ult of yours. You are, I am sure," she added impulsively, placing
her hand on his arm, "a merciful man, as well as a brave one. Your
wife that is to be will be a happy woman, Mr. Barry."

* * * * * *

For thirteen days the little _Mahina_ ran southward under cloudless
skies and over softly swelling seas till Bouka was sighted, and Togaro
and his men prepared to be landed in a little bay fringed with
coco-palms growing around a half-circle of snowy beach. They had all
behaved well, and each man, ere he got into the boat which was to take
them ashore, insisted on shaking hands with Barry and every one else on
board. They were landed at sundown, and by dark the _Mahina_ was again
slipping over the long Pacific swell with the light of myriad stars
illumining her snowy canvas and shining upon her spotless deck.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXIT RAWLINGS AND THE GREEK.

At daylight one morning, a week after leaving Bouka Island, the
_Mahina_ was lying becalmed off Nitendi, one of the islands of the
Santa Cruz group, and just as Barry came on deck for his coffee the
look-out called to Barradas--

"Sail ho, sir, right astern!"

Barry ran aloft, and there six or seven miles astern was a
schooner-rigged steamer. Barradas, who had followed him, knew her at
once.

"That's the _Reynard_, sir--one of the Sydney squadron patrolling the
New Hebrides. I've seen her pretty often, and know her well."

"Ah, we're in luck, Manuel. There's a chance now of getting rid of our
prisoners--for a time at least. She's steaming this way, and will be
up to us in another hour. Get the whaleboat ready and hoist our
colours."

There was no need for the _Mahina_ to signal that she desired to
communicate with the warship, for the latter steamed steadily along
till she was abreast of the brig, and then stopped her engines and
waited for Barry to come aboard.

In a few minutes the master of the _Mahina_ was on the quarter-deck of
the _Reynard_ talking to her commander, a clean-shaven,
youthful-looking officer.

"Come below, Mr. Barry, and tell me your story in detail," he said
politely. "I will do all I can to assist you, if it was only for the
pleasure of hearing that that scoundrel, Billy Chase, is no longer in
the land of the living. And I must compliment you upon your
good-nature and sound judgment in carrying back his natives to Bouka.
I wish there were more trading captains like you in the distressful