly fight for the cold-blooded villains who murdered your husband and tried to murder you."

"I cannot say--I am not Christian enough to say--that vengeance is God's. If the power of vengeance lay in my hand now I would use it," she said, excitedly.

Barry remained silent for awhile, until her emotion had subsided. Then he said gravely--

"There is no fear of Rawlings coming to Tebuan. That idea of mine of firing at our boat was a happy one, and although Joe here is the only white sailor in the secret, the other three on board will stand to us when the time arrives. As for the native crew, they have sworn to help us, and when I am out with them in the boats they often laugh at the way we are fooling the captain. I have promised them, on your behalf, a hundred dollars each as a bonus, when we reach either Sydney or Singapore."

"You think of everything, Mr. Barry," she said gratefully. "Now let me tell you that I too have been working. Every day since I saw you the Tebuan people have been diving for me, and I think we must have quite two or three tons of shell. The pearls we have found I brought with me to show you. There is a coconut-shell nearly half full--some are simply lovely. . . . And, now I think of it, I won't show them to you--I shall keep them for your future wife."

* * * * * *


That was indeed a happy night for Barry, Mrs. Tracey, and their native friends. No one cared to sleep, for there was much to be talked of, and plans arranged for future meetings. Once every week Mrs. Tracey was to await Barry and Velo at the little island, and each were to report progress.

Early in the morning Velo, Joe, and Barry set out on a pig hunt, accompanied by the three male natives from Tebuan, leaving Mrs. Tracey to "keep house," as she called it, on the little island, and look over the treasures brought to her from the ship.

Late in the afternoon the hunters returned with their spoil--three gaunt, fierce-looking wild pigs; and then after a meal had been cooked and eaten, the white man and woman bade each other good-bye for another week.



[1] A gigantic species of the tuber called "taro" by the Polynesians (Arum esculentum).



CHAPTER X.


A REPENTANCE.

More than three months had passed away, and the shapely hull of the Mahina was eighteen inches deeper in the water than when she first anchored in the lagoon. During all this time fine weather had prevailed, and the boats had been constantly at work, the crew, however, being given plenty of liberty to rest and refresh themselves, by wandering about the nearer islands--fishing, pig-hunting, and bird-catching, or lying about, smoking or sleeping day or night, upon the matted floors of the houses of the little native village nestling under the grove of breadfruit-trees.

But whilst matters in regard to the pearling operations had gone on without interruption, there had been several collisions between Warner's Solomon Islanders and Barry's men, and worse followed.

One day a diver named Harry, a fine, stalwart young man, belonging to Arorai, one of the Gilbert Islands, was found lying dead on the inner reef of the lagoon. He had gone out crayfishing the previous night, and should have returned long before daylight, but his absence was not noticed until Barry called to his men to turn to and man the boats for the day's work.

Billy Onotoa--the native who had been stabbed by the Greek--at once asserted that Harry had been killed by Warner's men.

"Choose well thy words, Tiban of Onotoa," said Barry sternly, addressing Billy by his native name and in his native tongue; "how dost thou know that this man hath been slain by the man-eaters?"

"Come and see," replied Billy quietly.

The dead man lay upon his back on a mat in one of the houses, and turning the body over, Billy Onotoa beckoned to the white man to draw near.

"Place thy hand here and feel his backbone," he said; "see, it is broken in the middle. And it hath been broken by a club such as the 'man-eaters' use, for there is the mark of the blow on the skin, and the bruised flesh. This man was stooping, and an unseen enemy sprang upon him from behind and broke his back with a blow from a club; then was he cast into a deep pool to drown amid the surf. How else could such a strong man die?"

Barry examined the man's body and was quickly satisfied that his backbone had been broken by a violent blow.

"Justice shall be done upon the slayer of this man," he said, turning to his boat's crew who stood around with vengeful faces; "but not yet is the time for it. So make no loud complaint, and make no quarrel with the 'man-eaters.' When the time comes, it will come suddenly."

"E rai rai! E rai rai!" ("It is good!") answered the natives, smiling grimly and patting Barry on the hands and shoulders; "we will wait for the word to strike."

That morning when he reported the death of Harry to Rawlings he watched Warner's coarse, bloated face.

"It's a most mysterious affair. He was picked up on the reef quite dead. The poor fellow's back was broken--the bone was crushed to a pulp," he said.

"Guess a crayfish nipped him by the big toe, and he kinder turned a back somersault and landed on his spinal collums," said Warner, with a brutal laugh.

Barry made no reply. How did Warner know that the man had been out crayfishing when not a word had been said about it? He rose from the table without further remark and went on deck, for the boats were awaiting him alongside. As he passed the main-hatch he caught sight of the hideous face of the savage Togaro, the man whose ribs he had broken. He was squatting on the hatch, and gave the officer a malevolent glance.

"Ah!" thought Barry, "that explains how that fellow Warner knew that poor Harry was out crayfishing. I suppose that black brute himself is the murderer and came off on board early this morning with the news."

Later in the day he found his surmise to be correct. Two or three of his own men always remained on board at night to keep anchor watch, and one of them told him that that morning at daylight Togaro had paddled off in a canoe and had at once gone below to Warner's cabin and remained there for nearly half an hour, emerging on deck with a bottle of gin--a present doubtless for his murderous work in the night.

That day's fishing was particularly successful, for the divers began work upon a new bed of shell, most of which were of great size and contained some magnificent pearls. Five especially huge oysters were opened by Barry himself in the presence of his men, and from them were taken seven pearls, each one larger than any yet previously obtained.

Knowing that his men were as true as steel to him, the officer showed them to each man in turn, and then handed them to Velo.

"These seven pearls are worth much money," he said, speaking in the native tongue to the men, "and shall not be handled by the man who slew the white woman's husband, for they are hers, and Velo shall himself give them to her. But cast the shells overboard."

As the days went by, and the waters of the broad lagoon shone and sparkled under a cloudless vault of blue, the work went steadily on, and in the hold of the brig, tier upon tier of cases, packed tightly with shell, were firmly stowed for the voyage to Singapore--shell worth over eight thousand pounds, and night after night Rawlings would turn out the pearls upon the scarlet cloth, and discuss their value with Barry and the other two officers.

"Six thousand pounds,