r by a growth of morbid membrane, and what was
not yet covered shone red and irritated. His hair was mangy, standing
out in isolated patches of wispy grey. His skin was scarred and wrinkled
and mottled, and in colour was a purplish blue surfaced with a grey
coating that might have been painted there had it not indubitably grown
there and been part and parcel of him.

A blighted leper--was Daughtry's thought as his quick eyes leapt from
hands to feet in quest of missing toe- and finger-joints. But in those
items the ancient was intact, although one leg ceased midway between knee
and thigh.

"My word! What place stop 'm that fella leg?" quoth Daughtry, pointing
to the space which the member would have occupied had it not been absent.

"Big fella shark-fish, that fella leg stop 'm along him," the ancient
grinned, exposing a horrible aperture of toothlessness for a mouth.

"Me old fella boy too much," the one-legged Methuselah quavered. "Long
time too much no smoke 'm tobacco. Suppose 'm you big fella white
marster give 'm me one fella stick, close up me washee-washee you that
fella steamer."

"Suppose 'm me no give?" the steward impatiently temporized.

For reply, the old man half-turned, and, on his crutch, swinging his
stump of leg in the air, began sidling hippity-hop into the grass hut.

"All right," Daughtry cried hastily. "Me give 'm you smoke 'm quick
fella."

He dipped into a side coat-pocket for the mintage of the Solomons and
stripped off a stick from the handful of pressed sticks. The old man was
transfigured as he reached avidly for the stick and received it. He
uttered little crooning noises, alternating with sharp cries akin to
pain, half-ecstatic, half-petulant, as he drew a black clay pipe from a
hole in his ear-lobe, and into the bowl of it, with trembling fingers,
untwisted and crumbled the cheap leaf of spoiled Virginia crop.

Pressing down the contents of the full bowl with his thumb, he suddenly
plumped upon the ground, the crutch beside him, the one limb under him so
that he had the seeming of a legless torso. From a small bag of twisted
coconut hanging from his neck upon his withered and sunken chest, he drew
out flint and steel and tinder, and, even while the impatient steward was
proffering him a box of matches, struck a spark, caught it in the tinder,
blew it into strength and quantity, and lighted his pipe from it.

With the first full puff of the smoke he gave over his moans