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Jerry of the Islands-Part19_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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it that he received food and water. Yet this boy was no Skipper, no

Mister Haggin. Nor was he even a Derby or a Bob. He was that



inferior man-creature, a nigger, and Jerry had been thoroughly

trained all his brief days to the law that the white men were the



superior two-legged gods.

He did not fail to recognize, however, the intelligence and power



that resided in the niggers. He did not reason it out. He accepted

it. They had power of command over other objects, could propel



sticks and stones through the air, could even tie him a prisoner to

a stick that rendered him helpless. Inferior as they might be to



the white-gods, still they were gods of a sort.

It was the first time in his life that Jerry had been tied up, and



he did not like it. Vainly he hurt his teeth, some of which were

loosening under the pressure of the second teeth rising underneath.



The stick was stronger than he. Although he did not forget Skipper,

the poignancy of his loss faded with the passage of time, until



uppermost in his mind was the desire to be free.

But when the day came that he was freed, he failed to take advantage



of it and scuttle away for the beach. It chanced that Lenerengo

released him. She did it deliberately, desiring to be quit of him.



But when she untied Jerry, he stopped to thank her, wagging his tail

and smiling up at her with his hazel-brown eyes. She stamped her



foot at him to be gone, and uttered a harsh and intimidating cry.

This Jerry did not understand, and so unused was he to fear that he



could not be frightened into running away. He ceased wagging his

tail, and, though he continued to look up at her, his eyes no longer



smiled. Her action and noise he identified as unfriendly, and he

became alert and watchful, prepared for whateverhostile act she



might next commit.

Again she cried out and stamped her foot. The only effect on Jerry



was to make him transfer his watchfulness to the foot. This

slowness in getting away, now that she had released him, was too



much for her short temper. She launched the kick, and Jerry,

avoiding it, slashed her ankle.



War broke on the instant, and that she might have killed Jerry in

her rage was highly probable had not Lamai appeared on the scene.



The stick untied from Jerry's neck told the tale of her perfidy and

incensed Lamai, who sprang between and deflected the blow with a



stone poi-pounder that might have brained Jerry.

Lamai was now the one in danger of grievous damage, and his mother



had just knocked him down with a clout alongside the head when poor

Lumai, roused from sleep by the uproar, ventured out to make peace.



Lenerengo, as usual, forgot everything else in the fiercer pleasure

of berating her spouse.



The conclusion of the affair was harmless enough. The children

stopped their crying, Lamai retied Jerry with the stick, Lenerengo



harangued herself breathless, and Lumai departed with hurt feelings

for the canoe house where stags could sleep in peace and Marys



pestered not.

That night, in the circle of his fellow stags, Lumai recited his



sorrows and told the cause of them--the puppy dog which had come on

the Arangi. It chanced that Agno, chief of the devil devil doctors,



or high priest, heard the tale, and recollected that he had sent

Jerry to the canoe house along with the rest of the captives. Half



an hour later he was having it out with Lamai. Beyond doubt, the

boy had broken the taboos, and privily he told him so, until Lamai



trembled and wept and squirmed abjectly at his feet, for the penalty

was death.



It was too good an opportunity to get a hold over the boy for Agno

to misplay it. A dead boy was worth nothing to him, but a living



boy whose life he carried in his hand would serve him well. Since

no one else knew of the broken taboo, he could afford to keep quiet.



So he ordered Lamai forthright down to live in the youths' canoe

house, there to begin his novitiate in the long series of tasks,



tests and ceremonies that would graduate him into the bachelors'

canoe house and half way along toward being a recognized man.



In the morning, obeying the devil devil doctor's commands, Lenerengo

tied Jerry's feet together, not without a struggle in which his head



was banged about and her hands were scratched. Then she carried him

down through the village on the way to deliver him at Agno's house.



On the way, in the open centre of the village where stood the

kingposts, she left him lying on the ground in order to join in the






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