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 South Seas."
Lieutenant-Commander Martyn listened with intense interest to Barry's strange story, from the time he came on board the Mahina in Sydney Harbour till the Reynard was sighted.