just as much as if the steward possessed a chattel bill of sale of him,
his owner did not know that his anaesthetic twist of ravaged nerves
tokened the dread disease.

The manner of the ownership was simple. At King William Island, in the
Admiralties, Kwaque had made, in the parlance of the South Pacific, a
pier-head jump. So to speak, leprosy and all, he had jumped into Dag
Daughtry's arms. Strolling along the native runways in the fringe of
jungle just beyond the beach, as was his custom, to see whatever he might
pick up, the steward had picked up Kwaque. And he had picked him up in
extremity.

Pursued by two very active young men armed with fire-hardened spears,
tottering along with incredible swiftness on his two spindle legs, Kwaque
had fallen exhausted at Daughtry's feet and looked up at him with the
beseeching eyes of a deer fleeing from the hounds. Daughtry had inquired
into the matter, and the inquiry was violent; for he had a wholesome fear
of germs and bacilli, and when the two active young men tried to run him
through with their filth-corroded spears, he caught the spear of one
young man under his arm and put the other young man to sleep with a left
hook to the jaw. A moment later the young man whose spear he held had
joined the other in slumber.

The elderly steward was not satisfied with the mere spears. While the
rescued Kwaque continued to moan and slubber thankfulness at his feet, he
proceeded to strip them that were naked. Nothing they wore in the way of
clothing, but from around each of their necks he removed a necklace of
porpoise teeth that was worth a gold sovereign in mere exchange value.
From the kinky locks of one of the naked young men he drew a hand-carved,
fine-toothed comb, the lofty back of which was inlaid with