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 ashore, 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 ashore 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 Lêle 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 shell--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.
Tracey, who have nursed the old drunken, blackguard beachcomber, and
asked him to seek strength from God to keep off the cursed grog, will
be one of the richest women in the world. I wrote it all down four or
five months ago, in case when you came back here you found I was dead.'
"Thereupon he handed my husband a number of sheets of paper, on one of
which was drawn a rough plan of Arrecifos Island, or, as he called it,
Ujilong. The rest contained clear and perfectly written details of the
position of the pearl-shell beds."
Barry nodded. "He had lived there, I suppose."
"For quite a number of years--from 1840 to 1846. He married one of the
native women there. There were then over seven hundred natives living
on these thirteen islands, and Gurden said he could quite understand
why the richness of the pearl beds were never discovered by white men,
for no ship had ever entered the lagoon within the memory of any living
native of the place, and not once in ten years did the people even see
a passing ship send a boat ashore."
(That this was true, Barry knew, for he had often heard trading
captains speak of Arrecifos and Eniwetok as great chains of palm-clad
islets, enclosing lagoons through which there was no passage for ships.)
"The natives themselves had no idea of the value to white men of the
beds of pearl shell, and as a matter of fact Gurden himself at that
time did not think them of much value. Later on, after he left the
Island and visited China, he spoke to several merchants and traders
there, and tried to induce them to send him back to the lagoon with a
crew of divers, but as he was usually drunk when he called on them, no
one would listen to him. His story was merely regarded as the fiction
of a drunken sailor.
"My husband did not so regard it. He had never been to Arrecifos, but
knew something of it by its native name of Ujilong and its chart name
of Providence as a place of very few inhabitants--the group takes its
name from the island off which you are anchored--living on a number of
low islands covered with coconuts.
"'Let us go there and you can pilot me in,' he said to Gurden.
"The old man agreed with alacrity. Taking him on board, we sailed the
following morning, and reached this place five days later. He took us
in safely through the south-east passage, and the moment we landed he
was recognised and welcomed by the people as one returned from the dead.
"We remained in the lagoon for three months, and during that time
Gurden and my husband, aided by the willing natives, obtained ten tons
of magnificent shell, and more than a thousand pounds' worth of pearls.
Those which Rawlings showed you were some of them; I suppose he found
them in my husband's cabin after he was murdered. He had often shown
them to both Rawlings and Barradas on board the _Mahina_, for he was,
as I will show you later on, the most unsuspicious and confiding of men.
"Convinced that there was indeed at least some hundreds of thousands of
pounds' worth of pearl shell to be obtained if he could secure
experienced native divers from the equatorial islands--for these people
here are not good divers--my husband decided to go to Honolulu, sell
the cutter and the pearl shell we had obtained, and then with the money
he had in hand, which amounted to about 1,100 pounds, buy a larger
vessel, secure a number of good divers, and return to the lagoon, on
one of the islands of which he intended to make his home for perhaps
many years. Arrecifos, he knew, did not belong to any nation, and both
he and old Gurden thought that the British Consul at Honolulu would
give us what is, I think, called a 'letter of protection,' whereby a
British subject hoisting the English flag upon one of the Pacific
Islands can, with the approval of a naval officer, and the concurrence
of the native inhabitants, purchase it, and get protection from the
English Government.
"He wished Gurden to remain until we returned, but the old man said it
would be too lonely for him, but that if we took him back to Strong's
Island he would be content to await our return there. The long voyage
to Honolulu, he thought, would be too much for him, and beside that he
wished to return to Strong's Island, if only to say farewell to its
people with whom he had lived for so many years. After that he would
be content to end his days with us on Arrecifos.
"Returning to Strong's Island, we landed Gurden, and after a long and
wearisome voyage reached Honolulu; my husband sold the pearl shell for
a thousand pounds--about half its value--and the cutter and the rest of
the cargo for 600 pounds, bought the _Mahina_, and at once began to fit
her out and ship an entirely new crew, for the nine men we had with us
on the cutter wanted to remain in Honolulu and spend their wages.
Undoubtedly some of these men talked about the lagoon and discovery of
the pearl shell, and were the primary cause of the misfortunes which
were to befall us.
"One morning Manuel Barradas came on board, and asked my husband if he
was in want of a chief mate. He was, and being satisfied with the
man's appearance and qualifications, at once engaged him, and then
Barradas said he knew of a very good man as second mate. This was
Paul, the Greek.
"A few days before we sailed, Barradas told my husband that he had met
a former acquaintance of his, who would like to take passage in the
brig for the entire cruise, merely for the pleasure of visiting these
little-known islands, and that he was prepared to pay liberally. In
the evening Barradas brought his friend on board, and introduced him as
Mr. Rawlings. My husband and he had quite a long talk. Rawlings was
himself a sailor, and had made, he said, a good deal of money as
recruiter in the kanaka labour trade between Fiji and the Solomon
Islands; but was tired of idling away his time in Honolulu, and thought
that among the Caroline or Marshall Group he might find an island
whereon he could settle as a trader.
"My poor husband fell into the trap devised for him by these three men;
Rawlings came on board as passenger, and we sailed direct for Strong's
Island to pick up Gurden. To our great sorrow we found that the old
man was dead and buried--had died a week previously. He had made a
will leaving all of his share and interest in the venture to me.
"To a certain extent Barradas had my husband's confidence, but neither
he nor Rawlings knew either the name or position of this
place--whatever other information they had gained from our former crew.
They had, however, thoroughly ingratiated themselves with him, and
though he had not actually revealed to them the name or position of
Arrecifos, they knew pretty well everything else concerning it.
"After leaving Port Lêle, we steered south-west for the Ellice Islands,
where my husband knew he could obtain a crew of divers (we could get
none in Honolulu), and then, besides divers, he also intended to engage
about ten or a dozen families of Ellice Islanders to settle down here
permanently, for the British Consul had given him a temporary 'letter
of protection,' and authorised him to hoist the English flag on
Arrecifos Lagoon, but had yet strongly advised him to proceed to Sydney
and lay his case before the commodore of the Australian squadron, who,
he said, would no doubt send a warship to Arrecifos and take formal
possession of the place as British territory. This advice my husband
decided to follow. He also meant to buy some diving suits and pumping
gear, for Gurden had said that he believed the best shell in the lagoon
was to be obtained at a depth of eighteen fathoms--too deep for the
ordinary native method of diving. You can imagine my delight when he
told me that we should be going to Sydney, for that town is my native
place, and it was there that we were married seven years ago. And we
would often talk of what a beautiful home we would make here in the
course of a few years."
Here her fast-falling tears choked her utterance, and Barry bade her
rest awhile. She obeyed him, and for some ten minutes or so no sound
broke the silence but the ever restless clamour of the surf upon the
outer reef, and now and then a whispered word, exchanged between the
native seamen, who, seated at the other end of the house, regarded her
with their dark eyes full of sympathy.
"We made a direct course for the Ellice Islands," resumed Mrs. Tracey,
"and met with light winds till we were near Pleasant Island, when it
began to blow steadily from the north-west. We sighted Pleasant Island
just before dark, and at half-past eight we could see the lights of the
native villages on the shore. That evening my husband had turned in
early, for he was not feeling well, and complained of a severe
headache. I remained with him till half-past nine o'clock, and then,
seeing that he had fallen asleep, I went on deck for some fresh air,
for the cabin was very hot and stuffy.
"No one was on the poop but the man at the wheel--an Hawaiian native.
Barradas was somewhere on the main deck, for I heard his voice talking
to some of the men.
"I had brought on deck a rug and my pillow, and telling the man at the
wheel to call me at four bells, if I were asleep, I lay down at the
back of the wheel-house, so as to be out of the way of the officer of
the watch and out of sight. I had been lying down for about ten
minutes, and was wide awake, when Paul, the Greek, came aft and told
the helmsman to go for'ard and stay there till he was wanted.
"In a lazy sort of a way I wondered why the second mate should do this,
as it was not his watch on deck; but in another minute or so I heard
Rawlings' voice.
"'Where is Manuel, Paul?'
"'He's coming in a minute,' replied the Greek; 'are you sure the
skipper is asleep?'
"'Yes,' answered Rawlings, 'and she is with him. There's no fear of
her coming on deck--damn her!'
"What did they mean? I thought. Why should Rawlings, who always was
most horribly polite and sweet to me, mean by using such an expression
about me? I had not long to wait, for presently Barradas joined them,
and the three began talking together.
"'Can't we make an end of the thing at once, and settle them both
together?' said the Greek in his vile jargon.
"'Don't be a fool, Paul,' answered Rawlings savagely; 'we don't want to
run our necks into a noose needlessly. We want something more than the
ship. We want to find out the name of the island and where it is
before we can do anything like that. And if we found it out to-night,
and settled him and his wife, how are we to get to the lagoon without a
navigator?'
"'True,' said Barradas; 'but have you had a good look through his cabin
for the plan old Gurden gave him?'
"'Yes, several times,' he answered.
"'Perhaps she has it,' said Barradas.
"'Not she,' said Rawlings impatiently; '_he_ doesn't suspect us; why
should he give it to her? No; he has put it away somewhere where only
a careful search would find it, and that search can't be made just now.
And we don't want it now. When we do want it, I can find it. Now
listen to me, and I'll show you how we can do the thing properly.'
"A wild impulse to rush past them, rouse my husband, and tell him of
the murderous plot that was brewing against his life and mine for a
moment or two held possession of me, Mr. Barry; but I resisted it only
through fear of their seeing me; would to God I had acted upon that
impulse, for I believe the crew would have stood by us. . . . But I
lay perfectly quiet, and listened while that smiling fiend Rawlings
unfolded his dreadful scheme of treachery and murder to his fellow
villains.
"They could do nothing, he said, until the brig arrived at Sydney.
Then after my husband (whom he called a 'silly, unsuspecting ass') had
seen the commodore, bought all the stores and trade goods needed for
the native divers, and also the diving suits and pumping gear, he
(Rawlings) would find a man capable of navigating the vessel, and then,
he said, with a laugh that sent a thrill of terror through me, 'we can
get rid of him and his wife with little trouble, once we are at sea
again. They will, I think, both fall overboard soon after we leave
Sydney--eh, Paul? And then, my friends, we shall find Gurden's chart
and written description of the lagoon easily enough, and with a
navigator on board we shall continue the voyage, and sail to the
fortune awaiting us.'
"'How can you get such a man without exciting wonder in the captain's
mind?' said Barradas.
"'Leave it to me, my dear, doubting Manuel,' replied Rawlings in his
mocking voice.
"At that moment four bells struck, and another native sailor came aft
to take the wheel, and I, after waiting for a minute or two, and
hearing no further talk, concluded that Rawlings and the Greek had left
the poop, and only Barradas remained.
"I rose and peered cautiously around the corner of the wheel-house, to
see if I could escape below without being observed, and then the Greek
suddenly sprang on me from behind, grasped me by the waist, and
carrying me to the rail, flung me overboard.
"When I came to the surface the brig was quite a hundred yards or more
away from me, and I could only dimly discern her through the darkness.
I raised my voice and screamed and screamed again, but in a few minutes
she had disappeared into the night; and then I tried to give my soul to
God, for I knew that the cruel wretches--one of whom had thrown me
overboard--would not try to save me.
"How long I continued swimming I cannot tell you--it might have been
only a few minutes, it might have been an hour or more, for I am a good
swimmer--but suddenly I saw a light quite near, and I cried out, so I
was told afterward, 'For God's sake, save me!'
"When I regained consciousness I found myself on board a little cutter
bound from Pleasant Island to Ocean Island, a hundred and twenty miles
away. The master and owner of the cutter was a German trader living on
Pleasant Island. He treated me most kindly, and when we arrived at
Ocean Island, and I lost my reason for many weeks, nursed me like a
mother, and delayed his return to Pleasant Island till I recovered, so
that I could go back there with him, and live with his wife and family
till some whaling vessel called there, and I could get a passage to
some port in China or Japan.
"But I had no desire to go there. I knew that if my husband had
escaped the murderous designs of Rawlings and his fellow criminals that
he would return to Arrecifos, and to Arrecifos I determined to go, even
if only to die. Whaleships, so my rescuer told me, frequently called
at Ocean and Pleasant Islands on their way to the North-West Carolines
and Japan, and I decided to remain on the lonely little spot and wait
for one.
"Six weeks after I landed on Ocean Island the _Golden City_, of New
Bedford, called there. I went on board, and told the captain so much
of my story as I thought necessary, and asked him to land me in
Arrecifos. He did so, and gave me a stock of food and clothing
materials. God bless that man with long, narrow leather-hued American
face, and his kindly grey eyes; I shall never forget him.
"He landed me here five months ago. The people knew me at once, and
made me very welcome. I told them that I did not know if my husband
were alive or dead, but had come here to wait. The affection they
cherished for old Gurden was very strongly shown when I told them of
his death, and I am now living with the relatives of the woman he
married here so many years ago.
"When your boat was seen sailing down the lagoon this afternoon the
natives were very frightened, fearing that another 'man-stealing ship,'
as they call the Hawaiian labour vessels, was making a second raid upon
them, for the village on the little island where you are anchored was
surprised by the crew of one of these vessels in the night, and every
adult person, male and female, seized, handcuffed, and carried on
board. It is now deserted. The people, as well as myself, knew that
if my husband had returned that he would have sailed his ship right
down here to this end of the lagoon where he had anchored previously,
instead of lying under the south-east islet. Most of them, therefore,
at once took to the bush to hide themselves, and begged me to come with
them. But I was determined to come and meet the boat, for I had a hope
that I might possibly hear some news of the _Mahina_, and I feared that
perhaps the boat would only remain a short time, and return to the ship
before I could get to her. I did not even stay to put on my one pair
of boots, but set off at a run; these two young women coming with me,
poor creatures, although they were dreadfully frightened. When within
half a mile of where you landed I stepped upon a hidden _foli_, and
gave myself this terrible cut."
Barry took her hand between both his and pressed it sympathetically.
"Poor lady. You have indeed suffered. Now listen to me, and I will
tell you what I propose doing to outwit these infernal ruffians and
restore to you your husband's ship. The heartless scoundrels, pirates,
and murderers! They shall themselves work for your good. Joe, and
you, Velo, come closer. These men, Mrs. Tracey, will stand to us, and
so I think will every other man on board."
"Indeed we will, sir," said Joe.
"Now this is my plan," said Barry.
* * * * * *
It did not take him long to explain it, and then one by one each man of
his boat's crew took his hand and that of Mrs. Tracey, and swore to be
true to them both.