ou what." He took a step nearer; in his pocket
his hand was on his knife. "You can have a hundred and fifty," he
said, "and the boat, if you'll come. An' if you won't, by the Holy
Iron, I'll cut your bloomin' throat here where you stand."

The other did not flinch from him. "Ay, an' you'll do that?" he said.
"I like to hear you talk. Lad, do you know what fashion o' men it is
that serve the dead-carts? Do ye know?" he demanded, seeming to clear
his voice with an effort of the obstacle that hampered his speech.

"What d'you mean?" cried Scott.

"Look at me," bade the man, and drew back the sheet from his face. The
starlight showed him clear.

Scott looked, while his heart slowed down within him, and bowed his
head.

"And shall I steer your girl to Delagoa Bay?" the other asked.

"Yes," said Scott, after a pause. "There's nobody else, leper or not."

"Ah, well," said the leper, with a sigh, "so be it."

Scott fought with himself for mastery of the horror that rose in him
like a tide of fever, and when the leper had put back the sheet and
stood again a figure of the grave, he told him of the boat and how
others knew of it besides himself. In quick, panting sentences he bade
him get forthwith to the creek where the boat lay, directing him to it
through the paths of the night with the sure precision of a man
trained to the trek. He himself would go and fetch Incarnacion and
beat up some provisions, and thus they might get afloat before the
Italian and his mate came on the scene.

"It's every step of six miles," Scott explained. "Are you sure you can
walk it?"

The leper nodded under his hood. "I'll do it," he said. "And if
there's to be a fight, I'm not so far gone but what--" He broke off
with a short spurt of laughter. "It'll be something to feel
deck-planks under me again," he said.

"Then let's be gone," cried Scott.

"Wait." The captain that had been stayed him. "There's just this,
matey. Have a shawl or the like on your girl's shoulders. They wear
'em, you know. An' then, when you come in sight o' me, you can rig it
over her head an' all. For it's--it's truth, no woman should set eyes
on the like o' me."

"I'll do it," said Scott. "You're a man, Captain, anyhow."

"I was," said the other, and turned away.

Scott had a dozen things to do in no more than a pair of hours. They
were not to be done, but he did them. A couple of donkeys were
procured without difficulty; he knew of a stable with a flimsy do