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 taboo7.
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 obedience8. Yet it strained him sore for a time to refrain from snarl9 and snap when the legs of strange and presumptuous10 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 ashore11, and, while its crew lolled in the shade of the beach coconuts12, 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 shafts13 of sunlight penetrated15, and shuddered16.
“An appropriate setting for a dark deed,” she smiled, then scooped17 a handful of chill water against her husband, who plunged18 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 faculties20 that were no longer necessary, but that were still alive in him and clamorous21 for exercise, he followed the long-since passed wood-rat with all the soft-footed crouching23 craft of the meat-pursuer and with utmost fineness of reading the scent24. 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 abruptly25 to right angles with his body. The unmistakable smell of a black was in his nostrils26. Further, it was a strange black, for he did not identify it with the many he possessed27 filed away in the pigeon-holes of his brain.
Forgotten was the stale wood-rat as he followed the new trail. Curiosity and play impelled28 him. He had no thought of apprehension29 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 swerved30 off toward the pool. Nervously31 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 lurked32 in the perpetration of harm. He crouched33 on the jungle floor, peering around a great root of a board tree. Jerry bristled34 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 hip35 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 crouch22 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 wrath36. No golden dog this, ears flattened37 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 fanged39 killer40 ripe to rend41 and destroy.
Jerry intended to attack as soon as he had crept sufficiently42 near. He was unaware43 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 quarry44, that when again the black squatted45 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 projectile46, smote47 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 fangs48 to penetrate14 to the spinal49 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 slashed50 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 throttling51 Jerry with both hands around his neck; and Jerry, snorting, choking, snarling52, was scratching for dear life with the claws of his hind53 feet. No puppy claws were they, but the stout54 claws of a mature dog that were stiffened55 by a backing of hard muscles. And they ripped naked chest and abdomen56 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 butt19 of his automatic upon the side of the man’s head. Released by the relaxing of the stunned57 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 ferociously58, although he would desist long enough to glance up with his eyes, flatten38 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 dressing59, 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.”
Villa’s eyes brightened with quick comprehension. “You mean . . . ?” she began.
He nodded. “Just that. Sing Song Silly beat him to it.” He bent62, 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 soothed63 down the last bristling64 hair.
But Jerry snarled65 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.
“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 beheld68 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 vehemently69.
“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 schooner70 go work along Queensland.”
“He’s a return Queenslander,” Harley interpreted to Villa. “You know, when Australia went ‘all white,’ the Queensland plantations71 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 Plantation72 for the purpose—as was afterwards proved—of getting arms and ammunition73. For an attempt to kill the manager he had received fifty lashes74 at Tulagi and served a year. Returned to Buli Plantation to finish his labour service, he had contrived75 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 solitary76 trader, a gentle-souled half-caste from Norfolk Island who traced back directly to a Pitcairn ancestry77 straight from the loins of McCoy of the Bounty78. 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 consolation79 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 ecstasy80 of the moment, kissed her fragrant81 cheek with his ribbon-tongue of love.
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1
chiding
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| v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 ) | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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coconuts
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| n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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16
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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flatten
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| v.把．．．弄平，使倒伏；使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
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fanged
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| adj.有尖牙的，有牙根的，有毒牙的 | |
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killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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42
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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43
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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44
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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45
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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46
projectile
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| n.投射物，发射体；adj.向前开进的；推进的；抛掷的 | |
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smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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48
fangs
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| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
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49
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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50
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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51
throttling
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| v.扼杀( throttle的现在分词 )；勒死；使窒息；压制 | |
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52
snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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53
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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abdomen
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| n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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ferociously
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| 野蛮地，残忍地 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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66
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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impudently
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68
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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71
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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72
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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73
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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74
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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75
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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76
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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78
bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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80
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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