ain of the man-of-war's boat and two bluejackets entered
the sail-room, and Rawlings and the Greek were brought out, handcuffed,
and helped down over the side into the boat. Neither of them looked at
Barry, nor he at them, until their backs were turned to him. Not once
during the voyage had he spoken to them, and now, though he did not
know it, he saw them for the last time.

"Now, Mr. Barry----" and the naval officer turned to him with a smile.

The captain of the _Mahina_ tapped at Mrs. Tracey's cabin door.

"Captain Martyn, of the _Reynard_, would like to be introduced to you,
Mrs. Tracey," he said.

The door opened at once and Alice Tracey met the officer with
outstretched hand. "And I am very pleased indeed," she said with a
bright smile as Martyn bent low over her hand. He had no idea that he
would see so beautiful a woman in the cabin of a South Sea trading
vessel.

"Yours is indeed a strange, sad story, Mrs. Tracey," he said as he sat
down beside her, "and the master of this vessel" (Barry had discreetly
gone on deck) "seems to have acted in an exceedingly brave manner
throughout. He looks--and of course he is--a very plucky fellow and a
perfect type of the British seaman."

"He is indeed! He is like my poor husband"--her voice trembled--"who
was also a perfect type of an English sailor."

The commander of the _Reynard_ and Mrs. Tracey remained chatting
together for nearly a quarter of an hour; he, delighted to meet an
educated and refined white woman under such strange circumstances, and
she listening with a secret pleasure to his praises of "Mr."
Barry--for, like all naval officers, Commander Martyn could not address
or speak of a merchant skipper as "captain."

Then "Mr." Barry came down and he and the naval officer and Mrs. Tracey
drank a glass of champagne together, and exchanged various promises to
meet again when the _Reynard_ came to Sydney at the end of her cruise.

"This meeting with you, Mrs. Tracey, is the only pleasurable incident
of a detestable cruise, I can assure you," said Martyn as he bade her
farewell; "the _Reynard_ is a beast of a ship and we are employed on
beastly work; in fact I'm nothing better than a London sergeant of
police detailed off for duty to watch 'the criminal classes' in
Southwark or the Borough Road. Wish to goodness, however, that I was
there now instead of stewing in these wretched islands--chasing slavers
we can never catch and assailed by the Australian