The fine, three-topmast schooner _Ariel_, 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. But there was a difference. There were gods and
gods, and Jerry was not long in learning that in the hierarchy of the
heaven of these white-gods 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 them, 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
whether it was Harley Kennan who commanded Villa, or Villa Kennan who
commanded Harley. In a way, without vexing 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 that to feed a dog is to win a dog's heart. 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 steward who
regularly fed him. For that matter, Jerry, like any dog, was able to
differentiate between the mere direct 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 fed all and ruled all. Captain Winters might give orders to the
sailors, but Captain Winters took orders from Harley 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 been accustomed, all his life, as with Mister Haggin,
Skipper, and even with Bashti and the chief devil devil doctor of Somo,
he attached himself to the high gods themselves, and from the gods under
them received deference accordingly. As Skipper, on the _Arangi_, and
Bashti in Somo, had promulgated taboos, so the man and the woman on the
_Ariel_ protected Jerry with taboos. From Sano, the Japanese steward,
and from him alone, did Jerry receive food. Not from any sailor in
whaleboat or launch could he accept, or would he be offered, a bit of
biscuit or an invitation to go ashore for a run. Nor did they offer it.
Nor were they permitted to become intimate, to the extent of romping and
playing with him, nor even of whistling to him along the deck.
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. 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 take 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 receive, such as doubling his ears inside out till they stuck, at
the same time making him sit upright, with helpless forefeet paddling the
air for equilibrium, while she blew roguishly in his face and nostrils.
As bad was Harley Kennan's trick of catching him gloriously asleep on an
edge of Villa's skirt and of tickling the hair between his toes and
making him kick involuntarily in his sleep, until he kicked himself awake
to hearing of gurgles and snickers of laughter at his 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 befoolment 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 teeth 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 board 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.
Another of his deliberate tricks was one discovered by accident.
Thrusting his muzzle to meet 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 innocence 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. 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 made it a point to act his part until such
delectable surrender and joyful culmination were achieved.
Never, by accident, in this deliberate game, did he hurt her chin or
cheek so severely as he hurt 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 fortunate 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 spilled out all
the love-tide of his heart that constituted the life of him. He did not
live for food, for shelter, for a comfortable place between the
darknesses that rounded existence. He lived for love. And as surely as
he gladly lived for love, would he have died gladly for love.
Not quickly, in Somo, had Jerry's memory of Skipper and Mister Haggin
faded. Life in the cannibal village had been too unsatisfying. There
had been too little love. Only love can erase the memory of love, or
rather, the hurt of lost love. And on board the _Ariel_ such erasement
occurred quickly. Jerry did not forget Skipper and Mister Haggin. But
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 take form and reality
so frequently in his dreams; for, after the manner of dogs, he dreamed
much and vividly.