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fellows would, so's you're the only one that knows anything
of navigation you're the fellow I'll tie to."
Momulla the Maori pricked up his ears. He had a smattering
of every tongue that is spoken upon the seas, and more
than a few times had he sailed on English ships, so that he
understood fairly well all that had passed between Schneider
and Schmidt since he had stumbled upon them.
He rose to his feet and stepped into the clearing. Schneider and
his companion started as nervously as though a ghost had risen
before them. Schneider reached for his revolver. Momulla raised
his right hand, palm forward, as a sign of his pacific intentions.
"I am a friend," he said. "I heard you; but do not fear
that I will reveal what you have said. I can help you, and you
can help me." He was addressing Schneider. "You can navigate
a ship, but you have no ship. We have a ship, but no one to
navigate it. If you will come with us and ask no questions
we will let you take the ship where you will after you
have landed us at a certain port, the name of which 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
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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
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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.
As the two crossed toward Gust's tent the Maori felt the
edge of his long knife with one grimy, calloused thumb.
The Swede would have felt far from comfortable could he have
seen this significant action, or read what was passing amid
the convolutions of the brown man's cruel brain.
Now it happened that Gust was at that moment in the tent
occupied by the cook, and this tent stood but a few feet
from his own. So that he heard the approach of Kai Shang
and Momulla, though he did not, of course, dream that it
had any special significance for him.
Chance had it, though, that he glanced out of the doorway
of the cook's tent at the very moment that Kai Shang and
Momulla approached the entrance to his, and he thought that
he noted a stealthiness in their movements that comported
poorly with amicable or friendly intentions, and then, just as
they two slunk within the interior, Gust caught a glimpse of
the long knife which Momulla the Maori was then carrying
behind his back.
The Swede's eyes opened wide, and a funny little sensation
assailed the roots of his hairs. Also he turned almost white
beneath his tan. Quite precipitately he left the cook's tent.
He was not one who required a detailed exposition of intentions
that were quite all too obvious.
As surely as though he had heard them plotting, he knew
that Kai Shang and Momulla had come to take his life.
The knowledge that he alone could navigate the Cowrie had,
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up to now, been sufficient assurance of his safety; but quite
evidently something had occurred of which he had no knowledge
that would make it quite worth the while of his co-conspirators
to eliminate him.
Without a pause Gust darted across the beach and into the jungle.
He was afraid of the jungle; uncanny noises that were
indeed frightful came forth from its recesses--the tangled
mazes of the mysterious country back of the beach.
But if Gust was afraid of the jungle he was far more afraid
of Kai Shang and Momulla. The dangers of the jungle were
more or less problematical, while the danger that menaced
him at the hands of his companions was a perfectly well-
known quantity, which might be expressed in terms of a few
inches of cold steel, or the coil of a light rope. He had seen
Kai Shang garrotte a man at Pai-sha in a dark alleyway back
of Loo Kotai's place. He feared the rope, therefore, more
than he did the knife of the Maori; but he feared them both
too much to remain within reach of either. Therefore he chose
the pitiless jungle.
Chapter 21
The Law of the Jungle
In Tarzan's camp, by dint of threats and promised rewards,
the ape-man had finally succeeded in getting the hull of a
large skiff almost completed. Much of the work he and
Mugambi had done with their own hands in addition to
furnishing the camp with meat.
Schneider, the mate, had been doing considerable grumbling,
and had at last openly deserted the work and gone off
into the jungle with Schmidt to hunt. He said that he wanted
a rest, and Tarzan, rather than add to the unpleasantness
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which already made camp life almost unendurable, had permitted
the two men to depart without a remonstrance.
Upon the following day, however, Schneider affected a feeling
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