was dead, and that somebody would have to die for it. It was all right,
he said, in reply to a query from the steward. It was the custom.
Whenever a loved pig died its owners were in custom bound to go out and
kill somebody, anybody. Of course, it was better if they killed the one
whose magic had made the pig sick. But, failing that one, any one would
do. Hence Kwaque was selected for the blood-atonement.

Dag Daughtry drank a seventh quart as he listened, so carried away was he
by the sombre sense of romance of this dark jungle event wherein men
killed even strangers because a pig was dead.

Scouts out on the runways, Kwaque continued, brought word of the coming
of the two bereaved pig-owners, and the village had fled into the jungle
and climbed trees--all except Kwaque, who was unable to climb trees.

"My word," Kwaque concluded, "me no make 'm that fella pig sick."

"My word," quoth Dag Daughtry, "you devil-devil along that fella pig too
much. You look 'm like hell. You make 'm any fella thing sick look
along you. You make 'm me sick too much."

It became quite a custom for the steward, as he finished his sixth bottle
before turning in, to call upon Kwaque for his story. It carried him
back to his boyhood when he had been excited by tales of wild cannibals
in far lands and dreamed some day to see them for himself. And here he
was, he would chuckle to himself, with a real true cannibal for a slave.

A slave Kwaque was, as much as if Daughtry had bought him on the auction-
block. Whenever the steward transferred from ship to ship of the Burns
Philp fleet, he always stipulated that Kwaque should accompany him and be