“What are you givin’ us, Doc.?”

“Stand still! don’t move!” Walter Merritt Emory said peremptorily to Daughtry.  “I want you to take notice,” he added to the others, as he gently touched the live-end of his fresh cigar to the area of dark skin above and between the steward’s eyes.  “Don’t move,” he commanded Daughtry.  “Wait a moment.  I am not ready yet.”

And while Daughtry waited, perplexed, confused, wondering why Doctor Emory did not proceed, the coal of fire burned his skin and flesh, till the smoke of it was apparent to all, as was the smell of it.  With a sharp laugh of triumph, Doctor Emory stepped back.

“Well, go ahead with what you was goin’ to do,” Daughtry grumbled, the rush of events too swift and too hidden for him to comprehend.  “An’ when you’re done with that, I just want you to explain what you said about leprosy an’ that nigger-boy there.  He’s my boy, an’ you can’t pull anything like that off on him . . . or me.”

“Gentlemen, you have seen,” Doctor Emory said.  “Two undoubted cases of it, master and man, the man more advanced, with the combination of both forms, the master with only the anaesthetic form—­he has a touch of it, too, on his little finger.  Take them away.  I strongly advise, Doctor Masters, a thorough fumigation of the ambulance afterward.”

“Look here . . . " Dag Daughtry began belligerently.

Doctor Emory glanced warningly to Doctor Masters, and Doctor Masters glanced authoritatively at the sergeant who glanced commandingly at his two policemen.  But they did not spring upon Daughtry.  Instead, they backed farther away, drew their clubs, and glared intimidatingly at him.  More convincing than anything else to Daughtry was the conduct of the policemen.  They were manifestly afraid of contact with him.  As he started forward, they poked the ends of their extended clubs towards his ribs to ward him off.

“Don’t you come any closer,” one warned him, flourishing his club with the advertisement of braining him.  “You stay right where you are until you get your orders.”

“Put on your shirt and stand over there alongside your master,” Doctor Emory commanded Kwaque, having suddenly elevated the chair and spilled him out on his feet on the floor.

“But what under the sun . . . " Daughtry began, but was ignored by his quondam friend, who was saying to Doctor Masters: 

“The pest-house has been vacant since that Japanese died.  I know the gang of cowards in your department so I’d advise you to give the dope to these here so that they can disinfect the premises when they go in.”

“For the love of Mike,” Daughtry pleaded, all of stunned belligerence gone from him in his state of stunned conviction that the dread disease possessed him.  He touched his finger to his sensationless forehead, then smelled it and recognized the burnt flesh he had not felt burning.  “For the love of Mike, don’t be in such a rush.  If I’ve got it, I’ve got it.  But that ain’t no reason we can’t deal with each other like white men.  Give me two hours an’ I’ll get outa the city.  An’ in twenty-four I’ll be outa the country.  I’ll take ship—­”