  We investigate properties of $r$-mode instability in slowly rotating
relativistic polytropes. Inside the star slow rotation and low frequency
formalism that was mainly developed by Kojima is employed to study axial
oscillations restored by Coriolis force. At the stellar surface, in order to
take account of gravitational radiation reaction effect, we use a near-zone
boundary condition instead of the usually imposed boundary condition for
asymptotically flat spacetime. Due to the boundary condition, complex
frequencies whose imaginary part represents secular instability are obtained
for discrete $r$-mode oscillations in some polytropic models. It is found that
such discrete $r$-mode solutions can be obtained only for some restricted
polytropic models. Basic properties of the solutions are similar to those
obtained by imposing the boundary condition for asymptotically flat spacetime.
Our results suggest that existence of a continuous part of spectrum cannot be
avoided even when its frequency becomes complex due to the emission of
gravitational radiation.
