er 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 hoarsely--

"My God! 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 passenger; 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 t