inally grew sick, slinking around the deck in a dispirited fashion,
refusing any attention, and unwilling to remain a minute in one place.
We felt rather sore at the skipper, who seemed ashamed now and anxious
to make friends with the dog, for the little bite in his thumb had
healed up. This went on for a few days, and then we woke up to what
really ailed that dog. He was racing around decks one morning with his
tongue hanging out, froth dropping from his mouth, and agonized yelps
and whines coming from him.

"'My God!' cried the skipper, 'Now I know. He was bitten in 'Frisco. He
is mad, and he has bitten me. Keep away from him everybody. Don't let
him get near you.'

"I'll always count that in the skipper's favor. Bitten and doomed
himself, he thought of others.

"We dodged the little brute until he had dropped in sheer exhaustion
and gone into a spasm. Then we picked him up with a couple of shovels
and threw him overboard. But this didn't end it, for the skipper was
bitten. He studied up some books on medicine he had below, but found no
comfort. I heard him tell the mate that there was nothing in the
medicine chest to meet such an emergency.

"'In fact,' he said, mournfully, 'even on shore, with the best of
medical skill, there is no hope for a man bitten by a mad dog. The
period of incubation is from ten days to a year. I will navigate the
ship until I lose my head, Mr. Barnes; then, for fear of harm to
yourselves, you must shoot me dead. I am doomed, anyway.'

"We tried to reassure him, but his mind was made up and nothing would
change it. Whether or not he had hydrophobia we could not tell at the
time, but we knew that strong and intense thinking about it would bring
on symptoms. In the light of after happenings, however, there was no
doubt of it. He got sick after we'd rounded the Horn, fidgety, nervous,
and excitable, and, like the dog, he couldn't stay long in one place;
but he wouldn't admit that the disease had developed in him until the
little scar on his thumb grew inflamed and painful and he experienced
difficulty in drinking. Then he gave up, but he certainly showed
courage and character.

"'I am against suicide on principle,' he said to Mr. Barnes and me, 'so
I must not kill myself. But I am not against killing a wild beast that
menaces the lives of human beings. I am to be such a wild beast. Kill
me in time before I injure you.'

"But we didn't. We had the same compunctions about killing a sick m