ing, all the freedom of a schooner in the great South Seas, and
felt his heart sink in realisation that remained for him only the pest-
house, the sand-dunes, and the sad eucalyptus trees.

The Ancient Mariner sat stiffly upright.

"Sir, you have hurt me. You have hurt me to the heart."

"No offence, sir, no offence," Daughtry stammered in apology, although he
wondered in what way he could have hurt the old gentleman's feelings.

"You are my friend, sir," the other went on, gravely censorious. "I am
your friend, sir. And you give me to understand that you think I have
come out here to this hell-hole to say good-bye. I came out here to get
you, sir, and your nigger, sir. The schooner is waiting for you. All is
arranged. You are signed on the articles before the shipping
commissioner. Both of you. Signed on yesterday by proxies I arranged
for myself. One was a Barbadoes nigger. I got him and the white man out
of a sailors' boarding-house on Commercial Street and paid them five
dollars each to appear before the Commissioner and sign on."

"But, my God, Mr. Greenleaf, you don't seem to grasp it that he and I are
lepers."

Almost with a galvanic spring, the Ancient Mariner was out of the chair
and on his feet, the anger of age and of a generous soul in his face as
he cried:

"My God, sir, what you don't seem to grasp is that you are my friend, and
that I am your friend."

Abruptly, still under the pressure of his wrath, he thrust out his hand.

"Steward, Daughtry. Mr. Daughtry, friend, sir, or whatever I may name
you, this is no fairy-story of the open boat, the cross-bearings
unnamable, and the treasure a fathom under the sand. This is real. I
have a heart. That, sir"--here he waved his extended hand under
Daughtry's nose--"is my hand. There is only one thing you may do, must
do, right now. You must take that hand in your hand, and shake it, with
your heart in your hand as mine is in my hand."

"But . . . but. . . " Daughtry faltered.

"If you don't, then I shall not depart from this place. I shall remain
here, die here. I know you are a leper. You can't tell me anything
about that. There's my hand. Are you going to take it? My heart is
there in the palm of it, in the pulse in every finger-end of it. If you
don't take it, I warn you I'll sit right down here in this chair and die.
I want you to understand I am a man, sir, a gentleman. I am a friend, a
comrade. I am no poltroon of the fle