"Not I, sir," answered the seaman earnestly; "not a word will I say until you give me the word to do so. And they will stand to us, sir, never fear, for they all likes you; and Sam Button and Sharkey want very bad to be let come in the boats with us."
"We must be careful as yet, Joe," replied Barry. "I have no doubt that Sam and Sharkey and Peter will help us when the time comes, but I don't want to raise any suspicion. And we must keep this business dark from them until the time does come for us to act."
"Aye, aye, sir," assented the sailor; "and even if they sided with the skipper, we needn't have no cause to fear. The natives is with you to a man, sir. I can see that easy enough—they just follows you with their eyes like a dog does its master."
Barry nodded and smiled contentedly. The native crew were, he knew, devoted to him, and could be relied on to preserve the secrecy so essential to the fulfilment of the plans he had in view.
The tide was falling fast, and the connecting reef between the islands was dry, so that Barry and his two companions had no trouble in crossing from one to the other, carefully avoiding the islet on which Warner's natives were living. For nearly three hours they marched on in silence—sometimes along the hard, white sand of the inner lagoon beaches, sometimes by narrow paths running parallel with the outer iron-bound coast, where the slow, sweeping billows curled themselves, to break with a sound like muffled thunder upon the black wall of reef fringing the silent shore. At midnight they reached a little island of not more than a mile in length and half a mile in width. In the clear starlight night they saw the figures of six persons coming towards them on the beach.
Barry struck a match, held it aloft for an instant, and then called out—
"Are you there, Mrs. Tracey?"
"I am here, Mr. Barry," and followed by three stalwart men and the two young women who had formerly accompanied her at their first meeting, Mrs. Tracey, although still slightly lame, ran to him and shook his hand warmly.
"We started immediately we saw your fire," she said, "but came across the lagoon in canoes, instead of walking. Now come with me. There are several empty houses here, just over the brow of the beach, and in one of them there is a midnight supper for us all—crayfish, baked fish, pork, and chickens, and young coconuts to drink."
The two native women leading the way, the whole party soon gained the houses, which stood in a thick grove of giant jack-fruit trees. A bright fire was blazing out in the open, and spread out on the matted floor of the best of the houses was the midnight supper.