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But he dared not let Momulla slay the Swede, upon whom they depended to guide
them to their destination. They decided, however, that it would do no harm to
attempt to frighten Gust into acceding to their demands, and with this purpose in
mind the Maori sought out the self-constituted commander of the party.
When he broached the subject of immediate departure Gust again raised his
former objection--that the warship might very probably be patrolling the sea
directly in their southern path, waiting for them to make the attempt to reach
other waters.
Momulla scoffed at the fears of his fellow, pointing out that as no one aboard any
warship knew of their mutiny there could be no reason why they should be
suspected.
"Ah!" exclaimed Gust, "there is where you are wrong. There is where you are
lucky that you have an educated man like me to tell you what to do. You are an
ignorant savage, Momulla, and so you know nothing of wireless."
The Maori leaped to his feet and laid his hand upon the hilt of his knife.
"I am no savage," he shouted.
"I was only joking," the Swede hastened to explain. "We are old friends, Momulla;
we cannot afford to quarrel, at least not while old Kai Shang is plotting to steal all
the pearls from us. If he could find a man to navigate the Cowrie he would leave
us in a minute. All his talk about getting away from here is just because he has
some scheme in his head to get rid of us."
"
But the wireless," asked Momulla. "What has the wireless to do with our
remaining here?"
"Oh yes," replied Gust, scratching his head. He was wondering if the Maori were
really so ignorant as to believe the preposterous lie he was about to unload upon
him. "Oh yes! You see every warship is equipped with what they call a wireless
apparatus. It lets them talk to other ships hundreds of miles away, and it lets
them listen to all that is said on these other ships. Now, you see, when you
fellows were shooting up the Cowrie you did a whole lot of loud talking, and there
isn't any doubt but that that warship was a-lyin' off south of us listenin' to it all.
Of course they might not have learned the name of the ship, but they heard
enough to know that the crew of some ship was mutinying and killin' her officers.
So you see they'll be waiting to search every ship they sight for a long time to
come, and they may not be far away now."
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