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 none of their own men had preceded them, and as all were convinced that the island was uninhabited, they were inclined to flee in terror on the hypothesis that the place was haunted—possibly by the ghosts of the murdered officers and men of the Cowrie.
But Momulla was even more curious than he was superstitious, and so he quelled his natural desire to flee from the supernatural. Motioning his companions to follow his example, he dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward stealthily and with quakings of heart through the jungle in the direction from which came the voices of the unseen speakers.
Presently, at the edge of a little clearing, he halted, and there he breathed a deep sigh of relief, for plainly before him he saw two flesh-and-blood men sitting upon a fallen log and talking earnestly together.
One was Schneider, mate of the Kincaid, and the other was a seaman named Schmidt.
“I think we can do it, Schmidt,” Schneider was saying. “A good canoe wouldn’t be hard to build, and three of us could paddle it to the mainland in a day if the wind was right and the sea reasonably calm. There ain’t no use waiting for the men to build a big enough boat to take the whole party, for they’re sore now and sick of working like slaves all day long. It ain’t none of our business anyway to save the Englishman. Let him look out for himself, says I.” He paused for a moment, and then eyeing the other to note the effect of his next words, he continued, “But we might take the woman. It would be a shame to leave a nice-lookin’ piece like she is in such a Gott-forsaken hole as this here island.”
Schmidt looked up and grinned.
“So that’s how she’s blowin’, is it?” he asked. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Wot’s in it for me if I help you?”
“She ought to pay us well to get her back to civilization,” explained Schneider, “an’ I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just whack up with the two men that helps me. I’ll take half an’ they can divide the other half—you an’ whoever the other bloke is. I’m sick of this place, an’ the sooner I get out of it the better I’ll like it. What do you say?”
“Suits me,” replied Schmidt. “I wouldn’t know how to reach the mainland myself, an’ know that none o’ the other fellows would, so’s you’re the only one that knows anything of navigation you’re the fellow I’ll tie to.”