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
mistaken, he resumed his ragging of the particular black he had picked
upon. This time Harley's voice was peremptory, 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 chase 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 fact that Skipper
had encouraged him to chase them. Not in such set terms did Jerry
consider the matter; but in his own way he accepted the conclusions.
Love of a god, with him, implied service. It pleased him to please with
service. And the foundation-stone of service, in his case, was
obedience. Yet it strained him sore for a time 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 times 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. The chart showed a mile of the Suli river where it emptied into
the sea. Why it showed only a mile 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. "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 never 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 through which only occasional shafts of sunlight
penetrated, and shuddered.
"An appropriate 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. 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 the 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 own meat
though for ages man had got the meat for him and his kind.
So it was, exercising faculties that were no longer necessary, but that
were still alive in him and 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 fineness 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, evidently
startled by bearing their voices, had stood and debated, and so left a
very strong scent. From this point the trail swerved off toward the
pool. Nervously alert, strung to extreme tension, but without alarm,
still playing at the game 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 any 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 sight 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 actions of one who lurked in the perpetration of
harm. He crouched on the jungle floor, peering 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 splashing and laughter, his unconscious victims evidently
removed themselves from his field of vision. His rifle was no
old-fashioned Snider, but a modern, repeating Winchester; and he showed
habituation to firing 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 closer to the pool. Jerry crouched low 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, but 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 Sing 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 that moment
it had no place in his consciousness. All he knew was that harm
threatened 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 sound, 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 entered the back of the neck,
but too near the base in the lumpy shoulder muscles to permit the fangs
to penetrate to the spinal cord.
In the first fright of surprise, the black's finger pulled the trigger
and his throat loosed an unearthly yell. Knocked forward 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 Kennan, 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 blood, was
throttling Jerry with both hands around his neck; and Jerry, snorting,
choking, 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 abdomen full length again and again until the whole front of
the man was streaming red. Harley Kennan did not dare chance a shot, so
closely were the combatants locked. Instead, stepping in close; he
smashed 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 command 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" 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 didn't he?" she queried.
Her husband pointed 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 half 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 dizzily sat up. Harley removed a knife 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," 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 you 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 would he get a rifle like that? Then think of his
nerve. He must have seen us drop anchor, and he must have known our
launch was on the beach. Yet he played to take our heads and get away
with them back into the bush--"
"What name belong you?" he again demanded.
But not until Johnny and the launch crew arrived breathless from their
run, did he learn. Johnny's eyes gloated when he beheld 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 you 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 vehemently.
"Maybe you fetch '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--"
"What name Queensland?" Kennan interrupted. "He belong that fella
place?"
Johnny shook his head.
"Him belong along Malaita first time. Long time before too much he
recruit 'm along schooner go work along Queensland."
"He's a return Queenslander," Harley interpreted to Villa. "You know,
when Australia went 'all white,' the Queensland plantations had to send
all the black birds back. This Makawao is evidently one of them, and a
hard case as well, if there's anything in Johnny's gammon about twenty
pounds reward for him. That's a big price for a black."
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 total of four years in jail for thefts,
robberies, and attempted murder. Returned to the Solomons by the
Australian 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 finish his labour service,
he had contrived to kill the owner in the manager's absence and to escape
in a whaleboat.
In the whaleboat with him he had taken all the weapons and ammunition of
the plantation, the owner's head, ten Malaita recruits, and two recruits
from San Cristobal--the two last because they were salt-water men and
could handle the whaleboat. Himself and the ten Malaitans, being
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 Malaita, 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--"
"Your head and 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," 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.