But one trouble was on his mind.

He was not quite sure, in such an out-of-the-way place as Taiohae, that good beer could be procured.
As he prepared to make the first stroke of the razor, most of his face white with lather, he noticed a dark patch of skin on his forehead just between the eyebrows and above.

When he had finished shaving he touched the dark patch, wondering how he had been sunburned in such a spot.

But he did not know he had touched it in so far as there was any response of sensation.

The dark place was numb.
"Curious," he thought, wiped his face, and forgot all about it.
No more than he knew what horror that dark spot represented, did he know that Ah Moy's slant eyes had long since noticed it and were continuing to notice it, day by day, with secret growing terror.
Close-hauled on the south-east trades, the _Mary Turner_ began her long slant toward the Marquesas.