Part 20 (1/2)
”Don't you agree, Mr Sherlock Holmes Kennan?”
”I salute you, Mrs S Holallantly ”And all that remains is for you to leaddirections record that he left it souess that Jerry had lived on inti the shore, who, in So 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
CHAPTER XXI
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 hii_, nor was she cluttered fore and aft, on deck and beloith a spawn of niggers The only black Jerry found on her was Johnny; while her spaciousness was filled principally with two- legged white-Gods
Hedecks, polishi+ng 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, shi+p-working ones were far beneath the captain and his thite-and-gold-clad officers These, in turn, were less than Harley Kennan and Villa Kennan; for them, it came quickly to hi he did not learn and was destined never to learn, nah he never tried to know, being unable to think to such a distance, he never came to knohether it was Harley Kennan who commanded Villa, or Villa Kennan who co himself with the problem, he accepted their over-lordshi+p of the world as dual Neither out-ranked the other They seemed to rule co-equal, while all others bowed before the's heart Never did Harley or Villa feed Jerry; yet it was to the, them he elected to love and serve rather than to the japanese steho regularly fed hi, was able to differentiate between the iver and the food source
That is, subconsciously, he are that not alone his own food, but the food of all on board found its source in the man and woman They it ho fed all and ruled all Captain Winters ive 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 itee
And, as he had been accustoin, Skipper, and even with Bashti and the chief devil devil doctor of Soh Gods themselves, and froly As Skipper, on the _Arangi_, and Bashti in Soated 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 per and playing with hi the deck
By nature a ”one-, 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 hireet hi,” 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 whonity that Villa Kennan chose to inflict upon hi his ears inside out till they stuck, at the saht, with helpless forefeet paddling the air for equilibriuuishly in his face and nostrils
As bad was Harley Kennan's trick of catching hie of Villa's skirt and of tickling the hair between his toes andhim kick involuntarily in his sleep, until he kicked hihter at his expense
In turn, at night on deck, wriggling her toes at hi 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 kneas only her toes In gales of laughter, interenuine cries of alarht her toes, she always concluded by gathering hihter 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 tiain, 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 hi that if he persisted, she would settle the situation by gathering hi 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 h, and, in addition, it was love fun Such hurt was s are God-worshi+ppers More fortunate than s, Jerry won to a pair of Gods that, no h his nose rievously 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 Soin 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 eraseet Skipper and Mister Haggin But at thethat accorew less pronounced and painful The intervals between the in take form and reality so frequently in his dreas, he dreamedthe 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 thousand grey hairs to his head, and dropping anchor off every walled inlet of the outer reef and everyof cannibal life For Harley and Villa Kennan were in no hurry So long as the as interesting, they dared not how long it proved fro 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 renaued to Villa ”Haggin i_ Therefore, nai and find out his real naun to tease