elf," I said. "You
couldn't in an island made to order, with electric buttons and trapdoors
let into the granite. But me and you and Tom might, and if you've the
mind to, we will."

He was kind of over his panic by this time, and I guess he saw the sense
of it all.

"Bill," he said, "it's a weight off my mind to have you know the truth.
Fetch along Tom, and I'll do anything you two say, for I've nearly split
my old head trying to find a way out; but what could I do single
handed?"

"Tom's a corker," I said. "He's got an imagination like a box factory.
If I was in a tight place like yours, I'd sail the world around just to
find Tom Riley."

"Let's call him in, then," he says, "for, as things are now, if they
should strike this island, I'm a dead man!" And with that he took up his
flute again and fluted very thoughtful and low, while I made a line for
Tom's station.

Tom was as happy as a lawyer with his first case. He hurried along, with
a bottle of beer in each pocket and a memorandum book to write in, and
just gloried in the whole business. It was like one of his own yarns
come true, and he had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
He took hold right off; and it was pleasant to watch Old Dibs setting
back on a grave, with the comfortable air of a man that's being taken
charge of by experts. I won't go into all that we arranged and didn't
do, it being enough to say what we _did_, Tom beginning a bit wild about
putting contact mines in the channel and importing a submarine boat from
Sydney, and coming down gradual to what the poet calls human nature's
daily food. This was, to rig a platform in a giant _fao_ tree that stood
in the middle of the island, about three miles down the coast, and fix
it up with food and things, for Old Dibs to camp in.

The idea was to hide him till dark in the attic of my house, and then to
put him up the tree for as long as the ship stayed by us. Tom said I
could easily stand off my house being searched for a few hours, even if
it was a man-of-war that come, telling them they might do it to-morrow.
Then Tom said we'd have to take Iosefo, the native pastor, into it part
way, making him preach from the pulpit and order the people to deny all
knowledge of Old Dibs if they were asked questions about him by
strangers. Tom said the important thing was to gain the first day's
start; for though it wasn't in reason to expect the whole island, man,
woman, and child, to keep the secre