the outcome. He just knew he was going to make the land. He told
me so himself, and I know it was the truth.

"Well, that is the kind of a man Lyte Gregory was. He was of a
different race from ordinary, ailing mortals. He was a lordly
being, untouched by common ills and misfortunes. Whatever he wanted
he got. He won his wife--one of the Caruthers, a little beauty--
from a dozen rivals. And she settled down and made him the finest
wife in the world. He wanted a boy. He got it. He wanted a girl
and another boy. He got them. And they were just right, without
spot or blemish, with chests like little barrels, and with all the
inheritance of his own health and strength.

"And then it happened. The mark of the beast was laid upon him. I
watched it for a year. It broke my heart. But he did not know it,
nor did anybody else guess it except that cursed hapa-haole, Stephen
Kaluna. He knew it, but I did not know that he did. And--yes--Doc
Strowbridge knew it. He was the federal physician, and he had
developed the leper eye. You see, part of his business was to
examine suspects and order them to the receiving station at
Honolulu. And Stephen Kaluna had developed the leper eye. The
disease ran strong in his family, and four or five of his relatives
were already on Molokai.

"The trouble arose over Stephen Kaluna's sister. When she became
suspect, and before Doc Strowbridge could get hold of her, her
brother spirited her away to some hiding-place. Lyte was Sheriff of
Kona, and it was his business to find her.

"We were all over at Hilo that night, in Ned Austin's. Stephen