eyes glaring upward. But he did not
raise a hand to ward off the blow that he feared, and that was more
uncanny still.

The blow never fell. Simpson's hand unclinched and shame reddened in
his face.

"Give me the oars," he said. "_Pauvre garcon_--did you think that I
would strike you?"

The boy surrendered the oars and sidled aft like a crab, his eyes
still rolling at his passenger.

"Why should the maimed row the sound?" said Simpson.

He rowed awkwardly. The boy watched him for a moment, then grinned
uncertainly; presently he lolled back in the stern-sheets, personating
dignity. A white man was doing his work--it was splendid, as it should
be, and comic in the extreme. He threw back his head and cackled at
the hot sky.

"Stop that!" Simpson, his nerves raw, spoke in English, but the
laughter jarred to a blunt end. The boy huddled farther away from him,
watching him with unwinking eyes which showed white all around the
pupil. Simpson, labouring with the clumsy oars, tried to forget him.
It was hot--hotter than it had seemed at first; sweat ran into his
eyes and he grew a little dizzy. The quarantine launch with its load
of uniforms, among which the purser's white was conspicuous, passed,
giving them its wake; there was no sound from it, only a blaze of
teeth and eyeballs. Simpson glanced over his shoulder at it. The
purser was standing in the stern, clear of the awning, his head
quizzically on one side and a cigarette in his fingers.

The rowboat came abreast of a worm-eaten jetty.

"_Ici_," said the cripple.

Simpson, inexpert, bumped into it bow on, and sculled the stern
around. The cripple, hideously agile, scrambled out and held the boat;
Simpson gathered up his bag and followed.

A Roman priest, black as the top of a stove, strode down the jetty
toward them.

"You--you!" he shouted to the cripple when he was yet ten strides
away. His voice rose as he approached. "You let the m'sieu' row you
ashore! You----" A square, heavy boot shot out from beneath his
cassock into the boy's stomach. "_Cochon_!" said the priest, turning
to Simpson. His manner became suddenly suave, grandiose. "These
swine!" he said. "One keeps them in their place. I am Father Antoine.
And you?"

"Simpson--Arthur Simpson." He said his own name slowly as thought
there was magic in it, magic that would keep him in touch with his
beginnings.

"Simpson?" The priest gave it the French sound; suspicion struggled
for expression on hi