low shiny web betwixt the fingers. All
over it was a white fluffy dust, like the flour of a new-baked loaf. It
lay thick on Sharkey's neck and cheek. With a cry of disgust he flung
the woman from his lap; but in an instant, with a wild-cat bound, and a
scream of triumphant malice, she had sprung at the surgeon, who vanished
yelling under the table. One of her clawing hands grasped Galloway by
the beard, but he tore himself away, and snatching a pike, held her off
from him as she gibbered and mowed with the blazing eyes of a maniac.

The black steward had run in on the sudden turmoil, and among them they
forced the mad creature back into a cabin and turned the key upon her.
Then the three sank panting into their chairs, and looked with eyes
of horror upon each other. The same word was in the mind of each, but
Galloway was the first to speak it.

"A leper!" he cried. "She has us all, curse her!"

"Not me," said the surgeon; "she never laid her finger on me."

"For that matter," cried Galloway, "it was but my beard that she
touched. I will have every hair of it off before morning."

"Dolts that we were!" the surgeon shouted, beating his head with his
hand. "Tainted or no, we shall never know a moment's peace till the year
is up and the time of danger past. 'Fore God, that merchant skipper has
left his mark on us, and pretty fools we were to think that such a maid
would be quarantined for the cause he gave. It is easy to see now that
her corruption broke forth in the journey, and that save throwing her
over they had no choice but to board her up until they should come to
some port with a lazarette."

Sharkey had sat leaning back in his chair with a ghastly face while
he listened to the surgeon's words. He mopped himself with his red
handkerchief, and wiped away the fatal dust with which he was smeared.

"What of me?" he croaked. "What say you, Baldy Stable? Is there a chance
for me? Curse you for a villain! speak out, or I will drub you within an
inch of your life, and that inch also! Is there a chance for me, I say?"

But the surgeon shook his head. "Captain Sharkey," said he, "it would be
an ill deed to speak you false. The taint is on you. No man on whom the
leper scales have rested is ever clean again."

Sharkey's head fell forward on his chest, and he sat motionless,
stricken by this great and sudden horror, looking with his smouldering
eyes into his fearsome future. Softly the mate and the surgeon rose from
t