h its numerical name as uttered by Steward.

In the training Dag Daughtry used balls of paper tied about with twine.
He would toss the five balls under the bunk and tell Michael to fetch
three, and neither two, nor four, but three would Michael bring forth and
deliver into his hand. When Daughtry threw three under the bunk and
demanded four, Michael would deliver the three, search about vainly for
the fourth, then dance pleadingly with bobs of tail and half-leaps about
Steward, and finally leap into the bed and secure the fourth from under
the pillow or among the blankets.

It was the same with other known objects. Up to five, whether shoes or
shirts or pillow-slips, Michael would fetch the number requested. And
between the mathematical mind of Michael, who counted to five, and the
mind of the ancient black at Tulagi, who counted sticks of tobacco in
units of five, was a distance shorter than that between Michael and Dag
Daughtry who could do multiplication and long division. In the same
manner, up the same ladder of mathematical ability, a still greater
distance separated Dag Daughtry from Captain Duncan, who by mathematics
navigated the _Makambo_. Greatest mathematical distance of all was that
between Captain Duncan's mind and the mind of an astronomer who charted
the heavens and navigated a thousand million miles away among the stars
and who tossed, a mere morsel of his mathematical knowledge, the few
shreds of information to Captain Duncan that enabled him to know from day
to day the place of the _Makambo_ on the sea.

In one thing only could Kwaque rule Michael. Kwaque possessed a jews'
harp, and, whenever the world of the _Makambo_ and the servitude to the
steward grew wearisome, he could transport himself to King William Island
by thrusting the primitive instrument between his jaws and fanning weird
rhythms from it with his hand, and when he thus crossed space and time,
Michael sang--or howled, rather, though his howl possessed the same soft
mellowness as Jerry's. Michael did not want to howl, but the chemistry
of his being was such that he reacted to music as compulsively as
elements react on one another in the laboratory.

While he lay perdu in Steward's stateroom, his voice was the one thing
that was not to be heard, so Kwaque was forced to seek the solace of his
jews' harp in the sweltering heat of the gratings over the fire-room. But
this did not continue long, for, either according to blind chance