“You’re all touched up under the roof,” Daughtry grinned.  “Which ain’t got nothing to do with me as long as you furnish the beer, pay me due an’ proper what’s comin’ to me the first of each an’ every month, an’ pay me off final in San Francisco.  As long as you keep up your end, I’ll sail with you to the Pit ‘n’ back an’ watch you sweatin’ the casks ‘n’ chests out of the sand.  What I want is to sail with you if you want me to sail with you enough to satisfy me.”

Simon Nishikanta glanced about.  Grimshaw and Captain Doane nodded.

“At three o’clock to-morrow afternoon, at the shipping commissioner’s,” the Jew agreed.  “When will you report for duty?”

“When will you sail, sir?” Daughtry countered.

“Bright and early next morning.”

“Then I’ll be on board and on duty some time to-morrow night, sir.”

And as he went up the cabin companion, he could hear the Ancient Mariner maundering:  “Eighteen days in the longboat, eighteen days of scorching hell . . . "

CHAPTER X

Michael left the Makambo as he had come on board, through a port-hole.  Likewise, the affair occurred at night, and it was Kwaque’s hands that received him.  It had been quick work, and daring, in the dark of early evening.  From the boat-deck, with a bowline under Kwaque’s arms and a turn of the rope around a pin, Dag Daughtry had lowered his leprous servitor into the waiting launch.

On his way below, he encountered Captain Duncan, who saw fit to warn him: 

“No shannigan with Killeny Boy, Steward.  He must go back to Tulagi with us.”

“Yes, sir,” the steward agreed.  “An’ I’m keepin’ him tight in my room to make safe.  Want to see him, sir?”

The very frankness of the invitation made the captain suspicious, and the thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Killeny Boy was already hidden ashore somewhere by the dog-stealing steward.

“Yes, indeed I’d like to say how-do-you-do to him,” Captain Duncan answered.

And his was genuine surprise, on entering the steward’s room, to behold Michael just rousing from his curled-up sleep on the floor.  But when he left, his surprise would have been shocking could he have seen through the closed door what immediately began to take place.  Out through the open port-hole, in a steady stream, Daughtry was passing the contents of the room.  Everything went that belonged to him, including the turtle-shell and the photographs and calendars on the wall.  Michael, with the command of silence laid upon him, went last.  Remained only a sea-chest and two suit-cases, themselves too large for the port-hole but bare of contents.

When Daughtry sauntered along the main deck a few minutes later and paused for a gossip with the customs officer and a quartermaster at the head of the gang-plank, Captain Duncan little dreamed that his casual glance was resting on his steward for the last time.  He watched him go down the gang-plank empty-handed, with no dog at his heels, and stroll off along the wharf under the electric lights.