that Taiohae, in the Marquesas, was their objective, that Daughtry gaily
proceeded to shave. But one trouble was on his mind. He was not quite
sure, in such an out-of-the-way place as Taiohae, that good beer could be
procured.

As he prepared to make the first stroke of the razor, most of his face
white with lather, he noticed a dark patch of skin on his forehead just
between the eyebrows and above. When he had finished shaving he touched
the dark patch, wondering how he had been sunburned in such a spot. But
he did not know he had touched it in so far as there was any response of
sensation. The dark place was numb.

"Curious," he thought, wiped his face, and forgot all about it.

No more than he knew what horror that dark spot represented, did he know
that Ah Moy's slant eyes had long since noticed it and were continuing to
notice it, day by day, with secret growing terror.

Close-hauled on the south-east trades, the _Mary Turner_ began her long
slant toward the Marquesas. For'ard, all were happy. Being only seamen,
on seamen's wages, they hailed with delight the news that they were bound
in for a tropic isle to fill their water-barrels. Aft, the three
partners were in bad temper, and Nishikanta openly sneered at Captain
Doane and doubted his ability to find the Marquesas. In the steerage
everybody was happy--Dag Daughtry because his wages were running on and a
further supply of beer was certain; Kwaque because he was happy whenever
his master was happy; and Ah Moy because he would soon have opportunity
to desert away from the schooner and the two lepers with whom he was
domiciled.

Michael shared in the general happiness of the steerage, and joined
eagerly with Steward in learning by heart a fifth song. This was "Lead,
kindly Light." In his singing, which was no more than trained howling
after all, Michael sought for something he knew not what. In truth, it
was the _lost pack_, the pack of the primeval world before the dog ever
came in to the fires of men, and, for that matter, before men built fires
and before men were men.

He had been born only the other day and had lived but two years in the
world, so that, of himself, he had no knowledge of the lost pack. For
many thousands of generations he had been away from it; yet, deep down in
the crypts of being, tied about and wrapped up in every muscle and nerve
of him, was the indelible record of the days in the wild when dim
ancestors had run with the