"I hope so," answered Barry, with a smile. "But we may have a long spell here yet before we can settle up matters with Rawlings and the others and get possession of the Mahina."
"I will wait patiently. Now let me see about the tea, and then we'll have a long talk. You'll stay all night, won't you?"
"And all to-morrow as well. The men have three days' liberty, and Rawlings thinks I am going pig-hunting to-morrow."
As they ate their supper Barry told her all that had happened since he had seen her: of the richness of the pearl beds then being worked, and of the suspicions of Joe and Velo that Rawlings and his fellow conspirators intended some mischief against him. Then when he mentioned Warner and described his appearance and Joe's recognition of him, she started—
"Warner! His name is not Warner. He is Billy Chase, an American. I know all about him, and that which Joe has told you is perfectly true. He was brought to Sydney for trial in the Alacrity, surveying sloop, about ten years ago, and I have often heard my husband speak of him as one of the most blood-stained ruffians in the Pacific. We heard that he had, through want of evidence against him, escaped hanging with a sentence of seven years' imprisonment; and then about a year and a half ago some one in Honolulu told us that a man supposed to be the infamous Billy Chase had turned up in the Carolines with fifteen or twenty 'niggers'—as they call the Melanesian natives in these parts—and settled down as a trader. It must be the same man, and no doubt he is an old acquaintance of Rawlings'."
"No doubt whatever, Mrs. Tracey. No doubt but that the whole precious quartette are steeped in villainies, and there is no doubt that they have now reached the end of their tether, and that with God's help we shall bring them to a reckoning. But we shall have to act with caution, for this man Warner, or Chase, with his crew of bloodthirsty savages will certainly fight for the cold-blooded villains who murdered your husband and tried to murder you."
"I cannot say—I am not Christian enough to say—that vengeance is God's. If the power of vengeance lay in my hand now I would use it," she said, excitedly.
Barry remained silent for awhile, until her emotion had subsided. Then he said gravely—
"There is no fear of Rawlings coming to Tebuan. That idea of mine of firing at our boat was a happy one, and although Joe here is the only white sailor in the secret, the other three on board will stand to us when the time arrives. As for the native crew, they have sworn to help us, and when I am out with them in the boats they often laugh at the way we are fooling the captain. I have promised them, on your behalf, a hundred dollars each as a bonus, when we reach either Sydney or Singapore."
"You think of everything, Mr. Barry," she said gratefully. "Now let me tell you that I too have been working. Every day since I saw you the Tebuan people have been diving for me, and I think we must have quite two or three tons of shell. The pearls we have found I brought with me to show you. There is a coconut-shell nearly half full—some are simply lovely.… And, now I think of it, I won't show them to you—I shall keep them for your future wife."