Many times, in the course of the day, alertly and nonchalantly,
almost with a quizzical knowingness, Jerry cocked his head at the

mainsail when it made sudden swooping movements or slacked and
tautened its crashing sheet-gear. But he no longer crouched to

spring for it. That had been the first lesson, and quickly
mastered.

Having settled the mainsail, Jerry returned in mind to Meringe. But
there was no Meringe, no Biddy and Terrence and Michael on the

beach; no Mister Haggin and Derby and Bob; no beach: no land with
the palm-trees near and the mountains afar off everlastingly lifting

their green peaks into the sky. Always, to starboard or to port, at
the bow or over the stern, when he stood up resting his fore-feet on

the six-inch rail and gazing, he saw only the ocean, broken-faced
and turbulent, yet orderly marching its white-crested seas before

the drive of the trade.
Had he had the eyes of a man, nearly two yards higher than his own

from the deck, and had they been the trained eyes of a man, sailor-
man at that, Jerry could have seen the low blur of Ysabel to the

north and the blur of Florida to the south, ever taking on
definiteness of detail as the Arangi sagged close-hauled, with a

good full, port-tacked to the south-east trade. And had he had the
advantage of the marine glasses with which Captain Van Horn

elongated the range of his eyes, he could have seen, to the east,
the far peaks of Malaita lifting life-shadowed pink cloud-puffs

above the sea-rim.
But the present was very immediate with Jerry. He had early learned

the iron law of the immediate, and to accept what was when it was,
rather than to strain after far other things. The sea was. The

land no longer was. The Arangi certainly was, along with the life
that cluttered her deck. And he proceeded to get acquainted with

what was--in short, to know and to adjust himself to his new
environment.

His first discovery was delightful--a wild-dog puppy from the Ysabel
bush, being taken back to Malaita by one of the Meringe return boys.

In age they were the same, but their breeding was different. The
wild-dog was what he was, a wild-dog, cringing and sneaking, his

ears for ever down, his tail for ever between his legs, for ever
apprehending fresh misfortune and ill-treatment to fall on him, for

ever fearing and resentful, fending off threatened hurt with lips
curling malignantly from his puppy fangs, cringing under a blow,

squalling his fear and his pain, and ready always for a treacherous
slash if luck and safety favoured.

The wild-dog was maturer than Jerry, larger-bodied, and wiser in
wickedness; but Jerry was blue-blooded, right-selected, and valiant.

The wild-dog had come out of a selectionequally rigid; but it was a
different sort of selection. The bush ancestors from whom he had

descended had survived by being fear-selected. They had never
voluntarily fought against odds. In the open they had never

attacked save when the prey was weak or defenceless. In place of
courage, they had lived by creeping, and slinking, and hiding from

danger. They had been selected blindly by nature, in a cruel and
ignoble environment, where the prize of living was to be gained, in

the main, by the cunning of cowardice, and, on occasion, by
desperateness of defence when in a corner.

But Jerry had been love-selected and courage-selected. His
ancestors had been deliberately and consciously chosen by men, who,

somewhere in the forgotten past, had taken the wild-dog and made it
into the thing they visioned and admired and desired it to be. It

must never fight like a rat in a corner, because it must never be
rat-like and slink into a corner. Retreat must be unthinkable. The

dogs in the past who retreated had been rejected by men. They had
not become Jerry's ancestors. The dogs selected for Jerry's

ancestors had been the brave ones, the up-standing and out-dashing
ones, who flew into the face of danger and battled and died, but who

never gave ground. And, since it is the way of kind to beget kind,
Jerry was what Terrence was before him, and what Terrence's

forefathers had been for a long way back.
So it was that Jerry, when he chanced upon the wild-dog stowed

shrewdly away from the wind in the lee-corner made by the mainmast
and the cabin skylight, did not stop to consider whether the

creature was bigger or fiercer than he. All he knew was that it was
the ancient enemy--the wild-dog that had not come in to the fires of

man. With a wild paean of joy that attracted Captain Van Horn's
all-hearing ears and all-seeing eyes, Jerry sprang to the attack.

The wild puppy gained his feet in full retreat with incredible
swiftness, but was caught by the rush of Jerry's body and rolled

over and over on the sloping deck. And as he rolled, and felt sharp
teeth pricking him, he snapped and snarled, alternating snarls with

whimperings and squallings of terror, pain, and abject humility.
And Jerry was a gentleman, which is to say he was a gentle dog. He

had been so selected. Because the thing did not fight back, because
it was abject and whining, because it was helpless under him, he

abandoned the attack, disengaging himself from the top of the tangle
into which he had slid in the lee scuppers. He did not think about

it. He did it because he was so made. He stood up on the reeling
deck, feeling excellently satisfied with the delicious, wild-doggy

smell of hair in his mouth and consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness, and in his ears and
consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness the praising cry of Captain Van Horn: "Good boy,

Jerry! You're the goods, Jerry! Some dog, eh! Some dog!"
As he stalked away, it must be admitted that Jerry displayed pride

in himself, his gait being a trifle stiff-legged, the cocking of his
head back over his shoulder at the whining wild-dog having all the

articulateness of: "Well, I guess I gave you enough this time.
You'll keep out of my way after this."

Jerry continued the exploration of his new and tiny world that was
never at rest, for ever lifting, heeling, and lunging on the rolling

face of the sea. There were the Meringe return boys. He made it a
point to identify all of them, receiving, while he did so, scowls

and mutterings, and reciprocating with cocky bullyings and
threatenings. Being so trained, he walked on his four legs superior

to them, two-legged though they were; for he had moved and lived
always under the aegis of the great two-legged and be-trousered god,

Mister Haggin.
Then there were the strange return boys, from Pennduffryn and the

Bay of a Thousand Ships. He insisted on knowing them all. He might
need to know them in some future time. He did not think this. He

merely equipped himself with knowledge of his environment without
any awareness of provision or without bothering about the future.

In his own way of acquiring knowledge, he quickly discovered, just
as on the plantation house-boys were different from field-boys, that

on the Arangi there was a classification of boys different from the
return boys. This was the boat's crew. The fifteen blacks who

composed it were closer than the others to Captain Van Horn. They
seemed more directly to belong to the Arangi and to him. They

laboured under him at word of command, steering at the wheel,
pulling and hauling on ropes, healing water upon the deck from

overside and scrubbing with brooms.
Just as Jerry had learned from Mister Haggin that he must be more

tolerant of the house-boys than of the field-boys if they trespassed
on the compound, so, from Captain Van Horn, he learned that he must

be more tolerant of the boat's crew than of the return boys. He had
less license with them, more license with the others. As long as

Captain Van Horn did not want his boat's crew chased, it was Jerry's
duty not to chase. On the other hand he never forgot that he was a