CHAPTER XXIII
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.
