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Edward Barry: South Sea Pearler, a novel by Louis Becke |
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Chapter 8. Mrs. Tracey Tells Her Strange Story |
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_ CHAPTER VIII. MRS. TRACEY TELLS HER STRANGE STORY Mrs. Tracey listened with the most intense interest to Barry's account of his first meeting with Captain Rawlings, of the strange, mysterious midnight sailing of the _Mahina_ from Sydney Harbour, and of the story of her husband's suicide as related by the captain to his newly-engaged chief mate on the following day, when he came on deck and said that Tracey was dead. "It may be that my poor husband did indeed take his own life," she said, "but I do not believe it." "Yet why should they--Rawlings and the others--have spared him so long?" inquired Barry. "Neither Barradas nor Rawlings were navigators," replied Mrs. Tracey quickly. "Ah, I see," and the chief officer stroked his beard thoughtfully; "but yet, you see, Rawlings would have sailed without a navigator on board had he not met me on the wharf that night." "Perhaps so--yet I do not think it. He has the cunning of Satan himself." "Indeed he has, ma'am," broke in Joe. "Why, sir," turning to Barry, "the night we sailed he drugged the Custom House officer and flung him into the dinghy. Then when you was for'ard heavin' up anchor the Greek and two of the native chaps took him ashore, and chucked him down on the wharf." "The scoundrel!" exclaimed Barry, thinking of the letter he had written to Rose Maynard that night. "But how do you know this?" "I been tell Joe jus' now," said one of the native seamen; "de captain give me an' Billy Onotoa ten shilling to take that man ashore with the bos'un. An' he say if we tell any one he kill us by an' by." "The ruffian!" muttered Barry. "Now that you have told me your own story, Mr. Barry," said Mrs. Tracey excitedly, "let me tell you mine from the beginning, and show you how this heartless wretch has imposed upon you from the very first. The tale he has given you is a tissue of lies, interwoven with a thread of truth." "I can well believe it now. Many things which have hitherto puzzled me are now clear enough." "Nearly two years ago," began Mrs. Tracey, "my husband owned and sailed a small cutter of thirty tons, trading among the Marshall and Caroline Islands. His headquarters were at Jaluit, in the Marshall Islands, where he had a store, and where I lived whilst he was away on his cruises. During the seven years we spent among these islands I would often accompany him, for it was very lonely on Jaluit--only natives to talk to--and he would sometimes be away many months at a time. "On our last voyage in the cutter we called in at Port Lele on Strong's Island. Old Gurden, the trader there, and my husband had had business dealings with each other for many years. He was a good-hearted but very intemperate man, and several times we had taken him away with us in the cutter, when he was in a deplorable condition from the effects of drink, and nursed him back to health and reason again. On this occasion we were pleased to find him well, though rather despondent, for he had, he said, an idea that his last carouse had 'done for' him, and that he would not live much longer. "That evening the old man told us the story of his life. It was a truly strange and chequered one. When quite a young man he had been flogged, and then deserted from H.M.S. _Blossom_, Captain Beechy, in 1825, and ever since then had remained in the South Seas, living sometimes the idle and dissolute life of the beach-comber, sometimes that of the industrious and adventurous trader. My husband was interested, for he liked the old fellow, who, in spite of his drunken habits, had many excellent qualities. For myself he always professed the greatest regard, and that evening he proved it. "After he had finished his story he turned to my husband, and said-- "'You and your wife have always been true friends to drunken old Jack Gurden. Now, tell me, did you ever know me to tell a lie except when I wanted to get a drink and hadn't any excuse?' "We both laughed, and said we knew he was a truthful man. "'Did you ever hear me talking about a lagoon full of pearl shell--when I was mad with drink?' he inquired. "We laughed again, and said that he had done so very often. "'Ah,' he said, 'but it is true. There is such a place, and now that my time is coming near, I'll tell you where it is, and you, Mrs. Tracey, who have nursed the old drunken, blackguard beachcomber, and asked him to seek strength from God to keep off the cursed grog, will be one of the richest women in the world. I wrote it all down four or five months ago, in case when you came back here you found I was dead.' "Thereupon he handed my husband a number of sheets of paper, on one of which was drawn a rough plan of Arrecifos Island, or, as he called it, Ujilong. The rest contained clear and perfectly written details of the position of the pearl-shell beds." Barry nodded. "He had lived there, I suppose." "For quite a number of years--from 1840 to 1846. He married one of the native women there. There were then over seven hundred natives living on these thirteen islands, and Gurden said he could quite understand why the richness of the pearl beds were never discovered by white men, for no ship had ever entered the lagoon within the memory of any living native of the place, and not once in ten years did the people even see a passing ship send a boat ashore." (That this was true, Barry knew, for he had often heard trading captains speak of Arrecifos and Eniwetok as great chains of palm-clad islets, enclosing lagoons through which there was no passage for ships.) "The natives themselves had no idea of the value to white men of the beds of pearl shell, and as a matter of fact Gurden himself at that time did not think them of much value. Later on, after he left the Island and visited China, he spoke to several merchants and traders there, and tried to induce them to send him back to the lagoon with a crew of divers, but as he was usually drunk when he called on them, no one would listen to him. His story was merely regarded as the fiction of a drunken sailor. "My husband did not so regard it. He had never been to Arrecifos, but knew something of it by its native name of Ujilong and its chart name of Providence as a place of very few inhabitants--the group takes its name from the island off which you are anchored--living on a number of low islands covered with coconuts. "'Let us go there and you can pilot me in,' he said to Gurden. "The old man agreed with alacrity. Taking him on board, we sailed the following morning, and reached this place five days later. He took us in safely through the south-east passage, and the moment we landed he was recognised and welcomed by the people as one returned from the dead. "We remained in the lagoon for three months, and during that time Gurden and my husband, aided by the willing natives, obtained ten tons of magnificent shell, and more than a thousand pounds' worth of pearls. Those which Rawlings showed you were some of them; I suppose he found them in my husband's cabin after he was murdered. He had often shown them to both Rawlings and Barradas on board the _Mahina_, for he was, as I will show you later on, the most unsuspicious and confiding of men. "Convinced that there was indeed at least some hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of pearl shell to be obtained if he could secure experienced native divers from the equatorial islands--for these people here are not good divers--my husband decided to go to Honolulu, sell the cutter and the pearl shell we had obtained, and then with the money he had in hand, which amounted to about 1,100 pounds, buy a larger vessel, secure a number of good divers, and return to the lagoon, on one of the islands of which he intended to make his home for perhaps many years. Arrecifos, he knew, did not belong to any nation, and both he and old Gurden thought that the British Consul at Honolulu would give us what is, I think, called a 'letter of protection,' whereby a British subject hoisting the English flag upon one of the Pacific Islands can, with the approval of a naval officer, and the concurrence of the native inhabitants, purchase it, and get protection from the English Government. "He wished Gurden to remain until we returned, but the old man said it would be too lonely for him, but that if we took him back to Strong's Island he would be content to await our return there. The long voyage to Honolulu, he thought, would be too much for him, and beside that he wished to return to Strong's Island, if only to say farewell to its people with whom he had lived for so many years. After that he would be content to end his days with us on Arrecifos. "Returning to Strong's Island, we landed Gurden, and after a long and wearisome voyage reached Honolulu; my husband sold the pearl shell for a thousand pounds--about half its value--and the cutter and the rest of the cargo for 600 pounds, bought the _Mahina_, and at once began to fit her out and ship an entirely new crew, for the nine men we had with us on the cutter wanted to remain in Honolulu and spend their wages. Undoubtedly some of these men talked about the lagoon and discovery of the pearl shell, and were the primary cause of the misfortunes which were to befall us. "One morning Manuel Barradas came on board, and asked my husband if he was in want of a chief mate. He was, and being satisfied with the man's appearance and qualifications, at once engaged him, and then Barradas said he knew of a very good man as second mate. This was Paul, the Greek. "A few days before we sailed, Barradas told my husband that he had met a former acquaintance of his, who would like to take passage in the brig for the entire cruise, merely for the pleasure of visiting these little-known islands, and that he was prepared to pay liberally. In the evening Barradas brought his friend on board, and introduced him as Mr. Rawlings. My husband and he had quite a long talk. Rawlings was himself a sailor, and had made, he said, a good deal of money as recruiter in the kanaka labour trade between Fiji and the Solomon Islands; but was tired of idling away his time in Honolulu, and thought that among the Caroline or Marshall Group he might find an island whereon he could settle as a trader. "My poor husband fell into the trap devised for him by these three men; Rawlings came on board as passenger, and we sailed direct for Strong's Island to pick up Gurden. To our great sorrow we found that the old man was dead and buried--had died a week previously. He had made a will leaving all of his share and interest in the venture to me. "To a certain extent Barradas had my husband's confidence, but neither he nor Rawlings knew either the name or position of this place--whatever other information they had gained from our former crew. They had, however, thoroughly ingratiated themselves with him, and though he had not actually revealed to them the name or position of Arrecifos, they knew pretty well everything else concerning it. "After leaving Port Lele, we steered south-west for the Ellice Islands, where my husband knew he could obtain a crew of divers (we could get none in Honolulu), and then, besides divers, he also intended to engage about ten or a dozen families of Ellice Islanders to settle down here permanently, for the British Consul had given him a temporary 'letter of protection,' and authorised him to hoist the English flag on Arrecifos Lagoon, but had yet strongly advised him to proceed to Sydney and lay his case before the commodore of the Australian squadron, who, he said, would no doubt send a warship to Arrecifos and take formal possession of the place as British territory. This advice my husband decided to follow. He also meant to buy some diving suits and pumping gear, for Gurden had said that he believed the best shell in the lagoon was to be obtained at a depth of eighteen fathoms--too deep for the ordinary native method of diving. You can imagine my delight when he told me that we should be going to Sydney, for that town is my native place, and it was there that we were married seven years ago. And we would often talk of what a beautiful home we would make here in the course of a few years." Here her fast-falling tears choked her utterance, and Barry bade her rest awhile. She obeyed him, and for some ten minutes or so no sound broke the silence but the ever restless clamour of the surf upon the outer reef, and now and then a whispered word, exchanged between the native seamen, who, seated at the other end of the house, regarded her with their dark eyes full of sympathy. "We made a direct course for the Ellice Islands," resumed Mrs. Tracey, "and met with light winds till we were near Pleasant Island, when it began to blow steadily from the north-west. We sighted Pleasant Island just before dark, and at half-past eight we could see the lights of the native villages on the shore. That evening my husband had turned in early, for he was not feeling well, and complained of a severe headache. I remained with him till half-past nine o'clock, and then, seeing that he had fallen asleep, I went on deck for some fresh air, for the cabin was very hot and stuffy. "No one was on the poop but the man at the wheel--an Hawaiian native. Barradas was somewhere on the main deck, for I heard his voice talking to some of the men. "I had brought on deck a rug and my pillow, and telling the man at the wheel to call me at four bells, if I were asleep, I lay down at the back of the wheel-house, so as to be out of the way of the officer of the watch and out of sight. I had been lying down for about ten minutes, and was wide awake, when Paul, the Greek, came aft and told the helmsman to go for'ard and stay there till he was wanted. "In a lazy sort of a way I wondered why the second mate should do this, as it was not his watch on deck; but in another minute or so I heard Rawlings' voice. "'Where is Manuel, Paul?' "'He's coming in a minute,' replied the Greek; 'are you sure the skipper is asleep?' "'Yes,' answered Rawlings, 'and she is with him. There's no fear of her coming on deck--damn her!' "What did they mean? I thought. Why should Rawlings, who always was most horribly polite and sweet to me, mean by using such an expression about me? I had not long to wait, for presently Barradas joined them, and the three began talking together. "'Can't we make an end of the thing at once, and settle them both together?' said the Greek in his vile jargon. "'Don't be a fool, Paul,' answered Rawlings savagely; 'we don't want to run our necks into a noose needlessly. We want something more than the ship. We want to find out the name of the island and where it is before we can do anything like that. And if we found it out to-night, and settled him and his wife, how are we to get to the lagoon without a navigator?' "'True,' said Barradas; 'but have you had a good look through his cabin for the plan old Gurden gave him?' "'Yes, several times,' he answered. "'Perhaps she has it,' said Barradas. "'Not she,' said Rawlings impatiently; '_he_ doesn't suspect us; why should he give it to her? No; he has put it away somewhere where only a careful search would find it, and that search can't be made just now. And we don't want it now. When we do want it, I can find it. Now listen to me, and I'll show you how we can do the thing properly.' "A wild impulse to rush past them, rouse my husband, and tell him of the murderous plot that was brewing against his life and mine for a moment or two held possession of me, Mr. Barry; but I resisted it only through fear of their seeing me; would to God I had acted upon that impulse, for I believe the crew would have stood by us. . . . But I lay perfectly quiet, and listened while that smiling fiend Rawlings unfolded his dreadful scheme of treachery and murder to his fellow villains. "They could do nothing, he said, until the brig arrived at Sydney. Then after my husband (whom he called a 'silly, unsuspecting ass') had seen the commodore, bought all the stores and trade goods needed for the native divers, and also the diving suits and pumping gear, he (Rawlings) would find a man capable of navigating the vessel, and then, he said, with a laugh that sent a thrill of terror through me, 'we can get rid of him and his wife with little trouble, once we are at sea again. They will, I think, both fall overboard soon after we leave Sydney--eh, Paul? And then, my friends, we shall find Gurden's chart and written description of the lagoon easily enough, and with a navigator on board we shall continue the voyage, and sail to the fortune awaiting us.' "'How can you get such a man without exciting wonder in the captain's mind?' said Barradas. "'Leave it to me, my dear, doubting Manuel,' replied Rawlings in his mocking voice. "At that moment four bells struck, and another native sailor came aft to take the wheel, and I, after waiting for a minute or two, and hearing no further talk, concluded that Rawlings and the Greek had left the poop, and only Barradas remained. "I rose and peered cautiously around the corner of the wheel-house, to see if I could escape below without being observed, and then the Greek suddenly sprang on me from behind, grasped me by the waist, and carrying me to the rail, flung me overboard. "When I came to the surface the brig was quite a hundred yards or more away from me, and I could only dimly discern her through the darkness. I raised my voice and screamed and screamed again, but in a few minutes she had disappeared into the night; and then I tried to give my soul to God, for I knew that the cruel wretches--one of whom had thrown me overboard--would not try to save me. "How long I continued swimming I cannot tell you--it might have been only a few minutes, it might have been an hour or more, for I am a good swimmer--but suddenly I saw a light quite near, and I cried out, so I was told afterward, 'For God's sake, save me!' "When I regained consciousness I found myself on board a little cutter bound from Pleasant Island to Ocean Island, a hundred and twenty miles away. The master and owner of the cutter was a German trader living on Pleasant Island. He treated me most kindly, and when we arrived at Ocean Island, and I lost my reason for many weeks, nursed me like a mother, and delayed his return to Pleasant Island till I recovered, so that I could go back there with him, and live with his wife and family till some whaling vessel called there, and I could get a passage to some port in China or Japan. "But I had no desire to go there. I knew that if my husband had escaped the murderous designs of Rawlings and his fellow criminals that he would return to Arrecifos, and to Arrecifos I determined to go, even if only to die. Whaleships, so my rescuer told me, frequently called at Ocean and Pleasant Islands on their way to the North-West Carolines and Japan, and I decided to remain on the lonely little spot and wait for one. "Six weeks after I landed on Ocean Island the _Golden City_, of New Bedford, called there. I went on board, and told the captain so much of my story as I thought necessary, and asked him to land me in Arrecifos. He did so, and gave me a stock of food and clothing materials. God bless that man with long, narrow leather-hued American face, and his kindly grey eyes; I shall never forget him. "He landed me here five months ago. The people knew me at once, and made me very welcome. I told them that I did not know if my husband were alive or dead, but had come here to wait. The affection they cherished for old Gurden was very strongly shown when I told them of his death, and I am now living with the relatives of the woman he married here so many years ago. "When your boat was seen sailing down the lagoon this afternoon the natives were very frightened, fearing that another 'man-stealing ship,' as they call the Hawaiian labour vessels, was making a second raid upon them, for the village on the little island where you are anchored was surprised by the crew of one of these vessels in the night, and every adult person, male and female, seized, handcuffed, and carried on board. It is now deserted. The people, as well as myself, knew that if my husband had returned that he would have sailed his ship right down here to this end of the lagoon where he had anchored previously, instead of lying under the south-east islet. Most of them, therefore, at once took to the bush to hide themselves, and begged me to come with them. But I was determined to come and meet the boat, for I had a hope that I might possibly hear some news of the _Mahina_, and I feared that perhaps the boat would only remain a short time, and return to the ship before I could get to her. I did not even stay to put on my one pair of boots, but set off at a run; these two young women coming with me, poor creatures, although they were dreadfully frightened. When within half a mile of where you landed I stepped upon a hidden _foli_, and gave myself this terrible cut." Barry took her hand between both his and pressed it sympathetically. "Poor lady. You have indeed suffered. Now listen to me, and I will tell you what I propose doing to outwit these infernal ruffians and restore to you your husband's ship. The heartless scoundrels, pirates, and murderers! They shall themselves work for your good. Joe, and you, Velo, come closer. These men, Mrs. Tracey, will stand to us, and so I think will every other man on board." "Indeed we will, sir," said Joe. "Now this is my plan," said Barry. * * * * * * It did not take him long to explain it, and then one by one each man of his boat's crew took his hand and that of Mrs. Tracey, and swore to be true to them both. _ |
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