“Kwaque, you fella this time now savvee name stop along this fella dog.  His name belong ’m him, Killeny Boy.  You make ’m name stop ’m inside head belong you.  All the time you speak ’m this fella dog, you speak ’m Killeny Boy.  Savvee?  Suppose ’m you no savvee, I knock ’m block off belong you.  Killeny Boy, savvee!  Killeny Boy.  Killeny Boy.”

As Kwaque removed his shoes and helped him undress, Daughtry regarded Michael with sleepy eyes.

“I’ve got you, laddy,” he announced, as he stood up and swayed toward bed.  “I’ve got your name, an’ here’s your number—­I got that, too:  high-strung but reasonable.  It fits you like the paper on the wall.

“High-strung but reasonable, that’s what you are, Killeny Boy, high-strung but reasonable,” he continued to mumble as Kwaque helped to roll him into his bunk.

Kwaque returned to his polishing.  His lips stammered and halted in the making of noiseless whispers, as, with corrugated brows of puzzlement, he addressed the steward: 

“Marster, what name stop ’m along that fella dog?”

“Killeny Boy, you kinky-head man-eater, Killeny Boy, Killeny Boy,” Dag Daughtry murmured drowsily.  “Kwaque, you black blood-drinker, run n’ fetch ’m one fella bottle stop ’m along icey-chestis.”

“No stop ’m, marster,” the black quavered, with eyes alert for something to be thrown at him.  “Six fella bottle he finish altogether.”

The steward’s sole reply was a snore.

The black, with the twisted hand of leprosy and with a barely perceptible infiltration of the same disease thickening the skin of the forehead between the eyes, bent over his polishing, and ever his lips moved, repeating over and over, “Killeny Boy.”

CHAPTER V

For a number of days Michael saw only Steward and Kwaque.  This was because he was confined to the steward’s stateroom.  Nobody else knew that he was on board, and Dag Daughtry, thoroughly aware that he had stolen a white man’s dog, hoped to keep his presence secret and smuggle him ashore when the Makambo docked in Sydney.

Quickly the steward learned Michael’s pre-eminent teachableness.  In the course of his careful feeding of him, he gave him an occasional chicken bone.  Two lessons, which would scarcely be called lessons, since both of them occurred within five minutes and each was not over half a minute in duration, sufficed to teach Michael that only on the floor of the room in the corner nearest the door could he chew chicken bones.  Thereafter, without prompting, as a matter of course when handed a bone, he carried it to the corner.

And why not?  He had the wit to grasp what Steward desired of him; he had the heart that made it a happiness for him to serve.  Steward was a god who was kind, who loved him with voice and lip, who loved him with touch of hand, rub of nose, or enfolding arm.  As all service flourishes in the soil of love, so with Michael.  Had Steward commanded him to forego the chicken bone after it was in the corner, he would have served him by foregoing.  Which is the way of the dog, the only animal that will cheerfully and gladly, with leaping body of joy, leave its food uneaten in order to accompany or to serve its human master.