“Avao told me, but every one in Ukula knows it,” she answered. “There’s no difficulty learning secrets. No secrets are kept. The difficulty is to recognize a secret from a trick.”
“What do you mean?” Phil inquired, mystified.
Alice laughed lightly thrumming the cords of the “ukalele” Avao had relinquished.
“When you have a secret which you know will be found out before you can act,” she explained, “why, you deliberately spread a lot of rumors which will confuse your enemies. I have heard that the arms were to be landed at Vaileli, and that Klinger had said he was going there. That Kataafa was going to Saluafata and also Melie. That the arms were already in Kulinuu. That the arms were on the Herzovinian war-ship and would be given to Kataafa at Saluafata to-morrow, and that the arms were in the boxes on the porch of the Kapuan firm’s store.”
“Well,” Phil exclaimed, “that is rather confusing. And you decided that the arms would be landed in Saluafata?”
Alice nodded. “I was all this afternoon at the ‘lookout’ on Mission Hill,” she said. “I saw the ‘Talofa’ far out on the horizon, her hull invisible, only the top of her masts in sight. With this breeze she could have gone out of sight. She’s waiting for darkness.”
“And Kataafa is leaving Kulinuu to-night?” Phil asked.
“I got that from Mary Hamilton,” she answered. “Klinger’s wife is from Saluafata. Her father is the chief of that village. She came to Ukula this morning from the Vaileli plantation where Klinger ordinarily lives. She left in a canoe for Saluafata.”
Phil gazed in wonder at the slim girl beside him. “You’re a marvel,” he exclaimed admiringly.
Alice smiled. “I love to work things out,” she acknowledged. “You men seem so incapable, while the motives of the natives are really so easy to follow.”