He did so love--not because he was Michael, but because he was a dog.
Michael had loved Captain Kellar more than he loved his own life.

No more than Jerry for Skipper, would he have hesitated to risk his life for Captain Kellar.

And he was destined, as time went by and the conviction that Captain Kellar had passed into the inevitable nothingness along with Meringe and the Solomons, to love just as absolutely this six-quart steward with the understanding ways and the fascinating lip-caress.
Kwaque, no; for Kwaque was black.

Kwaque he merely accepted, as an appurtenance, as a part of the human landscape, as a chattel of Dag Daughtry.
But he did not know this new god as Dag Daughtry.

Kwaque called him "marster"; but Michael heard other white men so addressed by the blacks.
Many blacks had he heard call Captain Kellar "marster." It was Captain Duncan who called the steward "Steward." Michael came to hear him, and his officers, and all the passengers, so call him; and thus, to Michael, his god's name was Steward, and for ever after he was to know him and think of him as Steward.
There was the question of his own name.