Michael left the Makambo as he had come on board, through a porthole. Likewise, the affair occurred at night, and it was Kwaque's hands that received him. It had been quick work, and daring, in the dark of early evening. From the boat-deck, with a bowline under Kwaque's arms and a turn of the rope around a pin, Dag Daughtry had lowered his leprous servitor into the waiting launch.
On his way below, he encountered Captain Duncan, who saw fit to warn him:
"No shannigan with Killeny Boy, Steward. He must go back to Tulagi with us.""Yes, sir," the steward agreed. "An' I'm keepin' him tight in my room to make safe. Want to see him, sir?"The very frankness of the invitation made the captain suspicious, and the thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Killeny Boy was already hidden ashore somewhere by the dog-stealing steward.
"Yes, indeed I'd like to say how-do-you-do to him," Captain Duncan answered.
And his was genuine surprise, on entering the steward's room, to behold Michael just rousing from his curled-up sleep on the floor.
But when he left, his surprise would have been shocking could he have seen through the closed door what immediately began to take place. Out through the open porthole, in a steady stream, Daughtry was passing the contents of the room. Everything went that belonged to him, including the turtle-shell and the photographs and calendars on the wall. Michael, with the command of silence laid upon him, went last. Remained only a sea-chest and two suit-cases, themselves too large for the porthole but bare of contents.
When Daughtry sauntered along the main deck a few minutes later and paused for a gossip with the customs officer and a quartermaster at the head of the gang-plank, Captain Duncan little dreamed that his casual glance was resting on his steward for the last time. He watched him go down the gang-plank empty-handed, with no dog at his heels, and stroll off along the wharf under the electric lights.