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we will give you later. You can take the woman of whom you speak, and we will
ask no questions either. Is it a bargain?"
Schneider desired more information, and got as much as Momulla thought best
to give him. Then the Maori suggested that they speak with Kai Shang. The two
members of the Kincaid's company followed Momulla and his fellows to a point in
the jungle close by the camp of the mutineers. Here Momulla hid them while he
went in search of Kai Shang, first admonishing his Maori companions to stand
guard over the two sailors lest they change their minds and attempt to escape.
Schneider and Schmidt were virtually prisoners, though they did not know it.
Presently Momulla returned with Kai Shang, to whom he had briefly narrated the
details of the stroke of good fortune that had come to them. The Chinaman spoke
at length with Schneider, until, notwithstanding his natural suspicion of the
sincerity of all men, he became quite convinced that Schneider was quite as
much a rogue as himself and that the fellow was anxious to leave the island.
These two premises accepted there could be little doubt that Schneider would
prove trustworthy in so far as accepting the command of the Cowrie was
concerned; after that Kai Shang knew that he could find means to coerce the man
into submission to his further wishes.
When Schneider and Schmidt left them and set out in the direction of their own
camp, it was with feelings of far greater relief than they had experienced in many
a day. Now at last they saw a feasible plan for leaving the island upon a
seaworthy craft. There would be no more hard labour at ship-building, and no
risking their lives upon a crudely built makeshift that would be quite as likely to
go to the bottom as it would to reach the mainland.
Also, they were to have assistance in capturing the woman, or rather women, for
when Momulla had learned that there was a black woman in the other camp he
had insisted that she be brought along as well as the white woman.
As Kai Shang and Momulla entered their camp, it was with a realization that they
no longer needed Gust. They marched straight to the tent in which they might
expect to find him at that hour of the day, for though it would have been more
comfortable for the entire party to remain aboard the ship, they had mutually
decided that it would be safer for all concerned were they to pitch their camp
ashore.
Each knew that in the heart of the others was sufficient treachery to make it
unsafe for any member of the party to go ashore leaving the others in possession
of the Cowrie, so not more than two or three men at a time were ever permitted
aboard the vessel unless all the balance of the company was there too.
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