In truth, there was nothing of the master-quality in Kwaque, while Michael was a natural aristocrat.  Michael, out of love, would serve Steward, but Michael lorded it over the kinky-head.  Kwaque possessed overwhelmingly the slave-nature, while in Michael there was little more of the slave-nature than was found in the North American Indians when the vain attempt was made to make them into slaves on the plantations of Cuba.  All of which was no personal vice of Kwaque or virtue of Michael.  Michael’s heredity, rigidly selected for ages by man, was chiefly composed of fierceness and faithfulness.  And fierceness and faithfulness, together, invariably produce pride.  And pride cannot exist without honour, nor can honour without poise.

Michael’s crowning achievement, under Daughtry’s tutelage, in the first days in the stateroom, was to learn to count up to five.  Many hours of work were required, however, in spite of his unusual high endowment of intelligence.  For he had to learn, first, the spoken numerals; second, to see with his eyes and in his brain differentiate between one object, and all other groups of objects up to and including the group of five; and, third, in his mind, to relate an object, or any group of objects, with its numerical name as uttered by Steward.

In the training Dag Daughtry used balls of paper tied about with twine.  He would toss the five balls under the bunk and tell Michael to fetch three, and neither two, nor four, but three would Michael bring forth and deliver into his hand.  When Daughtry threw three under the bunk and demanded four, Michael would deliver the three, search about vainly for the fourth, then dance pleadingly with bobs of tail and half-leaps about Steward, and finally leap into the bed and secure the fourth from under the pillow or among the blankets.

It was the same with other known objects.  Up to five, whether shoes or shirts or pillow-slips, Michael would fetch the number requested.  And between the mathematical mind of Michael, who counted to five, and the mind of the ancient black at Tulagi, who counted sticks of tobacco in units of five, was a distance shorter than that between Michael and Dag Daughtry who could do multiplication and long division.  In the same manner, up the same ladder of mathematical ability, a still greater distance separated Dag Daughtry from Captain Duncan, who by mathematics navigated the Makambo.  Greatest mathematical distance of all was that between Captain Duncan’s mind and the mind of an astronomer who charted the heavens and navigated a thousand million miles away among the stars and who tossed, a mere morsel of his mathematical knowledge, the few shreds of information to Captain Duncan that enabled him to know from day to day the place of the Makambo on the sea.