roguishly in his face and nostrils. As bad was Harley Kennan's

trick of catching him gloriously asleep on an edge of Villa's skirt
and of tickling the hair between his toes and making him kick

involuntarily in his sleep, until he kicked himself awake to hearing
of gurgles and snickers of laughter at his expense.

In turn, at night on deck, wriggling her toes at him under a rug to
simulate some strange and crawling creature of an invader, he would

dare to simulate his own befoolment and quite disrupt Villa's bed
with his franticferocious attack on the thing that he knew was only

her toes. In gales of laughter, intermingled with half-genuine
cries of alarm as almost his teeth caught her toes, she always

concluded by gathering him into her arms and laughing the last of
her laughter 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 exclusivelyfavoured 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 time, in all innocence this

happened again, 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 him.

After a time, learning that if he persisted, she would settle the
situation by gathering him into her arms and gurgling 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 more of delight than pain. All of fun it was, all
through, and, in addition, it was love fun. Such hurt was more than

fun. Such pain was heart-pleasure.
All dogs are god-worshippers. More fortunate than most dogs, Jerry

won to a pair of gods that, no matter how much they commanded, loved
more. Although his nose might threaten grievously 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 Somo, had Jerry's memory of Skipper and Mister
Haggin 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 erasement occurred quickly. Jerry did not forget
Skipper and Mister Haggin. But at the moments he remembered them

the yearning that accompanied the memory grew less pronounced and
painful. The intervals between the moments widened, nor did Skipper

and Mister Haggin take form and reality so frequently in his dreams;
for, after the manner of dogs, he dreamed much and vividly.

CHAPTER XXII
Northward, along the 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 every mangrove swamp of the mainland that
looked promising of cannibal life. For Harley and Villa Kennan were

in no hurry. So long as the way was interesting, they dared not how
long it proved from anywhere to anywhere.

During 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 renaming a named thing.
"A name he must have had," he argued to Villa. "Haggin must have

named him before he sailed on the Arangi. Therefore, nameless he
must be until we get back to Tulagi and find out his real name."

"What's in a name?" Villa had begun to tease.
"Everything," her husband retorted. "Think of yourself,

shipwrecked, called by your rescuers 'Mrs. Riggs,' or 'Mademoiselle
de Maupin,' or just plain 'Topsy.' And think of me being called

'Benedict Arnold,' or ' Judas,' or . . . or . . . 'Haman.' No, keep
him nameless, until we find out his original name."

"Must call him something," she objected. "Can't think of him
without thinking something."

"Then call him many names, but never the same name twice. Call him
'Dog' to-day, and 'Mister Dog' to-morrow, and the next day something

else."
So it was, more by tone and emphasis and context of situation than

by anything else, that Jerry came hazily to identify himself with
names such as: Dog, Mister Dog, Adventurer, Strong Useful One, Sing

Song Silly, Noname, and Quivering Love-Heart. These were a few of
the many names lavished on him by Villa. Harley, in turn, addressed

him as: Man-Dog, Incorruptible One, Brass Tacks, Then Some, Sin of
Gold, South Sea Satrap, Nimrod, Young Nick, and Lion-Slayer. In

brief, the man and woman competed with each other to name him most
without naming him ever the same. And Jerry, less by sound and

syllable than by what of their hearts vibrated in their throats,
soon learned to know himself by any name they chose to address to

him. He no longer thought of himself as Jerry, but, instead, as any
sound that sounded nice or was love-sounded.

His great disappointment (if "disappointment" may be considered to
describe an unconsciousness of failure to realize the expected) was

in the matter of language. No one on board, not even Harley and
Villa, talked Nalasu's talk. All Jerry's large vocabulary, all his

proficiency in the use of it, which would have set him apart as a
marvel beyond all other dogs in the mastery of speech, was wasted on

those of the Ariel. They did not speak, much less guess, the
existence of the whiff-whuff shorthand language which Nalasu had

taught him, and which, Nalasu dead, Jerry alone knew of all living
creatures in the world.

In vain Jerry tried it on the lady-god. Sitting squatted on his
haunches, his head bowed forward and held between her hands, he

would talk and talk and elicit never a responsive word from her.
With tiny whines and thin whimperings, with whiffs and whuffs and

growly sorts of noises down in his throat, he would try to tell her
somewhat of his tale. She was all meltingness of sympathy; she

would hold her ear so near to the articulate mouth of him as almost
to drown him in the flowing fragrance of her hair; and yet her brain

told her nothing of what he uttered, although her heart surely
sensed his intent.

"Bless me, Husband-Man!" she would cry out. "The Dog is talking. I
know he is talking. He is telling me all about himself. The story

of his life is mine, could I but understand. It's right here
pouring into my miserable inadequate ears, only I can't catch it."

Harley was sceptical, but her woman's intuition guessed aright.
"I know it!" she would assure her husband. "I tell you he could

tell the tale of all his adventures if only we had understanding.
No other dog has ever talked this way to me. There's a tale there.

I feel its touches. Sometimes almost do I know he is telling of
joy, of love, of high elation, and combat. Again, it is

indignation, hurt of outrage, despair and sadness."
"Naturally," Harley agreed quietly. "A white man's dog, adrift

among the anthropophagi of Malaita, would experience all such
sensations and, just as naturally, a white man's woman, a Wife-

Woman, a dear, delightful Villa Kennan woman, can of herself imagine
such a dog's experiences and deem his silly noises a recital of

them, failing to recognize them as projections of her own delicious,