“He did not laugh this time. He smiled, as a man awakened from a bad dream and still oppressed by the substance of the dream.
“‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Don’t do it again, and I’ll stand for the drinks. But I may as well confess that you fellows had me going south for a moment. Look at the way I’ve been sweating.’
“He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he started to step toward the bar.
“‘It is no joke,’ Kaluna said abruptly. I looked murder at him, and I felt murder, too. But I dared not speak or strike. That would have precipitated the catastrophe which I somehow had a mad hope of still averting.
“‘It is no joke,’ Kaluna repeated. ‘You are a leper, Lyte Gregory, and you’ve no right putting your hands on honest men’s flesh—on the clean flesh of honest men.’
“Then Gregory flared up.
“‘The joke has gone far enough! Quit it! Quit it, I say, Kaluna, or I’ll give you a beating!’
“‘You undergo a bacteriological examination,’ Kaluna answered, ‘and then you can beat me—to death, if you want to. Why, man, look at yourself there in the glass. You can see it. Anybody can see it. You’re developing the lion face. See where the skin is darkened there over your eyes.
“Lyte peered and peered, and I saw his hands trembling.
“‘I can see nothing,’ he said finally, then turned on the hapa-haole. ‘You have a black heart, Kaluna. And I am not ashamed to say that you have given me a scare that no man has a right to give another. I take you at your word. I am going to settle this thing now. I am going straight to Doc Strowbridge. And when I come back, watch out.’