a. "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."

When he had ceased speaking the Swede strove to assume an air of
composure that his listener might not have his suspicions aroused as to
the truth of the statements that had just been made.

Momulla sat for some time in silence, eyeing Gust. At last he rose.

"You are a great liar," he said. "If you don't get us on our way by
tomorrow you'll never have another chance to lie, for I heard two of
the men saying that they'd like to run a knife into you and that if you
kept them in this hole any longer they'd do it."

"Go and ask Kai Shang if there is not a wireless," replied Gust. "He
will tell you that there is such a thing and that vessels can talk to
one another across hundreds of miles of water. Then say to the two
men who wish to kill me that if they do so they will never live to
spend their share of the swag, for only I can get you safely to any
port."

So Momulla went to Kai Shang and asked him if there was such an
apparatus as a wireless by means of which ships could talk with each
other at great distances, and Kai Shang told him that there was.

Momulla was puzzled; but still he wished to leave the island, and was
willing to take his chances on the open sea rather than to remain
longer in the monotony of the camp.

"If we only had someone else who could navigate a ship!" wailed Kai
Shang.

That afternoon Momulla went hunting with two other Maoris. They
hunted toward the south, and had not gone far from camp when they were
surprised by the sound of voices ahead of them in the jungle.

They knew that