“With a quartermaster at the head of the gangway!” Captain Duncan snorted.  “As if I didn’t know your tricks, Steward.  There’s nothing marvellous about it.  Just a plain case of steal.  Followed you on board?  That dog never came over the side.  He came through a port-hole, and he never came through by himself.  That nigger of yours, I’ll wager, had a hand in the helping.  But let’s have done with beating about the bush.  Give me the dog, and I’ll say no more about the cat.”

“Seein’ you believe what you believe, then you’d be for compoundin’ the felony,” Daughtry retorted, the habitual obstinate tightening of his brows showing which way his will set.  “Me, sir, I’m only a ship’s steward, an’ it wouldn’t mean nothin’ at all bein’ arrested for dog-stealin’; but you, sir, a captain of a fine steamer, how’d it sound for you, sir?  No, sir; it’d be much wiser for me to keep the dog that followed me aboard.”

“I’ll give ten pounds in the bargain,” the captain proffered.

“No, it wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all, sir, an’ you a captain,” the steward continued to reiterate, rolling his head sombrely.  “Besides, I know where’s a peach of an Angora in Sydney.  The owner is gone to the country an’ has no further use of it, an’ it’d be a kindness to the cat, air to give it a good regular home like the Makambo.”

CHAPTER VIIII

Another trick Dag Daughtry succeeded in teaching Michael so enhanced him in Captain Duncan’s eyes as to impel him to offer fifty pounds, “and never mind the cat.”  At first, Daughtry practised the trick in private with the chief engineer and the Shortlands planter.  Not until thoroughly satisfied did he make a public performance of it.

“Now just suppose you’re policemen, or detectives,” Daughtry told the first and third officers, “an’ suppose I’m guilty of some horrible crime.  An’ suppose Killeny is the only clue, an’ you’ve got Killeny.  When he recognizes his master—­me, of course—­you’ve got your man.  You go down the deck with him, leadin’ by the rope.  Then you come back this way with him, makin’ believe this is the street, an’ when he recognizes me you arrest me.  But if he don’t realize me, you can’t arrest me.  See?”

The two officers led Michael away, and after several minutes returned along the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seeking Steward.

“What’ll you take for the dog?” Daughtry demanded, as they drew near—­this the cue he had trained Michael to know.

And Michael, straining at the rope, went by, without so much as a wag of tail to Steward or a glance of eye.  The officers stopped before Daughtry and drew Michael back into the group.

“He’s a lost dog,” said the first officer.

“We’re trying to find his owner,” supplemented the third.

“Some dog that—­what’ll you take for ’m?” Daughtry asked, studying Michael with critical eyes of interest.  “What kind of a temper’s he got?”