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Jerry Of The Islands
By
Jack London
Contents
It is a misfortune to some
fiction-writers that fiction and unveracity in the average person's mind me=
an
one and the same thing. Sever=
al
years ago I published a South Sea novel.&n=
bsp;
The action was placed in the Solomon Islands. The action was praised by the crit=
ics
and reviewers as a highly creditable effort of the imagination. As regards reality--they said there
wasn't any. Of course, as eve=
ry one
knew, kinky-haired cannibals no longer obtained on the earth's surface, much
less ran around with nothing on, chopping off one another's heads, and, on
occasion, a white man's head as well.
Now listen. I am writing these lines in Honolu=
lu,
Hawaii. Yesterday, on the bea=
ch at
Waikiki, a stranger spoke to me. He
mentioned a mutual friend, Captain Kellar.=
When I was wrecked in the Solomons on the blackbirder, the Minota, it
was Captain Kellar, master of the blackbirder, the Eugenie, who rescued
me. The blacks had taken Capt=
ain Kellar's
head, the stranger told me. He
knew. He had represented Capt=
ain
Kellar's mother in settling up the estate.
Listen. I received a letter the other day =
from
Mr. C. M. Woodford, Resident Commissioner of the British Solomons. He was back at his post, after a l=
ong
furlough to England, where he had entered his son into Oxford. A search of the shelves of almost =
any
public library will bring to light a book entitled, "A Naturalist Among
the Head Hunters." Mr. C=
. M.
Woodford is the naturalist. He
wrote the book.
To return to his
letter. In the course of the =
day's
work he casually and briefly mentioned a particular job he had just got off=
his
hands. His absence in England=
had
been the cause of delay. The =
job
had been to make a punitive expedition to a neighbouring island, and,
incidentally, to recover the heads of some mutual friends of ours--a
white-trader, his white wife and children, and his white clerk. The expedition was successful, and=
Mr.
Woodford concluded his account of the episode with a statement to the effec=
t:
"What especially struck me was the absence of pain and terror in their
faces, which seemed to express, rather, serenity and repose"--this, mi=
nd
you, of men and women of his own race whom he knew well and who had sat at =
dinner
with him in his own house.
Other friends, wi=
th
whom I have sat at dinner in the brave, rollicking days in the Solomons have
since passed out--by the same way.
My goodness! I sailed =
in the
teak-built ketch, the Minota, on a blackbirding cruise to Malaita, and I to=
ok
my wife along. The hatchet- m=
arks
were still raw on the door of our tiny stateroom advertising an event of a =
few
months before. The event was =
the
taking of Captain Mackenzie's head, Captain Mackenzie, at that time, being
master of the Minota. As we s=
ailed
in to Langa-Langa, the British cruiser, the Cambrian, steamed out from the
shelling of a village.
It is not expedie=
nt
to burden this preliminary to my story with further details, which I do make
asseveration I possess a-plenty. I
hope I have given some assurance that the adventures of my dog hero in this
novel are real adventures in a very real cannibal world. Bless you!--when I took my wife al=
ong on
the cruise of the Minota, we found on board a nigger- chasing, adorable Iri=
sh
terrier puppy, who was smooth-coated like Jerry, and whose name was Peggy.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Had it not been for Peggy, this bo=
ok
would never have been written. She
was the chattel of the Minota's splendid skipper. So much did Mrs. London and I come=
to
love her, that Mrs. London, after the wreck of the Minota, deliberately and
shamelessly stole her from the Minota's skipper. I do further admit that I did, del=
iberately
and shamelessly, compound my wife's felony. We loved Peggy so! Dear royal, glorious little dog, b=
uried
at sea off the east coast of Australia!
I must add that
Peggy, like Jerry, was born at Meringe Lagoon, on Meringe Plantation, which=
is
of the Island of Ysabel, said Ysabel Island lying next north of Florida Isl=
and,
where is the seat of government and where dwells the Resident Commissioner,=
Mr.
C. M. Woodford. Still further=
and finally,
I knew Peggy's mother and father well, and have often known the warm surge =
in
the heart of me at the sight of that faithful couple running side by side a=
long
the beach. Terrence was his r=
eal
name. Her name was Biddy.
JACK LONDON WAIKI=
KI
BEACH, HONOLULU, OAHU, T.H. June 5, 1915
Not until Mister Haggin abruptly pi=
cked
him up under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleb=
oat,
did Jerry dream that anything untoward was to happen to him. Mister Haggin was Jerry's beloved
master, and had been his beloved master for the six months of Jerry's
life. Jerry did not know Mist=
er
Haggin as "master," for "master" had no place in Jerry's
vocabulary, Jerry being a smooth-coated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier.
But in Jerry's
vocabulary, "Mister Haggin" possessed all the definiteness of sou=
nd
and meaning that the word "master" possesses in the vocabularies =
of
humans in relation to their dogs.
"Mister Haggin" was the sound Jerry had always heard utter=
ed
by Bob, the clerk, and by Derby, the foreman on the plantation, when they
addressed his master. Also, J=
erry
had always heard the rare visiting two-legged man-creatures such as came on=
the
Arangi, address his master as Mister Haggin.
But dogs being do=
gs,
in their dim, inarticulate, brilliant, and heroic- worshipping ways
misappraising humans, dogs think of their masters, and love their masters, =
more
than the facts warrant.
"Master" means to them, as "Mister" Haggin meant=
to
Jerry, a deal more, and a great deal more, than it means to humans. The human considers himself as
"master" to his dog, but the dog considers his master
"God."
Now "God&quo=
t;
was no word in Jerry's vocabulary, despite the fact that he already possess=
ed a
definite and fairly large vocabulary.
"Mister Haggin" was the sound that meant "God."<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In Jerry's heart and head, in the
mysterious centre of all his activities that is called consciousness, the
sound, "Mister Haggin," occupied the same place that "God&qu=
ot;
occupies in human consciousness. By
word and sound, to Jerry, "Mister Haggin" had the same connotation
that "God" has to God-worshipping humans. In short, Mister Haggin was Jerry'=
s God.
And so, when Mist=
er
Haggin, or God, or call it what one will with the limitations of language,
picked Jerry up with imperative abruptness, tucked him under his arm, and
stepped into the whaleboat, whose black crew immediately bent to the oars,
Jerry was instantly and nervously aware that the unusual had begun to
happen. Never before had he g=
one
out on board the Arangi, which he could see growing larger and closer to ea=
ch
lip-hissing stroke of the oars of the blacks.
Only an hour befo=
re,
Jerry had come down from the plantation house to the beach to see the Arangi
depart. Twice before, in his
half-year of life, had he had this delectable experience. Delectable it truly was, running u=
p and
down the white beach of sand-pounded coral, and, under the wise guidance of
Biddy and Terrence, taking part in the excitement of the beach and even add=
ing
to it.
There was the
nigger-chasing. Jerry had bee=
n born
to hate niggers. His first
experiences in the world as a puling puppy, had taught him that Biddy, his
mother, and his father Terrence, hated niggers. A nigger was something to be snarl=
ed
at. A nigger, unless he were a
house-boy, was something to be attacked and bitten and torn if he invaded t=
he
compound. Biddy did it. Terre=
nce
did it. In doing it, they ser=
ved
their God--Mister Haggin. Nig=
gers
were two-legged lesser creatures who toiled and slaved for their two-legged
white lords, who lived in the labour barracks afar off, and who were so much
lesser and lower that they must not dare come near the habitation of their
lords.
And nigger-chasing
was adventure. Not long after=
he
had learned to sprawl, Jerry had learned that. One took his chances. As long as Mister Haggin, or Derby=
, or
Bob, was about, the niggers took their chasing. But there were times when the white
lords were not about. Then it=
was
"'Ware niggers!" On=
e must
dare to chase only with due precaution. Because then, beyond the white lord=
's
eyes, the niggers had a way, not merely of scowling and muttering, but of
attacking four-legged dogs with stones and clubs. Jerry had seen his mother so misha=
ndled,
and, ere he had learned discretion, alone in the high grass had been himself
club- mauled by Godarmy, the black who wore a china door-knob suspended on =
his chest
from his neck on a string of sennit braided from cocoanut fibre. More. Jerry remembered another high-grass
adventure, when he and his brother Michael had fought Owmi, another black
distinguishable for the cogged wheels of an alarm clock on his chest. Michael had been so severely struc=
k on
his head that for ever after his left ear had remained sore and had withered
into a peculiar wilted and twisted upward cock.
Still more. There had been his brother Patsy, =
and
his sister Kathleen, who had disappeared two months before, who had ceased =
and
no longer were. The great god, Mister Haggin, had raged up and down the
plantation. The bush had been
searched. Half a dozen nigger=
s had
been whipped. And Mister Hagg=
in had
failed to solve the mystery of Patsy's and Kathleen's disappearance. But Biddy and Terrence knew. So did Michael and Jerry. The four=
-months'
old Patsy and Kathleen had gone into the cooking-pot at the barracks, and t=
heir
puppy-soft skins had been destroyed in the fire. Jerry knew this, as did his
father and mother and brother, for they had smelled the unmistakable burnt-=
meat
smell, and Terrence, in his rage of knowledge, had even attacked Mogom the
house-boy, and been reprimanded and cuffed by Mister Haggin, who had not
smelled and did not understand, and who had always to impress discipline on=
all
creatures under his roof-tree.
But on the beach,
when the blacks, whose terms of service were up came down with their
trade-boxes on their heads to depart on the Arangi, was the time when
nigger-chasing was not dangerous.
Old scores could be settled, and it was the last chance, for the bla=
cks
who departed on the Arangi never came back. As an instance, this very morning =
Biddy,
remembering a secret mauling at the hands of Lerumie, laid teeth into his n=
aked
calf and threw him sprawling into the water, trade-box, earthly possessions=
and
all, and then laughed at him, sure in the protection of Mister Haggin who
grinned at the episode.
Then, too, there =
was
usually at least one bush-dog on the Arangi at which Jerry and Michael, from
the beach, could bark their heads off. Once, Terrence, who was nearly as la=
rge
as an Airedale and fully as lion- hearted--Terrence the Magnificent, as Tom
Haggin called him--had caught such a bush-dog trespassing on the beach and
given him a delightful thrashing, in which Jerry and Michael, and Patsy and
Kathleen, who were at the time alive, had joined with many shrill yelps and
sharp nips. Jerry had never forgotten the ecstasy of the hair, unmistakably
doggy in scent, which had filled his mouth at his one successful nip. Bush-dogs were dogs--he recognized=
them
as his kind; but they were somehow different from his own lordly breed,
different and lesser, just as the blacks were compared with Mister Haggin,
Derby, and Bob.
But Jerry did not
continue to gaze at the nearing Arangi.&nb=
sp;
Biddy, wise with previous bitter bereavements, had sat down on the e=
dge
of the sand, her fore-feet in the water, and was mouthing her woe. That this concerned him, Jerry kne=
w, for
her grief tore sharply, albeit vaguely, at his sensitive, passionate
heart. What it presaged he kn=
ew
not, save that it was disaster and catastrophe connected with him. As he looked back at her, rough-co=
ated
and grief-stricken, he could see Terrence hovering solicitously near her. He, too, was rough-coated, as was
Michael, and as Patsy and Kathleen had been, Jerry being the one smooth-coa=
ted
member of the family.
Further, although
Jerry did not know it and Tom Haggin did, Terrence was a royal lover and a
devoted spouse. Jerry, from h=
is
earliest impressions, could remember the way Terrence had of running with
Biddy, miles and miles along the beaches or through the avenues of cocoanut=
s, side
by side with her, both with laughing mouths of sheer delight. As these were the only dogs, besid=
es his
brothers and sisters and the several eruptions of strange bush-dogs that Je=
rry
knew, it did not enter his head otherwise than that this was the way of dog=
s,
male and female, wedded and faithful.
But Tom Haggin knew its unusualness. "Proper affinities," he
declared, and repeatedly declared, with warm voice and moist eyes of
appreciation. "A gentlem=
an,
that Terrence, and a four-legged proper man. A man-dog, if there ever was one,
four-square as the legs on the four corners of him. And prepotent! My word! His blood'd breed true for a thous=
and
generations, and the cool head and the kindly brave heart of him."
Terrence did not
voice his sorrow, if sorrow he had; but his hovering about Biddy tokened his
anxiety for her. Michael, how=
ever,
yielding to the contagion, sat beside his mother and barked angrily out acr=
oss
the increasing stretch of water as he would have barked at any danger that =
crept
and rustled in the jungle. Th=
is,
too, sank to Jerry's heart, adding weight to his sure intuition that dire f=
ate,
he knew not what, was upon him.
For his six month=
s of
life, Jerry knew a great deal and knew very little. He knew, without thinki=
ng
about it, without knowing that he knew, why Biddy, the wise as well as the
brave, did not act upon all the message that her heart voiced to him, and
spring into the water and swim after him.&=
nbsp;
She had protected him like a lioness when the big puarka (which, in
Jerry's vocabulary, along with grunts and squeals, was the combination of
sound, or word, for "pig") had tried to devour him where he was c=
ornered
under the high-piled plantation house.&nbs=
p;
Like a lioness, when the cook-boy had struck him with a stick to dri=
ve
him out of the kitchen, had Biddy sprung upon the black, receiving without
wince or whimper one straight blow from the stick, and then downing him and
mauling him among his pots and pans until dragged (for the first time snarl=
ing)
away by the unchiding Mister Haggin, who; however, administered sharp words=
to
the cook-boy for daring to lift hand against a four-legged dog belonging to=
a god.
Jerry knew why his
mother did not plunge into the water after him. The salt sea, as well as the lagoo=
ns
that led out of the salt sea, were taboo.&=
nbsp;
"Taboo," as word or sound, had no place in Jerry's vocabul=
ary.
But its definition, or significance, was there in the quickest part of his
consciousness. He possessed a=
dim,
vague, imperative knowingness that it was not merely not good, but supremely
disastrous, leading to the mistily glimpsed sense of utter endingness for a
dog, for any dog, to go into the water where slipped and slid and noiseless=
ly
paddled, sometimes on top, sometimes emerging from the depths, great scaly
monsters, huge- jawed and horribly-toothed, that snapped down and engulfed a
dog in an instant just as the fowls of Mister Haggin snapped and engulfed
grains of corn.
Often he had heard
his father and mother, on the safety of the sand, bark and rage their hatre=
d of
those terrible sea-dwellers, when, close to the beach, they appeared on the
surface like logs awash.
"Crocodile" was no word in Jerry's vocabulary. It was an image, an image of a log=
awash
that was different from any log in that it was alive. Jerry, who heard, registered, and
recognized many words that were as truly tools of thought to him as they we=
re
to humans, but who, by inarticulateness of birth and breed, could not utter
these many words, nevertheless in his mental processes, used images just as
articulate men use words in their own mental processes. And after all, articulate men, in =
the
act of thinking, willy nilly use images that correspond to words and that
amplify words.
Perhaps, in Jerry=
's
brain, the rising into the foreground of consciousness of an image of a log
awash connoted more intimate and fuller comprehension of the thing being
thought about, than did the word "crocodile," and its accompanying
image, in the foreground of a human's consciousness. For Jerry really did know more abo=
ut
crocodiles than the average human.
He could smell a crocodile farther off and more differentiatingly th=
an
could any man, than could even a salt-water black or a bushman smell one. He could tell when a crocodile, ha=
uled
up from the lagoon, lay without sound or movement, and perhaps asleep, a
hundred feet away on the floor mat of jungle.
He knew more of t=
he
language of crocodiles than did any man.&n=
bsp;
He had better means and opportunities of knowing. He knew their many noises that wer=
e as
grunts and slubbers. He knew =
their
anger noises, their fear noises, their food noises, their love noises. And these noises were as definitely
words in his vocabulary as are words in a human's vocabulary. And these
crocodile noises were tools of thought.&nb=
sp;
By them he weighed and judged and determined his own consequent cour=
ses
of action, just like any human; or, just like any human, lazily resolved up=
on
no course of action, but merely noted and registered a clear comprehension =
of
something that was going on about him that did not require a correspondence=
of
action on his part.
And yet, what Jer=
ry
did not know was very much. H=
e did
not know the size of the world. He
did not know that this Meringe Lagoon, backed by high, forested mountains a=
nd
fronted and sheltered by the off-shore coral islets, was anything else than=
the
entire world. He did not know=
that
it was a mere fractional part of the great island of Ysabel, that was again=
one
island of a thousand, many of them greater, that composed the Solomon Islan=
ds
that men marked on charts as a group of specks in the vastitude of the
far-western South Pacific.
It was true, there
was a somewhere else or a something beyond of which he was dimly aware. But whatever it was, it was
mystery. Out of it, things th=
at had
not been, suddenly were. Chic=
kens
and puarkas and cats, that he had never seen before, had a way of abruptly
appearing on Meringe Plantation.
Once, even, had there been an eruption of strange four-legged, horned
and hairy creatures, the images of which, registered in his brain, would ha=
ve
been identifiable in the brains of humans with what humans worded
"goats."
It was the same w=
ay
with the blacks. Out of the
unknown, from the somewhere and something else, too unconditional for him to
know any of the conditions, instantly they appeared, full-statured, walking
about Meringe Plantation with loin-cloths about their middles and bone bodk=
ins through
their noses, and being put to work by Mister Haggin, Derby, and Bob. That their appearance was coincide=
ntal
with the arrival of the Arangi was an association that occurred as a matter=
of
course in Jerry's brain. Furt=
her,
he did not bother, save that there was a companion association, namely, that
their occasional disappearances into the beyond was likewise coincidental w=
ith
the Arangi's departure.
Jerry did not que=
ry
these appearances and disappearances.
It never entered his golden-sorrel head to be curious about the affa=
ir
or to attempt to solve it. He
accepted it in much the way he accepted the wetness of water and the heat of
the sun. It was the way of li=
fe and
of the world he knew. His hazy
awareness was no more than an awareness of something--which, by the way,
corresponds very fairly with the hazy awareness of the average human of the
mysteries of birth and death and of the beyondness about which they have no
definiteness of comprehension.
For all that any =
man
may gainsay, the ketch Arangi, trader and blackbirder in the Solomon Island=
s,
may have signified in Jerry's mind as much the mysterious boat that traffics
between the two worlds, as, at one time, the boat that Charon sculled across
the Styx signified to the human mind.
Out of the nothingness men came.&nb=
sp;
Into the nothingness they went. And they came and went always on the
Arangi.
And to the Arangi,
this hot-white tropic morning, Jerry went on the whaleboat under the arm of=
his
Mister Haggin, while on the beach Biddy moaned her woe, and Michael, not
sophisticated, barked the eternal challenge of youth to the Unknown.
From the whaleboat, up the low side=
of
the Arangi, and over her six- inch rail of teak to her teak deck, was but a
step, and Tom Haggin made it easily with Jerry still under his arm. The deck was cluttered with an exc=
iting
crowd. Exciting the crowd wou=
ld
have been to untravelled humans of civilization, and exciting it was to Jer=
ry;
although to Tom Haggin and Captain Van Horn it was a mere commonplace of
everyday life.
The deck was small
because the Arangi was small. Originally
a teak- built, gentleman's yacht, brass-fitted, copper-fastened, angle-iron=
ed, sheathed
in man-of-war copper and with a fin-keel of bronze, she had been sold into =
the
Solomon Islands' trade for the purpose of blackbirding or nigger-running. Under the law, however, this traff=
ic was
dignified by being called "recruiting."
The Arangi was a
labour-recruit ship that carried the new-caught, cannibal blacks from remote
islands to labour on the new plantations where white men turned dank and
pestilential swamp and jungle into rich and stately cocoanut groves. The Arangi's two masts were of Ore=
gon cedar,
so scraped and hot-paraffined that they shone like tan opals in the glare of
sun. Her excessive sail plan
enabled her to sail like a witch, and, on occasion, gave Captain Van Horn, =
his
white mate, and his fifteen black boat's crew as much as they could
handle. She was sixty feet ov=
er
all, and the cross beams of her crown deck had not been weakened by
deck-houses. The only breaks-=
-and
no beams had been cut for them--were the main cabin skylight and companionw=
ay,
the booby hatch for'ard over the tiny forecastle, and the small hatch aft t=
hat
let down into the store-room.
And on this small
deck, in addition to the crew, were the "return" niggers from thr=
ee
far-flung plantations. By
"return" was meant that their three years of contract labour was =
up,
and that, according to contract, they were being returned to their home
villages on the wild island of Malaita.&nb=
sp;
Twenty of them--familiar, all, to Jerry--were from Meringe; thirty of
them came from the Bay of a Thousand Ships, in the Russell Isles; and the
remaining twelve were from Pennduffryn on the east coast of Guadalcanar.
"Thought your
heart 'd failed you at the last moment," was Captain Van Horn's greeti=
ng,
a quick pleasure light glowing into his eyes as they noted Jerry.
"It was sure
near to doin' it," Tom Haggin answered. "It's only for you I'd a done=
it,
annyways. Jerry's the best of=
the
litter, barrin' Michael, of course, the two of them bein' all that's left a=
nd
no better than them that was lost.
Now that Kathleen was a sweet dog, the spit of Biddy if she'd
lived.--Here, take 'm."
With a jerk of
abruptness, he deposited Jerry in Van Horn's arms and turned away along the
deck.
"An' if bad =
luck
comes to him I'll never forgive you, Skipper," he flung roughly over h=
is
shoulder.
"They'll hav=
e to
take my head first," the skipper chuckled.
"An' not
unlikely, my brave laddy buck," Haggin growled. "Meringe owes Somo four heads,
three from the dysentery, an' another wan from a tree fallin' on him the la=
st
fortnight. He was the son of a
chief at that."
"Yes, and
there's two heads more that the Arangi owes Somo," Van Horn nodded.
"And they
ain't--yet," Haggin snorted.
"No fear,&qu=
ot;
was the cheerful retort.
"You talk li=
ke
Arbuckle used to talk," Haggin censured. "Manny's the time I've heard =
him
string it off. Poor old
Arbuckle. The most sure and m=
ost
precautious chap that ever handled niggers. He never went to sleep without spr=
eadin'
a box of tacks on the floor, and when it wasn't them it was crumpled
newspapers. I remember me wel=
l,
bein' under the same roof at the time on Florida, when a big tomcat chased a
cockroach into the papers. An=
d it
was blim, blam, blim, six times an' twice over, with his two big horse-pist=
ols,
an' the house perforated like a cullender. Likewise there was a dead
tom-cat. He could shoot in th=
e dark
with never an aim, pullin' trigger with the second finger and pointing with=
the
first finger laid straight along the barrel.
"No, sir, my
laddy buck. He was the bully =
boy
with the glass eye. The nigger
didn't live that'd lift his head.
But they got 'm. They =
got
'm. He lasted fourteen years, too.
It was his cook-boy.
Hatcheted 'm before breakfast.
An' it's well I remember our second trip into the bush after what was
left of 'm."
"I saw his h=
ead
after you'd turned it over to the Commissioner at Tulagi," Van Horn
supplemented.
"An' the
peaceful, quiet, everyday face of him on it, with almost the same old smile=
I'd
seen a thousand times. It dri=
ed on 'm
that way over the smokin' fire. But
they got 'm, if it did take fourteen years. There's manny's the head that g=
oes
to Malaita, manny's the time untooken; but, like the old pitcher, it's took=
en
in the end."
"But I've got
their goat," the captain insisted.&nb=
sp;
"When trouble's hatching, I go straight to them and tell them
what. They can't get the hang=
of
it. Think I've got some power=
ful
devil-devil medicine."
Tom Haggin thrust=
out
his hand in abrupt good-bye, resolutely keeping his eyes from dropping to J=
erry
in the other's arms.
"Keep your e=
ye
on my return boys," he cautioned, as he went over the side, "till=
you
land the last mother's son of 'm.
They've got no cause to love Jerry or his breed, an' I'd hate ill to
happen 'm at a nigger's hands. An'
in the dark of the night 'tis like as not he can do a fare- you-well
overside. Don't take your eye=
off
'm till you're quit of the last of 'm."
At sight of big
Mister Haggin deserting him and being pulled away in the whaleboat, Jerry
wriggled and voiced his anxiety in a low, whimpering whine. Captain Van Horn snuggled him clos=
er in
his arm with a caress of his free hand.
"Don't forget
the agreement," Tom Haggin called back across the widening water. "If aught happens you, Jerry'=
s to
come back to me."
"I'll make a
paper to that same and put it with the ship's articles," was Van Horn's
reply.
Among the many wo=
rds
possessed by Jerry was his own name; and in the talk of the two men he had
recognised it repeatedly, and he was aware, vaguely, that the talk was rela=
ted
to the vague and unguessably terrible thing that was happening to him. He wriggled more determinedly, and=
Van Horn
set him down on the deck. He =
sprang
to the rail with more quickness than was to be expected of an awkward puppy=
of
six months, and not the quick attempt of Van Horn to cheek him would have
succeeded. But Jerry recoiled=
from
the open water lapping the Arangi's side.&=
nbsp;
The taboo was upon him. It
was the image of the log awash that was not a log but that was alive, lumin=
ous
in his brain, that checked him. It
was not reason on his part, but inhibition which had become habit.
He plumped down on
his bob tail, lifted golden muzzle skyward, and emitted a long puppy-wail of
dismay and grief.
"It's all ri=
ght,
Jerry, old man, brace up and be a man-dog," Van Horn soothed him.
But Jerry was not=
to
be reconciled. While this
indubitably was a white- skinned god, it was not his god. Mister Haggin was his god, and a s=
uperior
god at that. Even he, without
thinking about it at all, recognized that.=
His Mister Haggin wore pants and shoes. This god on the deck beside him wa=
s more
like a black. Not only did he=
not
wear pants, and was barefooted and barelegged, but about his middle, just l=
ike any
black, he wore a brilliant-coloured loin-cloth, that, like a kilt, fell nea=
rly
to his sunburnt knees.
Captain Van Horn =
was
a handsome man and a striking man, although Jerry did not know it. If ever a Holland Dutchman stepped=
out
of a Rembrandt frame, Captain Van Horn was that one, despite the fact that =
he was
New York born, as had been his knickerbocker ancestors before him clear bac=
k to
the time when New York was not New York but New Amsterdam. To complete his costume, a floppy =
felt
hat, distinctly Rembrandtish in effect, perched half on his head and mostly
over one ear; a sixpenny, white cotton undershirt covered his torso; and fr=
om a
belt about his middle dangled a tobacco pouch, a sheath-knife, filled clips=
of cartridges,
and a huge automatic pistol in a leather holster.
On the beach, Bid=
dy,
who had hushed her grief, lifted it again when she heard Jerry's wail. And Jerry, desisting a moment to l=
isten,
heard Michael beside her, barking his challenge, and saw, without being con=
scious
of it, Michael's withered ear with its persistent upward cock. Again, while
Captain Van Horn and the mate, Borckman, gave orders, and while the Arangi's
mainsail and spanker began to rise up the masts, Jerry loosed all his heart=
of
woe in what Bob told Derby on the beach was the "grandest vocal
effort" he had ever heard from any dog, and that, except for being a b=
it
thin, Caruso didn't have anything on Jerry. But the song was too much for Hagg=
in,
who, as soon as he had landed, whistled Biddy to him and strode rapidly away
from the beach.
At sight of her
disappearing, Jerry was guilty of even more Caruso-like effects, which gave
great joy to a Pennduffryn return boy who stood beside him. He laughed and jeered at Jerry with
falsetto chucklings that were more like the jungle-noises of tree-dwelling
creatures, half-bird and half-man, than of a man, all man, and therefore a
god. This served as an excell=
ent
counter-irritant. Indignation=
that
a mere black should laugh at him mastered Jerry, and the next moment his pu=
ppy
teeth, sharp- pointed as needles, had scored the astonished black's naked c=
alf
in long parallel scratches from each of which leaped the instant blood. The black sprang away in trepidati=
on,
but the blood of Terrence the Magnificent was true in Jerry, and, like his
father before him, he followed up, slashing the black's other calf into a r=
uddy
pattern.
At this moment,
anchor broken out and headsails running up, Captain Van Horn, whose quick e=
ye
had missed no detail of the incident, with an order to the black helmsman
turned to applaud Jerry.
"Go to it,
Jerry!" he encouraged.
"Get him! Shake h=
im
down! Sick him! Get him! Get him!"
The black, in
defence, aimed a kick at Jerry, who, leaping in instead of away--another
inheritance from Terrence--avoided the bare foot and printed a further red
series of parallel lines on the dark leg.&=
nbsp;
This was too much, and the black, afraid more of Van Horn than of Je=
rry,
turned and fled for'ard, leaping to safety on top of the eight Lee-Enfield =
rifles
that lay on top of the cabin skylight and that were guarded by one member of
the boat's crew. About the sk=
ylight
Jerry stormed, leaping up and falling back, until Captain Van Horn called h=
im
off.
"Some
nigger-chaser, that pup, some nigger-chaser!" Van Horn confided to
Borckman, as he bent to pat Jerry and give him due reward of praise.
And Jerry, under =
this
caressing hand of a god, albeit it did not wear pants, forgot for a moment
longer the fate that was upon him.
"He's a
lion-dog--more like an Airedale than an Irish terrier," Van Horn went =
on
to his mate, still petting.
"Look at the size of him already. Look at the bone of him. Some chest that. He's got the endurance. And he'll be some dog when he grow=
s up
to those feet of his."
Jerry had just
remembered his grief and was starting a rush across the deck to the rail to
gaze at Meringe growing smaller every second in the distance, when a gust of
the South-east Trade smote the sails and pressed the Arangi down. And down the deck, slanted for the
moment to forty- five degrees, Jerry slipped and slid, vainly clawing at the
smooth surface for a hold. He
fetched up against the foot of the mizzenmast, while Captain Van Horn, with=
the
sailor's eye for the coral patch under his bow, gave the order "Hard
a-lee!"
Borckman and the
black steersman echoed his words, and, as the wheel spun down, the Arangi, =
with
the swiftness of a witch, rounded into the wind and attained a momentary ev=
en
keel to the flapping of her headsails and a shifting of headsheets.
Jerry, still inte=
nt
on Meringe, took advantage of the level footing to recover himself and scra=
mble
toward the rail. But he was
deflected by the crash of the mainsheet blocks on the stout deck-traveller,=
as
the mainsail, emptied of the wind and feeling the wind on the other side, s=
wung
crazily across above him. He
cleared the danger of the mainsheet with a wild leap (although no less wild=
had
been Van Horn's leap to rescue him), and found himself directly under the
mainboom with the huge sail looming above him as if about to fall upon him =
and
crush him.
It was Jerry's fi=
rst
experience with sails of any sort.
He did not know the beasts, much less the way of them, but, in his v=
ivid
recollection, when he had been a tiny puppy, burned the memory of the hawk,=
in
the middle of the compound, that had dropped down upon him from out of the =
sky. Under that colossal threatened imp=
act he
crouched down to the deck. Above him, falling upon him like a bolt from the
blue, was a winged hawk unthinkably vaster than the one he had
encountered. But in his crouc=
h was
no hint of cower. His crouch =
was a
gathering together, an assembling of all the parts of him under the rule of=
the
spirit of him, for the spring upward to meet in mid career this monstrous,
menacing thing.
But, the succeedi=
ng
fraction of a moment, so that Jerry, leaping, missed even the shadow of it,=
the
mainsail, with a second crash of blocks on traveller, had swung across and
filled on the other tack.
Van Horn had miss=
ed
nothing of it. Before, in his=
time,
he had seen young dogs frightened into genuine fits by their first encounte=
rs
with heaven-filling, sky-obscuring, down-impending sails. This was the first dog he had seen=
leap
with bared teeth, undismayed, to grapple with the huge unknown.
With spontaneity =
of
admiration, Van Horn swept Jerry from the deck and gathered him into his ar=
ms.
Jerry quite forgot Meringe for the =
time
being. As he well remembered,=
the
hawk had been sharp of beak and claw.
This air-flapping, thunder- crashing monster needed watching. And Jerry, crouching for the sprin=
g and
ever struggling to maintain his footing on the slippery, heeling deck, kept=
his
eyes on the mainsail and uttered low growls at any display of movement on i=
ts
part.
The Arangi was
beating out between the coral patches of the narrow channel into the teeth =
of
the brisk trade wind. This
necessitated frequent tacks, so that, overhead, the mainsail was ever swoop=
ing
across from port tack to starboard tack and back again, making air-noises l=
ike the
swish of wings, sharply rat-tat-tatting its reef points and loudly crashing=
its
mainsheet gear along the traveller.
Half a dozen times, as it swooped overhead, Jerry leaped for it, mou=
th
open to grip, lips writhed clear of the clean puppy teeth that shone in the=
sun
like gems of ivory.
Failing in every
leap, Jerry achieved a judgment. In
passing, it must be noted that this judgment was only arrived at by a defin=
ite
act of reasoning. Out of a se=
ries
of observations of the thing, in which it had threatened, always in the same
way, a series of attacks, he had found that it had not hurt him nor come in
contact with him at all. Therefore--although he did not stop to think that =
he
was thinking--it was not the dangerous, destroying thing he had first deemed
it. It might be well to be wa=
ry of
it, though already it had taken its place in his classification of things t=
hat
appeared terrible but were not terrible. Thus, he had learned not to fear t=
he
roar of the wind among the palms when he lay snug on the plantation-house
veranda, nor the onslaught of the waves, hissing and rumbling into harmless
foam on the beach at his feet.
Many times, in the
course of the day, alertly and nonchalantly, almost with a quizzical
knowingness, Jerry cocked his head at the mainsail when it made sudden swoo=
ping
movements or slacked and tautened its crashing sheet-gear. But he no longer crouched to sprin=
g for
it. That had been the first l=
esson,
and quickly mastered.
Having settled the
mainsail, Jerry returned in mind to Meringe. But there was no Meringe, no Biddy=
and
Terrence and Michael on the beach; no Mister Haggin and Derby and Bob; no
beach: no land with the palm-trees near and the mountains afar off
everlastingly lifting their green peaks into the sky. Always, to starboard or to port, a=
t the
bow or over the stern, when he stood up resting his fore-feet on the six-in=
ch
rail and gazing, he saw only the ocean, broken-faced and turbulent, yet ord=
erly
marching its white-crested seas before the drive of the trade.
Had he had the ey=
es
of a man, nearly two yards higher than his own from the deck, and had they =
been
the trained eyes of a man, sailor-man at that, Jerry could have seen the low
blur of Ysabel to the north and the blur of Florida to the south, ever taki=
ng
on definiteness of detail as the Arangi sagged close-hauled, with a good fu=
ll,
port-tacked to the south-east trade.
And had he had the advantage of the marine glasses with which Captain
Van Horn elongated the range of his eyes, he could have seen, to the east, =
the
far peaks of Malaita lifting life-shadowed pink cloud-puffs above the sea-r=
im.
But the present w=
as very
immediate with Jerry. He had =
early
learned the iron law of the immediate, and to accept what was when it was,
rather than to strain after far other things. The sea was. The land no longer was. The Arangi certainly was, along wi=
th the
life that cluttered her deck. And
he proceeded to get acquainted with what was--in short, to know and to adju=
st
himself to his new environment.
His first discove=
ry
was delightful--a wild-dog puppy from the Ysabel bush, being taken back to
Malaita by one of the Meringe return boys.=
In age they were the same, but their breeding was different. The wild-dog was what he was, a
wild-dog, cringing and sneaking, his ears for ever down, his tail for ever
between his legs, for ever apprehending fresh misfortune and ill-treatment =
to
fall on him, for ever fearing and resentful, fending off threatened hurt wi=
th
lips curling malignantly from his puppy fangs, cringing under a blow, squal=
ling
his fear and his pain, and ready always for a treacherous slash if luck and
safety favoured.
The wild-dog was
maturer than Jerry, larger-bodied, and wiser in wickedness; but Jerry was
blue-blooded, right-selected, and valiant.=
The wild-dog had come out of a selection equally rigid; but it was a=
different
sort of selection. The bush
ancestors from whom he had descended had survived by being fear-selected. They had never voluntarily fought
against odds. In the open the=
y had
never attacked save when the prey was weak or defenceless. In place of courage, they had live=
d by
creeping, and slinking, and hiding from danger. They had been selected blindly by
nature, in a cruel and ignoble environment, where the prize of living was t=
o be
gained, in the main, by the cunning of cowardice, and, on occasion, by
desperateness of defence when in a corner.
But Jerry had been
love-selected and courage-selected.
His ancestors had been deliberately and consciously chosen by men, w=
ho,
somewhere in the forgotten past, had taken the wild-dog and made it into the
thing they visioned and admired and desired it to be. It must never fight like a rat in a
corner, because it must never be rat-like and slink into a corner. Retreat must be unthinkable. The dogs in the past who retreated=
had
been rejected by men. They ha=
d not
become Jerry's ancestors. The=
dogs
selected for Jerry's ancestors had been the brave ones, the up-standing and
out-dashing ones, who flew into the face of danger and battled and died, but
who never gave ground. And, s=
ince
it is the way of kind to beget kind, Jerry was what Terrence was before him,
and what Terrence's forefathers had been for a long way back.
So it was that Je=
rry,
when he chanced upon the wild-dog stowed shrewdly away from the wind in the
lee-corner made by the mainmast and the cabin skylight, did not stop to
consider whether the creature was bigger or fiercer than he. All he knew was that it was the an=
cient
enemy--the wild- dog that had not come in to the fires of man. With a wild paean of joy that attr=
acted
Captain Van Horn's all-hearing ears and all-seeing eyes, Jerry sprang to the
attack. The wild puppy gained=
his
feet in full retreat with incredible swiftness, but was caught by the rush =
of
Jerry's body and rolled over and over on the sloping deck. And as he rolled, and felt sharp t=
eeth
pricking him, he snapped and snarled, alternating snarls with whimperings a=
nd
squallings of terror, pain, and abject humility.
And Jerry was a
gentleman, which is to say he was a gentle dog. He had been so selected. Because the thing did not fight ba=
ck,
because it was abject and whining, because it was helpless under him, he
abandoned the attack, disengaging himself from the top of the tangle into w=
hich
he had slid in the lee scuppers. He
did not think about it. He di=
d it
because he was so made. He st=
ood up
on the reeling deck, feeling excellently satisfied with the delicious,
wild-doggy smell of hair in his mouth and consciousness, and in his ears and
consciousness the praising cry of Captain Van Horn: "Good boy, Jerry!<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> You're the goods, Jerry! Some dog, eh! Some dog!"
As he stalked awa=
y,
it must be admitted that Jerry displayed pride in himself, his gait being a
trifle stiff-legged, the cocking of his head back over his shoulder at the
whining wild-dog having all the articulateness of: "Well, I guess I ga=
ve
you enough this time. You'll =
keep
out of my way after this."
Jerry continued t=
he
exploration of his new and tiny world that was never at rest, for ever lift=
ing,
heeling, and lunging on the rolling face of the sea. There were the Meringe return boys=
. He made it a point to identify all=
of
them, receiving, while he did so, scowls and mutterings, and reciprocating =
with
cocky bullyings and threatenings.
Being so trained, he walked on his four legs superior to them,
two-legged though they were; for he had moved and lived always under the ae=
gis
of the great two-legged and be-trousered god, Mister Haggin.
Then there were t=
he
strange return boys, from Pennduffryn and the Bay of a Thousand Ships. He insisted on knowing them all. He might need to know them in some
future time. He did not think
this. He merely equipped hims=
elf
with knowledge of his environment without any awareness of provision or wit=
hout
bothering about the future.
In his own way of
acquiring knowledge, he quickly discovered, just as on the plantation
house-boys were different from field-boys, that on the Arangi there was a
classification of boys different from the return boys. This was the boat's crew. The fifteen blacks who composed it=
were closer
than the others to Captain Van Horn.
They seemed more directly to belong to the Arangi and to him. They laboured under him at word of=
command,
steering at the wheel, pulling and hauling on ropes, healing water upon the
deck from overside and scrubbing with brooms.
Just as Jerry had
learned from Mister Haggin that he must be more tolerant of the house-boys =
than
of the field-boys if they trespassed on the compound, so, from Captain Van
Horn, he learned that he must be more tolerant of the boat's crew than of t=
he
return boys. He had less lice=
nse with
them, more license with the others.
As long as Captain Van Horn did not want his boat's crew chased, it =
was
Jerry's duty not to chase. On=
the
other hand he never forgot that he was a white-god's dog. While he might not chase these
particular blacks, he declined familiarity with them. He kept his eye on them. He had seen blacks as tolerated as=
these,
lined up and whipped by Mister Haggin.&nbs=
p;
They occupied an intermediate place in the scheme of things, and they
were to be watched in case they did not keep their place. He accorded them room, but he did =
not
accord them equality. At the =
best,
he could be stand-offishly considerate of them.
He made thorough
examination of the galley, a rude affair, open on the open deck, exposed to
wind and rain and storm, a small stove that was not even a ship's stove, on
which somehow, aided by strings and wedges, commingled with much smoke, two
blacks managed to cook the food for the four-score persons on board.
Next, he was
interested by a strange proceeding on the part of the boat's crew. Upright pipes, serving as stanchio=
ns,
were being screwed into the top of the Arangi's rail so that they served to
support three strands of barbed wire that ran completely around the vessel,
being broken only at the gangway for a narrow space of fifteen inches. That this was a precaution against
danger, Jerry sensed without a passing thought to it. All his life, from his
first impressions of life, had been passed in the heart of danger,
ever-impending, from the blacks. In
the plantation house at Meringe, always the several white men had looked
askance at the many blacks who toiled for them and belonged to them. In the living-room, where were the
eating-table, the billiard-table, and the phonograph, stood stands of rifle=
s,
and in each bedroom, beside each bed, ready to hand, had been revolvers and
rifles. As well, Mister Haggi=
n and
Derby and Bob had always carried revolvers in their belts when they left the
house to go among their blacks.
Jerry knew these
noise-making things for what they were--instruments of destruction and
death. He had seen live things
destroyed by them, such as puarkas, goats, birds, and crocodiles. By means of such things the white-=
gods
by their will crossed space without crossing it with their bodies, and
destroyed live things. Now he=
, in
order to damage anything, had to cross space with his body to get to it.
Once, even, had J=
erry
seen his Mister Haggin deal death at a distance in another noise-way. From the veranda he had seen him f=
ling
sticks of exploding dynamite into a screeching mass of blacks who had come
raiding from the Beyond in the long war canoes, beaked and black, carved an=
d inlaid
with mother-of-pearl, which they had left hauled up on the beach at the doo=
r of
Meringe.
Many precautions =
by
the white-gods had Jerry been aware of, and so, sensing it almost in intang=
ible
ways, as a matter of course he accepted this barbed-wire fence on the float=
ing
world as a mark of the persistence of danger. Disaster and death hovered close a=
bout,
waiting the chance to leap upon life and drag it down. Life had to be very alive in order=
to live
was the law Jerry had learned from the little of life he knew.
Watching the rigg=
ing
up of the barbed wire, Jerry's next adventure was an encounter with Lerumie,
the return boy from Meringe, who, only that morning, on the beach embarking,
had been rolled by Biddy, along with his possessions into the surf. The encounter occurred on the star=
board
side of the skylight, alongside of which Lerumie was standing as he gazed i=
nto a
cheap trade-mirror and combed his kinky hair with a hand-carved comb of woo=
d.
Jerry, scarcely a=
ware
of Lerumie's presence, was trotting past on his way aft to where Borckman, =
the
mate, was superintending the stringing of the barbed wire to the
stanchions. And Lerumie, with=
a
side-long look to see if the deed meditated for his foot was screened from
observation, aimed a kick at the son of his four-legged enemy. His bare foot caught Jerry on the
sensitive end of his recently bobbed tail, and Jerry, outraged, with the se=
nse
of sacrilege committed upon him, went instantly wild.
Captain Van Horn,
standing aft on the port quarter, gauging the slant of the wind on the sails
and the inadequate steering of the black at the wheel, had not seen Jerry
because of the intervening skylight.
But his eyes had taken in the shoulder movement of Lerumie that
advertised the balancing on one foot while the other foot had kicked. And from what followed, he divined=
what
had already occurred.
Jerry's outcry, a=
s he
sprawled, whirled, sprang, and slashed, was a veritable puppy-scream of
indignation. He slashed ankle=
and
foot as he received the second kick in mid-air; and, although he slid clear
down the slope of deck into the scuppers, he left on the black skin the red=
tracery
of his puppy-needle teeth. St=
ill
screaming his indignation, he clawed his way back up the steep wooden hill.=
Lerumie, with ano=
ther
side-long look, knew that he was observed and that he dare not go to extrem=
es. He fled along the skylight to esca=
pe
down the companionway, but was caught by Jerry's sharp teeth in his calf. J=
erry,
attacking blindly, got in the way of the black's feet. A long, stumbling fall, accelerate=
d by a
sudden increase of wind in the sails, ensued, and Lerumie, vainly trying to
catch his footing, fetched up against the three strands of barbed wire on t=
he
lee rail.
The deck-full of
blacks shrieked their merriment, and Jerry, his rage undiminished, his
immediate antagonist out of the battle, mistaking himself as the object of =
the
laughter of the blacks, turned upon them, charging and slashing the many le=
gs
that fled before him. They dr=
opped down
the cabin and forecastle companionways, ran out the bowsprit, and sprang in=
to
the rigging till they were perched everywhere in the air like monstrous
birds. In the end, the deck
belonged to Jerry, save for the boat's crew; for he had already learned to
differentiate. Captain Van Ho=
rn was
hilariously vocal of his praise, calling Jerry to him and giving him man-th=
umps
of joyful admiration. Next, t=
he
captain turned to his many passengers and orated in beche-de-mer English.
"Hey! You fella boy! I make 'm big fella talk. This fella dog he belong along me.=
One fella boy hurt 'm that fella d=
og--my
word!--me cross too much along that fella boy. I knock 'm seven bells outa that f=
ella
boy. You take 'm care leg bel=
ong
you. I take 'm care dog belon=
g me. Savve?"
And the passenger=
s,
still perched in the air, with gleaming black eyes and with querulerus chir=
pings
one to another, accepted the white man's law. Even Lerumie, variously lacerated =
by the
barbed wire, did not scowl nor mutter threats. Instead, and bringing a roar of la=
ughter
from his fellows and a twinkle into the skipper's eyes, he rubbed questing
fingers over his scratches and murmured: "My word! Some big fella dog that fella!&quo=
t;
It was not that J=
erry
was unkindly. Like Biddy and
Terrence, he was fierce and unafraid; which attributes were wrapped up in h=
is
heredity. And, like Biddy and Terrence, he delighted in nigger-chasing, whi=
ch,
in turn, was a matter of training.
From his earliest puppyhood he had been so trained. Niggers were niggers, but white me=
n were
gods, and it was the white-gods who had trained him to chase niggers and ke=
ep
them in their proper lesser place in the world. All the world was held in the holl=
ow of
the white man's hands. The
niggers--well, had not he seen them always compelled to remain in their les=
ser
place? Had he not seen them, =
on
occasion, triced up to the palm-trees of the Meringe compound and their bac=
ks
lashed to ribbons by the white-gods?
Small wonder that a high-born Irish terrier, in the arms of love of =
the
white-god, should look at niggers through white-god's eyes, and act toward
niggers in the way that earned the white-god's reward of praise.
It was a busy day=
for
Jerry. Everything about the A=
rangi
was new and strange, and so crowded was she that exciting things were
continually happening. He had
another encounter with the wild-dog, who treacherously attacked him in flank
from ambuscade. Trade boxes
belonging to the blacks had been irregularly piled so that a small space was
left between two boxes in the lower tier.&=
nbsp;
From this hole, as Jerry trotted past in response to a call from the
skipper, the wild-dog sprang, scratched his sharp puppy-teeth into Jerry's
yellow-velvet hide, and scuttled back into his lair.
Again Jerry's
feelings were outraged. He co=
uld
understand flank attack. Often he and Michael had played at that, although =
it
had only been playing. But to
retreat without fighting from a fight once started was alien to Jerry's ways
and nature. With righteous wr=
ath he
charged into the hole after his enemy.&nbs=
p;
But this was where the wild-dog fought to best advantage--in a
corner. When Jerry sprang up =
in the
confined space he bumped his head on the box above, and the next moment felt
the snarling impact of the other's teeth against his own teeth and jaw.
There was no gett=
ing
at the wild-dog, no chance to rush against him whole heartedly, with genero=
us
full weight in the attack. All
Jerry could do was to crawl and squirm and belly forward, and always he was=
met
by a snarling mouthful of teeth.
Even so, he would have got the wild-dog in the end, had not Borckman=
, in
passing, reached in and dragged Jerry out by a hind-leg. Again came Captain Van Horn's call=
, and
Jerry, obedient, trotted on aft.
A meal was being
served on deck in the shade of the spanker, and Jerry, sitting between the =
two
men received his share. Alrea=
dy he
had made the generalization that of the two, the captain was the superior g=
od,
giving many orders that the mate obeyed.&n=
bsp;
The mate, on the other hand, gave orders to the blacks, but never di=
d he
give orders to the captain. Furthermore, Jerry was developing a liking for =
the
captain, so he snuggled close to him.
When he put his nose into the captain's plate, he was gently
reprimanded. But once, when he
merely sniffed at the mate's steaming tea-cup, her received a snub on the n=
ose
from the mate's grimy forefinger.
Also, the mate did not offer him food.
Captain Van Horn =
gave
him, first of all, a pannikin of oatmeal mush, generously flooded with
condensed cream and sweetened with a heaping spoonful of sugar. After that, on occasion, he gave h=
im
morsels of buttered bread and slivers of fried fish from which he first
carefully picked the tiny bones.
His beloved Mister
Haggin had never fed him from the table at meal time, and Jerry was beside
himself with the joy of this delightful experience. And, being young, he allowed his
eagerness to take possession of him, so that soon he was unduly urging the
captain for more pieces of fish and of bread and butter. Once, he even barked his demand. T=
his
put the idea into the captain's head, who began immediately to teach him to
"speak."
At the end of five
minutes he had learned to speak softly, and to speak only once--a low, mell=
ow,
bell-like bark of a single syllable.
Also, in this first five minutes, he had learned to "sit
down," as distinctly different from "lie down"; and that he =
must
sit down whenever he spoke, and that he must speak without jumping or moving
from the sitting position, and then must wait until the piece of food was
passed to him.
Further, he had a=
dded
three words to his vocabulary. For
ever after, "speak" would mean to him "speak," and
"sit down" would mean "sit down" and would not mean
"lie down." The thi=
rd
addition to his vocabulary was "Skipper." That was the name he had heard the=
mate
repeatedly call Captain Van Horn.
And just as Jerry knew that when a human called "Michael,"
that the call referred to Michael and not to Biddy, or Terrence, or himself=
, so
he knew that Skipper was the name of the two- legged white master of this n=
ew
floating world.
"That isn't =
just
a dog," was Van Horn's conclusion to the mate. "There's a sure enough human =
brain
there behind those brown eyes. He's
six months old. Any boy of six
years would be an infant phenomenon to learn in five minutes all that he's =
just
learned. Why, Gott-fer-dang, a
dog's brain has to be like a man's.
If he does things like a man, he's got to think like a man."
The companionway into the main cabi=
n was
a steep ladder, and down this, after his meal, Jerry was carried by the
captain. The cabin was a long=
room,
extending for the full width of the Arangi from a lazarette aft to a tiny r=
oom
for'ard. For'ard of this room,
separated by a tight bulkhead, was the forecastle where lived the boat's
crew. The tiny room was shared
between Van Horn and Borckman, while the main cabin was occupied by the thr=
ee-score
and odd return boys. They squ=
atted
about and lay everywhere on the floor and on the long low bunks that ran the
full length of the cabin along either side.
In the little
stateroom the captain tossed a blanket on the floor in a corner, and he did=
not
find it difficult to get Jerry to understand that that was his bed. Nor did Jerry, with a full stomach=
and
weary from so much excitement, find it difficult to fall immediately asleep=
.
An hour later he =
was
awakened by the entrance of Borckman.
When he wagged his stub of a tail and smiled friendly with his eyes,=
the
mate scowled at him and muttered angrily in his throat. Jerry made no further overtures, b=
ut lay
quietly watching. The mate ha=
d come
to take a drink. In truth, he was stealing the drink from Van Horn's
supply. Jerry did not know
this. Often, on the plantatio=
n, he
had seen the white men take drinks.
But there was something somehow different in the manner of Borckman's
taking a drink. Jerry was awa=
re,
vaguely, that there was something surreptitious about it. What was wrong he did not know, ye=
t he sensed
the wrongness and watched suspiciously.
After the mate
departed, Jerry would have slept again had not the carelessly latched door
swung open with a bang. Openi=
ng his
eyes, prepared for any hostile invasion from the unknown, he fell to watchi=
ng a
large cockroach crawling down the wall.&nb=
sp;
When he got to his feet and warily stalked toward it, the cockroach
scuttled away with a slight rustling noise and disappeared into a crack.
After a cursory
examination of the stateroom he wandered out into the cabin. The blacks, sprawled about everywh=
ere,
but, conceiving it to be his duty to his Skipper, Jerry made it a point to
identify each one. They scowled and uttered low threatening noises when he
sniffed close to them. One da=
red to
menace him with a blow, but Jerry, instead of slinking away, showed his tee=
th
and prepared to spring. The b=
lack hastily
dropped the offending hand to his side and made soothing, penitent noises,
while others chuckled; and Jerry passed on his way. It was nothing new. Always a blow was to be expected f=
rom
blacks when white men were not around.&nbs=
p;
Both the mate and the captain were on deck, and Jerry, though unafra=
id,
continued his investigations cautiously.
But at the doorle=
ss
entrance to the lazarette aft, he threw caution to the winds and darted in =
in
pursuit of the new scent that came to his nostrils. A strange person was in the low, d=
ark
space whom he had never smelled.
Clad in a single shift and lying on a coarse grass-mat spread upon a
pile of tobacco cases and fifty-pound tins of flour, was a young black girl=
.
There was somethi=
ng
furtive and lurking about her that Jerry did not fail to sense, and he had =
long
since learned that something was wrong when any black lurked or skulked.
In the course of =
the
struggle the girl over-balanced on the boxes and tins and the entire heap
collapsed. This caused Jerry =
to
yelp a more frenzied alarm, while the blacks, peering in from the cabin,
laughed with cruel enjoyment.
When Skipper arri=
ved,
Jerry wagged his stump tail and, with ears laid back, dragged and tugged ha=
rder
than ever at the thin cotton of the girl's garment. He expected praise for what he had=
done,
but when Skipper merely told him to let go, he obeyed with the realization =
that
this lurking, fear-struck creature was somehow different, and must be treat=
ed
differently, from other lurking creatures.
Fear-struck she w=
as,
as it is given to few humans to be and still live. Van Horn called her his
parcel of trouble, and he was anxious to be rid of the parcel, without,
however, the utter annihilation of the parcel. It was this annihilation which he =
had
saved her from when he bought her in even exchange for a fat pig.
Stupid, worthless,
spiritless, sick, not more than a dozen years old, no delight in the eyes of
the young men of her village, she had been consigned by her disappointed
parents to the cooking-pot. W=
hen
Captain Van Horn first encountered her had been when she was the central fi=
gure
in a lugubrious procession on the banks of the Balebuli River.
Anything but a
beauty--had been his appraisal when he halted the procession for a
pow-wow. Lean from sickness, =
her
skin mangy with the dry scales of the disease called bukua, she was tied ha=
nd
and foot and, like a pig, slung from a stout pole that rested on the should=
ers
of the bearers, who intended to dine off of her. Too hopeless to expect mercy, she =
made
no appeal for help, though the horrible fear that possessed her was eloquen=
t in
her wild-staring eyes.
In the universal
beche-de-mer English, Captain Van Horn had learned that she was not regarded
with relish by her companions, and that they were on their way to stake her=
out
up to her neck in the running water of the Balebuli. But first, before they staked her,=
their
plan was to dislocate her joints and break the big bones of the arms and
legs. This was no religious r=
ite,
no placation of the brutish jungle gods.&n=
bsp;
Merely was it a matter of gastronomy. Living meat, so treated, was made =
tender
and tasty, and, as her companions pointed out, she certainly needed to be p=
ut through
such a process. Two days in t=
he
water, they told the captain, ought to do the business. Then they would kill her, build the
fire, and invite in a few friends.
After half an hou=
r of
bargaining, during which Captain Van Horn had insisted on the worthlessness=
of
the parcel, he had bought a fat pig worth five dollars and exchanged it for
her. Thus, since he had paid =
for the
pig in trade goods, and since trade goods were rated at a hundred per cent.
profit, the girl had actually cost him two dollars and fifty cents.
And then Captain =
Van
Horn's troubles had begun. He=
could
not get rid of the girl. Too =
well
he knew the natives of Malaita to turn her over to them anywhere on the
island. Chief Ishikola of Su'=
u had
offered five twenties of drinking coconuts for her, and Bau, a bush chief, =
had
offered two chickens on the beach at Malu.=
But this last offer had been accompanied by a sneer, and had tokened=
the
old rascal's scorn of the girl's scrawniness. Failing to connect with the missio=
nary
brig, the Western Cross, on which she would not have been eaten, Captain Va=
n Horn
had been compelled to keep her in the cramped quarters of the Arangi agains=
t a
problematical future time when he would be able to turn her over to the
missionaries.
But toward him the
girl had no heart of gratitude because she had no brain of understanding. She, who had been sold for a fat p=
ig,
considered her pitiful role in the world to be unchanged. Eatee she had been. Eatee she remained. Her destination merely had been ch=
anged,
and this big fella white marster of the Arangi would undoubtedly be her
destination when she had sufficiently fattened. His designs on her had been transp=
arent
from the first, when he had tried to feed her up. And she had outwitted him by resol=
utely
eating no more than would barely keep her alive.
As a result, she,=
who
had lived in the bush all her days and never so much as set foot in a canoe,
rocked and rolled unendingly over the broad ocean in a perpetual nightmare =
of
fear. In the beche-de-mer tha=
t was current
among the blacks of a thousand islands and ten thousand dialects, the Arang=
i's
procession of passengers assured her of her fate. "My word, you fella Mary,&quo=
t; one
would say to her, "short time little bit that big fella white marster
kai-kai along you." Or,
another: "Big fella white marster kai-kai along you, my word, belly be=
long
him walk about too much."
Kai-kai was the
beche-de-mer for "eat."
Even Jerry knew that.
"Eat" did not obtain in his vocabulary; but kai-kai did, a=
nd
it meant all and more than "eat," for it served for both noun and
verb.
But the girl never
replied to the jeering of the blacks.
For that matter, she never spoke at all, not even to Captain Van Hor=
n,
who did not so much as know her name.
It was late
afternoon, after discovering the girl in the lazarette, when Jerry again ca=
me
on deck. Scarcely had Skipper=
, who
had carried him up the steep ladder, dropped him on deck than Jerry made a =
new discovery--land. He did not see it, but he smelled
it. His nose went up in the a=
ir and
quested to windward along the wind that brought the message, and he read the
air with his nose as a man might read a newspaper--the salt smells of the
seashore and of the dank muck of mangrove swamps at low tide, the spicy
fragrances of tropic vegetation, and the faint, most faint, acrid tingle of
smoke from smudgy fires.
The trade, which =
had
laid the Arangi well up under the lee of this outjutting point of Malaita, =
was
now failing, so that she began to roll in the easy swells with crashings of
sheets and tackles and thunderous flappings of her sails. Jerry no more than cocked a contem=
ptuous
quizzical eye at the mainsail anticking above him. He knew already the empty windines=
s of
its threats, but he was careful of the mainsheet blocks, and walked around =
the
traveller instead of over it.
While Captain Van
Horn, taking advantage of the calm to exercise the boat's crew with the
fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was passing out the Lee-Enfields fr=
om
their place on top the cabin skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to
stalk stiff-legged. But the
wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes, was not
unobservant. He watched and s=
narled
threateningly. It was not a n=
ice
snarl. In fact, it was as nas=
ty and
savage a snarl as all his life had been nasty and savage. Most small creatures were afraid o=
f that
snarl, but it had no deterrent effect on Jerry, who continued his steady
stalking. When the wild-dog s=
prang
for the hole under the boxes, Jerry sprang after, missing his enemy by
inches. Tossing overboard bit=
s of
wood, bottles and empty tins, Captain Van Horn ordered the eight eager boat=
's
crew with rifles to turn loose.
Jerry was excited and delighted with the fusillade, and added his pu=
ppy
yelpings to the noise. As the=
empty
brass cartridges were ejected, the return boys scrambled on the deck for th=
em,
esteeming them as very precious objects and thrusting them, still warm, into
the empty holes in their ears.
Their ears were perforated with many of these holes, the smallest
capable of receiving a cartridge, while the larger ones contained-clay pipe=
s,
sticks of tobacco, and even boxes of matches. Some of the holes in the
ear-lobes were so huge that they were plugged with carved wooden cylinders
three inches in diameter.
Mate and captain
carried automatics in their belts, and with these they turned loose, shooti=
ng
away clip after clip to the breathless admiration of the blacks for such
marvellous rapidity of fire. =
The
boat's crew were not even fair shots, but Van Horn, like every captain in t=
he
Solomons, knew that the bush natives and salt-water men were so much worse
shots, and knew that the shooting of his boat's crew could be depended upon=
--if
the boat's crew itself did not turn against the ship in a pinch.
At first, Borckma=
n's
automatic jammed, and he received a caution from Van Horn for his carelessn=
ess
in not keeping it clean and thin-oiled.&nb=
sp;
Also, Borckman was twittingly asked how many drinks he had taken, an=
d if
that was what accounted for his shooting being under his average. Borckman explained that he had a t=
ouch
of fever, and Van Horn deferred stating his doubts until a few minutes late=
r, squatting
in the shade of the spanker with Jerry in his arms, he told Jerry all about=
it.
"The trouble
with him is the schnapps, Jerry," he explained. "Gott-fer- dang, it makes me =
keep
all my watches and half of his. And
he says it's the fever. Never=
believe
it, Jerry. It's the schnapps-=
-just
the plain s- c-h-n-a-p-p-s schnapps.
An' he's a good sailor-man, Jerry, when he's sober. But when he's schnappy he's sheer
lunatic. Then his noddle goes=
pinwheeling
and he's a blighted fool, and he'd snore in a gale and suffer for sleep in a
dead calm.--Jerry, you're just beginning to pad those four little soft feet=
of
yours into the world, so take the advice of one who knows and leave the
schnapps alone. Believe me, J=
erry,
boy--listen to your father--schnapps will never buy you anything."
Whereupon, leaving
Jerry on deck to stalk the wild-dog, Captain Van Horn went below into the t=
iny
stateroom and took a long drink from the very bottle from which Borckman was
stealing.
The stalking of t=
he
wild-dog became a game, at least to Jerry, who was so made that his heart b=
ore
no malice, and who hugely enjoyed it.
Also, it gave him a delightful consciousness of his own mastery, for=
the
wild-dog always fled from him. At
least so far as dogs were concerned, Jerry was cock of the deck of the
Arangi. It did not enter his =
head
to query how his conduct affected the wild-dog, though, in truth, he led th=
at individual
a wretched existence. Never, =
except
when Jerry was below, did the wild one dare venture more than several feet =
from
his retreat, and he went about in fear and trembling of the fat roly-poly p=
uppy
who was unafraid of his snarl.
In the late
afternoon, Jerry trotted aft, after having administered another lesson to t=
he
wild-dog, and found Skipper seated on the deck, back against the low rail,
knees drawn up, and gazing absently off to leeward. Jerry sniffed his bare calf--not t=
hat he
needed to identify it, but just because he liked to, and in a sort of frien=
dly
greeting. But Van Horn took no
notice, continuing to stare out across the sea. Nor was he aware of the puppy's
presence.
Jerry rested the
length of his chin on Skipper's knee and gazed long and earnestly into
Skipper's face. This time Ski=
pper
knew, and was pleasantly thrilled; but still he gave no sign. Jerry tried a new tack. Skipper's =
hand
drooped idly, half open, from where the forearm rested on the other knee. Into the part-open hand Jerry thru=
st his
soft golden muzzle to the eyes and remained quite still. Had he been situated to see, he wo=
uld
have seen a twinkle in Skipper's eyes, which had been withdrawn from the sea
and were looking down upon him. But
Jerry could not see. He kept =
quiet
a little longer, and then gave a prodigious sniff.
This was too much=
for
Skipper, who laughed with such genial heartiness as to lay Jerry's silky ea=
rs
back and down in self-deprecation of affection and pleadingness to bask in =
the
sunshine of the god's smile. =
Also, Skipper's
laughter set Jerry's tail wildly bobbing.&=
nbsp;
The half-open hand closed in a firm grip that gathered in the slack =
of
the skin of one side of Jerry's head and jowl. Then the hand began to shake him b=
ack
and forth with such good will that he was compelled to balance back and for=
th on
all his four feet.
It was bliss to
Jerry. Nay, more, it was ecst=
asy. For Jerry knew there was neither a=
nger
nor danger in the roughness of the shake, and that it was play of the sort =
that
he and Michael had indulged in. On
occasion, he had so played with Biddy and lovingly mauled her about. And, on very rare occasion, Mister
Haggin had lovingly mauled him about.
It was speech to Jerry, full of unmistakable meaning.
As the shake grew
rougher, Jerry emitted his most ferocious growl, which grew more ferocious =
with
the increasing violence of the shaking.&nb=
sp;
But that, too, was play, a making believe to hurt the one he liked t=
oo
well to hurt. He strained and
tugged at the grip, trying to twist his jowl in the slack of skin so as to
reach a bite.
When Skipper, wit=
h a
quick thrust, released him and shoved him clear, he came back, all teeth and
growl, to be again caught and shaken.
The play continued, with rising excitement to Jerry. Once, too quick for Skipper, he ca=
ught
his hand between teeth; but he did not bring them together. They pressed
lovingly, denting the skin, but there was no bite in them.
The play grew
rougher, and Jerry lost himself in the play. Still playing, he grew so excited =
that
all that had been feigned became actual. This was battle a struggle against=
the
hand that seized and shook him and thrust him away. The make-believe of ferocity passe=
d out
of his growls; the ferocity in them became real. Also, in the moments when he was s=
hoved
away and was springing back to the attack, he yelped in high-pitched puppy
hysteria. And Captain Van Hor=
n,
realizing, suddenly, instead of clutching, extended his hand wide open in t=
he
peace sign that is as ancient as the human hand. At the same time his voice rang ou=
t the single
word, "Jerry!" In i=
t was
all the imperativeness of reproof and command and all the solicitous insist=
ence
of love.
Jerry knew and was
checked back to himself. He w=
as
instantly contrite, all soft humility, ears laid back with pleadingness for
forgiveness and protestation of a warm throbbing heart of love. Instantly, from an open- mouthed, =
fang-bristling
dog in full career of attack, he melted into a bundle of softness and
silkiness, that trotted to the open hand and kissed it with a tongue that
flashed out between white gleaming teeth like a rose-red jewel. And the next moment he was in Skip=
per's
arms, jowl against cheek, and the tongue was again flashing out in all the =
articulateness
possible for a creature denied speech.&nbs=
p;
It was a veritable love-feast, as dear to one as to the other.
"Gott-fer-da=
ng!"
Captain Van Horn crooned.
"You're nothing but a bunch of high-strung sensitiveness, with a
golden heart in the middle and a golden coat wrapped all around. Gott-fer-dang, Jerry, you're gold,=
pure gold,
inside and out, and no dog was ever minted like you in all the world. You're heart of gold, you golden d=
og,
and be good to me and love me as I shall always be good to you and love you=
for
ever and for ever."
And Captain Van H=
orn,
who ruled the Arangi in bare legs, a loin cloth, and a sixpenny under-shirt,
and ran cannibal blacks back and forth in the blackbird trade with an autom=
atic
strapped to his body waking and sleeping and with his head forfeit in score=
s of
salt-water villages and bush strongholds, and who was esteemed the toughest
skipper in the Solomons where only men who are tough may continue to live a=
nd
esteem toughness, blinked with sudden moisture in his eyes, and could not s=
ee for
the moment the puppy that quivered all its body of love in his arms and kis=
sed
away the salty softness of his eyes.
And swift tropic night smote the Ar=
angi,
as she alternately rolled in calms and heeled and plunged ahead in squalls
under the lee of the cannibal island of Malaita. It was a stoppage of the south-east
trade wind that made for variable weather, and that made cooking on the exp=
osed
deck galley a misery and sent the return boys, who had nothing to wet but t=
heir
skins, scuttling below.
The first watch, =
from
eight to twelve, was the mate's; and Captain Van Horn, forced below by the
driving wet of a heavy rain squall, took Jerry with him to sleep in the tiny
stateroom. Jerry was weary fr=
om the
manifold excitements of the most exciting day in his life; and he was asleep
and kicking and growling in his sleep, ere Skipper, with a last look at him=
and
a grin as he turned the lamp low, muttered aloud: "It's that wild-dog,
Jerry. Get him. Shake him. Shake him hard."
So soundly did Je=
rry
sleep, that when the rain, having robbed the atmosphere of its last breath =
of
wind, ceased and left the stateroom a steaming, suffocating furnace, he did=
not
know when Skipper, panting for air, his loin cloth and undershirt soaked wi=
th
sweat, arose, tucked blanket and pillow under his arm, and went on deck.
Jerry only awaken=
ed
when a huge three-inch cockroach nibbled at the sensitive and hairless skin
between his toes. He awoke ki=
cking
the offended foot, and gazed at the cockroach that did not scuttle, but tha=
t walked
dignifiedly away. He watched =
it
join other cockroaches that paraded the floor. Never had he seen so many gathered
together at one time, and never had he seen such large ones. They were all of a size, and they =
were
everywhere. Long lines of them
poured out of cracks in the walls and descended to join their fellows on the
floor.
The thing was
indecent--at least, in Jerry's mind, it was not to be tolerated. Mister Haggin, Derby, and Bob had =
never
tolerated cockroaches, and their rules were his rules. The cockroach was the eternal trop=
ic
enemy. He sprang at the neare=
st,
pouncing to crush it to the floor under his paws. But the thing did what he had never
known a cockroach to do. It a=
rose
in the air strong-flighted as a bird.
And as if at a signal, all the multitude of cockroaches took wings of
flight and filled the room with their flutterings and circlings.
He attacked the
winged host, leaping into the air, snapping at the flying vermin, trying to
knock them down with his paws.
Occasionally he succeeded and destroyed one; nor did the combat cease
until all the cockroaches, as if at another signal, disappeared into the ma=
ny
cracks, leaving the room to him.
Quickly, his next
thought was: Where is Skipper? He
knew he was not in the room, though he stood up on his hind-legs and
investigated the low bunk, his keen little nose quivering delightedly while=
he
made little sniffs of delight as he smelled the recent presence of
Skipper. And what made his no=
se
quiver and sniff, likewise made his stump of a tail bob back and forth.
But where was
Skipper? It was a thought in =
his
brain that was as sharp and definite as a similar thought would be in a hum=
an
brain. And it similarly prece=
ded
action. The door had been left
hooked open, and Jerry trotted out into the cabin where half a hundred blac=
ks
made queer sleep-moanings, and sighings, and snorings. They were packed closely together,
covering the floor as well as the long sweep of bunks, so that he was compe=
lled
to crawl over their naked legs. And
there was no white god about to protect him. He knew it, but was unafraid.
Having made sure =
that
Skipper was not in the cabin, Jerry prepared for the perilous ascent of the
steep steps that were almost a ladder, then recollected the lazarette. In he trotted and sniffed at the
sleeping girl in the cotton shift who believed that Van Horn was going to e=
at
her if he could succeed in fattening her.
Back at the
ladder-steps, he looked up and waited in the hope that Skipper might appear
from above and carry him up.
Skipper had passed that way, he knew, and he knew for two reasons. It was the only way he could have
passed, and Jerry's nose told him that he had passed. His first attempt to climb the ste=
ps
began well. Not until a third=
of
the way up, as the Arangi rolled in a sea and recovered with a jerk, did he=
slip
and fall. Two or three boys a=
woke
and watched him while they prepared and chewed betel nut and lime wrapped in
green leaves.
Twice, barely
started, Jerry slipped back, and more boys, awakened by their fellows, sat =
up
and enjoyed his plight. In the
fourth attempt he managed to gain half way up before he fell, coming down
heavily on his side. This was
hailed with low laughter and querulous chirpings that might well have come =
from
the throats of huge birds. He
regained his feet, absurdly bristled the hair on his shoulders and absurdly
growled his high disdain of these lesser, two-legged things that came and w=
ent and
obeyed the wills of great, white-skinned, two-legged gods such as Skipper a=
nd
Mister Haggin.
Undeterred by his
heavy fall, Jerry essayed the ladder again. A temporary easement of the Arangi=
's
rolling gave him his opportunity, so that his forefeet were over the high
combing of the companion when the next big roll came. He held on by main strength of his=
bent
forelegs, then scrambled over and out on deck.
Amidships, squatt=
ing
on the deck near the sky-light, he investigated several of the boat's crew =
and
Lerumie. He identified them c=
ircumspectly,
going suddenly stiff-legged as Lerumie made a low, hissing, menacing
noise. Aft, at the wheel, he =
found
a black steering, and, near him, the mate keeping the watch. Just as the mate spoke to him and
stooped to pat him, Jerry whiffed Skipper somewhere near at hand. With a
conciliating, apologetic bob of his tail, he trotted on up wind and came up=
on
Skipper on his back, rolled in a blanket so that only his head stuck out, a=
nd
sound asleep.
First of all Jerry
needs must joyfully sniff him and joyfully wag his tail. But Skipper did not awake and a fi=
ne
spray of rain, almost as thin as mist, made Jerry curl up and press closely
into the angle formed by Skipper's head and shoulder. This did awake him, for he uttered
"Jerry" in a low, crooning voice, and Jerry responded with a touc=
h of
his cold damp nose to the other's cheek.&n=
bsp;
And then Skipper went to sleep again. But not Jerry. He lifted the edge of the blanket =
with
his nose and crawled across the shoulder until he was altogether inside.
Still Jerry was n=
ot
satisfied, and he squirmed around until he lay in the hollow of Skipper's a=
rm,
his head resting on Skipper's shoulder, when, with a profound sigh of conte=
nt,
he fell asleep.
Several times the
noises made by the boat's crew in trimming the sheets to the shifting draug=
ht
of air roused Van Horn, and each time, remembering the puppy, he pressed him
caressingly with his hollowed arm. And each time, in his sleep, Jerry stirr=
ed
responsively and snuggled cosily to him.
For all that he w=
as a
remarkable puppy, Jerry had his limitations, and he could never know the ef=
fect
produced on the hard-bitten captain by the soft warm contact of his velvet
body. But it made the captain
remember back across the years to his own girl babe asleep on his arm. And so poignantly did he remember,=
that
he became wide awake, and many pictures, beginning, with the girl babe, bur=
ned
their torment in his brain. N=
o white
man in the Solomons knew what he carried about with him, waking and often
sleeping; and it was because of these pictures that he had come to the Solo=
mons
in a vain effort to erase them.
First, memory-pro=
dded
by the soft puppy in his arm, he saw the girl and the mother in the little
Harlem flat. Small, it was tr=
ue,
but tight-packed with the happiness of three that made it heaven.
He saw the girl's
flaxen-yellow hair darken to her mother's gold as it lengthened into curls =
and
ringlets until finally it became two thick long braids. From striving not to see these many
pictures he came even to dwelling upon them in the effort so to fill his
consciousness as to keep out the one picture he did not want to see.
He remembered his work, the wreckin=
g car,
and the wrecking crew that had toiled under him, and he wondered what had
become of Clancey, his right- hand man.&nb=
sp;
Came the long day, when, routed from bed at three in the morning to =
dig
a surface car out of the wrecked show windows of a drug store and get it ba=
ck
on the track, they had laboured all day clearing up a half-dozen smash-ups =
and
arrived at the car house at nine at night just as another call came in.
"Glory be!&q=
uot;
said Clancey, who lived in the next block from him. He could see him saying it and wip=
ing
the sweat from his grimy face.
"Glory be, 'tis a small matter at most, an' right in our
neighbourhood--not a dozen blocks away.&nb=
sp;
Soon as it's done we can beat it for home an' let the down- town boys
take the car back to the shop."
"We've only =
to jack
her up for a moment," he had answered.
"What is
it?" Billy Jaffers, another of the crew, asked.
"Somebody run
over--can't get them out," he said, as they swung on board the
wrecking-car and started.
He saw again all =
the
incidents of the long run, not omitting the delay caused by hose-carts and a
hook-and-ladder running to a cross-town fire, during which time he and Clan=
cey
had joked Jaffers over the dates with various fictitious damsels out of whi=
ch
he had been cheated by the night's extra work.
Came the long lin=
e of
stalled street-cars, the crowd, the police holding it back, the two ambulan=
ces
drawn up and waiting their freight, and the young policeman, whose beat it =
was,
white and shaken, greeting him with: "It's horrible, man. It's fair sickening. Two of them. We can't get them out. I tried. One was still living, I think.&quo=
t;
But he, strong man
and hearty, used to such work, weary with the hard day and with a pleasant
picture of the bright little flat waiting him a dozen blocks away when the =
job
was done, spoke cheerfully, confidently, saying that he'd have them out in a
jiffy, as he stooped and crawled under the car on hands and knees.
Again he saw hims=
elf
as he pressed the switch of his electric torch and looked. Again he saw the twin braids of he=
avy
golden hair ere his thumb relaxed from the switch, leaving him in darkness.=
"Is the one
alive yet?" the shaken policeman asked.
And the question =
was
repeated, while he struggled for will power sufficient to press on the ligh=
t.
He heard himself =
reply,
"I'll tell you in a minute."
Again he saw hims=
elf
look. For a long minute he lo=
oked.
"Both
dead," he answered quietly.
"Clancey, pass in a number three jack, and get under yourself w=
ith
another at the other end of the truck."
He lay on his bac=
k,
staring straight up at one single star that rocked mistily through a thinni=
ng
of cloud-stuff overhead. The =
old
ache was in his throat, the old harsh dryness in mouth and eyes. And he knew--what no other man kne=
w--why
he was in the Solomons, skipper of the teak-built yacht Arangi, running
niggers, risking his head, and drinking more Scotch whiskey than was good f=
or
any man.
Not since that ni=
ght
had he looked with warm eyes on any woman.=
And he had been noted by other whites as notoriously cold toward pic=
kanninnies
white or black.
But, having visio=
ned
the ultimate horror of memory, Van Horn was soon able to fall asleep again,
delightfully aware, as he drowsed off, of Jerry's head on his shoulder. Once, when Jerry, dreaming of the =
beach
at Meringe and of Mister Haggin, Biddy, Terrence, and Michael, set up a low
whimpering, Van Horn roused sufficiently to soothe him closer to him, and to
mutter ominously: "Any nigger that'd hurt that pup. . . "
At midnight when =
the
mate touched him on the shoulder, in the moment of awakening and before he =
was
awake Van Horn did two things automatically and swiftly. He darted his right hand down to t=
he
pistol at his hip, and muttered: "Any nigger that'd hurt that pup . .
."
"That'll be =
Kopo
Point abreast," Borckman explained, as both men stared to windward at =
the
high loom of the land. "=
She
hasn't made more than ten miles, and no promise of anything steady."
"There's ple=
nty
of stuff making up there, if it'll ever come down," Van Horn said, as =
both
men transferred their gaze to the clouds drifting with many breaks across t=
he
dim stars.
Scarcely had the =
mate
fetched a blanket from below and turned in on deck, than a brisk steady bre=
eze
sprang up from off the land, sending the Arangi through the smooth water at=
a
nine-knot clip. For a time Je=
rry tried
to stand the watch with Skipper, but he soon curled up and dozed off, partl=
y on
the deck and partly on Skipper's bare feet.
When Skipper carr=
ied
him to the blanket and rolled him in, he was quickly asleep again; and he w=
as quickly
awake, out of the blanket, and padding after along the deck as Skipper pace=
d up
and down. Here began another =
lesson,
and in five minutes Jerry learned it was the will of Skipper that he should
remain in the blanket, that everything was all right, and that Skipper woul=
d be
up and down and near him all the time.
At four the mate =
took
charge of the deck.
"Reeled off
thirty miles," Van Horn told him.&nbs=
p;
"But now it is baffling again.=
Keep an eye for squalls under the land. Better throw the halyards down on =
deck
and make the watch stand by. =
Of
course they'll sleep, but make them sleep on the halyards and sheets."=
Jerry roused to
Skipper's entrance under the blanket, and, quite as if it were a
long-established custom, curled in between his arm and side, and, after one
happy sniff and one kiss of his cool little tongue, as Skipper pressed his
cheek against him caressingly, dozed off to sleep.
Half an hour late=
r,
to all intents and purposes, so far as Jerry could or could not comprehend,=
the
world might well have seemed suddenly coming to an end. What awoke him was the flying leap=
of
Skipper that sent the blanket one way and Jerry the other. The deck of the Arangi had become a
wall, down which Jerry slipped through the roaring dark. Every rope and shroud was thrummin=
g and
screeching in resistance to the fierce weight of the squall.
"Stand by ma=
in
halyards!--Jump!" he could hear Skipper shouting loudly; also he heard=
the
high note of the mainsheet screaming across the sheaves as Van Horn, bending
braces in the dark, was swiftly slacking the sheet through his scorching pa=
lms
with a single turn on the cleat.
While all this, a=
long
with many other noises, squealings of boat-boys and shouts of Borckman, was
impacting on Jerry's ear-drums, he was still sliding down the steep deck of=
his
new and unstable world. But h=
e did not
bring up against the rail where his fragile ribs might well have been broke=
n. Instead, the warm ocean water, pou=
ring
inboard across the buried rail in a flood of pale phosphorescent fire,
cushioned his fall. A raffle =
of
trailing ropes entangled him as he struck out to swim.
And he swam, not =
to
save his life, not with the fear of death upon him. There was but one idea =
in
his mind. Where was Skipper?<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Not that he had any thought of try=
ing to
save Skipper, nor that he might be of assistance to him. It was the heart of love that driv=
es one
always toward the beloved. As=
the
mother in catastrophe tries to gain her babe, as the Greek who, dying,
remembered sweet Argos, as soldiers on a stricken field pass with the names=
of
their women upon their lips, so Jerry, in this wreck of a world, yearned to=
ward
Skipper.
The squall ceased=
as
abruptly as it had struck. The
Arangi righted with a jerk to an even keel, leaving Jerry stranded in the
starboard scuppers. He trotted
across the level deck to Skipper, who, standing erect on wide-spread legs, =
the
bight of the mainsheet still in his hand, was exclaiming:
"Gott-fer-da=
ng! Wind he go! Rain he no come!"
He felt Jerry's c=
ool
nose against his bare calf, heard his joyous sniff, and bent and caressed
him. In the darkness he could=
not
see, but his heart warmed with knowledge that Jerry's tail was surely bobbi=
ng.
Many of the
frightened return boys had crowded on deck, and their plaintive, querulous =
voices
sounded like the sleepy noises of a roost of birds. Borckman came and stood by Van Hor=
n's
shoulder, and both men, strung to their tones in the tenseness of apprehens=
ion,
strove to penetrate the surrounding blackness with their eyes, while they
listened with all their ears for any message of the elements from sea and a=
ir.
"Where's the
rain?" Borckman demanded peevishly.&n=
bsp;
"Always wind first, the rain follows and kills the wind. There is no rain."
Van Horn still st=
ared
and listened, and made no answer.
The anxiety of the
two men was sensed by Jerry, who, too, was on his toes. He pressed his cool nose to Skippe=
r's
leg, and the rose-kiss of his tongue brought him the salt taste of sea-wate=
r.
Skipper bent
suddenly, rolled Jerry with quick toughness into the blanket, and deposited=
him
in the hollow between two sacks of yams lashed on deck aft of the
mizzenmast. As an afterthough=
t, he
fastened the blanket with a piece of rope yarn, so that Jerry was as if tie=
d in
a sack.
Scarcely was this
finished when the spanker smashed across overhead, the headsails thundered =
with
a sudden filling, and the great mainsail, with all the scope in the boom-ta=
ckle
caused by Van Horn's giving of the sheet, came across and fetched up to
tautness on the tackle with a crash that shook the vessel and heeled her
violently to port. This secon=
d knock-down
had come from the opposite direction, and it was mightier than the first.
Jerry heard Skipp=
er's
voice ring out, first, to the mate: "Stand by main- halyards! Throw off the turns! I'll take care of the tackle!"=
;;
and, next, to some of the boat's crew: "Batto! you fella slack spanker
tackle quick fella! Ranga! you
fella let go spanker sheet!"
Here Van Horn was
swept off his legs by an avalanche of return boys who had cluttered the deck
with the first squall. The
squirming mass, of which he was part, slid down into the barbed wire of the
port rail beneath the surface of the sea.
Jerry was so secu=
re
in his nook that he did not roll away.&nbs=
p;
But when he heard Skipper's commands cease, and, seconds later, heard
his cursings in the barbed wire, he set up a shrill yelping and clawed and
scratched frantically at the blanket to get out. Something had happened to Skipper.=
He knew that. It was all that he knew, for he ha=
d no
thought of himself in the chaos of the ruining world.
But he ceased his
yelping to listen to a new noise--a thunderous slatting of canvas accompani=
ed
by shouts and cries. He sense=
d, and
sensed wrongly, that it boded ill, for he did not know that it was the main=
sail
being lowered on the run after Skipper had slashed the boom-tackle across w=
ith
his sheath-knife.
As the pandemonium
grew, he added his own yelping to it until he felt a fumbling hand without =
the
blanket. He stilled and
sniffed. No, it was not
Skipper. He sniffed again and
recognized the person. It was=
Lerumie,
the black whom he had seen rolled on the beach by Biddy only the previous
morning, who, still were recently, had kicked him on his stub of a tail, and
who not more than a week before he had seen throw a rock at Terrence.
The rope yarn had
been parted, and Lerumie's fingers were feeling inside the blanket for
him. Jerry snarled his
wickedest. The thing was sacr=
ilege. He, as a white man's dog, was tabo=
o to
all blacks. He had early lear=
ned
the law that no nigger must ever touch a white-god's dog. Yet Lerumie, who =
was
all of evil, at this moment when the world crashed about their ears, was da=
ring
to touch him.
And when the fing=
ers
touched him, his teeth closed upon them.&n=
bsp;
Next, he was clouted by the black's free hand with such force as to =
tear
his clenched teeth down the fingers through skin and flesh until the finger=
s went
clear.
Raging like a tiny
fiend, Jerry found himself picked up by the neck, half- throttled, and flung
through the air. And while fl=
ying
through the air, he continued to squall his rage. He fell into the sea and went unde=
r, gulping
a mouthful of salt water into his lungs, and came up strangling but
swimming. Swimming was one of=
the
things he did not have to think about.&nbs=
p;
He had never had to learn to swim, any more than he had had to learn=
to
breathe. In fact, he had been
compelled to learn to walk; but he swam as a matter of course.
The wind screamed
about him. Flying froth, driv=
en on
the wind's breath, filled his mouth and nostrils and beat into his eyes,
stinging and blinding him. In=
the
struggle to breathe he, all unlearned in the ways of the sea, lifted his mu=
zzle
high in the air to get out of the suffocating welter. As a result, off the horizontal, t=
he
churning of his legs no longer sustained him, and he went down and under
perpendicularly. Again he emerged, strangling with more salt water in his
windpipe. This time, without
reasoning it out, merely moving along the line of least resistance, which w=
as
to him the line of greatest comfort, he straightened out in the sea and
continued so to swim as to remain straightened out.
Through the darkn=
ess,
as the squall spent itself, came the slatting of the half-lowered mainsail,=
the
shrill voices of the boat's crew, a curse of Borckman's, and, dominating al=
l,
Skipper's voice, shouting:
"Grab the le=
ech,
you fella boys! Hang on! Drag down strong fella! Come in mainsheet two blocks! Jump, damn you, jump!"
At recognition of Skipper's voice, =
Jerry,
floundering in the stiff and crisping sea that sprang up with the easement =
of
the wind, yelped eagerly and yearningly, all his love for his new-found bel=
oved
eloquent in his throat. But q=
uickly
all sounds died away as the Arangi drifted from him. And then, in the loneliness of the=
dark,
on the heaving breast of the sea that he recognized as one more of the eter=
nal
enemies, he began to whimper and cry plaintively like a lost child.
Further, by the d=
im,
shadowy ways of intuition, he knew his weakness in that merciless sea with =
no
heart of warmth, that threatened the unknowable thing, vaguely but terribly
guessed, namely, death. As re=
garded
himself, he did not comprehend death.
He, who had never known the time when he was not alive, could not
conceive of the time when he would cease to be alive.
Yet it was there,
shouting its message of warning through every tissue cell, every nerve
quickness and brain sensitivity of him--a totality of sensation that forebo=
ded
the ultimate catastrophe of life about which he knew nothing at all, but wh=
ich,
nevertheless, he felt to be the conclusive supreme disaster. Although he did not comprehend it,=
he apprehended
it no less poignantly than do men who know and generalize far more deeply a=
nd
widely than mere four-legged dogs.
As a man struggle=
s in
the throes of nightmare, so Jerry struggled in the vexed, salt-suffocating
sea. And so he whimpered and =
cried,
lost child, lost puppy-dog that he was, only half a year existent in the fa=
ir
world sharp with joy and suffering.
And he wanted Skipper.
Skipper was a god.
* * * * *
On board the Aran=
gi,
relieved by the lowering of her mainsail, as the fierceness went out of the
wind and the cloudburst of tropic rain began to fall, Van Horn and Borckman
lurched toward each other in the blackness.
"A double
squall," said Van Horn.
"Hit us to starboard and to port."
"Must a-spli=
t in
half just before she hit us," the mate concurred.
"And kept all
the rain in the second half--"
Van Horn broke off
with an oath.
"Hey! What's the matter along you fella
boy?" he shouted to the man at the wheel.
For the ketch, un=
der
her spanker which had just then been flat-hauled, had come into the wind,
emptying her after-sail and permitting her headsails to fill on the other
tack. The Arangi was beginnin=
g to
work back approximately over the course she had just traversed. And this meant that she was going =
back
toward Jerry floundering in the sea.
Thus, the balance, on which his life titubated, was inclined in his
favour by the blunder of a black steersman.
Keeping the Arang=
i on
the new tack, Van Horn set Borckman clearing the mess of ropes on deck,
himself, squatting in the rain, undertaking to long-splice the tackle he had
cut. As the rain thinned, so =
that
the crackle of it on deck became less noisy, he was attracted by a sound fr=
om out
over the water. He suspended =
the
work of his hands to listen, and, when he recognized Jerry's wailing, spran=
g to
his feet, galvanized into action.
"The pup's
overboard!" he shouted to Borckman.&n=
bsp;
"Back your jib to wind'ard!"
He sprang aft,
scattering a cluster of return boys right and left.
"Hey! You fella boat's crew! Come in spanker sheet! Flatten her down good fella!"=
He darted a look =
into
the binnacle and took a hurried compass bearing of the sounds Jerry was mak=
ing.
"Hard down y=
our
wheel!" he ordered the helmsman, then leaped to the wheel and put it d=
own
himself, repeating over and over aloud, "Nor'east by east a quarter,
nor'east by east a quarter."
Back and peering =
into
the binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail from Jerry in the hope of
verifying his first hasty bearing.
But not long he waited.
Despite the fact that by his manoeuvre the Arangi had been hove to, =
he
knew that windage and sea-driftage would quickly send her away from the
swimming puppy. He shouted Bo=
rckman
to come aft and haul in the whaleboat, while he hurried below for his elect=
ric
torch and a boat compass.
The ketch was so
small that she was compelled to tow her one whaleboat astern on long double
painters, and by the time the mate had it hauled in under the stern, Van Ho=
rn
was back. He was undeterred b=
y the
barbed wire, lifting boy after boy of the boat's crew over it and dropping =
them
sprawling into the boat, following himself, as the last, by swinging over on
the spanker boom, and calling his last instructions as the painters were ca=
st
off.
"Get a riding
light on deck, Borckman. Keep=
her
hove to. Don't hoist the
mainsail. Clean up the decks =
and
bend the watch tackle on the main boom."
He took the
steering-sweep and encouraged the rowers with: "Washee-washee, good fe=
lla,
washee-washee!"--which is the beche-de-mer for "row hard."
As he steered, he
kept flashing the torch on the boat compass so that he could keep headed
north-east by east a quarter east.
Then he remembered that the boat compass, on such course, deviated t=
wo
whole points from the Arangi's compass, and altered his own course accordin=
gly.
Occasionally he b=
ade
the rowers cease, while he listened and called for Jerry. He had them row in circles, and wo=
rk
back and forth, up to windward and down to leeward, over the area of dark s=
ea
that he reasoned must contain the puppy.
"Now you fel=
la
boy listen ear belong you," he said, toward the first. "Maybe one
fella boy hear 'm pickaninny dog sing out, I give 'm that fella boy five fa=
thom
calico, two ten sticks tobacco."
At the end of hal=
f an
hour he was offering "Two ten fathoms calico and ten ten sticks
tobacco" to the boy who first heard "pickaninny dog sing out.&quo=
t;
* * * * *
Jerry was in bad
shape. Not accustomed to swim=
ming,
strangled by the salt water that lapped into his open mouth, he was getting
loggy when first he chanced to see the flash of the captain's torch. This, however, he did not connect =
with
Skipper, and so took no more notice of it than he did of the first stars
showing in the sky. It never
entered his mind that it might be a star nor even that it might not be a
star. He continued to wail an=
d to
strangle with more salt water. But
when he at length heard Skipper's voice he went immediately wild. He attempted to stand up and to re=
st his
forepaws on Skipper's voice coming out of the darkness, as he would have re=
sted
his forepaws on Skipper's leg had he been near. The result was disastrous. Out of the horizontal, he sank dow=
n and
under, coming up with a new spasm of strangling.
This lasted for a
short time, during which the strangling prevented him from answering Skippe=
r's
cry, which continued to reach him.
But when he could answer he burst forth in a joyous yelp. Skipper was coming to take him out=
of
the stinging, biting sea that blinded his eyes and hurt him to breathe. Skipper was truly a god, his god, =
with a
god's power to save.
Soon he heard the
rhythmic clack of the oars on the thole-pins, and the joy in his own yelp w=
as
duplicated by the joy in Skipper's voice, which kept up a running
encouragement, broken by objurgations to the rowers.
"All right,
Jerry, old man. All right,
Jerry. All right.--Washee-was=
hee, you
fella boy!--Coming, Jerry, coming.
Stick it out, old man. Stay
with it.--Washee-washee like hell!--Here we are, Jerry. Stay with it. Hang on, old boy, we'll get you.--=
Easy .
. . easy. 'Vast washee."=
And then, with
amazing abruptness, Jerry saw the whaleboat dimly emerge from the gloom clo=
se
upon him, was blinded by the stab of the torch full in his eyes, and, even =
as
he yelped his joy, felt and recognized Skipper's hand clutching him by the
slack of the neck and lifting him into the air.
He landed wet and
soppily against Skipper's rain-wet chest, his tail bobbing frantically agai=
nst
Skipper's containing arm, his body wriggling, his tongue dabbing madly all =
over
Skipper's chin and mouth and cheeks and nose. And Skipper did not know that he w=
as
himself wet, and that he was in the first shock of recurrent malaria
precipitated by the wet and the excitement. He knew only that the puppy-dog, g=
iven
him only the previous morning, was safe back in his arms.
While the boat's =
crew
bent to the oars, he steered with the sweep between his arm and his side in
order that he might hold Jerry with the other arm.
"You little =
son
of a gun," he crooned, and continued to croon, over and over. "You little son of a gun.&quo=
t;
And Jerry respond=
ed
with tongue-kisses, whimpering and crying as is the way of lost children
immediately after they are found.
Also, he shivered violently.
But it was not from the cold.
Rather was it due to his over- strung, sensitive nerves.
Again on board, V=
an
Horn stated his reasoning to the mate.
"The pup did=
n't
just calmly walk overboard. N=
or was
he washed overboard. I had him fast and triced in the blanket with a rope
yarn."
He walked over, t=
he
centre of the boat's crew and of the three-score return boys who were all on
deck, and flashed his torch on the blanket still lying on the yams.
"That proves
it. The rope-yarn's cut. The knot's still in it. Now what nigger is responsible?&qu=
ot;
He looked about at
the circle of dark faces, flashing the light on them, and such was the
accusation and anger in his eyes, that all eyes fell before his or looked a=
way.
"If only the=
pup
could speak," he complained.
"He'd tell who it was."
He bent suddenly =
down
to Jerry, who was standing as close against his legs as he could, so close =
that
his wet forepaws rested on Skipper's bare feet.
"You know 'm,
Jerry, you known the black fella boy," he said, his words quick and
exciting, his hand moving in questing circles toward the blacks.
Jerry was all ali=
ve
on the instant, jumping about, barking with short yelps of eagerness.
"I do believe
the dog could lead me to him," Van Horn confided to the mate. "Come on, Jerry, find 'm, sic=
k 'm,
shake 'm down. Where is he, J=
erry? Find 'm. Find 'm."
All that Jerry kn=
ew
was that Skipper wanted something.
He must find something that Skipper wanted, and he was eager to
serve. He pranced about aimle=
ssly
and willingly for a space, while Skipper's urging cries increased his
excitement. Then he was struc=
k by
an idea, and a most definite idea it was.&=
nbsp;
The circle of boys broke to let him through as he raced for'ard along
the starboard side to the tight-lashed heap of trade- boxes. He put his nose into the opening w=
here
the wild-dog laired, and sniffed.
Yes, the wild-dog was inside.
Not only did he smell him, but he heard the menace of his snarl.
He looked up to
Skipper questioningly. Was it=
that
Skipper wanted him to go in after the wild-dog? But Skipper laughed and waved his =
hand
to show that he wanted him to search in other places for something else.
He leaped away,
sniffing in likely places where experience had taught him cockroaches and r=
ats
might be. Yet it quickly dawn=
ed on
him that it was not such things Skipper was after. His heart was wild with desire to =
serve,
and, without clear purpose, he began sniffing legs of black boys.
This brought live=
lier
urgings and encouragements from Skipper, and made him almost frantic. That was it. He must identify the boat's crew a=
nd the
return boys by their legs. He
hurried the task, passing swiftly from boy to boy, until he came to Lerumie=
.
And then he forgot
that Skipper wanted him to do something.&n=
bsp;
All he knew was that it was Lerumie who had broken the taboo of his
sacred person by laying hands on him, and that it was Lerumie who had thrown
him overboard.
With a cry of rag=
e, a
flash of white teeth, and a bristle of short neck- hair, he sprang for the
black. Lerumie fled down the =
deck,
and Jerry pursued amid the laughter of all the blacks. Several times, in making the circu=
it of
the deck, he managed to scratch the flying calves with his teeth. Then Lerumie took to the main rigg=
ing,
leaving Jerry impotently to rage on the deck beneath him.
About this point =
the
blacks grouped in a semi-circle at a respectful distance, with Van Horn to =
the
fore beside Jerry. Van Horn c=
entred
his electric torch on the black in the rigging, and saw the long parallel s=
cratches
on the fingers of the hand that had invaded Jerry's blanket. He pointed them out significantly =
to
Borckman, who stood outside the circle so that no black should be able to c=
ome
at his back.
Skipper picked Je=
rry
up and soothed his anger with:
"Good boy,
Jerry. You marked and sealed
him. Some dog, you, some big =
man-dog."
He turned back to
Lerumie, illuminating him as he clung in the rigging, and his voice was har=
sh
and cold as he addressed him.
"What name
belong along you fella boy?" he demanded.
"Me fella Le=
rumie,"
came the chirping, quavering answer.
"You come al=
ong
Pennduffryn?"
"Me come alo=
ng
Meringe."
Captain Van Horn
debated the while he fondled the puppy in his arms. After all, it was a ret=
urn
boy. In a day, in two days at=
most,
he would have him landed and be quit of him.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he harangued, "me angry along you.&nb=
sp;
Me angry big fella too much along you. Me angry along you any amount. What name you fella boy make 'm
pickaninny dog belong along me walk about along water?"
Lerumie was unabl=
e to
answer. He rolled his eyes
helplessly, resigned to receive a whipping such as he had long since bitter=
ly
learned white masters were wont to administer.
Captain Van Horn
repeated the question, and the black repeated the helpless rolling of his e=
yes.
"For two sti=
cks
tobacco I knock 'm seven bells outa you," the skipper bullied. "Now me give you strong fella=
talk
too much. You look 'm eye bel=
ong
you one time along this fella dog belong me, I knock 'm seven bells and who=
le
starboard watch outa you. Sav=
ve?"
"Me savve,&q=
uot;
Lerumie, plaintively replied; and the episode was closed.
The return boys w=
ent
below to sleep in the cabin.
Borckman and the boat's crew hoisted the mainsail and put the Arangi=
on
her course. And Skipper, unde=
r a
dry blanket from below, lay down to sleep with Jerry, head on his shoulder,=
in
the hollow of his arm.
At seven in the morning, when Skipp=
er
rolled him out of the blanket and got up, Jerry celebrated the new day by
chasing the wild-dog back into his hole and by drawing a snicker from the
blacks on deck, when, with a growl and a flash of teeth, he made Lerumie
side-step half a dozen feet and yield the deck to him.
He shared breakfa=
st
with Skipper, who, instead of eating, washed down with a cup of coffee fifty
grains of quinine wrapped in a cigarette paper, and who complained to the m=
ate
that he would have to get under the blankets and sweat out the fever that w=
as
attacking him. Despite his ch=
ill,
and despite his teeth that were already beginning to chatter while the burn=
ing
sun extracted the moisture in curling mist-wreaths from the deck planking, =
Van
Horn cuddled Jerry in his arms and called him princeling, and prince, and a
king, and a son of kings.
For Van Horn had
often listened to the recitals of Jerry's pedigree by Tom Haggin, over
Scotch-and-sodas, when it was too pestilentially hot to go to bed. And the pedigree was as royal-bloo=
ded as
was possible for an Irish terrier to possess, whose breed, beginning with t=
he
ancient Irish wolf-hound, had been moulded and established by man in less t=
han
two generations of men.
There was Terrence the Magnificent--descended, as Van Horn remembered, from the American-bred Milton Droleen, out of the Queen of County Antrim, Breda Muddler, which roy= al bitch, as every one who is familiar with the stud book knows, goes back as = far as the almost mythical Spuds, with along the way no primrose dallyings with black-and-tan Killeney Boys and Welsh nondescripts. And did not Biddy trace to Erin, m= other and star of the breed, through a long descendant out of Breda Mixer, hersel= f an ancestress of Breda Muddler? = Nor could be omitted from the purple record the later ancestress, Moya Doolen.<= o:p>
So Jerry knew the
ecstasy of loving and of being loved in the arms of his love-god, although
little he knew of such phrases as "king's son" and "son of
kings," save that they connoted love for him in the same way that Leru=
mie's
hissing noises connoted hate. One
thing Jerry knew without knowing that he knew, namely, that in the few hour=
s he
had been with Skipper he loved him more than he had loved Derby and Bob, wh=
o,
with the exception of Mister Haggin, were the only other white-gods he had =
ever
known. He was not conscious of
this. He merely loved, merely=
acted
on the prompting of his heart, or head, or whatever organic or anatomical p=
art
of him that developed the mysterious, delicious, and insatiable hunger call=
ed
"love."
Skipper went
below. He went all unheeding =
of
Jerry, who padded softly at his heels until the companionway was reached. Skipper was unheeding of Jerry bec=
ause
of the fever that wrenched his flesh and chilled his bones, that made his h=
ead
seem to swell monstrously, that glazed the world to his swimming eyes and m=
ade
him walk feebly and totteringly like a drunken man or a man very aged. And Jerry sensed that something was=
wrong
with Skipper.
Skipper, beginning
the babblings of delirium which alternated with silent moments of control in
order to get below and under blankets, descended the ladder-like stairs, and
Jerry, all-yearning, controlled himself in silence and watched the slow des=
cent
with the hope that when Skipper reached the bottom he would raise his arms =
and
lift him down. But Skipper wa=
s too
far gone to remember that Jerry existed.&n=
bsp;
He staggered, with wide-spread arms to keep from falling, along the
cabin floor for'ard to the bunk in the tiny stateroom.
Jerry was truly o=
f a
kingly line. He wanted to cal=
l out
and beg to be taken down. But=
he
did not. He controlled himsel=
f, he
knew not why, save that he was possessed by a nebulous awareness that Skipp=
er
must be considered as a god should be considered, and that this was no time=
to obtrude
himself on Skipper. His heart=
was
torn with desire, although he made no sound, and he continued only to yearn
over the companion combing and to listen to the faint sounds of Skipper's
progress for'ard.
But even kings and
their descendants have their limitations, and at the end of a quarter of an
hour Jerry was ripe to cease from his silence. With the going below of Skip=
per,
evidently in great trouble, the light had gone out of the day for Jerry.
Just as it was
tremblingly imperative that Jerry must suddenly squat down, point his nose =
at
the zenith, and vocalize his heart-rending woe, an idea came to him. There is no explaining how this id=
ea
came. No more can it be expla=
ined
than can a human explain why, at luncheon to-day, he selects green peas and
rejects string beans, when only yesterday he elected to choose string beans=
and
to reject green peas. No more=
can
it be explained than can a human judge, sentencing a convicted criminal and=
imposing
eight years imprisonment instead of the five or nine years that also at the
same time floated upward in his brain, explain why he categorically determi=
ned
on eight years as the just, adequate punishment. Since not even humans, who=
are
almost half-gods, can fathom the mystery of the genesis of ideas and the
dictates of choice, appearing in their consciousness as ideas, it is not to=
be
expected of a more dog to know the why of the ideas that animate it to defi=
nite
acts toward definite ends.
And so Jerry. Just as he must immediately howl, = he was aware that the idea, an entirely different idea, was there, in the innermost centre of the quick-thinkingness of him, with all its compulsion. He obeyed the idea as a marionette= obeys the strings, and started forthwith down the deck aft in quest of the mate.<= o:p>
He had an appeal =
to
make to Borckman. Borckman wa=
s also
a two-legged white-god. Easily
could Borckman lift him down the precipitous ladder, which was to him, unai=
ded,
a taboo, the violation of which was pregnant with disaster. But Borckman had in him little of =
the
heart of love, which is understanding.&nbs=
p;
Also, Borckman was busy.
Besides overseeing the continuous adjustment, by trimming of sails a=
nd
orders to the helmsman, of the Arangi to her way on the sea, and overseeing=
the
boat's crew at its task of washing deck and polishing brasswork, he was eng=
aged
in steadily nipping from a stolen bottle of his captain's whiskey which he =
had
stowed away in the hollow between the two sacks of yams lashed on deck aft =
the
mizzenmast.
Borckman was on h=
is
way for another nip, after having thickly threatened to knock seven bells a=
nd
the ten commandments out of the black at the wheel for faulty steering, when
Jerry appeared before him and blocked the way to his desire. But Jerry did not block him as he =
would
have blocked Lerumie, for instance.
There was no showing of teeth, no bristling of neck hair. Instead, Jerry was all placation a=
nd
appeal, all softness of pleading in a body denied speech that nevertheless =
was
articulate, from wagging tail and wriggling sides to flat-laid ears and eyes
that almost spoke, to any human sensitive of understanding.
But Borckman saw =
in
his way only a four-legged creature of the brute world, which, in his arrog=
ant
brutalness he esteemed more brute than himself. All the pretty picture of the soft
puppy, instinct with communicativeness, bursting with tenderness of petitio=
n,
was veiled to his vision. Wha=
t he
saw was merely a four-legged animal to be thrust aside while he continued h=
is
lordly two-legged progress toward the bottle that could set maggots crawlin=
g in
his brain and make him dream dreams that he was prince, not peasant, that he
was a master of matter rather than a slave of matter.
And thrust aside
Jerry was, by a rough and naked foot, as harsh and unfeeling in its impact =
as
an inanimate breaking sea on a beach-jut of insensate rock. He half-sprawled on the slippery d=
eck,
regained his balance, and stood still and looked at the white-god who had
treated him so cavalierly. The
meanness and unfairness had brought from Jerry no snarling threat of
retaliation, such as he would have offered Lerumie or any other black. Nor in his brain was any thought of
retaliation. This was no
Lerumie. This was a superior =
god,
two-legged, white-skinned, like Skipper, like Mister Haggin and the couple =
of
other superior gods he had known.
Only did he know hurt, such as any child knows under the blow of a
thoughtless or unloving mother.
In the hurt was
mingled a resentment. He was =
keenly
aware that there were two sorts of roughness. There was the kindly roughness of =
love, such
as when Skipper gripped him by the jowl, shook him till his teeth rattled, =
and
thrust him away with an unmistakable invitation to come back and be so shak=
en
again. Such roughness, to Jer=
ry,
was heaven. In it was the int=
imacy
of contact with a beloved god who in such manner elected to express a
reciprocal love.
But this roughnes=
s of
Borckman was different. It wa=
s the
other kind of roughness in which resided no warm affection, no heart-touch =
of
love. Jerry did not quite understand, but he sensed the difference and rese=
nted,
without expressing in action, the wrongness and unfairness of it. So he stood, after regaining balan=
ce,
and soberly regarded, in a vain effort to understand, the mate with a
bottle-bottom inverted skyward, the mouth to his lips, the while his throat
made gulping contractions and noises.
And soberly he continued to regard the mate when he went aft and
threatened to knock the "Song of Songs" and the rest of the Old
Testament out of the black helmsman whose smile of teeth was as humbly gent=
le
and placating as Jerry's had been when he made his appeal.
Leaving this god =
as a
god unliked and not understood, Jerry sadly trotted back to the companionway
and yearned his head over the combing in the direction in which he had seen
Skipper disappear. What bit a=
t his consciousness
and was a painful incitement in it, was his desire to be with Skipper who w=
as
not right, and who was in trouble.
He wanted Skipper. He =
wanted
to be with him, first and sharply, because he loved him, and, second and di=
mly,
because he might serve him. A=
nd,
wanting Skipper, in his helplessness and youngness in experience of the wor=
ld,
he whimpered and cried his heart out across the companion combing, and was =
too
clean and direct in his sorrow to be deflected by an outburst of anger agai=
nst
the niggers, on deck and below, who chuckled at him and derided him.
From the crest of=
the
combing to the cabin floor was seven feet.=
He had, only a few hours before, climbed the precipitous stairway; b=
ut
it was impossible, and he knew it, to descend the stairway. And yet, at the last, he dared it.=
So compulsive was the prod of his =
heart
to gain to Skipper at any cost, so clear was his comprehension that he could
not climb down the ladder head first, with no grippingness of legs and feet=
and
muscles such as were possible in the ascent, that he did not attempt it.
He struck on his =
side
and head. The one impact knoc=
ked
the breath out of him; the other stunned him. Even in his unconsciousness, lying=
on
his side and quivering, he made rapid, spasmodic movements of his legs as i=
f running
for'ard to Skipper. The boys =
looked
on and laughed, and when he no longer quivered and churned his legs they
continued to laugh. Born in s=
avagery,
having lived in savagery all their lives and known naught else, their sense=
of
humour was correspondingly savage.
To them, the sight of a stunned and possibly dead puppy was a
side-splitting, ludicrous event.
Not until the fou=
rth
minute ticked off did returning consciousness enable Jerry to crawl to his =
feet
and with wide-spread legs and swimming eyes adjust himself to the Arangi's
roll. Yet with the first
glimmerings of consciousness persisted the one idea that he must gain to
Skipper. Blacks? In his anxie=
ty and
solicitude and love they did not count.&nb=
sp;
He ignored the chuckling, grinning, girding black boys, who, but for=
the
fact that he was under the terrible aegis of the big fella white marster, w=
ould
have delighted to kill and eat the puppy who, in the process of training, w=
as
proving a most capable nigger-chaser.
Without a turn of head or roll of eye, aristocratically positing the=
ir
non-existingness to their faces, he trotted for'ard along the cabin floor a=
nd
into the stateroom where Skipper babbled maniacally in the bunk.
Jerry, who had ne=
ver
had malaria, did not understand.
But in his heart he knew great trouble in that Skipper was in
trouble. Skipper did not reco=
gnize
him, even when he sprang into the bunk, walked across Skipper's heaving che=
st,
and licked the acrid sweat of fever from Skipper's face. Instead, Skipper's
wildly-thrashing arms brushed him away and flung him violently against the =
side
of the bunk.
This was roughness
that was not love-roughness. =
Nor
was it the roughness of Borckman spurning him away with his foot. It was part of Skipper's trouble.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Jerry did not reason this
conclusion. But, and to the p=
oint, he
acted upon it as if he had reasoned it.&nb=
sp;
In truth, through inadequacy of one of the most adequate languages in
the world, it can only be said that Jerry sensed the new difference of this
roughness.
He sat up, just o=
ut
of range of one restless, beating arm, yearned to come closer and lick agai=
n the
face of the god who knew him not, and who, he knew, loved him well, and
palpitatingly shared and suffered all Skipper's trouble.
"Eh,
Clancey," Skipper babbled.
"It's a fine job this day, and no better crew to clean up after=
the
dubs of motormen. . . . Number three jack, Clancey. Get under the for'ard end." And, as the spectres of his nightm=
are
metamorphosed: "Hush, darling, talking to your dad like that, telling =
him
the combing of your sweet and golden hair.=
As if I couldn't, that have combed it these seven years--better than
your mother, darling, better than your mother. I'm the one gold-medal prize-winne=
r in
the combing of his lovely daughter's lovely hair. . . . She's broken out! G=
ive
her the wheel aft there! Jib =
and
fore-topsail halyards! Full a=
nd by,
there! A good full! . . . Ah,=
she
takes it like the beauty fairy boat that she is upon the sea. . . I'll just
lift that--sure, the limit. Blackey, when you pay as much to see my cards as
I'm going to pay to see yours, you're going to see some cards, believe
me!"
And so the farrag=
o of
unrelated memories continued to rise vocal on Skipper's lips to the heave of
his body and the beat of his arms, while Jerry, crouched against the side of
the bunk mourned and mourned his grief and inability to be of help. All that was occurring was beyond =
him. He knew no more of poker hands tha=
n did
he know of getting ships under way, of clearing up surface car wrecks in New
York, or of combing the long yellow hair of a loved daughter in a Harlem fl=
at.
"Both dead,&=
quot;
Skipper said in a change of delirium.
He said it quietly, as if announcing the time of day, then wailed:
"But, oh, the bonnie, bonnie braids of all the golden hair of her!&quo=
t;
He lay motionless=
ly
for a space and sobbed out a breaking heart. This was Jerry's chance. He crept inside the arm that tosse=
d,
snuggled against Skipper's side, laid his head on Skipper's shoulder, his c=
ool nose
barely touching Skipper's cheek, and felt the arm curl about him and press =
him
closer. The hand bent from the
wrist and caressed him protectingly, and the warm contact of his velvet body
put a change in Skipper's sick dreams, for he began to mutter in cold and
bitter ominousness: "Any nigger that as much as bats an eye at that pu=
ppy.
. ."
When, in half an hour, Van Horn's s=
weat
culminated in profusion, it marked the breaking of the malarial attack. Great physical relief was his, and=
the
last mists of delirium ebbed from his brain. But he was left limply weak, and, =
after
tossing off the blankets and recognizing Jerry, he fell into a refreshing
natural sleep.
Not till two hours later did he awake and start to go on deck. Half-way up the companion, he depo= sited Jerry on deck and went back to the stateroom for a forgotten bottle of quinine. But he did not immed= iately return to Jerry. The long dra= wer under Borckman's bunk caught his eye. The wooden button that held it shut w= as gone, and it was far out and hanging at an angle that jammed it and prevent= ed it from falling to the floor. The matter was serious. There was little doubt in his mind, had the drawer, in the midst of the squall of the previous night, fallen to the floor, that no Arangi and no soul of the eigh= ty souls on board would have been left. For the drawer was filled with a heterogeneous mess of dynamite stic= ks, boxes of fulminating caps, coils of fuses, lead sinkers, iron tools, and ma= ny boxes of rifle, revolver and pistol cartridges. He sorted and arranged the varied contents, and with a screwdriver and a longer screw reattached the button.<= o:p>
In the meantime,
Jerry was encountering new adventure not of the pleasantest. While waiting for Skipper to retur=
n,
Jerry chanced to see the wild-dog brazenly lying on deck a dozen feet from =
his
lair in the trade-boxes. Inst=
antly
stiffly crouching, Jerry began to stalk.&n=
bsp;
Success seemed assured, for the wild-dog, with closed eyes, was
apparently asleep.
And at this moment
the mate, two-legging it along the deck from for'ard in the direction of the
bottle stored between the yam sacks, called, "Jerry," in a remark=
ably
husky voice. Jerry flattened =
his
filbert-shaped ears and wagged his tail in acknowledgment, but advertised h=
is
intention of continuing to stalk his enemy. And at sound of the mate's voice t=
he wild-dog
flung quick-opened eyes in Jerry's direction and flashed into his burrow, w=
here
he immediately turned around, thrust his head out with a show of teeth, and
snarled triumphant defiance.
Baulked of his qu=
arry
by the inconsiderateness of the mate, Jerry trotted back to the head of the
companion to wait for Skipper. But
Borckman, whose brain was well a-crawl by virtue of the many nips, clung to=
a
petty idea after the fashion of drunken men. Twice again, imperatively, he call=
ed
Jerry to him, and twice again, with flattened ears of gentleness and wagging
tail, Jerry good-naturedly expressed his disinclination. Next, he yearned h=
is
head over the coming and into the cabin after Skipper.
Borckman remember=
ed
his first idea and continued to the bottle, which he generously inverted
skyward. But the second idea,=
petty
as it was, persisted; and, after swaying and mumbling to himself for a time,
after unseeingly making believe to study the crisp fresh breeze that filled=
the
Arangi's sails and slanted her deck, and, after sillily attempting on the
helmsman to portray eagle-like vigilance in his drink-swimming eyes, he lur=
ched
amidships toward Jerry.
Jerry's first
intimation of Borckman's arrival was a cruel and painful clutch on his flank
and groin that made him cry out in pain and whirl around. Next, as the mate had seen Skipper=
do in
play, Jerry had his jowls seized in a tooth-clattering shake that was
absolutely different from the Skipper's rough love-shake. His head and body were shaken, his=
teeth
clattered painfully, and with the roughest of roughness he was flung part w=
ay
down the slippery slope of deck.
Now Jerry was a
gentleman. All the soul of co=
urtesy
was in him, for equals and superiors.
After all, even in an inferior like the wild-dog, he did not conscio=
usly
press an advantage very far--never extremely far. In his stalking and rushi=
ng
of the wild-dog, he had been more sound and fury than an overbearing
bully. But with a superior, w=
ith a
two-legged white-god like Borckman, there was more a demand upon his contro=
l, restraint,
and inhibition of primitive promptings.&nb=
sp;
He did not want to play with the mate a game that he ecstatically pl=
ayed
with Skipper, because he had experienced no similar liking for the mate,
two-legged white-god that he was.
And still Jerry w=
as
all gentleness. He came back =
in a
feeble imitation rush of the whole-hearted rush that he had learned to make=
on
Skipper. He was, in truth, ac=
ting,
play-acting, attempting to do what he had no heart- prompting to do. He made believe to play, and utter=
ed
simulated growls that failed of the verity of simulation.
He bobbed his tail
good-naturedly and friendly, and growled ferociously and friendly; but the
keenness of the drunkenness of the mate discerned the difference and arouse=
d in
him, vaguely, the intuition of difference, of play-acting, of cheating. Jerry was cheating--out of his hea=
rt of consideration. Borckman drunkenly recognized the
cheating without crediting the heart of good behind it. On the instant he was antagonistic=
. Forgetting that he was only a brut=
e, he
posited that this was no more than a brute with which he strove to play in =
the
genial comradely way that the Skipper played.
Red war was
inevitable--not first on Jerry's part, but on Borckman's part. Borckman felt the abysmal urgings =
of the
beast, as a beast, to prove himself master of this four-legged beast. Jerry felt his jowl and jaw clutch=
ed
still more harshly and hardly, and, with increase of harshness and hardness=
, he
was flung farther down the deck, which, on account of its growing slant due=
to
heavier gusts of wind, had become a steep and slippery hill.
He came back, cla=
wing
frantically up the slope that gave him little footing; and he came back, no
longer with poorly attempted simulation of ferocity, but impelled by the fi=
rst
flickerings of real ferocity. He
did not know this. If he thou=
ght at
all, he was under the impression that he was playing the game as he had pla=
yed
it with Skipper. In short, he=
was taking
an interest in the game, although a radically different interest from what =
he
had taken with Skipper.
This time his tee=
th
flashed quicker and with deeper intent at the jowl- clutching hand, and,
missing, he was seized and flung down the smooth incline harder and farther
than before. He was growing a=
ngry,
as he clawed back, though he was not conscious of it. But the mate, being a man, albeit a
drunken one, sensed the change in Jerry's attack ere Jerry dreamed there was
any change in it. And not onl=
y did
Borckman sense it, but it served as a spur to drive him back into primitive
beastliness, and to fight to master this puppy as a primitive man, under
dissimilar provocation, might have fought with the members of the first lit=
ter stolen
from a wolf-den among the rocks.
True, Jerry could
trace as far back. His ancient
ancestors had been Irish wolf-hounds, and, long before that, the ancestors =
of
the wolf-hounds had been wolves.
The note in Jerry's growls changed.=
The unforgotten and ineffaceable past strummed the fibres of his
throat. His teeth flashed with
fierce intent, in the desire of sinking as deep in the man's hand as passion
could drive. For Jerry by thi=
s time
was all passion. He had leape=
d back
into the dark stark rawness of the early world almost as swiftly as had
Borckman. And this time his t=
eeth
scored, ripping the tender and sensitive and flesh of all the inside of the
first and second joints of Borckman's right hand. Jerry's teeth were needles that st=
ung,
and Borckman, gaining the grasp on Jerry's jaw, flung him away and down so =
that
almost he hit the Arangi's tiny-rail ere his clawing feet stopped him.
And Van Horn, hav=
ing
finished his rearrangement and repair of the explosive-filled drawer under =
the
mate's bunk, climbed up the companion steps, saw the battle, paused, and
quietly looked on.
But he looked acr=
oss
a million years, at two mad creatures who had slipped the leach of the
generations and who were back in the darkness of spawning life ere dawning
intelligence had modified the chemistry of such life to softness of
consideration. What stirred i=
n the
brain crypts of Borckman's heredity, stirred in the brain-crypts of Jerry's
heredity. Time had gone backward for both.=
All the endeavour and achievement of the ten thousand generations was
not, and, as wolf-dog and wild-man, the combat was between Jerry and the
mate. Neither saw Van Horn, w=
ho was
inside the companionway hatch, his eyes level with the combing.
To Jerry, Borckman
was now no more a god than was he himself a mere, smooth-coated Irish
terrier. Both had forgotten t=
he
million years stamped into their heredity more feebly, less eraseably, than
what had been stamped in prior to the million years. Jerry did not know drunkenness, bu=
t he
did know unfairness; and it was with raging indignation that he knew it.
And still Jerry c=
ame
back. As any screaming creatu=
re of
the jungle, he hysterically squalled his indignation. But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the =
blows. He bored straight in, striving, wi=
thout avoiding
a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth. So hard was he flung down the last=
time
that his side smashed painfully against the rail, and Van Horn cried out:
"Cut that ou=
t,
Borckman! Leave the puppy
alone!"
The mate turned in
the startle of surprise at being observed.=
The sharp, authoritative words of Van Horn were a call across the
million years. Borckman's anger-convulsed face ludicrously attempted a
sheepish, deprecating grin, and he was just mumbling, "We was only
playing," when Jerry arrived back, leaped in the air, and sank his tee=
th
into the offending hand.
Borckman immediat=
ely
and insanely went back across the million years. An attempted kick got his ankle sc=
ored
for his pains. He gibbered hi=
s own rage
and hurt, and, stooping, dealt Jerry a tremendous blow alongside the head a=
nd
neck. Being in mid-leap when =
he
received the blow Jerry was twistingly somersaulted sidewise before he stru=
ck
the deck on his back. As swiftly as he could scramble to footing and charge=
, he
returned to the attack, but was checked by Skipper's:
"Jerry! Stop it! Come here!"
He obeyed, but on=
ly
by prodigious effort, his neck bristling and his lips writhing clear of his
teeth as he passed the mate. =
For
the first time there was a whimper in his throat; but it was not the whimpe=
r of
fear, nor of pain, but of outrage, and of desire to continue the battle whi=
ch he
struggled to control at Skipper's behest.
Stepping out on d=
eck,
Skipper picked him up and patted and soothed him the while he expressed his
mind to the mate.
"Borckman, y=
ou
ought to be ashamed. You ough=
t to
be shot or have your block knocked off for this. A puppy, a little puppy scarcely
weaned. For two cents I'd giv=
e you
what-for myself. The idea of =
it. A little puppy, a weanling little
puppy. Glad your hands are
ripped. You deserved it. Hope=
you
get blood-poisoning in them.
Besides, you're drunk. Go
below and turn in, and don't you dare come on deck until you're sober. Savve?"
And Jerry, far-jo=
urneyer
across life and across the history of all life that goes to make the world,
strugglingly mastering the abysmal slime of the prehistoric with the love t=
hat
had come into existence and had become warp and woof of him in far later ti=
me,
his wrath of ancientness still faintly reverberating in his throat like the
rumblings of a passing thunder-storm, knew, in the wide warm ways of feelin=
g,
the augustness and righteousness of Skipper. Skipper was in truth a god who did
right, who was fair, who protected, and who imperiously commanded this other
and lesser god that slunk away before his anger.
Jerry and Skipper shared the long
afternoon-watch together, the latter being guilty of recurrent chuckles and
exclamations such as: "Gott-fer- dang, Jerry, believe me, you're some
fighter and all dog"; or, "You're a proper man's dog, you are, a =
lion
dog. I bet the lion don't liv=
e that
could get your goat."
And Jerry,
understanding none of the words, with the exception of his own name,
nevertheless knew that the sounds made by Skipper were broad of praise and =
warm
of love. And when Skipper sto=
oped
and rubbed his ears, or received a rose-kiss on extended fingers, or caught=
him
up in his arms, Jerry's heart was nigh to bursting. For what greater ecstasy can be the
portion of any creature than that it be loved by a god? This was just precisely Jerry's
ecstasy. This was a god, a
tangible, real, three- dimensioned god, who went about and ruled his world =
in a
loin-cloth and on two bare legs, and who loved him with crooning noises in
throat and mouth and with two wide-spread arms that folded him in.
At four o'clock,
measuring a glance at the afternoon sun and gauging the speed of the Arangi
through the water in relation to the closeness of Su'u, Van Horn went below=
and
roughly shook the mate awake. Until
both returned, Jerry held the deck alone.&=
nbsp;
But for the fact that the white- gods were there below and were cert=
ain
to be back at any moment, not many moments would Jerry have held the deck, =
for
every lessened mile between the return boys and Malaita contributed a risin=
g of
their spirits, and under the imminence of their old-time independence, Leru=
mie,
as an instance of many of them, with strong gustatory sensations and a posi=
tive
drooling at the mouth, regarded Jerry in terms of food and vengeance that w=
ere
identical.
Flat-hauled on the
crisp breeze, the Arangi closed in rapidly with the land. Jerry peered through the barbed wi=
re,
sniffing the air, Skipper beside him and giving orders to the mate and helm=
sman. The heap of trade- boxes was now
unlashed, and the boys began opening and shutting them. What gave them
particular delight was the ringing of the bell with which each box was equi=
pped
and which rang whenever a lid was raised.&=
nbsp;
Their pleasure in the toy-like contrivance was that of children, and
each went back again and again to unlock his own box and make the bell ring=
.
Fifteen of the bo=
ys
were to be landed at Su'u and with wild gesticulations and cries they began=
to
recognize and point out the infinitesimal details of the landfall of the on=
ly
spot they had known on earth prior to the day, three years before, when they
had been sold into slavery by their fathers, uncles, and chiefs.
A narrow neck of
water, scarcely a hundred yards across, gave entrance to a long and tiny
bay. The shore was massed with
mangroves and dense, tropical vegetation.&=
nbsp;
There was no sign of houses nor of human occupancy, although Van Hor=
n,
staring at the dense jungle so close at hand, knew as a matter of course th=
at
scores, and perhaps hundreds, of pairs of human eyes were looking at him.
"Smell 'm,
Jerry, smell 'm," he encouraged.
And Jerry's hair
bristled as he barked at the mangrove wall, for truly his keen scent inform=
ed
him of lurking niggers.
"If I could
smell like him," the captain said to the mate, "there wouldn't be=
any
risk at all of my ever losing my head."
But Borckman made=
no
reply and sullenly went about his work.&nb=
sp;
There was little wind in the bay, and the Arangi slowly forged in and
dropped anchor in thirty fathoms.
So steep was the slope of the harbour bed from the beach that even in
such excessive depth the Arangi's stern swung in within a hundred feet of t=
he
mangroves.
Van Horn continue=
d to
cast anxious glances at the wooded shore.&=
nbsp;
For Su'u had an evil name.
Since the schooner Fair Hathaway, recruiting labour for the Queensla=
nd
plantations, had been captured by the natives and all hands slain fifteen y=
ears
before, no vessel, with the exception of the Arangi, had dared to venture i=
nto
Su'u. And most white men cond=
emned
Van Horn's recklessness for so venturing.
Far up the mounta=
ins,
that towered many thousands of feet into the trade- wind clouds, arose many
signal smokes that advertised the coming of the vessel. Far and near, the Arangi's presenc=
e was
known; yet from the jungle so near at hand only shrieks of parrots and
chatterings of cockatoos could be heard.
The whaleboat, ma=
nned
with six of the boat's crew, was drawn alongside, and the fifteen Su'u boys=
and
their boxes were loaded in. U=
nder
the canvas flaps along the thwarts, ready to hand for the rowers, were laid=
five
of the Lee-Enfields. On deck,
another of the boat's crew, rifle in hand, guarded the remaining weapons. Borckman had brought up his own ri=
fle to
be ready for instant use. Van
Horn's rifle lay handy in the stern sheets where he stood near Tambi, who
steered with a long sweep. Jerry raised a low whine and yearned over the ra=
il
after Skipper, who yielded and lifted him down.
The place of dang=
er
was in the boat; for there was little likelihood, at this particular time, =
of a
rising of the return boys on the Arangi. Being of Somo, No-ola, Langa-Langa,
and far Malu they were in wholesome fear, did they lose the protection of t=
heir
white masters, of being eaten by the Su'u folk, just as the Su'u boys would
have feared being eaten by the Somo and Langa-Langa and No-ola folk.
What increased the
danger of the boat was the absence of a covering boat. The invariable custo=
m of
the larger recruiting vessels was to send two boats on any shore errand.
Tambi, under Van
Horn's low-uttered commands, steered a parallel course along the shore. Where the mangroves ceased, and wh=
ere
high ground and a beaten runway came down to the water's edge, Van Horn mot=
ioned
the rowers to back water and lay on their oars. High palms and lofty, wide-branche=
d trees
rose above the jungle at this spot, and the runway showed like the entrance=
of
a tunnel into the dense, green wall of tropical vegetation.
Van Horn, regardi=
ng
the shore for some sign of life, lighted a cigar and put one hand to the
waist-line of his loin-cloth to reassure himself of the presence of the sti=
ck
of dynamite that was tucked between the loin- cloth and his skin. The lighted cigar was for the purp=
ose,
if emergency arose, of igniting the fuse of the dynamite. And the fuse was so short, with it=
s end
split to accommodate the inserted head of a safety match, that between the =
time
of touching it off with the live cigar to the time of the explosion not more
than three seconds could elapse.
This required quick cool work on Van Horn's part, in case need
arose. In three seconds he wo=
uld
have to light the fuse and throw the sputtering stick with directed aim to =
its
objective. However, he did not
expect to use it, and had it ready merely as a precautionary measure.
Five minutes pass=
ed,
and the silence of the shore remained profound. Jerry sniffed Skipper's bare
leg as if to assure him that he was beside him no matter what threatened fr=
om
the hostile silence of the land, then stood up with his forepaws on the gun=
wale
and continued to sniff eagerly and audibly, to prick his neck hair, and to
utter low growls.
"They're the=
re,
all right," Skipper confided to him; and Jerry, with a sideward glance=
of
smiling eyes, with a bobbing of his tail and a quick love-flattening of his
ears, turned his nose shoreward again and resumed his reading of the jungle
tale that was wafted to him on the light fans of the stifling and almost
stagnant air.
"Hey!" =
Van
Horn suddenly shouted. "=
Hey,
you fella boy stick 'm head out belong you!"
As if in a
transformation scene, the apparently tenantless jungle spawned into life. On the instant a hundred stark sav=
ages
appeared. They broke forth
everywhere from the vegetation. All
were armed, some with Snider rifles and ancient horse pistols, others with =
bows
and arrows, with long throwing spears, with war-clubs, and with long-handled
tomahawks. In a flash, one of=
them
leaped into the sunlight in the open space where runway and water met. Save for decorations, he was naked=
as
Adam before the Fall. A solit=
ary
white feather uprose from his kinky, glossy, black hair. A polished bodkin of white petrifi=
ed
shell, with sharp-pointed ends, thrust through a hole in the partition of h=
is
nostrils, extended five inches across his face. About his neck, from a cord of twi=
sted coconut
sennit, hung an ivory-white necklace of wild-boar's tusks. A garter of white cowrie shells
encircled one leg just below the knee.&nbs=
p;
A flaming scarlet flower was coquettishly stuck over one ear, and
through a hole in the other ear was threaded a pig's tail so recently sever=
ed
that it still bled.
As this dandy of
Melanesia leaped into the sunshine, the Snider rifle in his hands came into
position, aimed from his hip, the generous muzzle bearing directly on Van
Horn. No less quick was Van
Horn. With equal speed he had
snatched his rifle and brought it to bear from his hip. So they stood and faced each other,
death in their finger-tips, forty feet apart. The million years between barbaris=
m and
civilization also yawned between them across that narrow gulf of forty
feet. The hardest thing for m=
odern,
evolved man to do is to forget his ancient training. Easiest of all things is it for hi=
m to
forget his modernity and slip back across time to the howling ages. A lie in the teeth, a blow in the =
face,
a love- thrust of jealousy to the heart, in a fraction of an instant can tu=
rn a
twentieth-century philosopher into an ape-like arborean pounding his chest,
gnashing his teeth, and seeing red.
So Van Horn. But with a difference. He straddled time. He was at one and the same instant=
all
modern, all imminently primitive, capable of fighting in redness of tooth a=
nd
claw, desirous of remaining modern for as long as he could with his will ma=
ster
the study of ebon black of skin and dazzling white of decoration that
confronted him.
A long ten second=
s of
silence endured. Even Jerry, =
he
knew not why, stilled the growl in his throat. Five score of head-hunting canniba=
ls on the
fringe of the jungle, fifteen Su'u return blacks in the boat, seven black
boat's crew, and a solitary white man with a cigar in his mouth, a rifle at=
his
hip, and an Irish terrier bristling against his bare calf, kept the solemn =
pact
of those ten seconds, and no one of them knew or guessed what the outcome w=
ould
be.
One of the return
boys, in the bow of the whaleboat, made the peace sign with his palm extend=
ed
outward and weaponless, and began to chirp in the unknown Su'u dialect. Van Horn held his aim and waited.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The dandy lowered his Snider, and =
breath
came more easily to the chests of all who composed the picture.
"Me good fel=
la
boy," the dandy piped, half bird-like and half elf.
"You big fel=
la
fool too much," Van Horn retorted harshly, dropping his gun into the
stern-sheets, motioning to rowers and steersman to turn the boat around, and
puffing his cigar as carelessly casual as if, the moment before, life and d=
eath
had not been the debate.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he went on with fine irritable assumption.=
"What name you stick 'm gun along me? Me no kai-kai (eat) along you. Me kai-kai along you, stomach belo=
ng me
walk about. You kai-kai along=
me,
stomach belong you walk about. You
no like 'm kai-kai Su'u boy belong along you? Su'u boy belong you all the same b=
rother
along you. Long time before, =
three monsoon
before, me speak 'm true speak. Me
say three monsoon boy come back. My
word, three monsoon finish, boy stop along me come back."
By this time the =
boat
had swung around, reversing bow and stern, Van Horn pivoting so as to face =
the
Snider-armed dandy. At another
signal from Van Horn the rowers backed water and forced the boat, stern in,=
up
to the solid ground of the runway.
And each rower, his oar in position in case of attack, privily felt
under the canvas flap to make sure of the exact location of his concealed
Lee-Enfield.
"All right b=
oy
belong you walk about?" Van Horn queried of the dandy, who signified t=
he
affirmative in the Solomon Islands fashion by half-closing his eyes and nod=
ding
his head upward, in a queer, perky way;
"No kai-kai =
'm
Su'u fella boy suppose walk about along you?"
"No fear,&qu=
ot;
the dandy answered. "Sup=
pose
'm Su'u fella boy, all right. Suppose 'm no fella Su'u boy, my word, big
trouble. Ishikola, big fella =
black
marster along this place, him talk 'm me talk along you. Him say any amount bad fella boy s=
top 'm
along bush. Him say big fella=
white
marster no walk about. Him say
jolly good big fella white marster stop 'm along ship."
Van Horn nodded i=
n an
off-hand way, as if the information were of little value, although he knew =
that
for this time Su'u would furnish him no fresh recruits. One at a time, compelling the othe=
rs to
remain in their places, he directed the return boys astern and ashore. It was Solomon Islands tactics.
"Nothing doi=
ng
here this trip," he told the mate.&nb=
sp;
"We'll up hook and out in the morning."
The quick tropic
twilight swiftly blent day and darkness.&n=
bsp;
Overhead all stars were out.
No faintest breath of air moved over the water, and the humid heat
beaded the faces and bodies of both men with profuse sweat. They ate their
deck-spread supper languidly and ever and anon used their forearms to wipe =
the
stinging sweat from their eyes.
"Why a man
should come to the Solomons--beastly hole," the mate complained.
"Or stay
on," the captain rejoined.
"I'm too rot=
ten
with fever," the mate grumbled.
"I'd die if I left. Remember, I tried it two years ago. It takes the cold weather to bring=
out
the fever. I arrived in Sydne=
y on
my back. They had to take me =
to hospital
in an ambulance. I got worse =
and
worse. The doctors told me th=
e only
thing to do was to head back where I got the fever. If I did I might live a long time.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> If I hung on in Sydney it meant a =
quick
finish. They packed me on board in another ambulance. And that's all I saw of Australia =
for my
holiday. I don't want to stay=
in
the Solomons. It's plain hell=
. But I got to, or croak."
He rolled, at a r=
ough
estimate, thirty grains of quinine in a cigarette paper, regarded the result
sourly for a moment, then swallowed it at a gulp. This reminded Van Horn, who reache=
d for
the bottle and took a similar dose.
"Better put =
up a
covering cloth," he suggested.
Borckman directed
several of the boat's crew in the rigging up of a thin tarpaulin, like a
curtain along the shore side of the Arangi. This was a precaution against any
bushwhacking bullet from the mangroves only a hundred feet away.
Van Horn sent Tam=
bi
below to bring up the small phonograph and run off the dozen or so scratchy,
screechy records that had already been under the needle a thousand times. Between records, Van Horn recollec=
ted
the girl, and had her haled out of her dark hole in the lazarette to listen=
to
the music. She obeyed in fear,
apprehensive that her time had come. She looked dumbly at the big fella whi=
te
master, her eyes large with fright; nor did the trembling of her body cease=
for
a long time after he had made her lie down. The phonograph meant nothing to
her. She knew only fear--fear=
of
this terrible white man that she was certain was destined to eat her.
Jerry left the
caressing hand of Skipper for a moment to go over and sniff her. This was an act of duty. He was identifying her once again.=
No
matter what happened, no matter what months or years might elapse, he would
know her again and for ever know her again. He returned to the free hand of Sk=
ipper
that resumed its caressing. T=
he
other hand held the cigar which he was smoking.
The wet sultry he=
at
grew more oppressive. The air=
was
nauseous with the dank mucky odour that cooked out of the mangrove swamp. Rowelled by the squeaky music to
recollection of old-world ports and places, Borckman lay on his face on the=
hot
planking, beat a tattoo with his naked toes, and gutturally muttered an
unending monologue of curses. But
Van Horn, with Jerry panting under his hand, placidly and philosophically
continued to smoke, lighting a fresh cigar when the first gave out.
He roused abruptl=
y at
the faint wash of paddles which he was the first on board to hear. In fact, it was Jerry's low growl =
and
neck-rippling of hair that had keyed Van Horn to hear. Pulling the stick of dynamite out =
from
the twist of his loin cloth and glancing at the cigar to be certain it was
alight, he rose to his feet with leisurely swiftness and with leisurely
swiftness gained the rail.
"What name
belong you?" was his challenge to the dark.
"Me fella
Ishikola," came the answer in the quavering falsetto of age.
Van Horn, before
speaking again, loosened his automatic pistol half out of its holster, and
slipped the holster around from his hip till it rested on his groin
conveniently close to his hand.
"How many fe=
lla
boy stop along you?" he demanded.
"One fella
ten-boy altogether he stop," came the aged voice.
"Come alongs=
ide
then." Without turning h=
is
head, his right hand unconsciously dropping close to the butt of the automa=
tic,
Van Horn commanded: "You fella Tambi.=
Fetch 'm lantern. No f=
etch
'm this place. Fetch 'm aft along mizzen rigging and look sharp eye belong
you."
Tambi obeyed,
exposing the lantern twenty feet away from where his captain stood. This gave Van Horn the advantage o=
ver
the approaching canoe-men, for the lantern, suspended through the barbed wi=
re
across the rail and well down, would clearly illuminate the occupants of the
canoe while he was left in semi-darkness and shadow.
"Washee-wash= ee!" he urged peremptorily, while those in the invisible canoe still hesitated.<= o:p>
Came the sound of
paddles, and, next, emerging into the lantern's area of light, the high, bl=
ack
bow of a war canoe, curved like a gondola, inlaid with silvery-glistening
mother-of-pearl; the long lean length of the canoe which was without outrig=
ger;
the shining eyes and the black-shining bodies of the stark blacks who knelt=
in
the bottom and paddled; Ishikola, the old chief, squatting amidships and not
paddling, an unlighted, empty- bowled, short-stemmed clay pipe upside-down
between his toothless gums; and, in the stern, as coxswain, the dandy, all
nakedness of blackness, all whiteness of decoration, save for the pig's tai=
l in
one ear and the scarlet hibiscus that still flamed over the other ear.
Less than ten bla=
cks
had been known to rush a blackbirder officered by no more than two white me=
n,
and Van Horn's hand closed on the butt of his automatic, although he did not
pull it clear of the holster, and although, with his left hand, he directed=
the
cigar to his mouth and puffed it lively alight.
"Hello,
Ishikola, you blooming old blighter," was Van Horn's greeting to the o=
ld
chief, as the dandy, with a pry of his steering-paddle against the side of =
the
canoe and part under its bottom, brought the dug-out broadside-on to the Ar=
angi
so that the sides of both crafts touched.
Ishikola smiled
upward in the lantern light. =
He
smiled with his right eye, which was all he had, the left having been destr=
oyed
by an arrow in a youthful jungle-skirmish.
"My word!&qu=
ot;
he greeted back. "Long t=
ime
you no stop eye belong me."
Van Horn joked hi=
m in
understandable terms about the latest wives he had added to his harem and w=
hat
price he had paid for them in pigs.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he concluded, "you rich fella too much together."
"Me like 'm =
come
on board gammon along you," Ishikola meekly suggested.
"My word, ni=
ght
he stop," the captain objected, then added, as a concession against the
known rule that visitors were not permitted aboard after nightfall: "Y=
ou
come on board, boy stop 'm along boat."
Van Horn gallantly
helped the old man to clamber to the rail, straddle the barbed wire, and ga=
in
the deck. Ishikola was a dirt=
y old
savage. One of his tambos (ta=
mbo
being beche-de-mer and Melanesian for "taboo") was that water
unavoidable must never touch his skin.&nbs=
p;
He who lived by the salt sea, in a land of tropic downpour, religiou=
sly
shunned contact with water. He
never went swimming or wading, and always fled to shelter from a shower.
So Ishikola, whose
tambo was water, was crusted with the filth of years. He was sealed like a
leper, and, weazen-faced and age-shrunken, he hobbled horribly from an anci=
ent
spear-thrust to the thigh that twisted his torso droopingly out of the
vertical. But his one eye gle=
amed brightly
and wickedly, and Van Horn knew that it observed as much as did both his own
eyes.
Van Horn shook ha=
nds
with him--an honour he accorded only chiefs--and motioned him to squat down=
on
deck on his hams close to the fear-struck girl, who began trembling again at
recollection of having once heard Ishikola offer five twenties of drinking
coconuts for the meat of her for a dinner.
Jerry needs must
sniff, for future identification purposes, this graceless, limping, naked,
one-eyed old man. And, when h=
e had
sniffed and registered the particular odour, Jerry must growl intimidatingly
and win a quick eye-glance of approval from Skipper.
"My word, go=
od
fella kai-kai dog," said Ishikola.&nb=
sp;
"Me give 'm half-fathom shell money that fella dog."
For a mere puppy =
this
offer was generous, because half a fathom of shell- money, strung on a thre=
ad
of twisted coconut fibres, was equivalent in cash to half a sovereign in
English currency, to two dollars and a half in American, or, in live-pig
currency, to half of a fair-sized fat pig.
"One fathom
shell-money that fella dog," Van Horn countered, in his heart knowing =
that
he would not sell Jerry for a hundred fathoms, or for any fabulous price fr=
om
any black, but in his head offering so small a price over par as not to aro=
use
suspicion among the blacks as to how highly he really valued the golden-coa=
ted
son of Biddy and Terrence.
Ishikola next ave=
rred
that the girl had grown much thinner, and that he, as a practical judge of
meat, did not feel justified this time in bidding more than three
twenty-strings of drinking coconuts.
After these
amenities, the white master and the black talked of many things, the one
bluffing with the white-man's superiority of intellect and knowledge, the o=
ther
feeling and guessing, primitive statesman that he was, in an effort to
ascertain the balance of human and political forces that bore upon his Su'u
territory, ten miles square, bounded by the sea and by landward lines of an=
inter-tribal
warfare that was older than the oldest Su'u myth. Eternally, heads had been taken and
bodies eaten, now on one side, now on the other, by the temporarily victori=
ous tribes. The boundaries had remained the
same. Ishikola, in crude bech=
e- de-mer,
tried to learn the Solomon Islands general situation in relation to Su'u, a=
nd
Van Horn was not above playing the unfair diplomatic game as it is unfairly
played in all the chancellories of the world powers.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
Van Horn concluded; "you bad fella too much along this place. Too many
heads you fella take; too much kai-kai long pig along you." (Long pig,
meaning barbecued human flesh.)
"What name, =
long
time black fella belong Su'u take 'm heads, kai-kai along long pig?"
Ishikola countered.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
Van Horn came back, "too much along this place. Bime by, close up, big fella warsh=
ip
stop 'm along Su'u, knock seven balls outa Su'u."
"What name h=
im
big fella warship stop 'm along Solomons?" Ishikola demanded.
"Big fella
Cambrian, him fella name belong ship," Van Horn lied, too well aware t=
hat
no British cruiser had been in the Solomons for the past two years.
The conversation =
was
becoming rather a farcical dissertation upon the relations that should obta=
in
between states, irrespective of size, when it was broken off by a cry from
Tambi, who, with another lantern hanging overside at the end of his arm had
made a discovery.
"Skipper, gu=
n he
stop along canoe!" was his cry.
Van Horn, with a
leap, was at the rail and peering down over the barbed wire. Ishikola, despite his twisted body,=
was
only seconds behind him.
"What name t=
hat
fella gun stop 'm along bottom?" Van Horn indignantly demanded.
The dandy, in the
stern, with a careless look upward, tried with his foot to shove over the g=
reen
leaves so as to cover the out-jutting butts of several rifles, but made the
matter worse by exposing them more fully.&=
nbsp;
He bent to rake the leaves over with his hand, but sat swiftly uprig=
ht
when Van Horn roared at him:
"Stand
clear! Keep 'm fella hand bel=
ong
you long way big bit!"
Van Horn turned on
Ishikola, and simulated wrath which he did not feel against the ancient and
ever-recurrent trick.
"What name y=
ou
come alongside, gun he stop along canoe belong you?" he demanded.
The old salt-water
chief rolled his one eye and blinked a fair simulation of stupidity and
innocence.
"My word, me
cross along you too much," Van Horn continued. "Ishikola, you plenty bad fel=
la
boy. You get 'm to hell
overside."
The old fellow li=
mped
across the deck with more agility than he had displayed coming aboard,
straddled the barbed wire without assistance, and without assistance dropped
into the canoe, cleverly receiving his weight on his uninjured leg. He blinked up for forgiveness and =
in reassertion
of innocence. Van Horn turned=
his
face aside to hide a grin, and then grinned outright when the old rascal,
showing his empty pipe, wheedled up:
"Suppose 'm =
five
stick tobacco you give 'm along me?"
While Borckman we=
nt
below for the tobacco, Van Horn orated to Ishikola on the sacred solemnity =
of
truth and promises. Next, he =
leaned
across the barbed wire and handed down the five sticks of tobacco.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he threatened. "Somo day,
Ishikola, I finish along you altogether.&n=
bsp;
You no good friend stop along salt-water. You big fool stop along bush."=
;
When Ishikola
attempted protest, he shut him off with, "My word, you gammon along me=
too
much."
Still the canoe
lingered. The dandy's toe str=
ayed
privily to feel out the butts of the Sniders under the green leaves, and
Ishikola was loth to depart.
"Washee-wash=
ee!"
Van Horn cried with imperative suddenness.
The paddlers, wit=
hout
command from chief or dandy, involuntarily obeyed, and with deep, strong
strokes sent the canoe into the encircling darkness. Just as quickly Van Horn changed h=
is
position on deck to the tune of a dozen yards, so that no hazarded bullet m=
ight
reach him. He crouched low and
listened to the wash of paddles fade away in the distance.
"All right, =
you
fella Tambi," he ordered quietly.&nbs=
p;
"Make 'm music he fella walk about."
And while "R=
ed
Wing" screeched its cheap and pretty rhythm, he reclined elbow on deck,
smoked his cigar, and gathered Jerry into caressing inclosure.
As he smoked he
watched the abrupt misting of the stars by a rain-squall that made to windw=
ard
or to where windward might vaguely be configured. While he gauged the minut=
es
ere he must order Tambi below with the phonograph and records, he noted the
bush-girl gazing at him in dumb fear.
He nodded consent with half-closed eyes and up-tilting face, clinchi=
ng
his consent with a wave of hand toward the companionway. She obeyed as a beaten dog,
spirit-broken, might have obeyed, dragging herself to her feet, trembling
afresh, and with backward glances of her perpetual terror of the big white
master that she was convinced would some day eat her. In such fashion, stabbing Van Horn=
to
the heart because of his inability to convey his kindness to her across the
abyss of the ages that separated them, she slunk away to the companionway a=
nd crawled
down it feet-first like some enormous, large-headed worm.
After he had sent
Tambi to follow her with the precious phonograph, Van Horn continued to smo=
ke
on while the sharp, needle-like spray of the rain impacted soothingly on his
heated body.
Only for five min=
utes
did the rain descend. Then, a=
s the
stars drifted back in the sky, the smell of steam seemed to stench forth fr=
om
deck and mangrove swamp, and the suffocating heat wrapped all about.
Van Horn knew bet=
ter,
but ill health, save for fever, had never concerned him; so he did not both=
er
for a blanket to shelter him.
"Yours the f=
irst
watch," he told Borckman.
"I'll have her under way in the morning, before I call you.&quo=
t;
He tucked his hea=
d on
the biceps of his right arm, with the hollow of the left snuggling Jerry in
against his chest, and dozed off to sleep.
And thus adventur=
ing,
white men and indigenous black men from day to day lived life in the Solomo=
ns,
bickering and trafficking, the whites striving to maintain their heads on t=
heir
shoulders, the blacks striving, no less single-heartedly, to remove the whi=
tes'
heads from their shoulders and at the same time to keep their own anatomies
intact.
And Jerry, who kn=
ew
only the world of Meringe Lagoon, learning that these new worlds of the ship
Arangi and of the island of Malaita were essentially the same, regarded the
perpetual game between the white and the black with some slight sort of
understanding.
Daylight saw the Arangi under way, =
her
sails drooping heavily in the dead air while the boat's crew toiled at the =
oars
of the whaleboat to tow her out through the narrow entrance. Once, when the ketch, swerved by s=
ome
vagrant current, came close to the break of the shore-surf, the blacks on b=
oard
drew toward one another in apprehension akin to that of startled sheep in a
fold when a wild woods marauder howls outside. Nor was there any need for Van Hor=
n's
shout to the whaleboat: "Washee-washee! Damn your hides!" The boat's crew lifted themselves =
clear
of the thwarts as they threw all their weight into each stroke. They knew what dire fate was certa=
in if
ever the sea-washed coral rock gripped the Arangi's keel. And they knew fear precisely of th=
e same
sort as that of the fear- struck girl below in the lazarette. In the past more than one Langa-La=
nga
and Somo boy had gone to make a Su'u feast day, just as Su'u boys, on occas=
ion,
had similarly served feasts at Langa-Langa and at Somo.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
Tambi, at the wheel, addressed Van Horn as the period of tension passed and=
the
Arangi went clear. "Brot=
her
belong my father, long time before he come boat's crew along this place.
Van Horn recollec=
ted
the Fair Hathaway of fifteen years before, looted and burned by the people =
of
Su'u after all hands had been killed. Truly, the Solomons at this beginning=
of
the twentieth century were savage, and truly, of the Solomons, this great
island of Malaita was savagest of all.
He cast his eyes
speculatively up the slopes of the island to the seaman's landmark, Mount
Kolorat, green-forested to its cloud-capped summit four thousand feet in the
air. Even as he looked, thin =
smoke-columns
were rising along the slopes and lesser peaks, and more were beginning to r=
ise.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
Tambi grinned. "Plenty b=
oy
stop 'm bush lookout along you eye belong him."
Van Horn smiled
understandingly. He knew, by =
the
ancient telegraphy of smoke-signalling, the message was being conveyed from
village to village and tribe to tribe that a labour-recruiter was on the
leeward coast.
All morning, unde=
r a
brisk beam wind which had sprung up with the rising of the sun, the Arangi =
flew
north, her course continuously advertised by the increasing smoke-talk that
gossiped along the green summits.
At high noon, with Van Horn, ever-attended by Jerry, standing for'ard
and conning, the Arangi headed into the wind to thread the passage between =
two
palm-tufted islets. There was=
need
for conning. Coral patches up=
rose
everywhere from the turquoise depths, running the gamut of green from deepe=
st
jade to palest tourmaline, over which the sea filtered changing shades, cre=
amed
lazily, or burst into white fountains of sun- flashed spray.
The smoke columns=
along
the heights became garrulous, and long before the Arangi was through the
passage the entire leeward coast, from the salt- water men of the shore to =
the
remotest bush villagers, knew that the labour recruiter was going in to
Langa-Langa. As the lagoon, f=
ormed
by the chain of islets lying off shore, opened out, Jerry began to smell th=
e reef-villages. Canoes, many canoes, urged by padd=
les or
sailed before the wind by the weight of the freshening South East trade on
spread fronds of coconut palms, moved across the smooth surface of the lago=
on. Jerry
barked intimidatingly at those that came closest, bristling his neck and ma=
king
a ferocious simulation of an efficient protector of the white god who stood
beside him. And after each su=
ch
warning, he would softly dab his cool damp muzzle against the sun-heated sk=
in
of Skipper's leg.
Once inside the
lagoon, the Arangi filled away with the wind a-beam. At the end of a swift half-mile she
rounded to, with head-sails trimming down and with a great flapping of main=
and
mizzen, and dropped anchor in fifty feet of water so clear that every huge
fluted clamshell was visible on the coral floor. The whaleboat was not necessary to=
put
the Langa- Langa return boys ashore.
Hundreds of canoes lay twenty deep along both sides of the Arangi, a=
nd
each boy, with his box and bell, was clamoured for by scores of relatives a=
nd
friends.
In such height of
excitement, Van Horn permitted no one on board. Melanesians, unlike cattle,=
are
as prone to stampede to attack as to retreat. Two of the boat's crew stood besid=
e the
Lee-Enfields on the skylight.
Borckman, with half the boat's crew, went about the ship's work. Van Horn, Jerry at his heels, care=
ful
that no one should get at his back, superintended the departure of the
Langa-Langa returns and kept a vigilant eye on the remaining half of the bo=
at's
crew that guarded the barbed-wire rails.&n=
bsp;
And each Somo boy sat on his trade-box to prevent it from being toss=
ed
into the waiting canoes by some Langa-Langa boy.
In half an hour t=
he
riot departed ashore. Only se=
veral
canoes lingered, and from one of these Van Horn beckoned aboard Nau-hau, the
biggest chief of the stronghold of Langa-Langa. Unlike most of the big chiefs, Nau=
-hau was
young, and, unlike most of the Melanesians, he was handsome, even beautiful=
.
"Hello, King=
o'
Babylon," was Van Horn's greeting, for so he had named him because of
fancied Semitic resemblance blended with the crude power that marked his vi=
sage
and informed his bearing.
Born and trained =
to
nakedness, Nau-hau trod the deck boldly and unashamed. His sole gear of clothing was a le=
ngth
of trunk strap buckled about his waist.&nb=
sp;
Between this and his bare skin was thrust the naked blade of a ten-i=
nch
ripping knife. His sole decor=
ation
was a white China soup-plate, perforated and strung on coconut sennit,
suspended from about his neck so that it rested flat on his chest and
half-concealed the generous swell of muscles. It was the greatest of treasures.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> No man of Malaita he had ever hear=
d of
possessed an unbroken soup-plate.
Nor was he any mo=
re
ridiculous because of the soup-plate than was he ludicrous because of his
nakedness. He was royal. His father had been a king before =
him,
and he had proved himself greater than his father. Life and death he bore in his hand=
s and
head. Often he had exercised =
it, chirping
to his subjects in the tongue of Langa-Langa: "Slay here," and &q=
uot;Slay
there"; "Thou shalt die," and "Thou shalt live." Because his father, a year abdicat=
ed,
had chosen foolishly to interfere with his son's government, he had called =
two
boys and had them twist a cord of coconut around his father's neck so that
thereafter he never breathed again.
Because his favourite wife, mother of his eldest born, had dared out=
of
silliness of affection to violate one of his kingly tamboos, he had had her
killed and had himself selfishly and religiously eaten the last of her even=
to
the marrow of her cracked joints, sharing no morsel with his boonest of
comrades.
Royal he was, by
nature, by training, by deed. He
carried himself with consciousness of royalty. He looked royal--as a magnificent
stallion may look royal, as a lion on a painted tawny desert may look
royal. He was as splendid a
brute--an adumbration of the splendid human conquerors and rulers, higher on
the ladder of evolution, who have appeared in other times and places. His pose of body, of chest, of
shoulders, of head, was royal.
Royal was the heavy-lidded, lazy, insolent way he looked out of his
eyes.
Royal in courage =
was
he, this moment on the Arangi, despite the fact that he knew he walked on
dynamite. As he had long since
bitterly learned, any white man was as much dynamite as was the mysterious
death- dealing missile he sometimes employed. When a stripling, he had made one =
of the
canoe force that attacked the sandalwood-cutter that had been even smaller =
than
the Arangi. He had never forg=
otten
that mystery. Two of the three
white men he had seen slain and their heads removed on deck. The third, sti=
ll
fighting, had but the minute before fled below. Then the cutter, along with all her
wealth of hoop-iron, tobacco, knives and calico, had gone up into the air a=
nd
fallen back into the sea in scattered and fragmented nothingness. It had been dynamite--the MYSTERY.=
And
he, who had been hurled uninjured through the air by a miracle of fortune, =
had
divined that white men in themselves were truly dynamite, compounded of the
same mystery as the substance with which they shot the swift-darting school=
s of
mullet, or blow up, in extremity, themselves and the ships on which they
voyaged the sea from far places.
And yet on this unstable and death-terrific substance of which he was
well aware Van Horn was composed, he trod heavily with his personality, dar=
ing,
to the verge of detonation, to impact it with his insolence.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he began, "what name you make 'm boy belong me stop along you too
much?" Which was a true =
and
correct charge that the boys which Van Horn had just returned had been away
three years and a half instead of three years.
"You talk th=
at
fella talk I get cross too much along you," Van Horn bristled back, and
then added, diplomatically, dipping into a half-case of tobacco sawed across
and proffering a handful of stick tobacco: "Much better you smoke 'm up
and talk 'm good fella talk."
But Nau-hau grand=
ly
waved aside the gift for which he hungered.
"Plenty toba=
cco
stop along me," he lied.
"What name one fella boy go way no come back?" he demanded=
.
Van Horn pulled t=
he
long slender account book out of the twist of his loin-cloth, and, while he=
skimmed
its pages, impressed Nau-hau with the dynamite of the white man's superior
powers which enabled him to remember correctly inside the scrawled sheets o=
f a
book instead of inside his head.
"Sati,"=
Van
Horn read, his finger marking the place, his eyes alternating watchfully
between the writing and the black chief before him, while the black chief
himself speculated and studied the chance of getting behind him and, with t=
he
single knife-thrust he knew so well, of severing the other's spinal cord at=
the
base of the neck.
"Sati,"=
Van
Horn read. "Last monsoon=
begin
about this time, him fella Sati get 'm sick belly belong him too much; bime=
by
him fella Sati finish altogether," he translated into beche-de-mer the
written information: Died of dysentery July 4th, 1901.
"Plenty work=
him
fella Sati, long time," Nau-hau drove to the point. "What come al=
ong
money belong him?"
Van Horn did ment=
al
arithmetic from the account.
"Altogether =
him
make 'm six tens pounds and two fella pounds gold money," was his tran=
slation
of sixty-two pounds of wages.
"I pay advance father belong him one ten pounds and five fella
pounds. Him finish altogether=
four
tens pounds and seven fella pounds."
"What name s=
top
four tens pounds and seven fella pounds?" Nau-hau demanded, his tongue,
but not his brain, encompassing so prodigious a sum.
Van Horn held up =
his
hand.
"Too much hu=
rry
you fella Nau-hau. Him fella =
Sati
buy 'm slop chest along plantation two tens pounds and one fella pound. Belong Sati he finish altogether t=
wo
tens pounds and six fella pounds."
"What name s=
top
two tens pounds and six fella pounds?" Nau-hau continued inflexibly.
"Stop 'm alo=
ng
me," the captain answered curtly.
"Give 'm me =
two
tens pounds and six fella pounds."
"Give 'm you
hell," Van Horn refused, and in the blue of his eyes the black chief
sensed the impression of the dynamite out of which white men seemed made, a=
nd
felt his brain quicken to the vision of the bloody day he first encountered=
an
explosion of dynamite and was hurled through the air.
"What name t=
hat
old fella boy stop 'm along canoe?" Van Horn asked, pointing to an old=
man
in a canoe alongside. "H=
im
father belong Sati?"
"Him father
belong Sati," Nau-hau affirmed.
Van Horn motioned=
the
old man in and on board, beckoned Borckman to take charge of the deck and of
Nau-hau, and went below to get the money from his strong-box. When he returned, cavalierly ignor=
ing
the chief, he addressed himself to the old man.
"What name
belong you?"
"Me fella
Nino," was the quavering response.&nb=
sp;
"Him fella Sati belong along me."
Van Horn glanced =
for
verification to Nau-hau, who nodded affirmation in the reverse Solomon way;
whereupon Van Horn counted twenty-six gold sovereigns into the hand of Sati=
's
father.
Immediately
thereafter Nau-hau extended his hand and received the sum. Twenty gold piec=
es
the chief retained for himself, returning to the old man the remaining
six. It was no quarrel of Van
Horn's. He had fulfilled his =
duty
and paid properly. The tyrann=
y of a
chief over a subject was none of his business.
Both masters, whi=
te
and black, were fairly contented with themselves. Van Horn had paid the money where =
it was
due; Nau-hau, by virtue of kingship, had robbed Sati's father of Sati's lab=
our
before Van Horn's eyes. But N=
au-hau
was not above strutting. He
declined a proffered present of tobacco, bought a case of stick tobacco from
Van Horn, paying him five pounds for it, and insisted on having it sawed op=
en
so that he could fill his pipe.
"Plenty good=
boy
stop along Langa-Langa?" Van Horn, unperturbed, politely queried, in o=
rder
to make conversation and advertise nonchalance.
The King o' Babyl=
on
grinned, but did not deign to reply.
"Maybe I go
ashore and walk about?" Van Horn challenged with tentative emphasis.
"Maybe too m=
uch
trouble along you," Nau-hau challenged back. "Maybe plenty bad fella boy k=
ai-kai
along you."
Although Van Horn=
did
not know it, at this challenge he experienced the hair-pricking sensations =
in
his scalp that Jerry experienced when he bristled his back.
"Hey, Borckm=
an,"
he called. "Man the
whaleboat."
When the whaleboat
was alongside, he descended into it first, superiorly, then invited Nau-hau=
to
accompany him.
"My word, Ki=
ng
o' Babylon," he muttered in the chief's ears as the boat's crew bent to
the oars, "one fella boy make 'm trouble, I shoot 'm hell outa you fir=
st
thing. Next thing I shoot 'm =
hell
outa Langa-Langa. All the tim=
e you
me fella walk about, you walk about along me. You no like walk about along me, y=
ou
finish close up altogether."
And ashore, a whi=
te
man alone, attended by an Irish terrier puppy with a heart flooded with love
and by a black king resentfully respectful of the dynamite of the white man,
Van Horn went, swashbuckling barelegged through a stronghold of three thous=
and
souls, while his white mate, addicted to schnapps, held the deck of the tiny
craft at anchor off shore, and while his black boat's crew, oars in hands, =
held
the whaleboat stern-on to the beach to receive the expected flying leap of =
the
man they served but did not love, and whose head they would eagerly take any
time were it not for fear of him.
Van Horn had had =
no
intention of going ashore, and that he went ashore at the black chief's
insolent challenge was merely a matter of business. For an hour he strolled about, his=
right
hand never far from the butt of the automatic that lay along his groin, his
eyes never too far from the unwilling Nau-hau beside him. For Nau-hau, in sullen volcanic ra=
ge,
was ripe to erupt at the slightest opportunity. And, so strolling, Van Horn was gi=
ven to
see what few white men have seen, for Langa-Langa and her sister islets,
beautiful beads strung along the lee coast of Malaita, were as unique as th=
ey
were unexplored.
Originally these
islets had been mere sand-banks and coral reefs awash in the sea or shallow=
ly
covered by the sea. Only a hu=
nted,
wretched creature, enduring incredible hardship, could have eked out a
miserable existence upon them. But
such hunted, wretched creatures, survivors of village massacres, escapes fr=
om
the wrath of chiefs and from the long-pig fate of the cooking-pot, did come,
and did endure. They, who kne=
w only
the bush, learned the salt water and developed the salt-water-man breed. Th=
ey
learned the ways of the fish and the shell-fish, and they invented hooks and
lines, nets and fish-traps, and all the diverse cunning ways by which swimm=
ing
meat can be garnered from the shifting, unstable sea.
Such refugees sto=
le
women from the mainland, and increased and multiplied. With herculean labour, under the b=
urning
sun, they conquered the sea. =
They
walled the confines of their coral reefs and sand-banks with coral-rock sto=
len
from the mainland on dark nights.
Fine masonry, without mortar or cutting chisel, they builded to
withstand the ocean surge. Li=
kewise
stolen from the mainland, as mice steal from human habitations when humans
sleep, they stole canoe-loads, and millions of canoe-loads, of fat, rich so=
il.
Generations and
centuries passed, and, behold, in place of naked sandbanks half awash were
walled citadels, perforated with launching-ways for the long canoes, protec=
ted
against the mainland by the lagoons that were to them their narrow seas.
Like the refugees=
and
renegades who slunk away in the salt marshes of the Adriatic and builded the
palaces of powerful Venice on her deep-sunk piles, so these wretched hunted
blacks builded power until they became masters of the mainland, controlling
traffic and trade-routes, compelling the bushmen for ever after to remain in
the bush and never to dare attempt the salt-water.
And here, amidst =
the
fat success and insolence of the sea-people, Van Horn swaggered his way, ta=
king
his chance, incapable of believing that he might swiftly die, knowing that =
he
was building good future business in the matter of recruiting labour for the
plantations of other adventuring white men on far islands who dared only le=
ss
greatly than he.
And when, at the =
end
of an hour, Van Horn passed Jerry into the sternsheets of the whaleboat and
followed, he left on the beach a stunned and wondering royal black, who, mo=
re
than ever before, was respectful of the dynamite-compounded white men who
brought to him stick tobacco, calico, knives and hatchets, and inexorably
extracted from such trade a profit.
Back on board, Van Horn immediately=
hove
short, hoisted sail, broke out the anchor, and filled away for the ten-mile
beat up the lagoon to windward that would fetch Somo. On the way, he stopped at Binu to =
greet Chief
Johnny and land a few Binu returns.
Then it was on to Somo, and to the end of voyaging for ever of the
Arangi and of many that were aboard of her.
Quite the opposit=
e to
his treatment at Langa-Langa was that accorded Van Horn at Somo. Once the return boys were put asho=
re,
and this was accomplished no later than three-thirty in the afternoon, he
invited Chief Bashti on board. And
Chief Bashti came, very nimble and active despite his great age, and very
good-natured--so good-natured, in fact, that he insisted on bringing three =
of
his elderly wives on board with him.
This was unprecedented.
Never had he permitted any of his wives to appear before a white man,
and Van Horn felt so honoured that he presented each of them with a gay clay
pipe and a dozen sticks of tobacco.
Late as the after=
noon
was, trade was brisk, and Bashti, who had taken the lion's share of the wag=
es
due to the fathers of two boys who had died, bought liberally of the Arangi=
's
stock. When Bashti promised p=
lenty
of fresh recruits, Van Horn, used to the changeableness of the savage mind,=
urged
signing them up right away. B=
ashti
demurred, and suggested next day.
Van Horn insisted that there was no time like the present, and so we=
ll
did he insist that the old chief sent a canoe ashore to round up the boys w=
ho
had been selected to go away to the plantations.
"Now, what do
you think?" Van Horn asked of Borckman, whose eyes were remarkably
fishy. "I never saw the =
old
rascal so friendly. Has he go=
t something
up his sleeve?"
The mate stared at
the many canoes alongside, noted the numbers of women in them, and shook his
head.
"When they're starting anything they always send the Marys into the bush," he said.<= o:p>
"You never c=
an
tell about these niggers," the captain grumbled. "They may be short on imagina=
tion,
but once in a while they do figure out something new. Now Bashti's the smartest old nigg=
er
I've ever seen. What's to prevent his figuring out that very bet and playin=
g it
in reverse? Just because they=
've
never had their women around when trouble was on the carpet is no reason th=
at
they will always keep that practice."
"Not even
Bashti's got the savvee to pull a trick like that," Borckman objected.=
"He's just feeling good and
liberal. Why, he's bought for=
ty pounds
of goods from you already. Th=
at's
why he wants to sign on a new batch of boys with us, and I'll bet he's hopi=
ng
half of them die so's he can have the spending of their wages."
All of which was =
most
reasonable. Nevertheless, Van=
Horn
shook his head.
"All the same
keep your eyes sharp on everything," he cautioned. "And remember, the two of us =
mustn't
ever be below at the same time. And
no more schnapps, mind, until we're clear of the whole kit and caboodle.&qu=
ot;
Bashti was incred=
ibly
lean and prodigiously old. He=
did
not know how old he was himself, although he did know that no person in his
tribe had been alive when he was a young boy in the village. He remembered the days when some o=
f the
old men, still alive, had been born; and, unlike him, they were now decrepi=
t,
shaken with palsy, blear-eyed, toothless of mouth, deaf of ear, or
paralysed. All his own facult=
ies
remained unimpaired. He even
boasted a dozen worn fangs of teeth, gum-level, on which he could still
chew. Although he no longer h=
ad the
physical endurance of youth, his thinking was as original and clear as it h=
ad always
been. It was due to his think=
ing
that he found his tribe stronger than when he had first come to rule it.
And with his mind,
still keenly alive, he had but just evolved a scheme whereby he might outwit
Van Horn and get the better of the vast British Empire about which he guess=
ed
little and know less.
For Somo had a
history. It was that queer an=
omaly,
a salt-water tribe that lived on the lagoon mainland where only bushmen were
supposed to live. Far back in=
to the
darkness of time, the folk-lore of Somo cast a glimmering light. On a day, so far back that there w=
as no
way of estimating its distance, one, Somo, son of Loti, who was the chief of
the island fortress of Umbo, had quarrelled with his father and fled from h=
is wrath
along with a dozen canoe-loads of young men. For two monsoons they had engaged =
in an
odyssey. It was in the myth t=
hat
they circumnavigated Malaita twice, and forayed as far as Ugi and San Crist=
obal
across the wide seas.
Women they had
inevitably stolen after successful combats, and, in the end, being burdened
with women and progeny, Somo had descended upon the mainland shore, driven =
the
bushmen back, and established the salt-water fortress of Somo. Built it was, on its sea-front, li=
ke any
island fortress, with walled coral-rock to oppose the sea and chance maraud=
ers from
the sea, and with launching ways through the walls for the long canoes. To the rear, where it encroached o=
n the
jungle, it was like any scattered bush village. But Somo, the wide-seeing father o=
f the
new tribe, had established his boundaries far up in the bush on the shoulde=
rs of
the lesser mountains, and on each shoulder had planted a village. Only the greatly daring that fled =
to him
had Somo permitted to join the new tribe.&=
nbsp;
The weaklings and cowards they had promptly eaten, and the unbelieva=
ble
tale of their many heads adorning the canoe-houses was part of the myth.
And this tribe,
territory, and stronghold, at the latter end of time, Bashti had inherited,=
and
he had bettered his inheritance.
Nor was he above continuing to better it. For a long time he had reasoned cl=
osely and
carefully in maturing the plan that itched in his brain for fulfilment. Three years before, the tribe of A=
no
Ano, miles down the coast, had captured a recruiter, destroyed her and all
hands, and gained a fabulous store of tobacco, calico, beads, and all manne=
r of
trade goods, rifles and ammunition.
Little enough had
happened in the way of price that was paid. Half a year after, a war vessel had
poked her nose into the lagoon, shelled Ano Ano, and sent its inhabitants
scurrying into the bush. The =
landing-party
that followed had futilely pursued along the jungle runways. In the end it had contented itself=
with
killing forty fat pigs and chopping down a hundred coconut trees. Scarcely had the war vessel passed=
out
to open sea, when the people of Ano Ano were back from the bush to the vill=
age.
Shell fire on flimsy grass houses is not especially destructive. A few hours' labour of the women p=
ut
that little matter right. As =
for
the forty dead pigs, the entire tribe fell upon the carcasses, roasted them=
under
the ground with hot stones, and feasted.&n=
bsp;
The tender tips of the fallen palms were likewise eaten, while the
thousands of coconuts were husked and split and sun-dried and smoke-cured i=
nto
copra to be sold to the next passing trader.
Thus, the penalty
exacted had proved a picnic and a feast--all of which appealed to the thrif=
ty,
calculating brain of Bashti. =
And
what was good for Ano Ano, in his judgment was surely good for Somo. Since such were white men's ways w=
ho
sailed under the British flag and killed pigs and cut down coconuts in
cancellation of blood-debts and headtakings, Bashti saw no valid reason why=
he
should not profit as Ano Ano had profited.=
The price to be paid at some possible future time was absurdly dispr=
oportionate
to the immediate wealth to be gained.
Besides, it had been over two years since the last British war vessel
had appeared in the Solomons.
And thus, Bashti,
with a fine fresh idea inside his head, bowed his chief's head in consent t=
hat
his people could flock aboard and trade. Very few of them knew what his idea
was or that he even had an idea.
Trade grew still
brisker as more canoes came alongside and black men and women thronged the
deck. Then came the recruits,
new-caught, young, savage things, timid as deer, yet yielding to stern pare=
ntal
and tribal law and going down into the Arangi's cabin, one by one, their
fathers and mothers and relatives accompanying them in family groups, to
confront the big fella white marster, who wrote their names down in a
mysterious book, had them ratify the three years' contract of their labour =
by a
touch of the right hand to the pen with which he wrote, and who paid the fi=
rst
year's advance in trade goods to the heads of their respective families.
Old Bashti sat ne=
ar,
taking his customary heavy tithes out of each advance, his three old wives
squatting humbly at his feet and by their mere presence giving confidence to
Van Horn, who was elated by the stroke of business. At such rate his cruise on Malaita=
would
be a short one, when he would sail away with a full ship.
On deck, where
Borckman kept a sharp eye out against danger, Jerry prowled about, sniffing=
the
many legs of the many blacks he had never encountered before. The wild-dog had gone ashore with =
the
return boys, and of the return boys only one had come back. It was Lerumie, past whom Jerry
repeatedly and stiff-leggedly bristled without gaining response of recognit=
ion. Lerumie coolly ignored him, went d=
own
below once and purchased a trade hand-mirror, and, with a look of the eyes,
assured old Bashti that all was ready and ripe to break at the first favour=
able
moment.
On deck, Borckman
gave this favourable moment. =
Nor
would he have so given it had he not been guilty of carelessness and of
disobedience to his captain's orders. He did not leave the schnapps alone=
. Be did not sense what was impendin=
g all
about him. Aft, where he stoo=
d, the
deck was almost deserted. Ami=
dships
and for'ard, gamming with the boat's crew, the deck was crowded with blacks=
of
both sexes. He made his way t=
o the
yam sacks lashed abaft the mizzenmast and got his bottle. Just before he drank, with a shred=
of
caution, he cast a glance behind him. Near him stood a harmless Mary,
middle-aged, fat, squat, asymmetrical, unlovely, a sucking child of two yea=
rs
astride her hip and taking nourishment.&nb=
sp;
Surely no harm was to be apprehended there. Furthermore, she was patently a
weaponless Mary, for she wore no stitch of clothing that otherwise might ha=
ve
concealed a weapon. Over agai=
nst
the rail, ten feet to one side, stood Lerumie, smirking into the trade mirr=
or
he had just bought.
It was in the tra=
de
mirror that Lerumie saw Borckman bend to the yam-sacks, return to the erect,
throw his head back, the mouth of the bottle glued to his lips, the bottom
elevated skyward. Lerumie lif=
ted his
right hand in signal to a woman in a canoe alongside. She bent swiftly for something tha=
t she
tossed to Lerumie. It was a
long-handled tomahawk, the head of it an ordinary shingler's hatchet, the h=
aft
of it, native-made, a black and polished piece of hard wood, inlaid in rude=
designs
with mother-of-pearl and wrapped with coconut sennit to make a hand grip. The blade of the hatchet had been =
ground
to razor-edge.
As the tomahawk f=
lew
noiselessly through the air to Lerumie's hand, just as noiselessly, the next
instant, it flew through the air from his hand into the hand of the fat Mary
with the nursing child who stood behind the mate. She clutched the handle with both =
hands,
while the child, astride her hip, held on to her with both small arms part =
way
about her.
Still she waited =
the
stroke, for with Borckman's head thrown back was no time to strive to sever=
the
spinal cord at the neck. Many=
eyes
beheld the impending tragedy. Jerry
saw, but did not understand. =
With
all his hostility to niggers he had not divined the attack from the air.
Borckman, as unaw=
are
of this, his last second of life, as he had been of his first second of bir=
th,
lowered the bottle and straightened forward his head. The keen edge sank home. What, in that flash of instant whe=
n his
brain was severed from the rest of his body, Borckman may have felt or thou=
ght,
if he felt or thought at all, is a mystery unsolvable to living man. No man, his spinal cord so severed=
, has
ever given one word or whisper of testimony as to what were his sensations =
and
impressions. No less swift than the hatchet stroke was the limp placidity i=
nto
which Borckman's body melted to the deck.&=
nbsp;
He did not reel or pitch. He
melted, as a sack of wind suddenly emptied, as a bladder of air suddenly
punctured. The bottle fell fr=
om his
dead hand upon the yams without breaking, although the remnant of its conte=
nts
gurgled gently out upon the deck.
So quick was the
occurrence of action, that the first shot from Tambi's musket missed the Ma=
ry
ere Borckman had quite melted to the deck.=
There was no time for a second shot, for the Mary, dropping the
tomahawk, holding her child in both her hands and plunging to the rail, was=
in
the air and overboard, her fall capsizing the canoe which chanced to be ben=
eath
her.
Scores of actions
were simultaneous. From the c=
anoes
on both sides uprose a glittering, glistening rain of mother-of-pearl-handl=
ed
tomahawks that descended into the waiting hands of the Somo men on deck, wh=
ile
the Marys on deck crouched down and scrambled out of the fray. At the same time that the Mary who=
had
killed Borckman leapt the rail, Lerumie bent for the tomahawk she had dropp=
ed,
and Jerry, aware of red war, slashed the hand that reached for the
tomahawk. Lerumie stood uprig=
ht and
loosed loudly, in a howl, all the pent rage and hatred, of months which he =
had cherished
against the puppy. Also, as he
gained the perpendicular and as Jerry flew at his legs, he launched a kick =
with
all his might that caught and lifted Jerry squarely under the middle.
And in the next
second, or fraction of second, as Jerry lifted and soared through the air, =
over
the barbed wire of the rail and overboard, while Sniders were being passed =
up
overside from the canoes, Tambi fired his next hasty shot. And Lerumie, the foot with which h=
e had
kicked not yet returned to the deck as again he was in mid-action of stoopi=
ng
to pick up the tomahawk, received the bullet squarely in the heart and pitc=
hed
down to melt with Borckman into the softness of death.
Ere Jerry struck =
the
water, the glory of Tambi's marvellously lucky shot was over for Tambi; for=
, at
the moment he pressed trigger to the successful shot, a tomahawk bit across=
his
skull at the base of the brain and darkened from his eyes for ever the brig=
ht
vision of the sea-washed, sun-blazoned tropic world. As swiftly, all occurring almost s=
imultaneously,
did the rest of the boat's crew pass and the deck became a shambles.
It was to the rep=
orts
of the Sniders and the noises of the death scuffle that Jerry's head emerged
from the water. A man's hand
reached over a canoe-side and dragged him in by the scruff of the neck, and,
although he snarled and struggled to bite his rescuer, he was not so much
enraged as was he torn by the wildest solicitude for Skipper. He knew, without thinking about it=
, that
the Arangi had been boarded by the hazily sensed supreme disaster of life t=
hat
all life intuitively apprehends and that only man knows and calls by the na=
me
of "death." Borckma=
n he
had seen struck down. Lerumie=
he
had heard struck down. And no=
w he
was hearing the explosions of rifles and the yells and screeches of triumph=
and
fear.
So it was, helple=
ss,
suspended in the air by the nape of the neck, that he bawled and squalled a=
nd
choked and coughed till the black, disgusted, flung him down roughly in the
canoe's bottom. He scrambled =
to his
feet and made two leaps: one upon the gunwale of the canoe; the next, despa=
iring
and hopeless, without consideration of self, for the rail of the Arangi.
His forefeet miss=
ed
the rail by a yard, and he plunged down into the sea. He came up, swimming
frantically, swallowing and strangling salt water because he still yelped a=
nd
wailed and barked his yearning to be on board with Skipper.
But a boy of twel=
ve,
in another canoe, having witnessed the first black's adventure with Jerry,
treated him without ceremony, laying, first the flat, and next the edge, of=
a
paddle upon his head while he still swam. And the darkness of unconsciousne=
ss
welled over his bright little love- suffering brain, so that it was a limp =
and
motionless puppy that the black boy dragged into his canoe.
In the meantime, =
down
below in the Arangi's cabin, ere ever Jerry hit the water from Lerumie's ki=
ck,
even while he was in the air, Van Horn, in one great flashing profound frac=
tion
of an instant, had known his death. Not for nothing had old Bashti lived
longest of any living man in his tribe, and ruled wisest of all the long li=
ne
of rulers since Somo's time. Had he been placed more generously in earth sp=
ace
and time, he might well have proved an Alexander, a Napoleon, or a swarthy
Kahehameha. As it was, he per=
formed
well, and splendidly well, in his limited little kingdom on the leeward coa=
st
of the dark cannibal island of Malaita.
And such a
performance! In cool good nat=
ure in
rigid maintenance of his chiefship rights, he had smiled at Van Horn, given
royal permission to his young men to sign on for three years of plantation
slavery, and exacted his share of each year's advance. Aora, who might be described as his
prime minister and treasurer, had received the tithes as fast as they were =
paid
over, and filled them into large, fine-netted bags of coconut sennit. At Bashti's back, squatting on the
bunk-boards, a slim and smooth-skinned maid of thirteen had flapped the fli=
es
away from his royal head with the royal fly-flapper. At his feet had squatted his three=
old
wives, the oldest of them, toothless and somewhat palsied, ever presenting =
to
his hand, at his head nod, a basket rough-woven of pandanus leaf.
And Bashti, his k=
een
old ears pitched for the first untoward sound from on deck, had continually
nodded his head and dipped his hand into the proffered basket--now for
betel-nut, and lime-box, and the invariable green leaf with which to wrap t=
he
mouthful; now for tobacco with which to fill his short clay pipe; and, agai=
n,
for matches with which to light the pipe which seemed not to draw well and
which frequently went out.
Toward the last t=
he
basket had hovered constantly close to his hand, and, at the last, he made =
one
final dip. It was at the mome=
nt
when the Mary's axe, on deck, had struck Borckman down and when Tambi loosed
the first shot at her from his Lee-Enfield. And Bashti's withered ancient hand=
, the
back of it netted with a complex of large up-standing veins from which the
flesh had shrunk away, dipped out a huge pistol of such remote vintage that=
one
of Cromwell's round-heads might well have carried it or that it might well =
have
voyaged with Quiros or La Perouse.
It was a flint-lock, as long as a man's forearm, and it had been loa=
ded
that afternoon by no less a person than Bashti himself.
Quick as Bashti h=
ad
been, Van Horn was almost as quick, but not quite quick enough. Even as his hand leapt to the mode=
rn
automatic lying out of it's holster and loose on his knees, the pistol of t=
he
centuries went off. Loaded wi=
th two
slugs and a round bullet, its effect was that of a sawed-off shotgun. And Van Horn knew the blaze and the
black of death, even as "Gott fer dang!" died unuttered on his li=
ps
and as his fingers relaxed from the part-lifted automatic, dropping it to t=
he
floor.
Surcharged with b=
lack
powder, the ancient weapon had other effect. It burst in Bashti's hand. While Aora, with a knife produced
apparently from nowhere, proceeded to hack off the white master's head, Bas=
hti looked
quizzically at his right forefinger dangling by a strip of skin. He seized =
it
with his left hand, with a quick pull and twist wrenched it off, and grinni=
ngly
tossed it, as a joke, into the pandanus basket which still his wife with one
hand held before him while with the other she clutched her forehead bleeding
from a flying fragment of pistol.
Collaterally with
this, three of the young recruits, joined by their fathers and uncles, had
downed, and were finishing off the only one of the boat's crew that was
below. Bashti, who had lived =
so
long that he was a philosopher who minded pain little and the loss of a fin=
ger
less, chuckled and chirped his satisfaction and pride of achievement in the=
outcome,
while his three old wives, who lived only at the nod of his head, fawned un=
der
him on the floor in the abjectness of servile congratulation and worship. Long had they lived, and they had =
lived
long only by his kingly whim. They
floundered and gibbered and mowed at his feet, lord of life and death that =
he
was, infinitely wise as he had so often proved himself, as he had this time=
proved
himself again.
And the lean,
fear-stricken girl, like a frightened rabbit in the mouth of its burrow, on
hands and knees peered forth upon the scene from the lazarette and knew that
the cooking-pot and the end of time had come for her.
What happened aboard the Arangi Jer=
ry
never knew. He did know that =
it was
a world destroyed, for he saw it destroyed. The boy who had knocked him on the=
head
with the paddle, tied his legs securely and tossed him out on the beach ere=
he
forgot him in the excitement of looting the Arangi.
With great shouti=
ng
and song, the pretty teak-built yacht was towed in by the long canoes and
beached close to where Jerry lay just beyond the confines of the coral-stone
walls. Fires blazed on the be=
ach,
lanterns were lighted on board, and, amid a great feasting, the Arangi was =
gutted
and stripped. Everything port=
able
was taken ashore, from her pigs of iron ballast to her running gear and
sails. No one in Somo slept t=
hat night. Even the tiniest of children toddl=
ed about
the feasting fires or sprawled surfeited on the sands. At two in the morning, at Bashti's=
command,
the shell of the boat was fired.
And Jerry, thirsting for water, having whimpered and wailed himself =
to
exhaustion, lying helpless, leg-tied, on his side, saw the floating world he
had known so short a time go up in flame and smoke.
And by the light =
of
her burning, old Bashti apportioned the loot. No one of the tribe was too mean to
receive nothing. Even the wre=
tched
bush- slaves, who had trembled through all the time of their captivity from=
fear
of being eaten, received each a clay pipe and several sticks of tobacco.
Not all these had
been slain, however. Bashti h=
ad
issued stern injunctions against wholesale slaughter. But this was not because his heart=
was
kind. Rather was it because h=
is
head was shrewd. Slain they w=
ould
all be in the end. Bashti had=
never
seen ice, did not know it existed, and was unversed in the science of
refrigeration. The only way h=
e knew
to keep meat was to keep it alive.
And in the biggest canoe house, the club house of the stags, where no
Mary might come under penalty of death by torture, the captives were stored=
.
Tied or trussed l=
ike
fowls or pigs, they were tumbled on the hard-packed earthen floor, beneath
which, shallowly buried, lay the remains of ancient chiefs, while, overhead=
, in
wrappings of grass mats, swung all that was left of several of Bashti's
immediate predecessors, his father latest among them and so swinging for two
full generations. Here, too, =
since
she was to be eaten and since the taboo had no bearing upon one condemned t=
o be
cooked, the thin little Mary from the lazarette was tumbled trussed upon the
floor among the many blacks who had teased and mocked her for being fattene=
d by
Van Horn for the eating.
And to this canoe
house Jerry was also brought to join the others on the floor. Agno, chief of the devil devil doc=
tors,
had stumbled across him on the beach, and, despite the protestations of the=
boy
who claimed him as personal trove, had ordered him to the canoe house. Carried past the fires of the feas=
ting,
his keen nostrils had told him of what the feast consisted. And, new as the experience was, he=
had
bristled and snarled and struggled against his bonds to be free. Likewise, at first, tossed down in=
the
canoe house, he had bristled and snarled at his fellow captives, not realiz=
ing
their plight, and, since always he had been trained to look upon niggers as=
the
eternal enemy, considering them responsible for the catastrophe to the Aran=
gi
and to Skipper.
For Jerry was onl=
y a
little dog, with a dog's limitations, and very young in the world. But not for long did he throat his=
rage
at them. In vague ways it was=
borne
in upon him that they, too, were not happy. Some had been cruelly wounded, and=
kept
up a moaning and groaning. Wi=
thout
any clearness of concept, nevertheless Jerry had a realization that they we=
re as
painfully circumstanced as himself.
And painful indeed was his own circumstance. He lay on his side, the cords that=
bound
his legs so tight as to bite into his tender flesh and shut off the
circulation. Also, he was per=
ishing
for water, and panted, dry-tongued, dry-mouthed, in the stagnant heat.
A dolorous place =
it
was, this canoe house, filled with groans and sighs, corpses beneath the fl=
oor
and composing the floor, creatures soon to be corpses upon the floor, corps=
es
swinging in aerial sepulchre overhead, long black canoes, high-ended like
beaked predatory monsters, dimly looming in the light of a slow fire where =
sat
an ancient of the tribe of Somo at his interminable task of smoke-curing a
bushman's head. He was wither=
ed,
and blind, and senile, gibbering and mowing like some huge ape as ever he
turned and twisted, and twisted back again, the suspended head in the punge=
nt
smoke, and handful by handful added rotten punk of wood to the smudge fire.=
Sixty feet in the
clear, the dim fire occasionally lighted, through shadowy cross-beams, the
ridge-pole that was covered with sennit of coconut that was braided in barb=
aric
designs of black and white and that was stained by the smoke of years almos=
t to
a monochrome of dirty brown. From the lofty cross-beams, on long sennit
strings, hung the heads of enemies taken aforetime in jungle raid and sea
foray. The place breathed the=
very
atmosphere of decay and death, and the imbecile ancient, curing in the smoke
the token of death, was himself palsiedly shaking into the disintegration of
the grave.
Toward daylight, =
with
great shouting and heaving and pull and haul, scores of Somo men brought in
another of the big war canoes. They
made way with foot and hand, kicking and thrusting dragging and shoving, th=
e bound
captives to either side of the space which the canoe was to occupy. They we=
re
anything but gentle to the meat with which they had been favoured by good
fortune and the wisdom of Bashti.
For a time they s=
at
about, all pulling at clay pipes and chirruping and laughing in queer thin
falsettos at the events of the night and the previous afternoon. Now one and now another stretched =
out
and slept without covering; for so, directly under the path of the sun, had
they slept nakedly from the time they were born.
Remained awake, as
dawn paled the dark, only the grievously wounded or the too-tightly bound, =
and
the decrepit ancient who was not so old as Bashti. When the boy who had stunned Jerry=
with
his paddle-blade and who claimed him as his own stole into the canoe house,=
the
ancient did not hear him. Bei=
ng
blind, he did not see him. He
continued gibbering and chuckling dementedly, to twist the bushman's head b=
ack
and forth and to feed the smudge with punk-wood. This was no night-task for any man=
, nor even
for him who had forgotten how to do aught else. But the excitement of cutting out =
the
Arangi had been communicated to his addled brain, and, with vague reminisce=
nt
flashes of the strength of life triumphant, he shared deliriously in this
triumph of Somo by applying himself to the curing of the head that was in
itself the concrete expression of triumph.
But the
twelve-year-old lad who stole in and cautiously stepped over the sleepers a=
nd
threaded his way among the captives, did so with his heart in his mouth.
But he wanted Jer=
ry
and he got him. Only the lean
little Mary, trussed for the cooking, staring through her wide eyes of fear,
saw the boy pick Jerry up by his tied legs and carry him out and away from =
the
booty of meat of which she was part.
Jerry's heroic little heart of courage would have made him snarl and
resent such treatment of handling had he not been too exhausted and had not=
his
mouth and throat been too dry for sound.&n=
bsp;
As it was, miserably and helplessly, not half himself, a puppet drea=
mer
in a half-nightmare, he knew, as a restless sleeper awakening between vexin=
g dreams,
that he was being transported head-downward out of the canoe house that sta=
nk
of death, through the village that was only less noisome, and up a path und=
er
lofty, wide-spreading trees that were beginning languidly to stir with the
first breathings of the morning wind.
The boy's name, as Jerry was to lea=
rn,
was Lamai, and to Lamai's house Jerry was carried. It was not much of a house, even as
cannibal grass- houses go. On=
an
earthen floor, hard-packed of the filth of years, lived Lamai's father and
mother and a spawn of four younger brothers and sisters. A thatched roof that leaked in eve=
ry
heavy shower leaned to a wabbly ridge-pole over the floor. The walls were even more pervious =
to a driving
rain. In fact, the house of L=
amai,
who was the father of Lumai, was the most miserable house in all Somo.
Lumai, the
house-master and family head, unlike most Malaitans, was fat. And of his
fatness it would seem had been begotten his good nature with its allied
laziness. But as the fly in h=
is ointment
of jovial irresponsibility was his wife, Lenerengo--the prize shrew of Somo,
who was as lean about the middle and all the rest of her as her husband was=
rotund;
who was as remarkably sharp-spoken as he was soft-spoken; who was as
ceaselessly energetic as he was unceasingly idle; and who had been born wit=
h a
taste for the world as sour in her mouth as it was sweet in his.
The boy merely pe=
ered
into the house as he passed around it to the rear, and he saw his father and
mother, at opposite corners, sleeping without covering, and, in the middle =
of
the floor, his four naked brothers and sisters curled together in a tangle =
like
a litter of puppies. All abou=
t the
house, which in truth was scarcely more than an animal lair, was an earthly
paradise. The air was spicily=
and
sweetly heavy with the scents of wild aromatic plants and gorgeous tropic
blooms. Overhead three breadf=
ruit
trees interlaced their noble branches.&nbs=
p;
Banana and plantain trees were burdened with great bunches of ripeni=
ng
fruit. And huge, golden melon=
s of
the papaia, ready for the eating, globuled directly from the slender-trunked
trees not one-tenth the girth of the fruits they bore. And, for Jerry, most delightful of=
all,
there was the gurgle and plash of a brooklet that pursued its invisible way
over mossy stones under a garmenture of tender and delicate ferns. No conservatory of a king could co=
mpare
with this wild wantonness of sun-generous vegetation.
Maddened by the s=
ound
of the water, Jerry had first to endure an embracing and hugging from the b=
oy,
who, squatted on his hams, rocked back and forth and mumbled a strange litt=
le
crooning song. And Jerry, lac=
king
articulate speech, had no way of telling him of the thirst of which he was
perishing.
Next, Lamai tied =
him
securely with a sennit cord about the neck and untied the cords that bit in=
to
his legs. So numb was Jerry f=
rom
lack of circulation, and so weak from lack of water through part of a tropic
day and all of a tropic night, that he stood up, tottered and fell, and, ti=
me and
again, essaying to stand, floundered and fell. And Lamai understood, or tentative=
ly
guessed. He caught up a cocon=
ut
calabash attached to the end of a stick of bamboo, dipped into the greenery=
of
ferns, and presented to Jerry the calabash brimming with the precious water=
.
Jerry lay on his =
side
at first as he drank, until, with the moisture, life flowed back into the
parched channels of him, so that, soon, still weak and shaky, he was up and
braced on all his four wide-spread legs and still eagerly lapping. The boy chuckled and chirped his d=
elight
in the spectacle, and Jerry found surcease and easement sufficient to enable
him to speak with his tongue after the heart-eloquent manner of dogs. He took his nose out of the calaba=
sh and
with his rose-ribbon strip of tongue licked Lamai's hand. And Lamai, in ecstasy over this es=
tablishment
of common speech, urged the calabash back under Jerry's nose, and Jerry dra=
nk
again.
He continued to
drink. He drank until his
sun-shrunken sides stood out like the walls of a balloon, although longer w=
ere
the intervals from the drinking in which, with his tongue of gratefulness, =
he
spoke against the black skin of Lamai's hand. And all went well, and would have
continued to go well, had not Lamai's mother, Lenerengo, just awakened, ste=
pped
across her black litter of progeny and raised her voice in shrill protest a=
gainst
her eldest born's introducing of one more mouth and much more nuisance into=
the
household.
A squabble of hum=
an
speech followed, of which Jerry knew no word but of which he sensed the
significance. Lamai was with =
him
and for him. Lamai's mother was against him. She shrilled and shrewed her firm =
conviction
that her son was a fool and worse because he had neither the consideration =
nor
the silly sense of a fool's solicitude for a hard-worked mother. She appealed to the sleeping Lumai=
, who
awoke heavily and fatly, who muttered and mumbled easy terms of Somo dialec=
t to
the effect that it was a most decent world, that all puppy dogs and eldest-=
born
sons were right delightful things to possess, that he had never yet starved=
to
death, and that peace and sleep were the finest things that ever befell the=
lot
of mortal man--and, in token thereof, back into the peace of sleep, he snug=
gled
his nose into the biceps of his arm for a pillow and proceeded to snore.
But Lamai, eyes
stubbornly sullen, with mutinous foot-stampings and a perfect knowledge that
all was clear behind him to leap and flee away if his mother rushed upon hi=
m,
persisted in retaining his puppy dog.
In the end, after an harangue upon the worthlessness of Lamai's fath=
er,
she went back to sleep.
Ideas beget
ideas. Lamai had learned how
astonishingly thirsty Jerry had been.
This engendered the idea that he might be equally hungry. So he applied dry branches of wood=
to
the smouldering coals he dug out of the ashes of the cooking-fire, and buil=
ded
a large fire. Into this, as i=
t gained
strength, he placed many stones from a convenient pile, each fire- blackene=
d in
token that it had been similarly used many times. Next, hidden under the water of the
brook in a netted hand-bag, he brought to light the carcass of a fat
wood-pigeon he had snared the previous day. He wrapped the pigeon in green lea=
ves,
and, surrounding it with the hot stones from the fire, covered pigeon and
stones with earth.
When, after a tim=
e,
he removed the pigeon and stripped from it the scorched wrappings of leaves=
, it
gave forth a scent so savoury as to prick up Jerry's ears and set his nostr=
ils
to quivering. When the boy ha=
d torn
the steaming carcass across and cooled it, Jerry's meal began; nor did the =
meal
cease till the last sliver of meat had been stripped and tongued from the b=
ones
and the bones crunched and crackled to fragments and swallowed. And throughout the meal Lamai made=
love
to Jerry, crooning over and over his little song, and patting and caressing
him.
On the other hand,
refreshed by the water and the meat, Jerry did not reciprocate so heartily =
in
the love-making. He was polit=
e, and
received his petting with soft-shining eyes, tail-waggings and the customary
body- wrigglings; but he was restless, and continually listened to distant =
sounds
and yearned away to be gone. =
This
was not lost upon the boy, who, before he curled himself down to sleep,
securely tied to a tree the end of the cord that was about Jerry's neck.
After straining
against the cord for a time, Jerry surrendered and slept. But not for
long. Skipper was too much wi=
th
him. He knew, and yet he did =
not
know, the irretrievable ultimate disaster to Skipper. So it was, after low whinings and
whimperings, that he applied his sharp first-teeth to the sennit cord and
chewed upon it till it parted.
Free, like a homi=
ng
pigeon, he headed blindly and directly for the beach and the salt sea over
which had floated the Arangi, on her deck Skipper in command. Somo was largely deserted, and tho=
se
that were in it were sunk in sleep.
So no one vexed him as he trotted through the winding pathways betwe=
en
the many houses and past the obscene kingposts of totemic heraldry, where t=
he
forms of men, carved from single tree trunks, were seated in the gaping jaw=
s of
carved sharks. For Somo, trac=
ing
back to Somo its founder, worshipped the shark-god and the salt-water deiti=
es as
well as the deities of the bush and swamp and mountain.
Turning to the ri=
ght
until he was past the sea-wall, Jerry came on down to the beach. No Arangi was to be seen on the pl=
acid
surface of the lagoon. All ab=
out
him was the debris of the feast, and he scented the smouldering odours of d=
ying
fires and burnt meat. Many of=
the
feasters had not troubled to return to their houses, but lay about on the s=
and,
in the mid-morning sunshine, men, women, and children and entire families, =
wherever
they had yielded to slumber.
Down by the water=
's
edge, so close that his fore-feet rested in the water, Jerry sat down, his
heart bursting for Skipper, thrust his nose heavenward at the sun, and wail=
ed
his woe as dogs have ever wailed since they came in from the wild woods to =
the
fires of men.
And here Lamai fo=
und
him, hushed his grief against his breast with cuddling arms, and carried him
back to the grass house by the brook. Water he offered, but Jerry could dri=
nk
no more. Love he offered, but=
Jerry
could not forget his torment of desire for Skipper. In the end, disgusted with so
unreasonable a puppy, Lamai forgot his love in his boyish savageness, clout=
ed
Jerry over the head, right side and left, and tied him as few whites men's =
dogs
have ever been tied. For, in =
his
way, Lamai was a genius. He h=
ad
never seen the thing done with any dog, yet he devised, on the spur of the
moment, the invention of tying Jerry with a stick. The stick was of bamboo, four feet
long. One end he tied shortly=
to
Jerry's neck, the other end, just as shortly to a tree. All that Jerry's teeth could reach=
was
the stick, and dry and seasoned bamboo can defy the teeth of any dog.
For many days, tied by the stick, J=
erry
remained Lamai's prisoner. It=
was
not a happy time, for the house of Lumai was a house of perpetual bickering=
and
quarrelling. Lamai fought pit=
ched
battles with his brothers and sisters for teasing Jerry, and these battles
invariably culminated in Lenerengo taking a hand and impartially punishing =
all
her progeny.
After that, as a
matter of course and on general principles, she would have it out with Luma=
i,
whose soft voice always was for quiet and repose, and who always, at the en=
d of
a tongue-lashing, took himself off to the canoe house for a couple of
days. Here, Lenerengo was
helpless. Into the canoe hous=
e of the
stags no Mary might venture.
Lenerengo had never forgotten the fate of the last Mary who had brok=
en
the taboo. It had occurred ma=
ny
years before, when she was a girl, and the recollection was ever vivid of t=
he
unfortunate woman hanging up in the sun by one arm for all of a day, and for
all of a second day by the other arm.
After that she had been feasted upon by the stags of the canoe house,
and for long afterward all women had talked softly before their husbands.
Jerry did discover
liking for Lamai, but it was not strong nor passionate. Rather was it out of gratitude, fo=
r only
Lamai saw to it that he received food and water. Yet this boy was no Skipper, no Mi=
ster Haggin. Nor was he even a Derby or a Bob.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He was that inferior man-creature,=
a
nigger, and Jerry had been thoroughly trained all his brief days to the law
that the white men were the superior two-legged gods.
He did not fail to
recognize, however, the intelligence and power that resided in the
niggers. He did not reason it
out. He accepted it. They had power of command over oth=
er
objects, could propel sticks and stones through the air, could even tie him=
a
prisoner to a stick that rendered him helpless. Inferior as they might be to the
white-gods, still they were gods of a sort.
It was the first =
time
in his life that Jerry had been tied up, and he did not like it. Vainly he hurt his teeth, some of =
which
were loosening under the pressure of the second teeth rising underneath.
But when the day =
came
that he was freed, he failed to take advantage of it and scuttle away for t=
he
beach. It chanced that Lenere=
ngo
released him. She did it
deliberately, desiring to be quit of him.&=
nbsp;
But when she untied Jerry, he stopped to thank her, wagging his tail=
and
smiling up at her with his hazel-brown eyes. She stamped her foot at him to be =
gone, and
uttered a harsh and intimidating cry.
This Jerry did not understand, and so unused was he to fear that he
could not be frightened into running away.=
He ceased wagging his tail, and, though he continued to look up at h=
er,
his eyes no longer smiled. Her
action and noise he identified as unfriendly, and he became alert and watch=
ful,
prepared for whatever hostile act she might next commit.
Again she cried o=
ut
and stamped her foot. The only
effect on Jerry was to make him transfer his watchfulness to the foot. This slowness in getting away, now=
that
she had released him, was too much for her short temper. She launched the kick, and Jerry,
avoiding it, slashed her ankle.
War broke on the
instant, and that she might have killed Jerry in her rage was highly probab=
le
had not Lamai appeared on the scene.
The stick untied from Jerry's neck told the tale of her perfidy and
incensed Lamai, who sprang between and deflected the blow with a stone
poi-pounder that might have brained Jerry.
Lamai was now the=
one
in danger of grievous damage, and his mother had just knocked him down with=
a
clout alongside the head when poor Lumai, roused from sleep by the uproar,
ventured out to make peace.
Lenerengo, as usual, forgot everything else in the fiercer pleasure =
of
berating her spouse.
The conclusion of=
the
affair was harmless enough. T=
he
children stopped their crying, Lamai retied Jerry with the stick, Lenerengo
harangued herself breathless, and Lumai departed with hurt feelings for the
canoe house where stags could sleep in peace and Marys pestered not.
That night, in the
circle of his fellow stags, Lumai recited his sorrows and told the cause of
them--the puppy dog which had come on the Arangi. It chanced that Agno, chi=
ef
of the devil devil doctors, or high priest, heard the tale, and recollected
that he had sent Jerry to the canoe house along with the rest of the
captives. Half an hour later =
he was
having it out with Lamai. Bey=
ond
doubt, the boy had broken the taboos, and privily he told him so, until Lam=
ai
trembled and wept and squirmed abjectly at his feet, for the penalty was de=
ath.
It was too good an
opportunity to get a hold over the boy for Agno to misplay it. A dead boy was worth nothing to hi=
m, but
a living boy whose life he carried in his hand would serve him well. Since no one else knew of the brok=
en
taboo, he could afford to keep quiet.
So he ordered Lamai forthright down to live in the youths' canoe hou=
se,
there to begin his novitiate in the long series of tasks, tests and ceremon=
ies
that would graduate him into the bachelors' canoe house and half way along
toward being a recognized man.
* * * * *
In the morning,
obeying the devil devil doctor's commands, Lenerengo tied Jerry's feet
together, not without a struggle in which his head was banged about and her
hands were scratched. Then she
carried him down through the village on the way to deliver him at Agno's
house. On the way, in the open
centre of the village where stood the kingposts, she left him lying on the
ground in order to join in the hilarity of the population.
Not only was old
Bashti a stern law-giver, but he was a unique one. He had selected this day at the on=
e time
to administer punishment to two quarrelling women, to give a lesson to all
other women, and to make all his subjects glad once again that they had him=
for
ruler. Tiha and Wiwau, the two
women, were squat and stout and young, and had long been a scandal because =
of
their incessant quarrelling. =
Bashti
had set them a race to run. B=
ut
such a race. It was
side-splitting. Men, women, a=
nd children,
beholding, howled with delight.
Even elderly matrons and greybeards with a foot in the grave screech=
ed
and shrilled their joy in the spectacle.
The half-mile cou=
rse
lay the length of the village, through its heart, from the beach where the
Arangi had been burned to the beach at the other end of the sea-wall. It had to be covered once in each
direction by Tiha and Wiwau, in each case one of them urging speed on the o=
ther
and the other desiring speed that was unattainable.
Only the mind of
Bashti could have devised the show.
First, two round coral stones, weighing fully forty pounds each, were
placed in Tiha's arms. She was
compelled to clasp them tightly against her sides in order that they might =
not
roll to the ground. Behind he=
r,
Bashti placed Wiwau, who was armed with a bristle of bamboo splints mounted=
on
a light long shaft of bamboo. The
splints were sharp as needles, being indeed the needles used in tattooing, =
and
on the end of the pole they were intended to be applied to Tiha's back in t=
he
same way that men apply ox-goads to oxen.&=
nbsp;
No serious damage, but much pain, could be inflicted, which was just
what Bashti had intended.
Wiwau prodded with
the goad, and Tiha stumbled and wabbled in gymnastic efforts to make
speed. Since, when the farthe=
r beach
had been reached, the positions would be reversed and Wiwau would carry the
stones back while Tiha prodded, and since Wiwau knew that for what she gave
Tiha would then try to give more, Wiwau exerted herself to give the utmost =
while
yet she could. The perspirati=
on ran
down both their faces. Each h=
ad her
partisans in the crowd, who encouraged and heaped ridicule with every prod.=
Ludicrous as it w=
as,
behind it lay iron savage law. The
two stones were to be carried the entire course. The woman who prodded must do so w=
ith conviction
and dispatch. The woman who w=
as
prodded must not lose her temper and fight her tormentor. As they had been duly forewarned b=
y Bashti,
the penalty for infraction of the rules he had laid down was staking out on=
the
reef at low tide to be eaten by the fish-sharks.
As the contestants
came opposite where Bashti and Aora his prime minister stood, they redoubled
their efforts, Wiwau goading enthusiastically, Tiha jumping with every thru=
st
to the imminent danger of dropping the stones. At their heels trooped the
children of the village and all the village dogs, whooping and yelping with
excitement.
"Long time y=
ou
fella Tiha no sit 'm along canoe," Aora bawled to the victim and set
Bashti cackling again.
At an unusually
urgent prod, Tiha dropped a stone and was duly goaded while she sank to her
knees and with one arm scooped it in against her side, regained her feet, a=
nd
waddled on.
Once, in stark mu=
tiny
at so much pain, she deliberately stopped and addressed her tormentor.
"Me cross al=
ong
you too much," she told Wiwau.
"Bime by, close--"
But she never
completed the threat. A warmly
administered prod broke through her stoicism and started her tottering alon=
g.
The shouting of t=
he
rabble ebbed away as the queer race ran on toward the beach. But in a few minutes it could be h=
eard
flooding back, this time Wiwau panting with the weight of coral stone and T=
iha,
a-smart with what she had endured, trying more than to even the score.
Opposite Bashti,
Wiwau lost one of the stones, and, in the effort to recover it, lost the ot=
her,
which rolled a dozen feet away from the first. Tiha became a whirlwind of avenging
fury. And all Somo went wild.=
Bashti held his lean sides with
merriment while tears of purest joy ran down his prodigiously wrinkled chee=
ks.
And when all was
over, quoth Bashti to his people: "Thus shall all women fight when they
desire over much to fight."
Only he did not s=
ay
it in this way. Nor did he sa=
y it
in the Somo tongue. What he d=
id say
was in beche-de-mer, and his words were:
"Any fella M=
ary
he like 'm fight, all fella Mary along Somo fight 'm this fella way." =
For some time after the conclusion =
of the
race, Bashti stood talking with his head men, Agno among them. Lenerengo was similarly engaged wi=
th several
old cronies. As Jerry lay off=
to
one side where she had forgotten him, the wild-dog he had bullied on the Ar=
angi
came up and sniffed at him. At
first he sniffed at a distance, ready for instant flight. Then he drew cautiously closer.
Again he came back
cautiously, as it was the instinct in him to stalk wild game, crouching so
close to the ground that almost his belly touched. He lifted and dropped his feet wit=
h the
lithe softness of a cat, and from time to time glanced to right and to left=
as
if in apprehension of some flank attack.&n=
bsp;
A noisy outburst of boys' laughter in the distance caused him to cro=
uch
suddenly down, his claws thrust into the ground for purchase, his muscles t=
ense
springs for the leap he knew not in what direction, from the danger he knew=
not
what that might threaten him. Then
he identified the noise, know that no harm impended, and resumed his stealt=
hy
advance on the Irish terrier.
What might have
happened there is no telling, for at that moment Bashti's eyes chanced to r=
est
on the golden puppy for the first time since the capture of the Arangi. In the rush of events Bashti had
forgotten the puppy.
"What name t=
hat
fella dog?" he cried out sharply, causing wild-dog to crouch down again
and attracting Lenerengo's attention.
She cringed in fe=
ar
to the ground before the terrible old chief and quavered a recital of the
facts. Her good-for-nothing b=
oy
Lamai had picked the dog from the water.&n=
bsp;
It had been the cause of much trouble in her house. But now Lamai had gone to live wit=
h the
youths, and she was carrying the dog to Agno's house at Agno's express comm=
and.
"What name t=
hat
dog stop along you?" Bashti demanded directly of Agno.
"Me kai-kai
along him," came the answer.
"Him fat fella dog. Him
good fella dog kai-kai."
Into Bashti's ale=
rt old
brain flashed an idea that had been long maturing.
"Him good fe=
lla
dog too much," he announced.
"Better you eat 'm bush fella dog," he advised, pointing at
wild-dog.
Agno shook his
head. "Bush fella dog no=
good
kai-kai."
"Bush fella =
dog
no good too much," was Bashti's judgment. "Bush fella dog too much
fright. Plenty fella bush dog=
too
much fright. White marster's =
dog no
fright. Bush dog no fight.
Bashti stepped ov=
er
to Jerry and cut the cords that tied his legs. And Jerry, upon his feet in a surg=
e, was
for once in too great haste to pause to give thanks. He hurled himself after wild-dog, =
caught
him in mid-flight, and rolled him over and over in a cloud of dust. Ever wild- dog strove to escape, a=
nd
ever Jerry cornered him, rolled him, and bit him, while Bashti applauded and
called on his head men to behold.
By this time Jerry
had become a raging little demon.
Fired by all his wrongs, from the bloody day on the Arangi and the l=
oss
of Skipper down to this latest tying of his legs, he was avenging himself on
wild-dog for everything. The =
owner
of wild-dog, a return boy, made the mistake of trying to kick Jerry away. Jerry was upon him in a flash scra=
tching
his calves with his teeth, in the suddenness of his onslaught getting betwe=
en the
black's legs and tumbling him to the ground.
"What
name!" Bashti cried in a rage at the offender, who lay fear-stricken w=
here
he had fallen, trembling for what next words might fall from his chief's li=
ps.
But Bashti was
already doubling with laughter at sight of wild-dog running for his life do=
wn
the street with Jerry a hundred feet behind and tearing up the dust.
As they disappear=
ed,
Bashti expounded his idea. If=
men
planted banana trees, it ran, what they would get would be bananas. If they planted yams, yams would be
produced, not sweet potatoes or plantains, but yams, nothing but yams. The same with dogs. Since all black men's dogs were co=
wards,
all the breeding of all black men's dogs would produce cowards. White men's
dogs were courageous fighters. When
they were bred they produced courageous fighters. Very well, and to the conclusion,
namely, here was a white man's dog in their possession. The height of foolishness would be=
to
eat it and to destroy for all time the courage that resided in it. The wise thing to do was to regard=
it as
a seed dog, to keep it alive, so that in the coming generations of Somo dogs
its courage would be repeated over and over and spread until all Somo dogs =
would
be strong and brave.
Further, Bashti
commanded his chief devil devil doctor to take charge of Jerry and guard him
well. Also, he sent his word =
forth
to all the tribe that Jerry was taboo.&nbs=
p;
No man, woman, or child was to throw spear or stone at him, strike h=
im
with club or tomahawk, or hurt him in any way.
* * * * *
Thenceforth, and
until Jerry himself violated one of the greatest of taboos, he had a happy =
time
in Agno's gloomy grass house. For
Bashti, unlike most chiefs, ruled his devil devil doctors with an iron hand=
. Other
chiefs, even Nau-hau of Langa-Langa, were ruled by their devil devil
doctors. For that matter, the
population of Somo believed that Bashti was so ruled. But the Somo folk did not know wha=
t went
on behind the scenes, when Bashti, a sheer infidel, talked alone now with o=
ne doctor
and now with another.
In these private
talks he demonstrated that he knew their game as well as they did, and that=
he
was no slave to the dark superstitions and gross impostures with which they
kept the people in submission.
Also, he exposited the theory, as ancient as priests and rulers, that
priests and rulers must work together in the orderly governance of the
people. He was content that t=
he
people should believe that the gods, and the priests who were the mouth-pie=
ces
of the gods, had the last word, but he would have the priests know that in
private the last word was his.
Little as they believed in their trickery, he told them, he believed
less.
He knew taboo, and
the truth behind taboo. He
explained his personal taboos, and how they came to be. Never must he eat clam-meat, he to=
ld Agno. It was so selected by himself beca=
use he
did not like clam-meat. It was old Nino, high priest before Agno, with an e=
ar
open to the voice of the shark-god, who had so laid the taboo. But, he, Bashti, had privily comma=
nded
Nino to lay the taboo against clam-meat upon him, because he, Bashti, did n=
ot
like clam-meat and had never liked clam-meat.
Still further, si=
nce
he had lived longer than the oldest priest of them, his had been the appoin=
ting
of every one of them. He knew=
them,
had made them, had placed them, and they lived by his pleasure. And they would continue to take pr=
ogram
from him, as they had always taken it, or else they would swiftly and sudde=
nly
pass. He had but to remind th=
em of
the passing of Kori, the devil devil doctor who had believed himself strong=
er than
his chief, and who, for his mistake, had screamed in pain for a week ere wh=
at
composed him had ceased to scream and for ever ceased to scream.
* * * * *
In Agno's large g=
rass
house was little light and much mystery.&n=
bsp;
There was no mystery there for Jerry, who merely knew things, or did=
not
know things, and who never bothered about what he did not know. Dried heads and other cured and mo=
uldy
portions of human carcasses impressed him no more than the dried alligators=
and
dried fish that contributed to the festooning of Agno's dark abode.
Jerry found himse=
lf
well cared for. No children n=
or
wives cluttered the devil devil doctor's house. Several old women, a fly-flapping =
girl
of eleven, and two young men who had graduated from the canoe house of the =
youths
and who were studying priestcraft under the master, composed the household =
and
waited upon Jerry. Food of the
choicest was his. After Agno =
had
eaten first-cut of pig, Jerry was served second. Even the two acolytes and the
fly-flapping maid ate after him, leaving the debris for the several old
women. And, unlike the mere b=
ush
dogs, who stole shelter from the rain under overhanging eaves, Jerry was gi=
ven
a dry place under the roof where the heads of bushmen and of forgotten
sandalwood traders hung down from above in the midst of a dusty confusion of
dried viscera of sharks, crocodile skulls, and skeletons of Solomons rats t=
hat
measured two-thirds of a yard in length from bone-tip of nose to bone-tip of
tail.
A number of times,
all freedom being his, Jerry stole away across the village to the house of
Lumai. But never did he find =
Lamai,
who, since Skipper, was the only human he had met that had placed a bid to =
his heart. Jerry never appeared openly, but f=
rom
the thick fern of the brookside observed the house and scented out its
occupants. No scent of Lamai =
did he
ever obtain, and, after a time, he gave up his vain visits and accepted the
devil devil doctor's house as his home and the devil devil doctor as his
master.
But he bore no lo=
ve
for this master. Agno, who had
ruled by fear so long in his house of mystery, did not know love. Nor was affection any part of him,=
nor
was geniality. He had no sens=
e of
humour, and was as frostily cruel as an icicle. Next to Bashti he stood in power, =
and
all his days had been embittered in that he was not first in power. He had no softness for Jerry. Because he feared Bashti he feared=
to
harm Jerry.
The months passed,
and Jerry got his firm, massive second teeth and increased in weight and
size. He came as near to being
spoiled as is possible for a dog.
Himself taboo, he quickly learned to lord it over the Somo folk and =
to
have his way and will in all matters.
No one dared to dispute with him with stick or stone. Agno hated him--he knew that; but =
also
he gleaned the knowledge that Agno feared him and would not dare to hurt
him. But Agno was a chill-blo=
oded
philosopher and bided his time, being different from Jerry in that he posse=
ssed
human prevision and could adjust his actions to remote ends.
From the edge of =
the
lagoon, into the waters of which, remembering the crocodile taboo he had
learned on Meringe, he never ventured, Jerry ranged to the outlying bush
villages of Bashti's domain. =
All
made way for him. All fed him=
when
he desired food. For the tabo=
o was
upon him, and he might unchidden invade their sleeping-mats or food
calabashes. He might bully as=
he pleased,
and be arrogant beyond decency, and there was no one to say him nay. Even had Bashti's word gone forth =
that
if Jerry were attacked by the full-grown bush dogs, it was the duty of the =
Somo
folk to take his part and kick and stone and beat the bush dogs. And thus his own four-legged cousi=
ns
came painfully to know that he was taboo.
And Jerry
prospered. Fat to stupidity he
might well have become, had it not been for his high-strung nerves and his
insatiable, eager curiosity. With the freedom of all Somo his, he was ever
a-foot over it, learning its metes and bounds and the ways of the wild
creatures that inhabited its swamps and forests and that did not acknowledge
his taboo.
Many were his
adventures. He fought two bat=
tles
with the wood-rats that were almost of his size, and that, being mature and
wild and cornered, fought him as he had never been fought before. The first he had killed, unaware t=
hat it
was an old and feeble rat. The
second, in prime of vigour, had so punished him that he crawled back, weak =
and
sick to the devil devil doctor's house, where, for a week, under the dried
emblems of death, he licked his wounds and slowly came back to life and hea=
lth.
He stole upon the
dugong and joyed to stampede that silly timid creature by sudden ferocious
onslaughts which he knew himself to be all sound and fury, but which tickled
him and made him laugh with the consciousness of playing a successful
joke. He chased the unmigrato=
ry
tropi-ducks from their shrewd-hidden nests, walked circumspectly among the
crocodiles hauled out of water for slumber, and crept under the jungle-roof=
and
spied upon the snow-white saucy cockatoos, the fierce ospreys, the heavy- f=
lighted
buzzards, the lories and kingfishers, and the absurdly garrulous little pyg=
my
parrots.
Thrice, beyond the
boundaries of Somo, he encountered the little black bushmen who were more l=
ike
ghosts than men, so noiseless and unperceivable were they, and who, guarding
the wild-pig runways of the jungle, missed spearing him on the three memora=
ble
occasions. As the wood-rats h=
ad
taught him discretion, so did these two-legged lurkers in the jungle
twilight. He had not fought w=
ith
them, although they tried to spear him.&nb=
sp;
He quickly came to know that these were other folk than Somo folk, t=
hat
his taboo did not extend to them, and that, even of a sort, they were
two-legged gods who carried flying death in their hands that reached farther
than their hands and bridged distance.
As he ran the jun=
gle,
so Jerry ran the village. No =
place
was sacred to him. In the dev=
il
devil houses, where, before the face of mystery men and women crawled in fe=
ar
and trembling, he walked stiff-legged and bristling; for fresh heads were
suspended there--heads his eyes and keen nostrils identified as those of on=
ce
living blacks he had known on board the Arangi. In the biggest devil devil house he
encountered the head of Borckman, and snarled at it, without receiving
response, in recollection of the fight he had fought with the schnapps-addl=
ed
mate on the deck of the Arangi.
Once, however, in
Bashti's house, he chanced upon all that remained on earth of Skipper. Bashti had lived very long, had li=
ved
most wisely and thought much, and was thoroughly aware that, having lived f=
ar
beyond the span of man his own span was very short. And he was curious about it all--t=
he
meaning and purpose of life. =
He
loved the world and life, into which he had been fortunately born, both as =
to
constitution and to place, which latter, for him, had been the high place o=
ver
hie priests and people. He wa=
s not
afraid to die, but he wondered if he might live again. He discounted the silly views of t=
he
tricky priests, and he was very much alone in the chaos of the confusing
problem.
For he had lived =
so
long, and so luckily, that he had watched the waning to extinction of all t=
he
vigorous appetites and desires. He
had known wives and children, and the keen-edge of youthful hunger. He had seen his children grow to m=
anhood
and womanhood and become fathers and grandfathers, mothers and
grandmothers. But having known
woman, and love, and fatherhood, and the belly-delights of eating, he had
passed on beyond. Food? Scarcely did he know its meaning, =
so
little did he eat. Hunger, that bit him like a spur when he was young and
lusty, had long since ceased to stir and prod him. He ate out of a sense of necessity=
and
duty, and cared little for what he ate, save for one thing: the eggs of the
megapodes that were, in season, laid in his private, personal, strictly tab=
ooed
megapode laying-yard. Here wa=
s left
to him his last lingering flesh thrill.&nb=
sp;
As for the rest, he lived in his intellect, ruling his people, seeki=
ng
out data from which to induce laws that would make his people stronger and
rivet his people's clinch upon life.
But he realized
clearly the difference between that abstract thing, the tribe, and that most
concrete of things, the individual.
The tribe persisted. I=
ts
members passed. The tribe was=
a
memory of the history and habits of all previous members, which the living
members carried on until they passed and became history and memory in the
intangible sum that was the tribe.
He, as a member, soon or late, and late was very near, must pass.
Not as a miser ha=
d he
collected these heads, and not as a miser counting his secret hoard did he
ponder these heads, unwrapped, held in his two hands or lying on his
knees. He wanted to know. He wanted to know what he guessed =
they
might know, now that they had long since gone into the darkness that rounds=
the
end of life.
Various were the
heads Bashti thus interrogated--in his hands, on his knees, in his dim-ligh=
ted
grasshouse, while the overhead sun blazed down and the fading south-east si=
ghed
through the palm-fronds and breadfruit branches. There was the head of a Japanese--=
the
only one he had ever seen or heard of.&nbs=
p;
Before he was born it had been taken by his father. Ill-cured it was,
and battered and marred with ancientness and rough usage. Yet he studied its features, decid=
ed
that it had once had two lips as live as his own and a mouth as vocal and
hungry as his had often been in the past.&=
nbsp;
Two eyes and a nose it had, a thatched crown of roof, and a pair of =
ears
like to his own. Two legs and=
a
body it must once have had, and desires and lusts. Heats of wrath and of love, so he =
decided,
had also been its once on a time when it never thought to die.
A head that amazed
him much, whose history went back before his father's and grandfather's tim=
e,
was the head of a Frenchman, although Bashti knew it not. Nor did he know it was the head of=
La
Perouse, the doughty old navigator, who had left his bones, the bones of his
crews, and the bones of his two frigates, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, on
the shores of the cannibal Solomons.
Another head--for Bashti was a confirmed head- collector--went back =
two
centuries before La Perouse to Alvaro de Mendana, the Spaniard. It was the head of one of Mendana's
armourers, lost in a beach scrimmage to one of Bashti's remote ancestors.
Still another hea=
d,
the history of which was vague, was a white woman's head. What wife of what navigator there =
was no
telling. But earrings of gold=
and
emerald still clung to the withered ears, and the hair, two-thirds of a fat=
hom
long, a shimmering silk of golden floss, flowed from the scalp that covered
what had once been the wit and will of her that Bashti reasoned had in her
ancient time been quick with love in the arms of man.
Ordinary heads, of
bushmen and salt-water men, and even of schnapps-drinking white men like
Borckman, he relegated to the canoe houses and devil devil houses. For he was a connoisseur in the ma=
tter
of heads. There was a strange=
head
of a German that lured him much.
Red- bearded it was, and red-haired, but even in dried death there w=
as
an ironness of feature and a massive brow that hinted to him of mastery of =
secrets
beyond his ken. No more than =
did he
know it once had been a German, did he know it was a German professor's hea=
d,
an astronomer's head, a head that in its time had carried within its content
profound knowledge of the stars in the vasty heavens, of the way of
star-directed ships upon the sea, and of the way of the earth on its starry
course through space that was a myriad million times beyond the slight conc=
ept of
space that he possessed.
Last of all, shar=
pest
of bite in his thought, was the head of Van Horn. And it was the head of Van
Horn that lay on his knees under his contemplation when Jerry, who possessed
the freedom of Somo, trotted into Bashti's grass house, scented and identif=
ied
the mortal remnant of Skipper, wailed first in woe over it, then bristled i=
nto
rage.
Bashti did not no=
tice
at first, for he was deep in interrogation of Van Horn's head. Only short months before this head=
had
been alive, he pondered, quick with wit, attached to a two-legged body that
stood erect and that swaggered about, a loincloth and a belted automatic ar=
ound
its middle, more powerful, therefrom, than Bashti, but with less wit, for h=
ad not
he, Bashti, with an ancient pistol, put darkness inside that skull where wit
resided, and removed that skull from the soddenly relaxed framework of flesh
and bone on which it had been supported to tread the earth and the deck of =
the
Arangi?
What had become of
that wit? Had that wit been a=
ll of
the arrogant, upstanding Van Horn, and had it gone out as the flickering fl=
ame
of a splinter of wood goes out when it is quite burnt to a powder-fluff of =
ash? Had all that made Van Horn passed =
like
the flame of the splinter? Had he passed into the darkness for ever into wh=
ich
the beast passed, into which passed the speared crocodile, the hooked bonit=
a,
the netted mullet, the slain pig that was fat to eat? Was Van Horn's darkness as the dar=
kness
of the blue-bottle fly that his fly-flapping maid smashed and disrupted in
mid-flight of the air?--as the darkness into which passed the mosquito that
knew the secret of flying, and that, despite its perfectness of flight, with
almost an unthought action, he squashed with the flat of his hand against t=
he
back of his neck when it bit him?
What was true of =
this
white man's head, so recently alive and erectly dominant, Bashti knew was t=
rue
of himself. What had happened=
to
this white man, after going through the dark gate of death, would happen to=
him. Wherefore he questioned the head, =
as if
its dumb lips might speak to him from out of the mystery and tell him the
meaning of life, and the meaning of death that inevitably laid life by the
heels.
Jerry's long-drawn
howl of woe at sight and scent of all that was left of Skipper, roused Bash=
ti
from his reverie. He looked a=
t the
sturdy, golden- brown puppy, and immediately included it in his reverie.
But from woe Jerry
went on into anger. He stalked
stiff-legged, with a snarl writhen on his lips, and with recurrent waves of
hair-bristling along his back and up his shoulders and neck. And he stalked not the head of Ski=
pper,
where rested his love, but Bashti, who held the head on his knees. As the wild wolf in the upland pas=
ture
stalks the mare mother with her newly delivered colt, so Jerry stalked
Bashti. And Bashti, who had n=
ever
feared death all his long life and who had laughed a joke with his forefing=
er
blown off by the bursting flint-lock pistol, smiled gleefully to himself, f=
or
his glee was intellectual and in admiration of this half-grown puppy whom h=
e rapped
on the nose with a short, hardwood stick and compelled to keep distance.
This, too, was li=
fe,
Bashti meditated, as he deftly rapped the screaming puppy away from him.
So he continued to
rap Jerry on the nose away from him, and to marvel at the persistence of the
vital something within him that impelled him to leap forward always to the
stick that hurt him and made him recoil.&n=
bsp;
The valour and motion, the strength and the unreasoning of youth he =
knew
it to be, and he admired it sadly, and envied it, willing to exchange for i=
t all
his lean grey wisdom if only he could find the way.
"Some dog, t=
hat
dog, sure some dog," he might have uttered in Van Horn's fashion of
speech. Instead, in beche-de-=
mer,
which was as habitual to him as his own Somo speech, he thought:
"My word, th=
at
fella dog no fright along me."
But age wearied
sooner of the play, and Bashti put an end to it by rapping Jerry heavily be=
hind
the ear and stretching him out stunned.&nb=
sp;
The spectacle of the puppy, so alive and raging the moment before, a=
nd,
the moment after, lying as if dead, caught Bashti's speculative fancy. The stick, with a single sharp rap=
of
it, had effected the change. =
Where
had gone the anger and wit of the puppy?&n=
bsp;
Was that all it was, the flame of the splinter that could be quenche=
d by
any chance gust of air? One i=
nstant
Jerry had raged and suffered, snarled and leaped, willed and directed his
actions. The next instant he =
lay
limp and crumpled in the little death of unconsciousness. In a brief space, Bashti knew, con=
sciousness,
sensation, motion, and direction would flow back into the wilted little
carcass. But where, in the
meanwhile, at the impact of the stick, had gone all the consciousness, and
sensitiveness, and will?
Bashti sighed
wearily, and wearily wrapped the heads in their grass-mat coverings--all but
Van Horn's; and hoisted them up in the air to hang from the roof-beams--to =
hang
as he debated, long after he was dead and out if it, even as some of them h=
ad
so hung from long before his father's and his grandfather's time. The head of Van Horn he left lying=
on
the floor, while he stole out himself to peer in through a crack and see wh=
at next
the puppy might do.
Jerry quivered at
first, and in the matter of a minute struggled feebly to his feet where he
stood swaying and dizzy; and thus Bashti, his eye to the crack, saw the mir=
acle
of life flow back through the channels of the inert body and stiffen the le=
gs
to upstanding, and saw consciousness, the mystery of mysteries, flood back
inside the head of bone that was covered with hair, smoulder and glow in the
opening eyes, and direct the lips to writhe away from the teeth and the thr=
oat
to vibrate to the snarl that had been interrupted when the stick smashed him
down into darkness.
And more Bashti s=
aw. At first, Jerry looked about for h=
is
enemy, growling and bristling his neck hair. Next, in lieu of his enemy, he saw=
Skipper's
head, and crept to it and loved it, kissing with his tongue the hard cheeks,
the closed lids of the eyes that his love could not open, the immobile lips
that would not utter one of the love-words they had been used to utter to t=
he
little dog.
Next, in profound
desolation, Jerry set down before Skipper's head, pointed his nose toward t=
he
lofty ridge-pole, and howled mournfully and long. Finally, sick and subdued, he crep=
t out
of the house and away to the house of his devil devil master, where, for the
round of twenty-four hours, he waked and slept and dreamed centuries of
nightmares.
For ever after in
Somo, Jerry feared that grass house of Bashti. He was not in fear of Bashti. His fear was indescribable and
unthinkable. In that house wa=
s the
nothingness of what once was Skipper.
It was the token of the ultimate catastrophe to life that was wrapped
and twisted into every fibre of his heredity. One step advanced beyond this, Jer=
ry's uttermost,
the folk of Somo, from the contemplation of death, had achieved concepts of=
the
spirits of the dead still living in immaterial and supersensuous realms.
And thereafter Je=
rry
hated Bashti intensely, as a lord of life who possessed and laid on his kne=
es
the nothingness of Skipper. N=
ot
that Jerry reasoned it out. A=
ll dim
and vague it was, a sensation, an emotion, a feeling, an instinct, an
intuition, name it mistily as one will in the misty nomenclature of speech
wherein words cheat with the impression of definiteness and lie to the brai=
n an
understanding which the brain does not possess.
Three months more passed; the north=
-west
monsoon, after its half-year of breath, had given way to the south-east tra=
de;
and Jerry still continued to live in the house of Agno and to have the run =
of
the village. He had put on we=
ight,
increased in size, and, protected by the taboo, had become self-confident
almost to lordliness. But he =
had found
no master. Agno had never won=
a
heart-throb from him. For that
matter, Agno had never tried to win him.&n=
bsp;
Nor, in his cold-blooded way, had he ever betrayed his hatred of Jer=
ry.
Not even the seve=
ral
old women, the two acolytes, and the fly-flapping maid in Agno's house drea=
med
that the devil devil doctor hated Jerry.&n=
bsp;
Nor did Jerry dream it. To
him Agno was a neutral sort of person, a person who did not count. Those of the household Jerry recog=
nized
as slaves or servants to Agno, and he knew when they fed him that the food =
he
ate proceeded from Agno and was Agno's food. Save himself, taboo protected, all=
of
them feared Agno, and his house was truly a house of fear in which could bl=
oom
no love for a stray puppy dog. The
eleven-years' maid might have placed a bid for Jerry's affection, had she n=
ot
been deterred at the start by Agno, who reprimanded her sternly for presumi=
ng
to touch or fondle a dog of such high taboo.
What delayed Agno=
's
plot against Jerry for the half-year of the monsoon was the fact that the
season of egg-laying for the megapodes in Bashti's private laying-yard did =
not
begin until the period of the south-east trades. And Agno, having early conceived h=
is
plot, with the patience that was characteristic of him was content to wait =
the
time.
Now the megapode =
of
the Solomons is a distant cousin to the brush turkey of Australia. No larger than a large pigeon, it =
lays
an egg the size of a domestic duck's.
The megapode, with no sense of fear, is so silly that it would have =
been
annihilated hundreds of centuries before had it not been preserved by the
taboos of the chiefs and priests.
As it was, the chiefs were compelled to keep cleared patches of sand=
for
it, and to fence out the dogs. It
buried its eggs two feet deep, depending on the heat of the sun for the
hatching. And it would dig an=
d lay,
and continue to dig and lay, while a black dug out its eggs within two or t=
hree
feet of it.
The laying-yard w=
as
Bashti's. During the season, =
he
lived almost entirely on megapode eggs.&nb=
sp;
On rare occasion he even had megapodes that were near to finishing t=
heir
laying killed for his kai-kai. This
was no more than a whim, however, prompted by pride in such exclusiveness o=
f diet
only possible to one in such high place.&n=
bsp;
In truth, he cared no more for megapode meat than for any other
meat. All meat tasted alike t=
o him,
for his taste for meat was one of the vanished pleasures in the limbo of me=
mory.
But the eggs! He liked to eat them. They were the only article of food=
he
liked to eat, They gave him reminiscent thrills of the ancient food- desire=
s of
his youth. Actually was he hu=
ngry
when he had megapode eggs, and the well-nigh dried founts of saliva and of
internal digestive juices were stimulated to flow again at contemplation of=
a
megapode egg prepared for the eating.
Wherefore, he alone of all Somo, barred rigidly by taboo, ate megapo=
de
eggs. And, since the taboo was
essentially religious, to Agno was deputed the ecclesiastical task of guard=
ing
and cherishing and caring for the royal laying-yard.
But Agno was no
longer young. The acid bite of
belly desire had long since deserted him, and he, too, ate from a sense of
duty, all meat tasting alike to him.
Megapode eggs only stung his taste alive and stimulated the flow of =
his
juices. Thus it was that he b=
roke
the taboos he imposed, and, privily, before the eyes of no man, woman, or c=
hild
ate the eggs he stole from Bashti's private preserve.
So it was, as the
laying season began, and when both Bashti and Agno were acutely egg-yearning
after six months of abstinence, that Agno led Jerry along the taboo path
through the mangroves, where they stepped from root to root above the muck =
that
ever steamed and stank in the stagnant air where the wind never penetrated.=
The path, which w=
as
not an ordinary path and which consisted, for a man, in wide strides from r=
oot
to root, and for a dog in four-legged leaps and plunges, was new to Jerry.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In all his ranging of Somo, becaus=
e it
was so unusual a path, he had never discovered it. The unbending of Agno, thus to lea=
d him,
was a surprise and a delight to Jerry, who, without reasoning about it, in a
vague way felt the preliminary sensations that possibly Agno, in a small wa=
y,
might prove the master which his dog's soul continually sought.
Emerging from the=
swamp
of mangroves, abruptly they came upon a patch of sand, still so salt and
inhospitable from the sea's deposit that no great trees rooted and interpos=
ed
their branches between it and the sun's heat. A primitive gate gave entranc=
e,
but Agno did not take Jerry through it. Instead, with weird little chirrupi=
ngs
of encouragement and excitation, he persuaded Jerry to dig a tunnel beneath=
the
rude palisade of fence. He he=
lped
with his own hands, dragging out the sand in quantities, but imposing on Je=
rry
the leaving of the indubitable marks of a dog's paws and claws.
And, when Jerry w= as inside, Agno, passing through the gate, enticed and seduced him into digging out the eggs. But Jerry had no taste of the eggs. Eight of t= hem Agno sucked raw, and two of them he tucked whole into his arm-pits to take = back to his house of the devil devils. The shells of the eight he sucked he broke to fragments as a dog mig= ht break them, and, to build the picture he had long visioned, of the eighth e= gg he reserved a tiny portion which he spread, not on Jerry's jowls where his ton= gue could have erased it, but high up about his eyes and above them, where it w= ould remain and stand witness against him according to the plot he had planned.<= o:p>
Even worse, in hi=
gh
priestly sacrilege, he encouraged Jerry to attack a megapode hen in the act=
of
laying. And, while Jerry slew=
it,
knowing that the lust of killing, once started, would lead him to continue =
killing
the silly birds, Agno left the laying-yard to hot-foot it through the mangr=
ove
swamp and present to Bashti an ecclesiastical quandary. The taboo of the dog, as he expoun=
ded
it, had prevented him from interfering with the taboo dog when it ate the t=
aboo
egg-layers. Which taboo might=
be
the greater was beyond him. A=
nd
Bashti, who had not tasted a megapode egg in half a year, and who was keen =
for
the one recrudescent thrill of remote youth still left to him, led the way =
back
across the mangrove swamp at so prodigious a pace as quite to wind his high
priest who was many years younger than he.
And he arrived at=
the
laying-yard and caught Jerry, red-pawed and red- mouthed, in the midst of h=
is
fourth kill of an egg-layer, the raw yellow yolk of the portion of one egg,
plastered by Agno to represent many eggs, still about his eyes and above his
eyes to the bulge of his forehead.
In vain Bashti looked about for one egg, the six months' hunger stro=
nger
than ever upon him in the thick of the disaster. And Jerry, under the consent and
encouragement of Agno, wagged his tail to Bashti in a bid for recognition, =
of
prowess, and laughed with his red-dripping jowls and yellow plastered eyes.=
Bashti did not ra=
ge
as he would have done had he been alone.&n=
bsp;
Before the eyes of his chief priest he disdained to lower himself to
such commonness of humanity. =
Thus
it is always with those in the high places, ever temporising with their nat=
ural
desires, ever masking their ordinariness under a show of disinterest. So it was that Bashti displayed no
vexation at the disappointment to his appetite. Agno was a shade less controlled, =
for he
could not quite chase away the eager light in his eyes. Bashti glimpsed it and mistook it =
for
simple curiosity of observation not guessing its real nature. Which goes to show two things of t=
hose
in the high place: one, that they may fool those beneath them; the other, t=
hat they
may be fooled by those beneath them.
Bashti regarded J=
erry
quizzically, as if the matter were a joke, and shot a careless side glance =
to
note the disappointment in his priest's eyes. Ah, ha, thought Bashti; I have
fooled him.
"Which is the
high taboo?" Agno queried in the Somo tongue.
"As you shou=
ld
ask. Of a surety, the
megapode."
"And the
dog?" was Agno's next query.
"Must pay for
breaking the taboo. It is a h=
igh
taboo. It is my taboo. It was=
so
placed by Somo, the ancient father and first ruler of all of us, and it has
been ever since the taboo of the chiefs.&n=
bsp;
The dog must die."
He paused and
considered the matter, while Jerry returned to digging the sand where the s=
cent
was auspicious. Agno made to =
stop
him, but Bashti interposed.
"Let be,&quo=
t;
he said. "Let the dog co=
nvict
himself before my eyes."
And Jerry did,
uncovering two eggs, breaking them and lapping that portion of their precio=
us
contents which was not spilled and wasted in the sand. Bashti's eyes were quite lack-lust=
re as
he asked
"The feast of
dogs for the men is to-day?"
"To-morrow, =
at
midday," Agno answered.
"Already are the dogs coming in. There will be at least fifty of
them."
"Fifty and
one," was Bashti's verdict, as he nodded at Jerry.
The priest made a
quick movement of impulse to capture Jerry.
"Why now?&qu=
ot;
the chief demanded. "You=
will
but have to carry him through the swamp.&n=
bsp;
Let him trot back on his own legs, and when he is before the canoe h=
ouse
tie his legs there."
Across the swamp =
and
approaching the canoe house, Jerry, trotting happily at the heels of the two
men, heard the wailing and sorrowing of many dogs that spelt unmistakable w=
oe
and pain. He developed instant
suspicion that was, however, without direct apprehension for himself. And at that moment, his ears cocked
forward and his nose questing for further information in the matter, Bashti
seized him by the nape of the neck and held him in the air while Agno proce=
eded
to tie his legs.
No whimper, nor
sound, nor sign of fear, came from Jerry--only choking growls of ferociousn=
ess,
intermingled with snarls of anger, and a belligerent up-clawing of
hind-legs. But a dog, clutche=
d by
the neck from the back, can never be a match for two men, gifted with the i=
ntelligence
and deftness of men, each of them two-handed with four fingers and an oppos=
able
thumb to each hand.
His fore-legs and
hind-legs tied lengthwise and crosswise, he was carried head-downward the s=
hort
distance to the place of slaughter and cooking, and flung to the earth in t=
he
midst of the score or more of dogs similarly tied and helpless. Although it was mid-afternoon, a n=
umber
of them had so lain since early morning in the hot sun. They were all bush dogs or wild-do=
gs,
and so small was their courage that their thirst and physical pain from cor=
ds
drawn too tight across veins and arteries, and their dim apprehension of the
fate such treatment foreboded, led them to whimper and wail and howl their
despair and suffering.
The next thirty h=
ours
were bad hours for Jerry. The=
word
had gone forth immediately that the taboo on him had been removed, and of t=
he
men and boys none was so low as to do him reverence. About him, till night-fall, persis=
ted a
circle of teasers and tormenters.
They harangued him for his fall, sneered and jeered at him, rooted h=
im
about contemptuously with their feet, made a hollow in the sand out of whic=
h he
could not roll and desposited him in it on his back, his four tied legs
sticking ignominiously in the air above him.
And all he could =
do
was growl and rage his helplessness.
For, unlike the other dogs, he would not howl or whimper his pain. A year old now, the last six month=
s had
gone far toward maturing him, and it was the nature of his breed to be fear=
less
and stoical. And, much as he =
had
been taught by his white masters to hate and despise niggers, he learned in=
the
course of these thirty hours an especially bitter and undying hatred.
His torturers sto=
pped
at nothing. Even they brought
wild-dog and set him upon Jerry.
But it was contrary to wild-dog's nature to attack an enemy that cou=
ld
not move, even if the enemy was Jerry who had so often bullied him and roll=
ed
him on the deck. Had Jerry, w=
ith a
broken leg or so, still retained power of movement, then he would have maul=
ed him,
perhaps to death. But this ut=
ter
helplessness was different. S=
o the
expected show proved a failure.
When Jerry snarled and growled, wild-dog snarled and growled back and
strutted and bullied around him, him to persuasion of the blacks could indu=
ce but
no sink his teeth into Jerry.
The killing-ground
before the canoe house was a bedlam of horror. From time to time more bound dogs =
were
brought in and flung down. Th=
ere
was a continuous howling, especially contributed to by those which had lain=
in the
sun since early morning and had no water.&=
nbsp;
At times, all joined in, the control of the quietest breaking down
before the wave of excitement and fear that swept spasmodically over all of
them. This howling, rising and
falling, but never ceasing, continued throughout the night, and by morning =
all
were suffering from the intolerable thirst.
The sun blazing d=
own
upon them in the white sand and almost parboiling them, brought anything but
relief. The circle of torture=
rs
formed about Jerry again, and again was wreaked upon him all abusive contem=
pt
for having lost his taboo. Wh=
at
drove Jerry the maddest were not the blows and physical torment, but the
laughter. No dog enjoys being
laughed at, and Jerry, least of all, could restrain his wrath when they jee=
red him
and cackled close in his face.
Although he had n=
ot
howled once, his snarling and growling, combined with his thirst, had hoars=
ened
his throat and dried the mucous membranes of his mouth so that he was
incapable, except under the sheerest provocation, of further sound. His tongue hung out of his mouth, =
and
the eight o'clock sun began slowly to burn it.
It was at this ti=
me
that one of the boys cruelly outraged him.=
He rolled Jerry out of the hollow in which he had lain all night on =
his
back, turned him over on his side, and presented to him a small calabash fi=
lled
with water. Jerry lapped it so
fanatically that not for half a minute did he become aware that the boy had
squeezed into it many hot seeds of ripe red peppers. The circle shrieked with glee, and=
what
Jerry's thirst had been before was as nothing compared with this new thirst=
to
which had been added the stinging agony of pepper.
Next in event, an=
d a
most important event it was to prove, came Nalasu. Nalasu was an old man of
three-score years, and he was blind, walking with a large staff with which =
he
prodded his path. In his free=
hand
he carried a small pig by its tied legs.
"They say the
white master's dog is to be eaten," he said in the Somo speech. "Where is the white master's
dog? Show him to me."
Agno, who had just
arrived, stood beside him as he bent over Jerry and examined him with his
fingers. Nor did Jerry offer =
to
snarl or bite, although the blind man's hands came within reach of his teeth
more than once. For Jerry sen=
sed no
enmity in the fingers that passed so softly over him. Next, Nalasu felt over the pig, and
several times, as if calculating, alternated between Jerry and the pig.
Nalasu stood up a=
nd
voiced judgment:
"The pig is =
as
small as the dog. They are of=
a
size, but the pig has more meat on it for the eating. Take the pig and I shall take the
dog."
"Nay," =
said
Agno. "The white master'=
s dog
has broken the taboo. It must=
be
eaten. Take any other dog and=
leave
the pig. Take a big dog."=
;
"I will have=
the
white master's dog," Nalasu persisted. "Only the white master's dog =
and no
other."
The matter was at=
a
deadlock when Bashti chanced upon the scene and stood listening.
"Take the do=
g,
Nalasu," he said finally.
"It is a good pig, and I shall myself eat it."
"But he has
broken the taboo, your great taboo of the laying-yard, and must go to the
eating," Agno interposed quickly.
Too quickly, Bash=
ti
thought, while a vague suspicion arose in his mind of he knew not what.
"The taboo m=
ust
be paid in blood and cooking," Agno continued.
"Very
well," said Bashti. &quo=
t;I
shall eat the small pig. Let =
its
throat be cut and its body know the fire."
"I but speak=
the
law of the taboo. Life must p=
ay for
the breaking."
"There is
another law," Bashti grinned.
"Long has it been since ever Somo built these walls that life m=
ay
buy life."
"But of life=
of
man and life of woman," Agno qualified.
"I know the
law," Bashti held steadily on.
"Somo made the law.
Never has it been said that animal life may not buy animal life.&quo=
t;
"It has never
been practised," was the devil devil doctor's fling.
"And for rea=
son
enough," the old chief retorted.
"Never before has a man been fool enough to give a pig for a
dog. It is a young pig, and i=
t is fat
and tender. Take the dog,
Nalasu. Take the dog now.&quo=
t;
But the devil dev=
il
doctor was not satisfied.
"As you said=
, O
Bashti, in your very great wisdom, he is the seed dog of strength and
courage. Let him be slain.
But Bashti held no
anger against Jerry. He had l=
ived
too long and too philosophically to lay blame on a dog for breaking a taboo
which it did not know. Of cou=
rse,
dogs often were slain for breaking the taboos. But he allowed this to be done bec=
ause
the dogs themselves in nowise interested him, and because their deaths
emphasized the sacredness of the taboo.&nb=
sp;
Further, Jerry had more than slightly interested him. Often, since, Jerry had attacked h=
im
because of Van Horn's head, he had pondered the incident. Baffling as it was, as all
manifestations of life were baffling, it had given him food for thought.
There was another
angle to Bashti's conduct. He
wondered why his devil devil doctor so earnestly desired a mere dog's
death. There were many dogs.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Then why this particular dog? That the weight of something was o=
n the
other's mind was patent, although what it was Bashti could not gauge, guess=
--unless
it might be revenge incubated the day he had prevented Agno from eating the
dog. If such were the case, i=
t was
a state of mind he could not tolerate in any of his tribespeople. But whatever was the motive, guard=
ing as
he always did against the unknown, he thought it well to discipline his pri=
est
and demonstrate once again whose word was the last word in Somo. Wherefore Bashti replied:
"I have lived
long and eaten many pigs. Wha=
t man
may dare say that the many pigs have entered into me and made me a pig?&quo=
t;
He paused and cas=
t a
challenging eye around the circle of his audience; but no man spoke. Instead, some men grinned sheepish=
ly and
were restless on their feet, while Agno's expression advertised sturdy unbe=
lief
that there was anything pig-like about his chief.
"I have eaten
much fish," Bashti continued.
"Never has one scale of a fish grown out on my skin. Never has a gill appeared on my
throat. As you all know, by t=
he
looking, never have I sprouted one fin out of my backbone.--Nalasu, take the
dog.--Aga, carry the pig to my house.
I shall eat it to-day.--Agno, let the killing of the dogs begin so t=
hat
the canoe-men shall eat at due time."
Then, as he turne=
d to
go, he lapsed into beche-de-mer English and flung sternly over his shoulder,
"My word, you make 'm me cross along you."
As blind Nalasu slowly plodded away=
, with
one hand tapping the path before him and with the other carrying Jerry
head-downward suspended by his tied legs, Jerry heard a sudden increase in =
the
wild howling of the dogs as the killing began and they realized that death =
was
upon them.
But, unlike the b=
oy
Lamai, who had known no better, the old man did not carry Jerry all the way=
to
his house. At the first stream
pouring down between the low hills of the rising land, he paused and put Je=
rry
down to drink. And Jerry knew=
only
the delight of the wet coolness on his tongue, all about his mouth, and down
his throat. Nevertheless, in =
his subconsciousness
was being planted the impression that, kinder than Lamai, than Agno, than
Bashti, this was the kindest black he had encountered in Somo.
When he had drunk
till for the moment he could drink no more, he thanked Nalasu with his
tongue--not warmly nor ecstatically as had it been Skipper's hand, but with=
due
gratefulness for the life-giving draught. The old man chuckled in a pleased
way, rolled Jerry's parched body into the water, and, keeping his head above
the surface, rubbed the water into his dry skin and let him lie there for l=
ong
blissful minutes.
From the stream to
Nalasu's house, a goodly distance, Nalasu still carried him with bound legs,
although not head-downward but clasped in one arm against his chest. His idea was to love the dog to
him. For Nalasu, having sat i=
n the
lonely dark for many years, had thought far more about the world around him=
and
knew it far better than had he been able to see it. For his own special purpose he had=
need
of a dog. Several bush dogs he had tried, but they had shown little
appreciation of his kindness and had invariably run away. The last had remained longest beca=
use he
had treated it with the greatest kindness, but run away it had before he had
trained it to his purpose. Bu=
t the
white master's dog, he had heard, was different. It never ran away in fear, while i=
t was
said to be more intelligent than the dogs of Somo.
The invention Lam=
ai
had made of tying Jerry with a stick had been noised abroad in the village,=
and
by a stick, in Nalasu's house, Jerry found himself again tied. But with a difference. Never once was the blind man impat=
ient,
while he spent hours each day in squatting on his hams and petting Jerry. Yet, had he not done this, Jerry, =
who
ate his food and who was growing accustomed to changing his masters, would =
have
accepted Nalasu for master.
Further, it was fairly definite in Jerry's mind, after the devil dev=
il
doctor's tying him and flinging him amongst the other helpless dogs on the
killing-ground, that all mastership of Agno had ceased. And Jerry, who had never been with=
out a
master since his first days in the world, felt the imperative need of a mas=
ter.
So it was, when t=
he
day came that the stick was untied from him, that Jerry remained, voluntari=
ly
in Nalasu's house. When the o=
ld man
was satisfied there would be no running away, he began Jerry's training.
First of all Jerry
learned a new name for himself, which was Bao, and he was taught to respond=
to
it from an ever-increasing distance no matter how softly it was uttered, and
Nalasu continued to utter it more softly until it no longer was a spoken wo=
rd,
but a whisper. Jerry's ears w=
ere keen,
but Nalasu's, from long use, were almost as keen.
Further, Jerry's =
own
hearing was trained to still greater acuteness. Hours at a time, sitting by
Nalasu or standing apart from him, he was taught to catch the slightest sou=
nds
or rustlings from the bush. S=
till further,
he was taught to differentiate between the bush noises and between the ways=
he
growled warnings to Nalasu. I=
f a
rustle took place that Jerry identified as a pig or a chicken, he did not g=
rowl
at all. If he did not identif=
y the
noise, he growled fairly softly.
But if the noise were made by a man or boy who moved softly and
therefore suspiciously, Jerry learned to growl loudly; if the noise were lo=
ud
and careless, then Jerry's growl was soft.
It never entered
Jerry's mind to question why he was taught all this. He merely did it because it was th=
is
latest master's desire that he should. All this, and much more, at a cost of
interminable time and patience, Nalasu taught him, and much more he taught =
him,
increasing his vocabulary so that, at a distance, they could hold quick and
sharply definite conversations.
Thus, at fifty fe=
et
away, Jerry would "Whuff!" softly the information that there was a
noise he did not know; and Nalasu, with different sibilances, would hiss to=
him
to stand still, to whuff more softly, or to keep silent, or to come to him
noiselessly, or to go into the bush and investigate the source of the stran=
ge
noise, or, barking loudly, to rush and attack it.
Perhaps, if from =
the
opposite direction Nalasu's sharp ears alone caught a strange sound, he wou=
ld
ask Jerry if he had heard it. And
Jerry, alert to his toes to listen, by an alteration in the quantity or qua=
lity
of his whuff, would tell Nalasu that he did not hear; next, that he did hea=
r; and,
perhaps finally, that it was a strange dog, or a wood-rat, or a man, or a
boy--all in the softest of sounds that were scarcely more than breath-exhal=
ations,
all monosyllables, a veritable shorthand of speech.
Nalasu was a stra=
nge
old man. He lived by himself =
in a
small grass house on the edge of the village. The nearest house was quite a dist=
ance
away, while his own stood in a clearing in the thick jungle which approache=
d no
where nearer than sixty feet. Also,
this cleared space he kept continually free from the fast-growing
vegetation. Apparently he had=
no friends. At least no visitors ever came to =
his
dwelling. Years had passed si=
nce he
discouraged the last. Further=
, he
had no kindred. His wife was =
long
since dead, and his three sons, not yet married, in a foray behind the boun=
ds
of Somo had lost their heads in the jungle runways of the higher hills and =
been
devoured by their bushman slayers.
For a blind man he was very busy. He asked favou= r of no one and was self- supporting. In his house-clearing he grew yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. In another clearing--because it wa= s his policy to have no trees close to his house--he had plantains, bananas, and = half a dozen coconut palms. Fruits= and vegetables he exchanged down in the village for meat and fish and tobacco.<= o:p>
He spent a good
portion of his time on Jerry's education, and, on occasion, would make bows=
and
arrows that were so esteemed by his tribespeople as to command a steady
sale. Scarcely a day passed in
which he did not himself practise with bow and arrow. He shot only by direction of sound=
; and
whenever a noise or rustle was heard in the jungle, and when Jerry had info=
rmed
him of its nature, he would shoot an arrow at it. Then it was Jerry's duty cautiousl=
y to
retrieve the arrow had it missed the mark.
A curious thing a=
bout
Nalasu was that he slept no more than three hours in the twenty-four, that =
he
never slept at night, and that his brief daylight sleep never took place in=
the
house. Hidden in the thickest=
part
of the neighbouring jungle was a sort of nest to which led no path. He never
entered nor left by the same way, so that the tropic growth on the rich soi=
l,
being so rarely trod upon, ever obliterated the slightest sign of his having
passed that way. Whenever he =
slept,
Jerry was trained to remain on guard and never to go to sleep.
Reason enough the=
re
was and to spare for Nalasu's infinite precaution. The oldest of his three =
sons
had slain one, Ao, in a quarrel. Ao
had been one of six brothers of the family of Anno which dwelt in one of th=
e upper
villages. According to Somo l=
aw,
the Anno family was privileged to collect the blood-debt from the Nalasu
family, but had been balked of it by the deaths of Nalasu's three sons in t=
he
bush. And, since the Somo cod=
e was
a life for a life, and since Nalasu alone remained alive of his family, it =
was
well known throughout the tribe that the Annos would never be content until
they had taken the blind man's life.
But Nalasu had be=
en
famous as a great fighter, as well as having been the progenitor of three s=
uch
warlike sons. Twice had the A=
nnos
sought to collect, the first time while Nalasu still retained his
eyesight. Nalasu had discover=
ed
their trap, circled about it, and in the rear encountered and slain Anno
himself, the father, thus doubling the blood-debt.
Then had come his
accident. While refilling
many-times used Snider cartridges, an explosion of black powder put out both
his eyes. Immediately thereafter, while he sat nursing his wounds, the Annos
had descended upon him--just what he had expected. And for which he had made due prep=
aration. That night two uncles and another
brother stepped on poisoned thorns and died horribly. Thus the sum of lives owing the An=
nos had
increased to five, with only a blind man from whom to collect.
Thenceforth the A=
nnos
had feared the thorns too greatly to dare again, although ever their
vindictiveness smouldered and they lived in hope of the day when Nalasu's h=
ead
should adorn their ridgepole. In
the meantime the state of affairs was not that of a truce but of a
stalemate. The old man could =
not
proceed against them, and they were afraid to proceed against him. Nor did the day come until after J=
erry's
adoption, when one of the Annos made an invention the like of which had nev=
er
been known in all Malaita.
Meanwhile the months slipped by, the
south-east trade blew itself out, the monsoon had begun to breathe, and Jer=
ry
added to himself six months of time, weight, stature, and thickness of
bone. An easy time his half- =
year
with the blind man had been, despite the fact that Nalasu was a rigid
disciplinarian who insisted on training Jerry for longer hours, day in and =
day
out, than falls to the lot of most dogs.&n=
bsp;
Never did Jerry receive from him a blow, never a harsh word. This man, who had slain four of the
Annos, three of them after he had gone blind, who had slain still more men =
in
his savage youth, never raised his voice in anger to Jerry and ruled him by
nothing severer than the gentlest of chidings.
Mentally, the
persistent education Jerry received, in this period of late puppyhood, fixe=
d in
him increased brain power for all his life. Possibly no dog in all the world h=
ad
ever been so vocal as he, and for three reasons: his own intelligence, the
genius for teaching that was Nalasu's, and the long hours devoted to the
teaching.
His shorthand
vocabulary, for a dog, was prodigious.&nbs=
p;
Almost might it be said that he and the man could talk by the hour,
although few and simple were the abstractions they could talk; very little =
of
the immediate concrete past, and scarcely anything of the immediate concrete
future, entered into their conversations.&=
nbsp;
Jerry could no more tell him of Meringe, nor of the Arangi, than cou=
ld
he tell him of the great love he had borne Skipper, or of his reason for ha=
ting
Bashti. By the same token, Na=
lasu
could not tell Jerry of the blood-feud with the Annos, nor of how he had lo=
st
his eyesight.
Practically all t=
heir
conversation was confined to the instant present, although they could compa=
ss a
little of the very immediate past.
Nalasu would give Jerry a series of instructions, such as, going on a
scout by himself, to go to the nest, then circle about it widely, to contin=
ue
to the other clearing where were the fruit trees, to cross the jungle to th=
e main
path, to proceed down the main path toward the village till he came to the
great banyan tree, and then to return along the small path to Nalasu and
Nalasu's house. All of which =
Jerry
would carry out to the letter, and, arrived back, would make report. As, thus: at the nest nothing unus=
ual
save that a buzzard was near it; in the other clearing three coconuts had
fallen to the ground--for Jerry could count unerringly up to five; between =
the
other clearing and the main path were four pigs; along the main path he had
passed a dog, more than five women, and two children; and on the small path
home he had noted a cockatoo and two boys.
But he could not =
tell
Nalasu his states of mind and heart that prevented him from being fully
contented in his present situation.
For Nalasu was not a white-god, but only a mere nigger god. And Jerry hated and despised all n=
iggers
save for the two exceptions of Lamai and Nalasu. He tolerated them, and, for Nalasu=
, had
even developed a placid and sweet affection. Love him he did not and could not.=
At the best, they
were only second-rate gods, and he could not forget the great white-gods su=
ch
as Skipper and Mister Haggin, and, of the same breed, Derby and Bob. They were something else, something
other, something better than all this black savagery in which he lived. They were above and beyond, in an
unattainable paradise which he vividly remembered, for which he yearned, bu=
t to
which he did not know the way, and which, dimly sensing the ending that com=
es
to all things, might have passed into the ultimate nothingness which had al=
ready
overtaken Skipper and the Arangi.
In vain did the o=
ld
man play to gain Jerry's heart of love.&nb=
sp;
He could not bid against Jerry's many reservations and memories,
although he did win absolute faithfulness and loyalty. Not passionately, as he would have=
fought
to the death for Skipper, but devotedly would he have fought to the death f=
or
Nalasu. And the old man never
dreamed but what he had won all of Jerry's heart.
* * * * *
Came the day of t=
he
Annos, when one of them made the invention, which was thick-plaited sandals=
to
armour the soles of their feet against the poisoned thorns with which Nalasu
had taken three of their lives. The
day, in truth, was the night, a black night, a night so black under a cloud=
-palled
sky that a tree-trunk could not be seen an eighth of an inch beyond one's
nose. And the Annos descended=
on
Nalasu's clearing, a dozen of them, armed with Sniders, horse pistols,
tomahawks and war clubs, walking gingerly, despite their thick sandals, bec=
ause
of fear of the thorns which Nalasu no longer planted.
Jerry, sitting
between Nalasu's knees and nodding sleepily, gave the first warning to Nala=
su,
who sat outside his door, wide-eyed, ear-strung, as he had sat through all =
the
nights of the many years. He
listened still more tensely through long minutes in which he heard nothing,=
at
the same time whispering to Jerry for information and commanding him to be =
soft-spoken;
and Jerry, with whuffs and whiffs and all the short-hand breath-exhalations=
of
speech he had been taught, told him that men approached, many men, more men
than five.
Nalasu reached the
bow beside him, strung an arrow, and waited. At last his own ears caught the
slightest of rustlings, now here, now there, advancing upon him in the circ=
le
of the compass. Still speakin=
g for softness,
he demanded verification from Jerry, whose neck hair rose bristling under
Nalasu's sensitive fingers, and who, by this time, was reading the night air
with his nose as well as his ears.
And Jerry, as softly as Nalasu, informed him again that it was men, =
many
men, more men than five.
With the patience=
of
age Nalasu sat on without movement, until, close at hand, on the very edge =
of
the jungle, sixty feet away, he located a particular noise of a particular
man. He stretched his bow, lo=
osed
the arrow, and was rewarded by a gasp and a groan strangely commingled. First he restrained Jerry from
retrieving the arrow, which he knew had gone home; and next he fitted a fre=
sh
arrow to the bow string.
Fifteen minutes of
silence passed, the blind man as if carven of stone, the dog, trembling with
eagerness under the articulate touch of his fingers, obeying the bidding to
make no sound. For Jerry, as =
well
as Nalasu, knew that death rustled and lurked in the encircling dark. Again came a softness of movement,
nearer than before; but the sped arrow missed. They heard its impact against a tr=
ee
trunk beyond and a confusion of small sounds caused by the target's hasty
retreat. Next, after a time of
silence, Nalasu told Jerry silently to retrieve the arrow. He had been well trained and long
trained, for with no sound even to Nalasu's ears keener than seeing men's e=
ars,
he followed the direction of the arrow's impact against the tree and brought
the arrow back in his mouth.
Again Nalasu wait=
ed,
until the rustlings of a fresh drawing-in of the circle could be heard,
whereupon Nalasu, Jerry accompanying him, picked up all his arrows and moved
soundlessly half-way around the circle.&nb=
sp;
Even as they moved, a Snider exploded that was aimed in the general
direction of the spot just vacated.
And the blind man=
and
the dog, from midnight to dawn, successfully fought off twelve men equipped
with the thunder of gunpowder and the wide-spreading, deep-penetrating,
mushroom bullets of soft lead. And
the blind man defended himself only with a bow and a hundred arrows. He discharged many hundreds of arr=
ows
which Jerry retrieved for him and which he discharged over and over. But Jerry aided valiantly and well=
, adding
to Nalasu's acute hearing his own acuter hearing, circling noiselessly about
the house and reporting where the attack pressed closest.
Much of their
precious powder the Annos wasted, for the affair was like a game of invisib=
le
ghosts. Never was anything se=
en
save the flashes of the rifles.
Never did they see Jerry, although they became quickly aware of his
movements close to them as he searched out the arrows. Once, as one of them felt for an a=
rrow
which had narrowly missed him, he encountered Jerry's back with his hand and
acknowledged the sharp slash of Jerry's teeth with a wild yell of terror. They tried firing at the twang of
Nalasu's bowstring, but every time Nalasu fired he instantly changed
position. Several times, warn=
ed of
Jerry's nearness, they fired at him, and, once even, was his nose slightly
powder burned.
When day broke, in
the quick tropic grey that marks the leap from dark to sun, the Annos
retreated, while Nalasu, withdrawn from the light into his house, still
possessed eighty arrows, thanks to Jerry.&=
nbsp;
The net result to Nalasu was one dead man and no telling how many
arrow-pricked wounded men who dragged themselves away.
And half the day
Nalasu crouched over Jerry, fondling and caressing him for what he had
done. Then he went abroad, Je=
rry
with him, and told of the battle.
Bashti paid him a visit ere the day was done, and talked with him
earnestly.
"As an old m=
an
to an old man, I talk," was Bashti's beginning. "I am older than you, O Nalas=
u; I
have ever been unafraid. Yet =
never
have I been braver than you. I
would that every man of the tribe were as brave as you. Yet do you give me great sorrow. Of what worth are your courage and
cunning, when you have no seed to make your courage and cunning live again?=
"
"I am an old
man," Nalasu began.
"Not so old =
as I
am," Bashti interrupted.
"Not too old to marry so that your seed will add strength to the
tribe."
"I was marri=
ed,
and long married, and I fathered three brave sons. But they are dead. I shall not live so long as you. I think of my young days as pleasa=
nt
dreams remembered after sleep. More
I think of death, and the end. Of
marriage I think not at all. =
I am
too old to marry. I am old en=
ough
to make ready to die, and a great curiousness have I about what will happen=
to
me when I am dead. Will I be =
for
ever dead? Will I live again =
in a
land of dreams--a shadow of a dream myself that will still remember the days
when I lived in the warm world, the quick juices of hunger in my mouth, in =
the
chest of the body of me the love of woman?"
Bashti shrugged h=
is
shoulders.
"I too, have
thought much on the matter," he said.=
"Yet do I arrive nowhere.
I do not know. You do =
not
know. We will not know until =
we are
dead, if it happens that we know anything when what we are we no longer are=
. But this we know, you and I: the t=
ribe
lives. The tribe never dies.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Wherefore, if there be meaning at =
all to
our living, we must make the tribe strong.=
Your work in the tribe is not done.=
You must marry so that your cunning and your courage live after
you. I have a wife for you--n=
ay,
two wives, for your days are short and I shall surely live to see you hang =
with
my fathers from the canoe-house ridgepole."
"I will not =
pay
for a wife," Nalasu protested.
"I will not pay for any wife.&=
nbsp;
I would not pay a stick of tobacco or a cracked coconut for the best
woman in Somo."
"Worry
not," Bashti went on placidly.
"I shall pay you for the price of the wife, of the two wives. There is Bubu. For half a case of tobacco shall I=
buy
her for you. She is broad and
square, round-legged, broad- hipped, with generous breasts of richness. There is Nena. Her father sets a stiff price upon
her--a whole case of tobacco. I
will buy her for you as well. Your
time is short. We must hurry.=
"
"I will not
marry," the old blind man proclaimed hysterically.
"You will. I have spoken."
"No, I say, =
and
say again, no, no, no, no. Wi=
ves
are nuisances. They are young
things, and their heads are filled with foolishness. Their tongues are loose with idlen=
ess of
speech. I am old, I am quiet =
in my ways,
the fires of life have departed from me, I prefer to sit alone in the dark =
and
think. Chattering young things
about me, with nothing but foam and spume in their heads, on their tongues,
would drive me mad. Of a sure=
ty
they would drive me mad--so mad that I will spit into every clam shell, make
faces at the moon, and bite my veins and howl."
"And if you =
do,
what of it? So long as your s=
eed
does not perish. I shall pay =
for
the wives to their fathers and send them to you in three days."
"I will have
nothing to do with them," Nalasu asserted wildly.
"You will,&q=
uot;
Bashti insisted calmly.
"Because if you do not you will have to pay me. It will be a sore, hard debt. I will have every joint of you unh=
inged
so that you will be like a jelly-fish, like a fat pig with the bones remove=
d,
and I will then stake you out in the midmost centre of the dog-killing grou=
nd
to swell in pain under the sun. And
what is left of you I shall fling to the dogs to eat. Your seed shall not perish out of =
Somo. I, Bashti, so tell you. In three days I shall send to you =
your two
wives. . . . "
He paused, and a =
long
silence fell upon them.
"Well?"
Bashti reiterated. "It is
wives or staking out unhinged in the sun.&=
nbsp;
You choose, but think well before you choose the unhinging."
"At my age, =
with
all the vexations of youngness so far behind me!" Nalasu complained.
"Choose. You will find there is vexation, a=
nd
liveliness and much of it, in the centre of the dog-killing yard when the s=
un
cooks your sore joints till the grease of the leanness of you bubbles like =
the tender
fat of a cooked sucking-pig."
"Then send me
the wives," Nalasu managed to utter after a long pause. "But send
them in three days, not in two, nor to-morrow."
"It is
well," Bashti nodded gravely.
"You have lived at all only because of those before you, now lo=
ng
in the dark, who worked so that the tribe might live and you might come to
be. You are. They paid the price for you. It is your debt. You came into being with this debt=
upon
you. You will pay the debt be=
fore
you pass out of being. It is =
the
law. It is very well."
And had Bashti hastened delivery of=
the
wives by one day, or by even two days, Nalasu would have entered the feared,
purgatory of matrimony. But B=
ashti
kept his word, and on the third day was too busy, with a more momentous
problem, to deliver Bubu and Nena to the blind old man who apprehensively
waited their coming. For the
morning of the third day all the summits of leeward Malaita smoked into
speech. A warship was on the =
coast--so
the tale ran; a big warship that was heading in through the reef islands at
Langa-Langa. The tale grew. The warship was not stopping at
Langa-Langa. The warship was =
not
stopping at Binu. It was dire=
cting
its course toward Somo.
Nalasu, blind, co=
uld
not see this smoke speech written in the air. Because of the isolation of h=
is
house, no one came and told him.
His first warning was when shrill voices of women, cries of children,
and wailings of babes in nameless fear came to him from the main path that =
led
from the village to the upland boundaries of Somo. He read only fear and panic from t=
he
sounds, deduced that the village was fleeing to its mountain fastnesses, but
did not know the cause of the flight.
He called Jerry to
him and instructed him to scout to the great banyan tree, where Nalasu's pa=
th
and the main path joined, and to observe and report. And Jerry sat under the banyan tre=
e and
observed the flight of all Somo.
Men, women, and children, the young and the aged, babes at breast and
patriarchs leaning on sticks and staffs passed before his eyes, betraying t=
he
greatest haste and alarm. The
village dogs were as frightened, whimpering and whining as they ran. And the contagion of terror was st=
rong
upon Jerry. He knew the prod =
of
impulse to join in this rush away from some unthinkably catastrophic event =
that
impended and that stirred his intuitive apprehensions of death. But he mastered the impulse with h=
is
sense of loyalty to the blind man who had fed him and caressed him for a lo=
ng
six months.
Back with Nalasu,
sitting between his knees, he made his report. It was impossible for him to count=
more
than five, although he knew the fleeing population numbered many times more
than five. So he signified fi=
ve
men, and more; five women, and more five children, and more; five babies, a=
nd more;
five dogs, and more--even of pigs did he announce five and more. Nalasu's e=
ars
told him that it was many, many times more, and he asked for names. Jerry know the names of Bashti, of=
Agno,
and of Lamai, and Lumai. He d=
id not
pronounce them with the slightest of resemblance to their customary soundin=
gs,
but pronounced them in the whiff-whuff of shorthand speech that Nalasu had
taught him.
Nalasu named over
many other names that Jerry knew by ear but could not himself evoke in soun=
d,
and he answered yes to most of them by simultaneously nodding his head and
advancing his right paw. To s=
ome names
he remained without movement in token that he did not know them. And to oth=
er
names, which he recognized, but the owners of which he had not seen, he
answered no by advancing his left paw.
And Nalasu, beyond
knowing that something terrible was impending--something horribly more terr=
ible
than any foray of neighbouring salt-water tribes, which Somo, behind her wa=
lls,
could easily fend off, divined that it was the long-expected punitive man-o=
f- war. Despite his three-score years, he =
had
never experienced a village shelling.
He had heard vague talk of what had happened in the matter of shell-=
fire
in other villages, but he had no conception of it save that it must be, bul=
lets
on a larger scale than Snider bullets that could be fired correspondingly
longer distances through the air.
But it was given =
to
him to know shell-fire before he died.&nbs=
p;
Bashti, who had long waited the cruiser that was to avenge the
destruction of the Arangi and the taking of the heads of the two white men,=
and
who had long calculated the damage to be wrought, had given the command to =
his people
to flee to the mountains. Fir=
st in
the vanguard, borne by a dozen young men, went his mat-wrapped parcels of
heads. The last slow trailers=
in
the rear of the exodus were just passing, and Nalasu, his bow and his eighty
arrows clutched to him, Jerry at his heels, made his first step to follow, =
when
the air above him was rent by a prodigiousness of sound.
Nalasu sat down
abruptly. It was his first sh=
ell,
and it was a thousand times more terrible than he had imagined. It was a rip-snorting, sky- splitt=
ing
sound as of a cosmic fabric being torn asunder between the hands of some
powerful god. For all the wor=
ld it
was like the roughest tearing across of sheets that were thick as blankets,
that were broad as the earth and wide as the sky.
Not only did he s=
it
down just outside his door, but he crouched his head to his knees and shiel=
ded
it with the arch of his arms. And
Jerry, who had never heard shell-fire, much less imagined what it was like,=
was
impressed with the awfulness of it.
It was to him a natural catastrophe such as had happened to the Aran=
gi
when she was flung down reeling on her side by the shouting wind. But, true to his nature, he did no=
t crouch
down under the shriek of that first shell.=
On the contrary, he bristled his hair and snarled up with menacing t=
eeth
at whatever the thing was which was so enormously present and yet invisible=
to
his eyes.
Nalasu crouched
closer when the shell burst beyond, and Jerry snarled and rippled his hair
afresh. Each repeated his act=
ions
with each fresh shell, for, while they screamed no more loudly, they burst =
in
the jungle more closely. And =
Nalasu,
who had lived a long life most bravely in the midst of perils he had known,=
was
destined to die a coward out of his fear of the thing unknown, the chemical=
ly
propelled missile of the white masters.&nb=
sp;
As the dropping shells burst nearer and nearer, what final self- con=
trol
he possessed left him. Such w=
as his
utter panic that he might well have bitten his veins and howled. With a lunatic scream, he sprang t=
o his
feet and rushed inside the house as if forsooth its grass thatch could prot=
ect
his head from such huge projectiles.
He collided with the door-jamb, and, ere Jerry could follow him, whi=
rled
around in a part circle into the centre of the floor just in time to receive
the next shell squarely upon his head.
Jerry had just ga=
ined
the doorway when the shell exploded.
The house went into flying fragments, and Nalasu flew into fragments
with it. Jerry, in the doorway, caught in the out-draught of the explosion,=
was
flung a score of feet away. A=
ll in
the same fraction of an instant, earthquake, tidal wave, volcanic eruption,=
the
thunder of the heavens and the fire-flashing of an electric bolt from the s=
ky
smote him and smote consciousness out of him.
He had no concept=
ion
of how long he lay. Five minu=
tes
passed before his legs made their first spasmodic movements, and, as he
stumbled to his feet and rocked giddily, he had no thought of the passage of
time. He had no thought about=
time
at all. As a matter of course=
, his
own idea, on which he proceeded to act without being aware of it, was that,=
a
part of a second before, he had been struck a terrific blow magnified incal=
culable
times beyond the blow of a stick at a nigger's hands.
His throat and lu=
ngs
filled with the pungent stifling smoke of powder, his nostrils with earth a=
nd
dust, he frantically wheezed and sneezed, leaping about, falling drunkenly,
leaping into the air again, staggering on his hind-legs, dabbing with his
forepaws at his nose head-downward between his forelegs, and even rubbing h=
is
nose into the ground. He had =
no
thought for anything save to remove the biting pain from his nose and mouth,
the suffocation from his lungs.
By a miracle he h=
ad
escaped being struck by the flying splinters of iron, and, thanks to his st=
rong
heart, had escaped being killed by the shock of the explosion. Not until the end of five minutes =
of mad
struggling, in which he behaved for all the world like a beheaded chicken, =
did
he find life tolerable again. The
maximum of stifling and of agony passed, and, although he was still weak and
giddy, he tottered in the direction of the house and of Nalasu. And there was no house and no
Nalasu--only a debris intermingled of both.
While the shells
continued to shriek and explode, now near, now far, Jerry investigated the
happening. As surely as the h=
ouse
was gone, just as surely was Nalasu gone.&=
nbsp;
Upon both had descended the ultimate nothingness. All the immediate world seemed doo=
med to
nothingness. Life promised on=
ly
somewhere else, in the high hills and remote bush whither the tribe had alr=
eady
fled. Loyal he was to his sal=
t, to
the master whom he had obeyed so long, nigger that he was, who so long had =
fed
him, and for whom he had entertained a true affection. But this master no longer was.
Retreat Jerry did,
but he was not hasty in retreat.
For a time he snarled at every shell-scream in the air and every
shell-burst in the bush. But =
after
a time, while the awareness of them continued uncomfortably with him, the h=
air
on his neck remained laid down and he neither uttered a snarl nor bared his
teeth.
And when he parted
from what had been and which had ceased to be, not like the bush dogs did he
whimper and run. Instead, he
trotted along the path at a regular and dignified pace. When he emerged upon the main path=
, he
found it deserted. The last r=
efugee
had passed. The path, always
travelled from daylight to dark, and which he had so recently seen glutted =
with
humans, now in its emptiness affected him profoundly with the impression of=
the
endingness of all things in a perishing world. So it was that he did not sit down=
under
the banyan tree, but trotted along at the far rear of the tribe.
With his nose he =
read
the narrative of the flight. =
Only
once did he encounter what advertised its terror. It was an entire group annihilated=
by a
shell. There were: an old man=
of
fifty, with a crutch because of the leg which had been slashed off by a sha=
rk
when he was a young boy; a dead Mary with a dead babe at her breast and a d=
ead
child of three clutching her hand; and two dead pigs, huge and fat, which t=
he
woman had been herding to safety.
And Jerry's nose =
told
him of how the stream of the fugitives had split and flooded past on each s=
ide
and flowed together again beyond.
Incidents of the flight he did encounter: a part-chewed joint of
sugar-cane some child had dropped; a clay pipe, the stem short from success=
ive
breakages; a single feather from some young man's hair, and a calabash, ful=
l of
cooked yams and sweet potatoes, deposited carefully beside the trail by some
Mary for whom its weight had proved too great.
The shell-fire ce=
ased
as Jerry trotted along; next he heard the rifle- fire from the landing-part=
y,
as it shot down the domestic pigs on Somo's streets. He did not hear, however, the chop=
ping
down of the coconut trees, any more than did he ever return to behold what
damage the axes had wrought.
For right here
occurred with Jerry a wonderful thing that thinkers of the world have not
explained. He manifested in h=
is
dog's brain the free agency of life, by which all the generations of
metaphysicians have postulated God, and by which all the deterministic
philosophers have been led by the nose despite their clear denouncement of =
it
as sheer illusion. What Jerry did he did.&=
nbsp;
He did not know how or why he did it any more than does the philosop=
her
know how or why he decides on mush and cream for breakfast instead of two
soft-boiled eggs.
What Jerry did wa=
s to
yield in action to a brain impulse to do, not what seemed the easier and mo=
re
usual thing, but to do what seemed the harder and more unusual thing. Since it is easier to endure the k=
nown
than to fly to the unknown; since both misery and fear love company; the
apparent easiest thing for Jerry to have done would have been to follow the
tribe of Somo into its fastnesses.
Yet what Jerry did was to diverge from the line of retreat and to st=
art
northward, across the bounds of Somo, and continue northward into a strange
land of the unknown.
Had Nalasu not be=
en
struck down by the ultimate nothingness, Jerry would have remained. This is true, and this, perhaps, t=
o the
one who considers his action, might have been the way he reasoned. But he did not reason it, did not =
reason
at all; he acted on impulse. =
He
could count five objects, and pronounce them by name and number, but he was
incapable of reasoning that he would remain in Somo if Nalasu lived, depart
from Somo if Nalasu died. He =
merely
departed from Somo because Nalasu was dead, and the terrible shell-fire pas=
sed
quickly into the past of his consciousness, while the present became vivid
after the way of the present.
Almost on his toes did he tread the wild bushmen's trails, tense with
apprehension of the lurking death he know infested such paths, his ears coc=
ked
alertly for jungle sounds, his eyes following his ears to discern what made=
the
sounds.
No more doughty n=
or
daring was Columbus, venturing all that he was to the unknown, than was Jer=
ry
in venturing this jungle-darkness of black Malaita. And this wonderful thing, this see=
ming
great deed of free will, he performed in much the same way that the itching=
of
feet and tickle of fancy have led the feet of men over all the earth.
Though Jerry never
laid eyes on Somo again, Bashti returned with his tribe the same day, grinn=
ing
and chuckling as he appraised the damage. Only a few grass houses had been
damaged by the shells. Only a=
few coconuts
had been chopped down. And as=
for
the slain pigs, lest they spoil, he made of their carcasses a great feast.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> One shell had knocked a hole throu=
gh his
sea-wall. He enlarged it for a
launching-ways, faced the sides of it with dry-fitted coral rock, and gave
orders for the building of an additional canoe-house. The only vexation he suffered was =
the
death of Nalasu and the disappearance of Jerry--his two experiments in
primitive eugenics.
A week Jerry spent in the bush, det=
erred
always from penetrating to the mountains by the bushmen who ever guarded the
runways. And it would have go=
ne
hard with him in the matter of food, had he not, on the second day, encount=
ered
a lone small pig, evidently lost from its litter. It was his first hunting adventure=
for a
living, and it prevented him from travelling farther, for, true to his
instinct, he remained by his kill until it was nearly devoured.
True, he ranged
widely about the neighbourhood, finding no other food he could capture. But always, until it was gone, he
returned to the slain pig. Ye=
t he
was not happy in his freedom. He
was too domesticated, too civilized.
Too many thousands of years had elapsed since his ancestors had run
freely wild. He was lonely. He could not get along without man=
. Too
long had he, and the generations before him, lived in intimate relationship
with the two-legged gods. Too=
long
had his kind loved man, served him for love, endured for love, died for lov=
e,
and, in return, been partly appreciated, less understood, and roughly loved=
.
So great was Jerr=
y's
loneliness that even a two-legged black-god was desirable, since white-gods=
had
long since faded into the limbo of the past. For all he might have known, had h=
e been
capable of conjecturing, the only white-gods in existence had perished. Acting on the assumption that a
black-god was better than no god, when he had quite finished the little pig=
, he
deflected his course to the left, down-hill, toward the sea. He did this, again without reasoni=
ng,
merely because, in the subtle processes of his brain, experience worked.
He came out upon =
the
shore of the reef-sheltered lagoon where ruined grass houses told him men h=
ad
lived. The jungle ran riot th=
rough
the place. Six-inch trees, th=
roated
with rotten remnants of thatched roofs through which they had aspired toward
the sun, rose about him. Quick-growing trees had shadowed the kingposts so =
that
the idols and totems, seated in carved shark jaws, grinned greenly and
monstrously at the futility of man through a rime of moss and mottled
fungus. A poor little sea-wal=
l,
never much at its best, sprawled in ruin from the coconut roots to the plac=
id
sea. Bananas, plantains, and
breadfruit lay rotting on the ground.
Bones lay about, human bones, and Jerry nosed them out, knowing them=
for
what they were, emblems of the nothingness of life. Skulls he did not encounter, for t=
he
skulls that belonged to the scattered bones ornamented the devil devil hous=
es
in the upland bush villages.
The salt tang of =
the
sea gladdened his nostrils, and he snorted with the pleasure of the stench =
of
the mangrove swamp. But, anot=
her
Crusoe chancing upon the footprint of another man Friday, his nose, not his=
eyes,
shocked him electrically alert as he smelled the fresh contact of a living
man's foot with the ground. I=
t was
a nigger's foot, but it was alive, it was immediate; and, as he traced it a
score of yards, he came upon another foot-scent, indubitably a white man's.=
Had there been an
onlooker, he would have thought Jerry had gone suddenly mad. He rushed frantically about, turni=
ng and
twisting his course, now his nose to the ground, now up in the air, whining=
as
frantically as he rushed, leaping abruptly at right angles as new scents
reached him, scurrying here and there and everywhere as if in a game of tag
with some invisible playfellow.
But he was reading
the full report which many men had written on the ground. A white man had been there, he lea=
rned,
and a number of blacks. Here a black had climbed a coconut tree and cast do=
wn
the nuts. There a banana tree=
had
been despoiled of its clustered fruit; and, beyond, it was evident that a
similar event had happened to a breadfruit tree. One thing, however, puzzled him--a=
scent
new to him that was neither black man's nor white man's. Had he had the necessary knowledge=
and
the wit of eye-observance, he would have noted that the footprint was small=
er
than a man's and that the toeprints were different from a Mary's in that th=
ey were
close together and did not press deeply into the earth. What bothered him in his smelling =
was
his ignorance of talcum powder.
Pungent it was in his nostrils, but never, since first he had smelled
out the footprints of man, had he encountered such a scent. And with this were combined other =
and
fainter scents that were equally strange to him.
Not long did he
interest himself in such mystery. =
span>A
white man's footprints he had smelled, and through the maze of all the other
prints he followed the one print down through a breach of sea-wall to the s=
ea- pounded
coral sand lapped by the sea. Here
the latest freshness of many feet drew together where the nose of a boat had
rested on the beach and where men had disembarked and embarked again. He smelled up all the story, and, =
his
forelegs in the water till it touched his shoulders, he gazed out across the
lagoon where the disappearing trail was lost to his nose.
Had he been half =
an
hour sooner he would have seen a boat, without oars, gasoline-propelled,
shooting across the quiet water.
What he did see was an Arangi.
True, it was far larger than the Arangi he had known, but it was whi=
te,
it was long, it had masts, and it floated on the surface of the sea. It had three masts, sky-lofty and =
all of
a size; but his observation was not trained to note the difference between =
them
and the one long and the one short mast of the Arangi. The one floating world he had know=
n was
the white-painted Arangi. And,
since, without a quiver of doubt, this was the Arangi, then, on board, woul=
d be
his beloved Skipper. If Arang=
is
could resurrect, then could Skippers resurrect, and in utter faith that the
head of nothingness he had last seen on Bashti's knees he would find again
rejoined to its body and its two legs on the deck of the white-painted floa=
ting
world, he waded out to his depth, and, swimming dared the sea.
He greatly dared,=
for
in venturing the water he broke one of the greatest and earliest taboos he =
had
learned. In his vocabulary wa=
s no
word for "crocodile"; yet in his thought, as potent as any uttera=
ble
word, was an image of dreadful import--an image of a log awash that was not=
a
log and that was alive, that could swim upon the surface, under the surface,
and haul out across the dry land, that was huge-toothed, mighty-mawed, and =
certain
death to a swimming dog.
But he continued =
the
breaking of the taboo without fear.
Unlike a man who can be simultaneously conscious of two states of mi=
nd,
and who, swimming, would have known both the fear and the high courage with
which he overrode the fear, Jerry, as he swam, knew only one state of mind,=
which
was that he was swimming to the Arangi and to Skipper. At the moment preceding the first =
stroke
of his paws in the water out of his depth, he had known all the terriblenes=
s of
the taboo he deliberately broke.
But, launched out, the decision made, the line of least resistance
taken, he knew, single-thoughted, single-hearted, only that he was going to
Skipper.
Little practised =
as
he was in swimming, he swam with all his strength, whimpering in a sort of
chant his eager love for Skipper who indubitably must be aboard the white y=
acht
half a mile away. His little =
song
of love, fraught with keenness of anxiety, came to the ears of a man and wo=
man
lounging in deck-chairs under the awning; and it was the quick-eyed woman w=
ho
first saw the golden head of Jerry and cried out what she saw.
"Lower a boa=
t,
Husband-Man," she commanded.
"It's a little dog. He mustn't
drown."
"Dogs don't
drown that easily," was "Husband-Man's" reply. "He'll make it all right. But what under the sun a dog's doi=
ng out
here . . . " He lifted h=
is
marine glasses to his eyes and stared a moment. "And a white man's dog at
that!"
Jerry beat the wa=
ter
with his paws and moved steadily along, straining his eyes at the growing y=
acht
until suddenly warned by a sensing of immediate danger. The taboo smote him. This that moved toward him was the=
log
awash that was not a log but a live thing of peril. Part of it he saw above the surface
moving sluggishly, and ere that projecting part sank, he had an awareness t=
hat
somehow it was different from a log awash.
Next, something
brushed past him, and he encountered it with a snarl and a splashing of his
forepaws. He was half-whirled=
about
in the vortex of the thing's passage caused by the alarmed flirt of its
tail. Shark it was, and not
crocodile, and not so timidly would it have sheered clear but for the fact =
that
it was fairly full with a recent feed of a huge sea turtle too feeble with =
age
to escape.
Although he could=
not
see it, Jerry sensed that the thing, the instrument of nothingness, lurked
about him. Nor did he see the
dorsal fin break surface and approach him from the rear. From the yacht he heard rifle- sho=
ts in
quick succession. From the re=
ar a
panic splash came to his ears. That
was all. The peril passed and=
was
forgotten. Nor did he connect=
the
rifle-shots with the passing of the peril.=
He did not know, and he was never to know, that one, known to men as
Harley Kennan, but known as "Husband-Man" by the woman he called
"Wife-Woman," who owned the three-topmast schooner yacht Ariel, h=
ad
saved his life by sending a thirty-thirty Marlin bullet through the base of=
a
shark's fin.
But Jerry was to =
know
Harley Kennan, and quickly, for it was Harley Kennan, a bowline around his =
body
under his arm-pits, lowered by a couple of seamen down the generous freeboa=
rd
of the Ariel, who gathered in by the nape of the neck the smooth-coated Iri=
sh
terrier that, treading water perpendicularly, had no eyes for him so eagerly
did he gaze at the line of faces along the rail in quest of the one face.
No pause for than=
ks
did he make when he was dropped down upon the deck. Instead, shaking himself
instinctively as he ran, he scurried along the deck for Skipper. The man and his wife laughed at the
spectacle.
"He acts as =
if
he were demented with delight at being rescued," Mrs. Kennan observed.=
And Mr. Kennan:
"It's not that. He must =
have a
screw loose somewhere. Perhaps he's one of those creatures who've slipped t=
he
ratchet off the motion cog. M=
aybe
he can't stop running till he runs down."
In the meantime J=
erry
continued to run, up port side and down starboard side, from stern to bow a=
nd
back again, wagging his stump tail and laughing friendliness to the many
two-legged gods he encountered. Had
he been able to think to such abstraction he would have been astounded at t=
he
number of white-gods. Thirty =
there
were at least of them, not counting other gods that were neither black nor
white, but that still, two-legged, upright and garmented, were beyond all
peradventure gods. Likewise, had he been capable of such generalization, he
would have decided that the white-gods had not yet all of them passed into =
the nothingness. As it was, he realized all this wi=
thout
being aware that he realized it.
But there was no
Skipper. He sniffed down the
forecastle hatch, sniffed into the galley where two Chinese cooks jabbered
unintelligibly to him, sniffed down the cabin companionway, sniffed down the
engine-room skylight and for the first time knew gasoline and engine oil; b=
ut
sniff as he would, wherever he ran, no scent did he catch of Skipper.
Aft, at the wheel=
, he
would have sat down and howled his heartbreak of disappointment, had not a
white-god, evidently of command, in gold-decorated white duck cap and unifo=
rm,
spoken to him. Instantly, alw=
ays a
gentleman, Jerry smiled with flattened ears of courtesy, wagged his tail, a=
nd
approached. The hand of this =
high
god had almost caressed his head when the woman's voice came down the deck =
in
speech that Jerry did not understand.
The words and terms of it were beyond him. But he sensed power of command in =
it,
which was verified by the quick withdrawal of the hand of the god in white =
and
gold who had almost caressed him. This god, stiffened electrically and poin=
ted
Jerry along the deck, and, with mouth encouragements and urgings the import=
of
which Jerry could only guess, directed him toward the one who so commanded =
by
saying:
"Send him,
please, along to me, Captain Winters."
Jerry wriggled his
body in delight of obeying, and would loyally have presented his head to her
outreaching caress of hand, had not the strangeness and difference of her
deterred him. He broke off in=
mid-approach
and with a show of teeth snarled himself back and away from the windblown s=
kirt
of her. The only human female=
s he
had known were naked Marys. T=
his
skirt, flapping in the wind like a sail, reminded him of the menacing mains=
ail
of the Arangi when it had jarred and crashed and swooped above his head.
"You ridicul=
ous
dog!" she laughed. "=
;I'm
not going to bite you."
But her husband
thrust out a rough, sure hand and drew Jerry in to him. And Jerry wriggled =
in
ecstasy under the god's caress, kissing the hand with a red flicker of
tongue. Next, Harley Kennan
directed him toward the woman sitting up in the deck-chair and bending forw=
ard,
with hovering hands of greeting.
Jerry obeyed. He advan=
ced
with flattened ears and laughing mouth: but, just ere she could touch him, =
the
wind fluttered the skirt again and he backed away with a snarl.
"It's not you
that he's afraid of, Villa," he said.=
"But of your skirt. Perhaps he's never seen a skirt before.&quo=
t;
"You mean,&q=
uot;
Villa Kennan challenged, "that these head-hunting cannibals ashore here
keep records of pedigrees and maintain kennels; for surely this absurd adve=
nturer
of a dog is as proper an Irish terrier as the Ariel is an Oregon-pine-plank=
ed
schooner."
Harley Kennan lau=
ghed
in acknowledgment. Villa Kenn=
an
laughed too; and Jerry knew that these were a pair of happy gods, and himse=
lf
laughed with them.
Of his own
initiative, he approached the lady god again, attracted by the talcum powder
and other minor fragrances he had already identified as the strange scents
encountered on the beach. But=
the
unfortunate trade wind again fluttered her skirt, and again he backed away-=
-not
so far, this time, with much less of a bristle of his neck and shoulder hai=
r,
and with no more of a snarl than a mere half-baring of his fangs.
"He's afraid=
of
your skirt," Harley insisted.
"Look at him! He =
wants
to come to you, but the skirt keeps him away. Tuck it under you so that it won't
flutter, and see what happens."
Villa Kennan carr=
ied
out the suggestion, and Jerry came circumspectly, bent his head to her hand=
and
writhed his back under it, the while he sniffed her feet, stocking-clad and
shoe-covered, and knew them as the feet which had trod uncovered the ruined
ways of the village ashore.
"No doubt of
it," Harley agreed. &quo=
t;He's
white-man selected, white-man bred and born. He has a history. He knows adventure from the ground=
- roots
up. If he could tell his stor=
y,
we'd sit listening entranced for days.&nbs=
p;
Depend on it, he's not known blacks all his life. Let's try him on Johnny."
Johnny, whom Kenn=
an
beckoned up to him, was a loan from the Resident Commissioner of the Britis=
h Solomons
at Tulagi, who had come along as pilot and guide to Kennan rather than as
philosopher and friend. Johnn=
y approached
grinning, and Jerry's demeanour immediately changed. His body stiffened under Villa Ken=
nan's
hand as he drew away from her and stalked stiff-legged to the black. Jerry's ears did not flatten, nor =
did he
laugh fellowship with his mouth, as he inspected Johnny and smelt his calves
for future reference. Cavalie=
r he
was to the extreme, and, after the briefest of inspection, he turned back to
Villa Kennan.
"What did I
say?" her husband exulted.
"He knows the colour line.&nbs=
p;
He's a white man's dog that has been trained to it."
"My word,&qu=
ot;
spoke up Johnny. "Me kno=
w 'm
that fella dog. Me know 'm pa=
pa and
mamma belong along him. Big f=
ella white
marster Mister Haggin stop along Meringe, mamma and papa stop along him that
fella place."
Harley Kennan utt=
ered
a sharp exclamation.
"Of
course," he cried. "=
;The
Commissioner told me all about it.
The Arangi, that the Somo people captured, sailed last from Meringe =
Plantation. Johnny recognizes the dog as the s=
ame
breed as the pair Haggin, of Meringe, must possess. But that was a long time ago. He must have been a little puppy.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Of course he's a white man's dog.&=
quot;
"And yet you=
've
overlooked the crowning proof of it," Villa Kennan teased. "The dog carries the evidence
around with him."
Harley looked Jer=
ry
over carefully.
"Indisputable
evidence," she insisted.
After another
prolonged scrutiny, Kennan shook his head.
"Blamed if I=
can
see anything so indisputable as to leave conjecture out."
"The tail,&q=
uot;
his wife gurgled. "Surel=
y the
natives do not bob the tails of their dogs.--Do they, Johnny? Do black man stop along Malaita ch=
op 'm off
tail along dog."
"No chop 'm
off," Johnny agreed.
"Mister Haggin along Meringe he chop 'm off. My word, he chop 'm that fella tai=
l, you
bet."
"Then he's t=
he
sole survivor of the Arangi," Villa Kennan concluded. "Don't you
agree, Mr. Sherlock Holmes Kennan?"
"I salute yo=
u,
Mrs. S. Holmes," her husband acknowledged gallantly. "And all that remains is for =
you to
lead me directly to the head of La Perouse himself. The sailing directions record that=
he
left it somewhere in these islands."
Little did they g=
uess
that Jerry had lived on intimate terms with one Bashti, not many miles away
along the shore, who, in Somo, at that very moment, sat in his grass house
pondering over a head on his withered knees that had once been the head of =
the
great navigator, the history of which had been forgotten by the sons of the=
chief
who had taken it.
The fine, three-topmast schooner Ar=
iel,
on a cruise around the world, had already been out a year from San Francisco
when Jerry boarded her. As a =
world,
and as a white-god world, she was to him beyond compare. She was not small like the Arangi,=
nor
was she cluttered fore and aft, on deck and below, with a spawn of
niggers. The only black Jerry=
found
on her was Johnny; while her spaciousness was filled principally with two- =
legged
white-gods.
He met them
everywhere, at the wheel, on lookout, washing decks, polishing brass-work,
running aloft, or tailing on to sheets and tackles half a dozen at a time.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But there was a difference. There were gods and gods, and Jerr=
y was
not long in learning that in the hierarchy of the heaven of these white-god=
s on
the Ariel, the sailorizing, ship-working ones were far beneath the captain =
and
his two white-and-gold-clad officers.
These, in turn, were less than Harley Kennan and Villa Kennan; for t=
hem,
it came quickly to him, Harley Kennan commanded. Nevertheless, there was one thing =
he did
not learn and was destined never to learn, namely, the supreme god over all=
on
the Ariel. Although he never =
tried to
know, being unable to think to such a distance, he never came to know wheth=
er it
was Harley Kennan who commanded Villa, or Villa Kennan who commanded
Harley. In a way, without vex=
ing
himself with the problem, he accepted their over-lordship of the world as
dual. Neither out-ranked the
other. They seemed to rule
co-equal, while all others bowed before them.
It is not true th=
at
to feed a dog is to win a dog's heart.&nbs=
p;
Never did Harley or Villa feed Jerry; yet it was to them he elected =
to
belong, them he elected to love and serve rather than to the Japanese stewa=
rd
who regularly fed him. For th=
at
matter, Jerry, like any dog, was able to differentiate between the mere dir=
ect
food-giver and the food source. That is, subconsciously, he was aware that =
not
alone his own food, but the food of all on board found its source in the man
and woman. They it was who fe=
d all
and ruled all. Captain Winters
might give orders to the sailors, but Captain Winters took orders from Harl=
ey
Kennan. Jerry knew this as
indubitably as he acted upon it, although all the while it never entered his
head as an item of conscious knowledge.
And, as he had be=
en
accustomed, all his life, as with Mister Haggin, Skipper, and even with Bas=
hti
and the chief devil devil doctor of Somo, he attached himself to the high g=
ods
themselves, and from the gods under them received deference accordingly.
By nature a
"one-man" dog, all this was very acceptable to Jerry. Differences=
of
degree there were, of course; but no one more delicately and definitely knew
those differences than did Jerry himself.&=
nbsp;
Thus, it was permissible for the two officers to greet him with a
"Hello," or a "Good morning," and even to touch a hand =
in a
brief and friendly pat to his head.
With Captain Winters, however, greater familiarity obtained. Captain
Winters could rub his ears, shake hands with his, scratch his back, and even
roughly catch him by the jowls. But
Captain Winters invariably surrendered him up when the one man and the one
woman appeared on deck.
When it came to
liberties, delicious, wanton liberties, Jerry alone of all on board could t=
ake
them with the man and woman, and, on the other hand, they were the only two=
to
whom he permitted liberties. =
Any indignity
that Villa Kennan chose to inflict upon him he was throbbingly glad to rece=
ive,
such as doubling his ears inside out till they stuck, at the same time maki=
ng
him sit upright, with helpless forefeet paddling the air for equilibrium, w=
hile
she blew roguishly in his face and nostrils. As bad was Harley Kennan's tri=
ck
of catching him gloriously asleep on an edge of Villa's skirt and of tickli=
ng
the hair between his toes and making him kick involuntarily in his sleep, u=
ntil
he kicked himself awake to hearing of gurgles and snickers of laughter at h=
is
expense.
In turn, at night= on deck, wriggling her toes at him under a rug to simulate some strange and crawling creature of an invader, he would dare to simulate his own befoolme= nt and quite disrupt Villa's bed with his frantic ferocious attack on the thing that he knew was only her toes. In gales of laughter, intermingled with half-genuine cries of alarm as almost his te= eth caught her toes, she always concluded by gathering him into her arms and laughing the last of her laughter away into his flattened ears of joy and love. Who else, of all on boa= rd the Ariel, would have dared such devilishness with the lady-god's bed? This question it never entered his= mind to ask himself; yet he was fully aware of how exclusively favoured he was.<= o:p>
Another of his
deliberate tricks was one discovered by accident. Thrusting his muzzle to m=
eet
her in love, he chanced to encounter her face with his soft-hard little nose
with such force as to make her recoil and cry out. When, another time, in all innocen=
ce
this happened again, he became conscious of it and of its effect upon her; =
and
thereafter, when she grew too wildly wild, too wantonly facetious in her
teasing playful love of him, he would thrust his muzzle at her face and make
her throw her head back to escape him.&nbs=
p;
After a time, learning that if he persisted, she would settle the
situation by gathering him into her arms and gurgling into his ears, he mad=
e it
a point to act his part until such delectable surrender and joyful culminat=
ion
were achieved.
Never, by acciden=
t,
in this deliberate game, did he hurt her chin or cheek so severely as he hu=
rt
his own tender nose, but in the hurt itself he found more of delight than
pain. All of fun it was, all
through, and, in addition, it was love fun. Such hurt was more than fun. Such pain was heart-pleasure.
All dogs are
god-worshippers. More fortuna=
te
than most dogs, Jerry won to a pair of gods that, no matter how much they
commanded, loved more. Although his nose might threaten grievously to hurt =
the
cheek of his adored god, rather than have it really hurt he would have spil=
led
out all the love-tide of his heart that constituted the life of him. He did not live for food, for shel=
ter,
for a comfortable place between the darknesses that rounded existence. He lived for love. And as surely as he gladly lived f=
or
love, would he have died gladly for love.
Not quickly, in S=
omo,
had Jerry's memory of Skipper and Mister Haggin faded. Life in the cannibal village had b=
een
too unsatisfying. There had b=
een
too little love. Only love can
erase the memory of love, or rather, the hurt of lost love. And on board the Ariel such erasem=
ent occurred
quickly. Jerry did not forget
Skipper and Mister Haggin. Bu=
t at
the moments he remembered them the yearning that accompanied the memory grew
less pronounced and painful. =
The
intervals between the moments widened, nor did Skipper and Mister Haggin ta=
ke
form and reality so frequently in his dreams; for, after the manner of dogs=
, he
dreamed much and vividly.
Northward, along the leeward coast =
of
Malaita, the Ariel worked her leisurely way, threading the colour-riotous
lagoon that lay between the shore-reefs and outer-reefs, daring passages so
narrow and coral-patched that Captain Winters averred each day added a thou=
sand
grey hairs to his head, and dropping anchor off every walled inlet of the o=
uter
reef and every mangrove swamp of the mainland that looked promising of cann=
ibal
life. For Harley and Villa Ke=
nnan
were in no hurry. So long as =
the
way was interesting, they dared not how long it proved from anywhere to any=
where.
During this time
Jerry learned a new name for himself--or, rather, an entire series of names=
for
himself. This was because of =
an
aversion on Harley Kennan's part against renaming a named thing.
"A name he m=
ust
have had," he argued to Villa.
"Haggin must have named him before he sailed on the Arangi. Therefore, nameless he must be unt=
il we
get back to Tulagi and find out his real name."
"What's in a
name?" Villa had begun to tease.
"Everything,=
"
her husband retorted. "T=
hink
of yourself, shipwrecked, called by your rescuers 'Mrs. Riggs,' or
'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' or just plain 'Topsy.' And think of me being called 'Bene=
dict
Arnold,' or ' Judas,' or . . . or . . . 'Haman.' No, keep him nameless, until we fi=
nd out
his original name."
"Must call h=
im
something," she objected.
"Can't think of him without thinking something."
"Then call h=
im
many names, but never the same name twice.=
Call him 'Dog' to-day, and 'Mister Dog' to-morrow, and the next day
something else."
So it was, more by
tone and emphasis and context of situation than by anything else, that Jerry
came hazily to identify himself with names such as: Dog, Mister Dog,
Adventurer, Strong Useful One, Sing Song Silly, Noname, and Quivering
Love-Heart. These were a few =
of the
many names lavished on him by Villa.
Harley, in turn, addressed him as: Man-Dog, Incorruptible One, Brass
Tacks, Then Some, Sin of Gold, South Sea Satrap, Nimrod, Young Nick, and
Lion-Slayer. In brief, the ma=
n and
woman competed with each other to name him most without naming him ever the=
same. And Jerry, less by sound and sylla=
ble
than by what of their hearts vibrated in their throats, soon learned to know
himself by any name they chose to address to him. He no longer thought of himself as
Jerry, but, instead, as any sound that sounded nice or was love-sounded.
His great
disappointment (if "disappointment" may be considered to describe=
an
unconsciousness of failure to realize the expected) was in the matter of
language. No one on board, no=
t even
Harley and Villa, talked Nalasu's talk.&nb=
sp;
All Jerry's large vocabulary, all his proficiency in the use of it,
which would have set him apart as a marvel beyond all other dogs in the mas=
tery
of speech, was wasted on those of the Ariel. They did not speak, much less
guess, the existence of the whiff-whuff shorthand language which Nalasu had
taught him, and which, Nalasu dead, Jerry alone knew of all living creature=
s in
the world.
In vain Jerry tri=
ed
it on the lady-god. Sitting
squatted on his haunches, his head bowed forward and held between her hands=
, he
would talk and talk and elicit never a responsive word from her. With tiny whines and thin whimperi=
ngs,
with whiffs and whuffs and growly sorts of noises down in his throat, he wo=
uld
try to tell her somewhat of his tale. She was all meltingness of sympathy; =
she
would hold her ear so near to the articulate mouth of him as almost to drown
him in the flowing fragrance of her hair; and yet her brain told her nothin=
g of
what he uttered, although her heart surely sensed his intent.
"Bless me,
Husband-Man!" she would cry out.
"The Dog is talking. I
know he is talking. He is tel=
ling
me all about himself. The sto=
ry of
his life is mine, could I but understand.&=
nbsp;
It's right here pouring into my miserable inadequate ears, only I ca=
n't
catch it."
Harley was scepti=
cal,
but her woman's intuition guessed aright.
"I know
it!" she would assure her husband.&nb=
sp;
"I tell you he could tell the tale of all his adventures if onl=
y we
had understanding. No other d=
og has
ever talked this way to me. T=
here's
a tale there. I feel its touc=
hes. Sometimes almost do I know he is t=
elling
of joy, of love, of high elation, and combat. Again, it is indignation, hurt of
outrage, despair and sadness."
"Naturally,&=
quot;
Harley agreed quietly. "A
white man's dog, adrift among the anthropophagi of Malaita, would experience
all such sensations and, just as naturally, a white man's woman, a Wife-Wom=
an,
a dear, delightful Villa Kennan woman, can of herself imagine such a dog's
experiences and deem his silly noises a recital of them, failing to recogni=
ze
them as projections of her own delicious, sensitive, sympathetic self. The song of the sea from the lips =
of the
shell--Pshaw! The song oneself
makes of the sea and puts into the shell."
"Just the
same--"
"Always the
same," he gallantly cut her off.
"Always right, especially when most wrong. Not in navigation, of course, nor =
in
affairs such as the multiplication table, where the brass tacks of reality =
stud
the way of one's ship among the rocks and shoals of the sea; but right, tru=
th beyond
truth to truth higher than truth, namely, intuitional truth."
"Now you are
laughing at me with your superior man-wisdom," she retorted. "But=
I
know--" she paused for the strength of words she needed, and words for=
sook
her, so that her quick sweeping gesture of hand-touch to heart named author=
ity
that overrode all speech.
"We agree--I
salute," he laughed gaily.
"It was just precisely what I was saying. Our hearts can talk our heads down
almost any time, and, best all, our hearts are always right despite the
statistic that they are mostly wrong."
Harley Kennan did=
not
believe, and never did believe, his wife's report of the tales Jerry told.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And through all his days to the la=
st one
of them, he considered the whole matter a pleasant fancy, all poesy of sent=
iment,
on Villa's part.
But Jerry,
four-legged, smooth-coated, Irish terrier that he was, had the gift of
tongues. If he could not teach
languages, at least he could learn languages. Without effort, and quickly, pract=
ically
with no teaching, he began picking up the language of the Ariel. Unfortunately, it was not a whiff-=
whuff,
dog-possible language such as Nalasu had invented. While Jerry came to understand muc=
h that
was spoken on the Ariel, he could speak none of it. Three names, at least, he had for =
the
lady-god: "Villa," "Wife-Woman," "Missis Kennan,&q=
uot;
for so he heard her variously called.
But he could not so call her.
This was god-language entire, which only gods could talk. It was unlike the language of Nala=
su's
devising, which had been a compromise between god-talk and dog- talk, so th=
at a
god and a dog could talk in the common medium.
In the same way he
learned many names for the one-man god: "Mister Kennan,"
"Harley," "Captain Kennan," and "Skipper."
One day, bending =
over
him, her hair (drying from a salt-water swim) flying about him, the one-wom=
an,
her two hands holding his head and jowls so that his ribbon of kissing tong=
ue
just missed her nose in the empty air, sang to him: "'Don't know what =
to
call him, but he's mighty lak' a rose!'"
On another day she
repeated this, at the same time singing most of the song to him softly in h=
is
ear. In the midst of it Jerry
surprised her. Equally true might be the statement that he surprised
himself. Never, had he consci=
ously
done such a thing before. And=
he
did it without volition. He n=
ever
intended to do it. For that m=
atter,
the very thing he did was what mastered him into doing it. No more than could he refrain from
shaking the water from his back after a swim, or from kicking in his sleep =
when
his feet were tickled, could he have avoided doing this imperative thing.
As her voice, in =
the
song, made soft vibrations in his ears, it seemed to him that she grew dim =
and
vague before him, and that somehow, under the soft searching prod of her so=
ng,
he was otherwhere. So much wa=
s he otherwhere
that he did the surprising thing.
He sat down abruptly, almost cataleptically, drew his head away from=
the
clutch of her hands and out of the entanglement of her hair, and, his nose
thrust upward at an angle of forty-five degrees, he began to quiver and to
breathe audibly in rhythm to the rhythm of her singing. With a quick jerk, cataleptically,=
his
nose pointed to the zenith, his mouth opened, and a flood of sound poured
forth, running swiftly upward in crescendo and slowly falling as it died aw=
ay.
This howl was the
beginning, and it led to the calling him "Sing Song Silly." For Villa Kennan was quick to seiz=
e upon
the howling her singing induced and to develop it. Never did he hang back when she sat
down, extended her welcoming hands to him, and invited: "Come on, Sing
Song Silly." He would co=
me to
her, sit down with the loved fragrance of her hair in his nostrils, lay the
side of his head against hers, point his nose past her ear, and almost
immediately follow her when she began her low singing. Minor strains were especially
provocative in getting him started, and, once started, he would sing with h=
er
as long as she wished.
Singing it truly
was. Apt in all ways of speec=
h, he
quickly learned to soften and subdue his howl till it was mellow and
golden. Even could he manage =
it to
die away almost to a whisper, and to rise and fall, accelerate and retard, =
in
obedience to her own voice and in accord with it.
Jerry enjoyed the singing much in the same way the opium eater enjoys his dreams. For dream he did, vaguely and indistinctly, eyes wide open and awake, the lady-god's hair in a faint-scen= ted cloud about him, her voice mourning with his, his consciousness drowning in= the dreams of otherwhereness that came to him of the singing and that was the singing. Memories of pain were his, but of pain so long forgotten that it w= as no longer pain. Rather did it permeate him with a delicious sadness, and lift him away and out of the Ari= el (lying at anchor in some coral lagoon) to that unreal place of Otherwhere.<= o:p>
For visions were =
his
at such times. In the cold bl=
eakness
of night, it would seem he sat on a bare hill and raised his howl to the st=
ars,
while out of the dark, from far away, would drift to him an answering
howl. And other howls, near a=
nd
far, would drift along until the night was vocal with his kind. His kind it was. Without knowing it he knew it, thi=
s camaraderie
of the land of Otherwhere.
Nalasu, in teachi=
ng
him the whiff-whuff language, deliberately had gone into the intelligence of
him; but Villa, unwitting of what she was doing, went into the heart of him,
and into the heart of his heredity, touching the profoundest chords of anci=
ent
memories and making them respond.
As instance: dim
shapes and shadowy forms would sometimes appear to him out of the night, an=
d as
they flitted spectrally past he would hear, as in a dream, the hunting crie=
s of
the pack; and, as his pulse quickened, his own hunting instinct would rouse
until his controlled soft-howling in the song broke into eager whinings.
And as men have e=
ver
desired the dust of the poppy and the juice of the hemp, so Jerry desired t=
he
joys that were his when Villa Kennan opened her arms to him, embraced him w=
ith
her hair, and sang him across time and space into the dream of his ancient
kind.
Not always, howev=
er,
were such experiences his when they sang together. Usually, unaccompanied by
visions, he knew no more than vaguenesses of sensations, sadly sweet, ghost=
s of
memories that they were. At o=
ther times,
incited by such sadness, images of Skipper and Mister Haggin would throng h=
is
mind; images, too, of Terrence, and Biddy, and Michael, and the rest of the
long-vanished life at Meringe Plantation.
"My dear,&qu=
ot;
Harley said to Villa at the conclusion of one such singing, "it's
fortunate for him that you are not an animal trainer, or, rather, I suppose=
, it
would be better called 'trained animal show-woman'; for you'd be topping the
bill in all the music-halls and vaudeville houses of the world."
"If I did,&q=
uot;
she replied, "I know he'd just love to do it with me--"
"Which would
make it a very unusual turn," Harley caught her up.
"You mean . .
.?"
"That in abo=
ut
one turn in a hundred does the animal love its work or is the animal loved =
by
its trainer."
"I thought a=
ll
the cruelty had been done away with long ago," she contended.
"So the audi=
ence
thinks, and the audience is ninety-nine times wrong."
Villa heaved a gr=
eat
sigh of renunciation as she said, "Then I suppose I must abandon such
promising and lucrative career right now in the very moment you have discov=
ered
it for me. Just the same the
billboards would look splendid with my name in the hugest letters--"
"Villa Kennan
the Thrush-throated Songstress, and Sing Song Silly the Irish-Terrier
Tenor," her husband pictured the head-lines for her.
And with dancing =
eyes
and lolling tongue Jerry joined in the laughter, not because he knew what it
was about, but because it tokened they were happy and his love prompted him=
to
be happy with them.
For Jerry had fou=
nd,
and in the uttermost, what his nature craved--the love of a god. Recognizing the duality of their
lordship over the Ariel, he loved the pair of them; yet, somehow, perhaps
because she had penetrated deepest into his heart with her magic voice that
transported him to the land of Otherwhere, he loved the lady-god beyond all
love he had ever known, not even excluding his love for Skipper.
One thing Jerry learned early on the
Ariel, namely, that nigger-chasing was not permitted. Eager to please and serve his new =
gods,
he took advantage of the first opportunity to worry a canoe-load of blacks =
who came
visiting on board. The quick
chiding of Villa and the command of Harley made him pause in amazement. Fully believing he had been mistak=
en, he
resumed his ragging of the particular black he had picked upon. This time Harley's voice was perem=
ptory,
and Jerry came to him, his wagging tail and wriggling body all eagerness of
apology, as was his rose-strip of tongue that kissed the hand of forgiveness
with which Harley patted him.
Next, Villa called
him to her. Holding him close=
to
her with her hands on his jowls, eye to eye and nose to nose, she talked to=
him
earnestly about the sin of nigger-chasing.=
She told him that he was no common bush- dog, but a blooded Irish
gentleman, and that no dog that was a gentleman ever did such things as cha=
se
unoffending black men. To all=
of
which he listened with unblinking serious eyes, understanding little of what
she said, yet comprehending all.
"Naughty" was a word in the Ariel language he had already
learned, and she used it several times. "Naughty," to him, meant
"must not," and was by way of expressing a taboo.
Since it was their
way and their will, who was he, he might well have asked himself, to disobey
their rule or question it? If
niggers were not to be chased, then chase them he would not, despite the fa=
ct
that Skipper had encouraged him to chase them. Not in such set terms did Jerry co=
nsider
the matter; but in his own way he accepted the conclusions.
Love of a god, wi=
th
him, implied service. It plea=
sed
him to please with service. A=
nd the
foundation-stone of service, in his case, was obedience. Yet it strained him sore for a tim=
e to
refrain from snarl and snap when the legs of strange and presumptuous blacks
passed near him along the Ariel's white deck.
But there were ti=
mes
and times, as he was to learn, and the time came when Villa Kennan wanted a
bath, a real bath in fresh, rain-descended, running water, and when Johnny,=
the
black pilot from Tulagi, made a mistake.&n=
bsp;
The chart showed a mile of the Suli river where it emptied into the
sea. Why it showed only a mil=
e was
because no white man had ever explored it farther. When Villa proposed the bath, her
husband advised with Johnny. =
Johnny
shook his head.
"No fella boy
stop 'm along that place," he said.&n=
bsp;
"No make 'm trouble along you.=
Bush fella boy stop 'm long way too much."
So it was that the
launch went ashore, and, while its crew lolled in the shade of the beach
coconuts, Villa, Harley, and Jerry followed the river inland a quarter of a
mile to the first likely pool.
"One can nev=
er
be too sure," Harley said, taking his automatic pistol from its holster
and placing it on top his heap of clothes.=
"A stray bunch of blacks might just happen to surprise us."=
;
Villa stepped into
the water to her knees, looked up at the dark jungle roof high overhead thr=
ough
which only occasional shafts of sunlight penetrated, and shuddered.
"An appropri=
ate
setting for a dark deed," she smiled, then scooped a handful of chill
water against her husband, who plunged in in pursuit.
For a time Jerry =
sat
by their clothes and watched the frolic.&n=
bsp;
Then the drifting shadow of a huge butterfly attracted his attention,
and soon he was nosing through the jungle on the trail of a wood-rat. It was not a very fresh trail. He knew that well enough; but in t=
he
deeps of him were all his instincts of ancient training--instincts to hunt,=
to
prowl, to pursue living things, in short, to play the game of getting his o=
wn
meat though for ages man had got the meat for him and his kind.
So it was, exerci=
sing
faculties that were no longer necessary, but that were still alive in him a=
nd
clamorous for exercise, he followed the long- since passed wood-rat with all
the soft-footed crouching craft of the meat-pursuer and with utmost finenes=
s of
reading the scent. The trail =
crossed
a fresh trail, a trail very fresh, very immediately fresh. As if a rope had been attached to =
it,
his head was jerked abruptly to right angles with his body. The unmistakable smell of a black =
was in
his nostrils. Further, it was=
a
strange black, for he did not identify it with the many he possessed filed =
away
in the pigeon-holes of his brain.
Forgotten was the
stale wood-rat as he followed the new trail. Curiosity and play impelled him. He had no thought of apprehension =
for
Villa and Harley--not even when he reached the spot where the black, eviden=
tly startled
by bearing their voices, had stood and debated, and so left a very strong
scent. From this point the tr=
ail swerved
off toward the pool. Nervously
alert, strung to extreme tension, but without alarm, still playing at the g=
ame
of tracking, Jerry followed.
From the pool came
occasional cries and laughter, and each time they reached his ears Jerry
experienced glad little thrills.
Had he been asked, and had he been able to express the sensations of
emotion in terms of thought, he would have said that the sweetest sound in =
the
world was any sound of Villa Kennan's voice, and that, next sweetest, was a=
ny
sound of Harley Kennan's voice.
Their voices thrilled him, always, reminding him of his love for them
and that he was beloved of them.
With the first si=
ght
of the strange black, which occurred close to the pool, Jerry's suspicions =
were
aroused. He was not conducting
himself as an ordinary black, not on evil intent, should conduct himself. Instead, he betrayed all the actio=
ns of
one who lurked in the perpetration of harm. He crouched on the jungle floor, p=
eering
around a great root of a board tree.
Jerry bristled and himself crouched as he watched.
Once, the black
raised his rifle half-way to his shoulder; but, with an outburst of splashi=
ng
and laughter, his unconscious victims evidently removed themselves from his
field of vision. His rifle wa=
s no old-fashioned
Snider, but a modern, repeating Winchester; and he showed habituation to fi=
ring
it from his shoulder rather than from the hip after the manner of most
Malaitans.
Not satisfied with
his position by the board tree, he lowered his gun to his side and crept cl=
oser
to the pool. Jerry crouched l=
ow and
followed. So low did he crouch that his head, extended horizontally forward,
was much lower than his shoulders which were humped up queerly and composed=
the
highest part of him. When the=
black
paused, Jerry paused, as if instantly frozen. When the black moved, he moved, bu=
t more
swiftly, cutting down the distance between them. And all the while the hair of his =
neck
and shoulders bristled in recurrent waves of ferocity and wrath. No golden =
dog
this, ears flattened and tongue laughing in the arms of the lady-god, no Si=
ng
Song Silly chanting ancient memories in the cloud-entanglement of her hair;=
but
a four-legged creature of battle, a fanged killer ripe to rend and destroy.=
Jerry intended to
attack as soon as he had crept sufficiently near. He was unaware of the Ariel taboo
against nigger-chasing. At th=
at
moment it had no place in his consciousness. All he knew was that harm threaten=
ed the
man and woman and that this nigger intended this harm.
So much had Jerry
gained on his quarry, that when again the black squatted for his shot, Jerry
deemed he was near enough to rush.
The rifle was coming to shoulder when he sprang forward. Swiftly as he sprang, he made no s=
ound,
and his victim's first warning was when Jerry's body, launched like a
projectile, smote the black squarely between the shoulders. At the same moment his teeth enter=
ed the
back of the neck, but too near the base in the lumpy shoulder muscles to pe=
rmit
the fangs to penetrate to the spinal cord.
In the first frig=
ht
of surprise, the black's finger pulled the trigger and his throat loosed an
unearthly yell. Knocked forwa=
rd on
his face, he rolled over and grappled with Jerry, who slashed cheek-bone and
cheek and ribboned an ear; for it is the way of an Irish terrier to bite
repeatedly and quickly rather than to hold a bulldog grip.
When Harley Kenna=
n,
automatic in hand and naked as Adam, reached the spot, he found dog and man
locked together and tearing up the forest mould in their struggle. The black, his face streaming bloo=
d, was
throttling Jerry with both hands around his neck; and Jerry, snorting, chok=
ing,
snarling, was scratching for dear life with the claws of his hind feet. No puppy claws were they, but the =
stout
claws of a mature dog that were stiffened by a backing of hard muscles. And they ripped naked chest and ab=
domen
full length again and again until the whole front of the man was streaming
red. Harley Kennan did not da=
re
chance a shot, so closely were the combatants locked. Instead, stepping in close; he sma=
shed
down the butt of his automatic upon the side of the man's head. Released by=
the
relaxing of the stunned black's hands, Jerry flung himself in a flash upon =
the
exposed throat, and only Harley's hand on his neck and Harley's sharp comma=
nd
made him cease and stand clear. He trembled
with rage and continued to snarl ferociously, although he would desist long
enough to glance up with his eyes, flatten his ears, and wag his tail each =
time
Harley uttered "Good boy."
"Good boy&qu=
ot;
he knew for praise; and he knew beyond any doubt, by Harley's repetition of=
it,
that he had served him and served him well.
"Do you know=
the
beggar intended to bush-whack us," Harley told Villa, who, half-dressed
and still dressing, had joined him.
"It wasn't fifty feet and he couldn't have missed. Look at the Winchester. No old smooth bore. And a fellow with a gun like that =
would
know how to use it."
"But why did=
n't
he?" she queried.
Her husband point=
ed
to Jerry.
Villa's eyes
brightened with quick comprehension.
"You mean . . . ?" she began.
He nodded. "Just that. Sing Song Silly beat him to
it." He bent, rolled the=
man
over, and discovered the lacerated back of the neck. "That's where he
landed on him first, and he must have had his finger on the trigger, drawing
down on you and me, most likely me first, when Sing Song Silly broke up his
calculations."
Villa was only ha=
lf
hearing, for she had Jerry in her arms and was calling him "Blessed
Dog," the while she stilled his snarling and soothed down the last
bristling hair.
But Jerry snarled
again and was for leaping upon the black when he stirred restlessly and diz=
zily
sat up. Harley removed a knif=
e from
between the bare skin and a belt.
"What name
belong you?" he demanded.
But the black had
eyes only for Jerry, staring at him in wondering amaze until he pieced the
situation together in his growing clarity of brain and realized that such a
small chunky animal had spoiled his game.
"My word,&qu=
ot;
he grinned to Harley, "that fella dog put 'm crimp along me any
amount."
He felt out the
wounds of his neck and face, while his eyes embraced the fact that the white
master was in possession of his rifle.
"You give 'm
musket belong me," he said impudently.
"I give 'm y=
ou
bang alongside head," was Harley's answer.
"He doesn't =
seem
to me to be a regular Malaitan," he told Villa. "In the first place, where wo=
uld he
get a rifle like that? Then t=
hink
of his nerve. He must have se=
en us
drop anchor, and he must have known our launch was on the beach. Yet he played to take our heads an=
d get
away with them back into the bush--"
"What name
belong you?" he again demanded.
But not until Joh=
nny
and the launch crew arrived breathless from their run, did he learn. Johnny's eyes gloated when he behe=
ld the
prisoner, and he addressed Kennan in evident excitement.
"You give 'm=
me
that fella boy," he begged.
"Eh? You give 'm =
me
that fella boy."
"What name y=
ou
want 'm?"
Not for some time
would Johnny answer this question, and then only when Kennan told him that
there was no harm done and that he intended to let the black go. At this Johnny protested vehementl=
y.
"Maybe you f=
etch
'm that fella boy along Government House, Tulagi, Government House give 'm =
you
twenty pounds. Him plenty bad=
fella
boy too much. Makawao he name=
stop
along him. Bad fella boy too
much. Him Queensland boy--&qu=
ot;
"What name
Queensland?" Kennan interrupted.
"He belong that fella place?"
Johnny shook his
head.
"Him belong
along Malaita first time. Lon=
g time
before too much he recruit 'm along schooner go work along Queensland."=
;
"He's a retu=
rn
Queenslander," Harley interpreted to Villa. "You know, when Australia wen=
t 'all
white,' the Queensland plantations had to send all the black birds back.
Johnny continued =
his
explanation which, reduced to flat and sober English, was to the effect that
Makawao had always borne a bad character. In Queensland he had served a tot=
al
of four years in jail for thefts, robberies, and attempted murder. Returned to the Solomons by the Au=
stralian
government, he had recruited on Buli Plantation for the purpose--as was
afterwards proved--of getting arms and ammunition. For an attempt to kill the manager=
he
had received fifty lashes at Tulagi and served a year. Returned to Buli Plantation to fin=
ish
his labour service, he had contrived to kill the owner in the manager's abs=
ence
and to escape in a whaleboat.
In the whaleboat =
with
him he had taken all the weapons and ammunition of the plantation, the owne=
r's
head, ten Malaita recruits, and two recruits from San Cristobal--the two la=
st
because they were salt-water men and could handle the whaleboat. Himself and the ten Malaitans, bei=
ng bushmen,
were too ignorant of the sea to dare the long passage from Guadalcanar.
On the way, he had
raided the little islet of Ugi, sacked the store, and taken the head of the
solitary trader, a gentle-souled half-caste from Norfolk Island who traced =
back
directly to a Pitcairn ancestry straight from the loins of McCoy of the
Bounty. Arrived safely at Mal=
aita,
he and his fellows, no longer having any use for the two San Cristobal boys,
had taken their heads and eaten their bodies.
"My word, him
bad fella boy any amount," Johnny finished his tale. "Government
House, Tulagi, damn glad give 'm twenty pounds along that fella."
"You blessed
Sing Song Silly," Villa, murmured in Jerry's ears. "If it hadn't been for you--&=
quot;
"Your head a=
nd
mine would even now be galumping through the bush as Makawao hit the high
places for home," Harley concluded for her. "My word, some fella dog that=
, any
amount," he added lightly.
"And I gave him merry Ned just the other day for nigger-chasing,
and he knew his business better than I did all the time."
"If anybody
tries to claim him--" Villa threatened.
Harley confirmed =
her
muttered sentiment with a nod.
"Any way,&qu=
ot;
he said, with a smile, "there would have been one consolation if your =
head
had gone up into the bush."
"Consolation=
!"
she cried, throaty with indignation.
"Why, yes;
because in that case my head would have gone along."
"You dear and
blessed Husband-Man," she murmured, a quick cloudiness of moisture in =
her
eyes, as with her eyes she embraced him, her arms still around Jerry, who,
sensing the ecstasy of the moment, kissed her fragrant cheek with his
ribbon-tongue of love.
When the Ariel cleared from Malu, o=
n the
north-west coast of Malaita, Malaita sank down beneath the sea-rim astern a=
nd,
so far as Jerry's life was concerned, remained sunk for ever--another vanis=
hed
world, that, in his consciousness, partook of the ultimate nothingness that=
had
befallen Skipper. For all Jer=
ry
might have known, though he pondered it not, Malaita was a universe, behead=
ed
and resting on the knees of some brooding lesser god, himself vastly mighti=
er
than Bashti whose knees bore the brooding weight of Skipper's sun-dried,
smoke-cured head, this lesser god vexed and questing, feeling and guessing =
at
the dual twin-mysteries of time and space and of motion and matter, above,
beneath, around, and beyond him.
Only, in Jerry's
case, there was no pondering of the problem, no awareness of the existence =
of
such mysteries. He merely acc=
epted
Malaita as another world that had ceased to be. He remembered it as he remembered
dreams. Himself a live thing,=
solid
and substantial, possessed of weight and dimension, a reality incontroverti=
ble,
he moved through the space and place of being, concrete, hard, quick,
convincing, an absoluteness of something surrounded by the shades and shado=
ws
of the fluxing phantasmagoria of nothing.
He took his worlds
one by one. One by one his wo=
rlds
evaporated, rose beyond his vision as vapours in the hot alembic of the sun,
sank for ever beneath sea-levels, themselves unreal and passing as the phan=
toms
of a dream. The totality of t=
he
minute, simple world of the humans, microscopic and negligible as it was in=
the
siderial universe, was as far beyond his guessing as is the siderial univer=
se
beyond the starriest guesses and most abysmal imaginings of man.
Jerry was never to
see the dark island of savagery again, although often in his sleeping dream=
s it
was to return to him in vivid illusion, as he relived his days upon it, from
the destruction of the Arangi and the man-eating orgy on the beach to his
flight from the shell-scattered house and flesh of Nalasu. These dream episodes constituted f=
or him
another land of Otherwhere, mysterious, unreal, and evanescent as clouds dr=
ifting
across the sky or bubbles taking iridescent form and bursting on the surfac=
e of
the sea. Froth and foam it wa=
s,
quick-vanishing as he awoke, non-existent as Skipper, Skipper's head on the
withered knees of Bashti in the lofty grass house. Malaita the real, Malaita the conc=
rete
and ponderable, vanished and vanished for ever, as Meringe had vanished, as=
Skipper
had vanished, into the nothingness.
From Malaita the
Ariel steered west of north to Ongtong Java and to Tasman--great atolls that
sweltered under the Line not quite awash in the vast waste of the West South
Pacific. After Tasman was ano=
ther
wide sea- stretch to the high island of Bougainville. Thence, bearing generally south-ea=
st and
making slow progress in the dead beat to windward, the Ariel dropped anchor=
in
nearly every harbour of the Solomons, from Choiseul and Ronongo islands, to=
the
islands of Kulambangra, Vangunu, Pavuvu, and New Georgia. Even did she ride to anchor, desol=
ately
lonely, in the Bay of a Thousand Ships.
Last of all, so f=
ar
as concerned the Solomons, her anchor rumbled down and bit into the
coral-sanded bottom of the harbour of Tulagi, where, ashore on Florida Isla=
nd,
lived and ruled the Resident Commissioner.
To the Commission=
er,
Harley Kennan duly turned over Makawao, who was committed to a grass-house
jail, well guarded, to sit in leg-irons against the time of trial for his m=
any
crimes. And Johnny, the pilot=
, ere
he returned to the service of the Commissioner, received a fair portion of =
the
twenty pounds of head money that Kennan divided among the members of the la=
unch
crew who had raced through the jungle to the rescue the day Jerry had taken
Makawao by the back of the neck and startled him into pulling the trigger of
his unaimed rifle.
"I'll tell y=
ou
his name," the Commissioner said, as they sat on the wide veranda of h=
is
bungalow. "It's one of
Haggin's terriers--Haggin of Meringe Lagoon. The dog's father is Terrence, the =
mother
is Biddy. The dog's own name =
is
Jerry, for I was present at the christening before ever his eyes were
open. Better yet, I'll show y=
ou his
brother. His brother's name is
Michael. He's nigger-chaser o=
n the
Eugenie, the two- topmast schooner that rides abreast of you. Captain Kellar is the skipper. I'll have him bring Michael ashore=
. Beyond all doubt, this Jerry is th=
e sole
survivor of the Arangi."
"When I get =
the
time, and a sufficient margin of funds, I shall pay a visit to Chief
Bashti--oh, no British cruiser program.&nb=
sp;
I'll charter a couple of trading ketches, take my own black police f=
orce
and as many white men as I cannot prevent from volunteering. There won't be any shelling of gra=
ss
houses. I'll land my shore pa=
rty
down the coast and cut in and come down upon Somo from the rear, timing my
vessels to arrive on Somo's sea-front at the same time."
"You will an=
swer
slaughter with slaughter?" Villa Kennan objected.
"I will answ=
er
slaughter with law," the Commissioner replied. "I will teach Somo law. I hope that no accidents will
occur. I hope that no life wi=
ll be
lost on either side. I know,
however, that I shall recover Captain Van Horn's head, and his mate Borckma=
n's,
and bring them back to Tulagi for Christian burial. I know that I shall get old Bashti=
by
the scruff of the neck and sit him down while I pump law and square-dealing=
into
him. Of course . . . "
The Commissioner,
ascetic-looking, an Oxford graduate, narrow-shouldered and elderly, tired-e=
yed
and bespectacled like the scholar he was, like the scientist he was, shrugg=
ed
his shoulders. "Of cours=
e, if
they are not amenable to reason, there may be trouble, and some of them and
some of us will get hurt. But=
, one
way or the other, the conclusion will be the same. Old Bashti will learn that it is
expedient to maintain white men's heads on their shoulders."
"But how wil=
l he
learn?" Villa Kennan asked.
"If he is shrewd enough not to fight you, and merely sits and
listens to your English law, it will be no more than a huge joke to him.
"On the
contrary, my dear Mrs. Kennan. If
he listens peaceably to the lecture, I shall fine him only a hundred thousa=
nd
coconuts, five tons of ivory nut, one hundred fathoms of shell money, and
twenty fat pigs. If he refuse=
s to
listen to the lecture and goes on the war path, then, unpleasantly for me, I
assure you, I shall be compelled to thrash him and his village, first: and,
next, I shall triple the fine he must pay and lecture the law into him a tr=
ifle
more compendiously."
"Suppose he
doesn't fight, stops his ears to the lecture, and declines to pay?" Vi=
lla
Kennan persisted.
"Then he sha=
ll
be my guest, here in Tulagi, until he changes his mind and heart, and does =
pay,
and listens to an entire course of lectures."
* * * * *
So it was that Je=
rry
came to hear his old-time name on the lips of Villa and Harley, and saw once
again his full-brother Michael.
"Say
nothing," Harley muttered to Villa, as they made out, peering over the=
bow
of the shore-coming whaleboat, the rough coat, red-wheaten in colour, of
Michael. "We won't know
anything about anything, and we won't even let on we're watching what they
do."
Jerry, feigning
interest in digging a hole in the sand as if he were on a fresh scent, was
unaware of Michael's nearness. In
fact, so well had Jerry feigned that he had forgotten it was all a game, and
his interest was very real as he sniffed and snorted joyously in the bottom=
of
the hole he had dug. So deep =
was
it, that all he showed of himself was his hind-legs, his rump, and an
intelligent and stiffly erect stump of a tail.
Little wonder tha=
t he
and Michael failed to see each other.
And Michael, spilling over with unused vitality from the cramped spa=
ce
of the Eugenie's deck, scampered down the beach in a hurly-burly of joy, sc=
enting
a thousand intimate land-scents as he ran, and describing a jerky and eccen=
tric
course as he made short dashes and good-natured snaps at the coconut crabs =
that
scuttled across his path to the safety of the water or reared up and menaced
him with formidable claws and a spluttering and foaming of the shell-lids of
their mouths.
The beach was onl=
y so
long. The end of it reached w=
here
rose the rugged wall of a headland, and while the Commissioner introduced
Captain Kellar to Mr. and Mrs. Kennan, Michael came tearing back across the
wet-hard sand. So interested =
was he
in everything that he failed to notice the small rear-end portion of Jerry =
that
was visible above the level surface of the beach. Jerry's ears had given him warning=
, and,
the precise instant that he backed hurriedly up and out of the hole, Michael
collided with him. As Jerry w=
as
rolled, and as Michael fell clear over him, both erupted into ferocious sna=
rls
and growls. They regained the=
ir
legs, bristled and showed teeth at each other, and stalked stiff-leggedly, =
in a
stately and dignified sort of way, as they drew intimidating semi-circles a=
bout
each other.
But they were foo=
ling
all the while, and were more than a trifle embarrassed. For in each of their brains were b=
right
identification pictures of the plantation house and compound and beach of
Meringe. They knew, but they =
were
reticent of recognition. No l=
onger
puppies, vaguely proud of the sedateness of maturity, they strove to be pro=
ud
and sedate while all their impulse was to rush together in a frantic ecstas=
y.
Michael it was, l=
ess
travelled in the world than Jerry, by nature not so self-controlled, who th=
rew
the play-acting of dignity to the wind, and, with shrill whinings of emotio=
n,
with body-wrigglings of delight, flashed out his tongue of love and shoulde=
red
his brother roughly in eagerness to get near to him.
Jerry responded as
eagerly with kiss of tongue and contact of shoulder; then both, springing
apart, looked at each other, alert and querying, almost in half challenge,
Jerry's ears pricked into living interrogations, Michael's one good ear
similarly questioning, his withered ear retaining its permanent queer and
crinkly cock in the tip of it. As
one, they sprang away in a wild scurry down the beach, side by side, laughi=
ng
to each other and occasionally striking their shoulders together as they ra=
n.
"No doubt of
it," said the Commissioner.
"The very way their father and mother run. I have watched them often."
* * * * *
But, after ten da= ys of comradeship, came the parting. It was Michael's first visit on the Ariel, and he and Jerry had spen= t a frolicking half- hour on her white deck amid the sound and commotion of hoisting in boats, making sail, and heaving out anchor. As the Ariel began to move through= the water and heeled to the filling of her canvas by the brisk trade-wind, the Commissioner and Captain Kellar shook last farewells and scrambled down the gang-plank to their waiting whaleboats.&nb= sp; At the last moment Captain Kellar had caught Michael up, tucked him under an arm, and with him dropped into the, sternsheets of his whaleboat.<= o:p>
Painters were cast
off, and in the sternsheets of each boat solitary white men were standing u=
p,
heads bared in graciousness of conduct to the furnace-stab of the tropic su=
n,
as they waved additional and final farewells. And Michael, swept by the contagio=
n of
excitement, barked and barked again, as if it were a festival of the gods b=
eing
celebrated.
"Say good-by=
e to
your brother, Jerry," Villa Kennan prompted in Jerry's ear, as she held
him, his quivering flanks between her two palms, on the rail where she had
lifted him.
And Jerry, not
understanding her speech, torn about with conflicting desires, acknowledged=
her
speech with wriggling body, a quick back-toss of head, and a red flash of
kissing tongue, and, the next moment, his head over the rail and lowered to=
see
the swiftly diminishing Michael, was mouthing grief and woe very much akin =
to
the grief and woe his mother, Biddy, had mouthed in the long ago, on the be=
ach
of Meringe, when he had sailed away with Skipper.
For Jerry had lea=
rned
partings, and beyond all peradventure this was a parting, though little he
dreamed that he would again meet Michael across the years and across the wo=
rld,
in a fabled valley of far California, where they would live out their days =
in
the hearts and arms of the beloved gods.
Michael, his fore=
feet
on the gunwale, barked to him in a puzzled, questioning sort of way, and Je=
rry
whimpered back incommunicable understanding. The lady-god pressed his two flanks
together reassuringly, and he turned to her, his cool nose touched
questioningly to her cheek. S=
he
gathered his body close against her breast in one encircling arm, her free =
hand
resting on the rail, half-closed, a pink- and-white heart of flower, fragra=
nt
and seducing. Jerry's nose qu=
ested the
way of it. The aperture
invited. With snuggling, budg=
ing,
and nudging-movements he spread the fingers slightly wider as his nose pene=
trated
into the sheer delight and loveliness of her hand.
He came to rest, =
his
golden muzzle soft-enfolded to the eyes, and was very still, all forgetful =
of
the Ariel showing her copper to the sun under the press of the wind, all
forgetful of Michael growing small in the distance as the whaleboat grew sm=
all
astern. No less still was Vil=
la. Both were playing the game, althoug=
h to
her it was new.
As long as he cou=
ld
possibly contain himself, Jerry maintained his stiffness. And then, his love bursting beyond=
the
control of him, he gave a sniff--as prodigious a one as he had sniffed into=
the
tunnel of Skipper's hand in the long ago on the deck of the Arangi. And, as Skipper had relaxed into t=
he
laughter of love, so did the lady-god now. She gurgled gleefully. Her fingers tightened, in a caress=
that
almost hurt, on Jerry's muzzle. Her
other hand and arm crushed him against her till he gasped. Yet all the while his stump of tail
valiantly bobbed back and forth, and, when released from such blissful cont=
act,
his silky ears flattened back and down as, with first a scarlet slash of to=
ngue
to cheek, he seized her hand between his teeth and dented the soft skin wit=
h a
love bite that did not hurt.
And so, for Jerry,
vanished Tulagi, its Commissioner's bungalow on top of the hill, its vessels
riding to anchor in the harbour, and Michael, his full blood-brother. He had grown accustomed to such
vanishments. In such way had
vanished as in the mirage of a dream, Meringe, Somo, and the Arangi. In such way had vanished all the w=
orlds
and harbours and roadsteads and atoll lagoons where the Ariel had lifted her
laid anchor and gone on across and over the erasing sea-rim.