he then requested that as Tracey's wife had nursed him during the
time he was on board, that what would have been his share of the
profits of our coming venture should be given to her, as he had not a
relative or connection in the world. Early in the morning he had
breathed his last.

"We buried the old fellow that afternoon, and almost immediately
afterward dirty weather came up from the northward, and by nine o'clock
we were driving along under an ugly sky at a great rate. Tracey was
below, turned in, and I was on deck with Barradas, who had taken the
wheel for a few minutes to allow the man who was steering to lend a
hand at some job on the main deck. Just then, poor Alice Tracey came
up from below, walked aft, and stood at the stern with her hand on the
rail, looking at the brig's boiling wake; this was a frequent habit of
hers. Neither of us took any further notice of her after she had
remarked that the cabin was very stuffy--we were running before the
wind at the time. About five minutes later I went for'ard, and just as
Barradas was giving up the wheel again, he noticed that Mrs. Tracey bad
disappeared. He gave the alarm in an instant, for he knew she had not
gone below again, and must have fallen overboard without a cry.

"In bringing to, to lower a boat, our decks were twice filled, and this
caused much delay. Poor Tracey nearly went mad, and both he and the
boatswain searched for her all night in two boats, while we burnt every
blue light on board, and then kept a flare going till daylight--all
without avail. We were then about five miles west of Pleasant Island,
and Tracey had a wild hope that his wife, who was a splendid swimmer,
might have kept herself afloat and succeeded in reaching the land,
which is densely populated. To please him I sent the boats ashore, and
made inquiries from the natives, but of course there was not the
slightest hope. She must have hurt herself when she fell, and sunk at
once, or else she could not have failed to have been seen or heard by
one of the two boats.

"The rest of the voyage was sad enough in all conscience, for Tracey
was never the same man again. The crew, too, began to get the idea
that we were to be an unlucky ship, and eventually became gloomy,
discontented, and finally almost mutinous. I dropped a good many of
them at various islands as we came along, but picked up others in their
places--just the sort of men I wanted for divers and boat work. At
Le