The hand that held it was the maimed hand of a leper.
To my consternation my husband took the cigarette and smoked it out.
Afterwards when we were alone and I spoke of my horror he said, 'I could not mortify the man.

And if you think I _liked_ doing it--that was another reason; because I _didn't_ want to.' Another day, while we were still anchored in Anaho Bay, a messenger from round a distant headland came in a whale-boat with an urgent request that we go to see a young white girl who was ill with some mysterious malady.
We had supposed that, with the beach-comber 'Charley the red,' we were the only white people on our side of the island.

Though there was much wind that day and the sea ran high, we started at once, impelled partly by curiosity and partly by the pathetic nature of the message.
Fortunately we took our luncheon with us, eating it on the beach before we went up to the house where the sick girl lay.

Our hostess, the girl's mother, met us with regrets that we had already lunched, saying, 'I have a most excellent cook; here he is, now.' She turned, as she spoke, to an elderly Chinaman who was plainly in an advanced stage of leprosy.

When the man was gone, my husband asked if she had no fear of contagion.