Jerry of the Islands

J >> Jack London >> Jerry of the Islands


On the way, he had raided the little islet of Ugi, sacked the store, and
taken the head of the solitary trader, a gentle-souled half-caste from
Norfolk Island who traced back directly to a Pitcairn ancestry straight
from the loins of McCoy of the Bounty. 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 consolation
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 ecstasy of the moment, kissed her fragrant
cheek with his ribbon-tongue of love.




CHAPTER XXIV


When the _Ariel_ cleared from Malu, on the north-west coast of Malaita,
Malaita sank down beneath the sea-rim astern and, so far as Jerry's life
was concerned, remained sunk for ever--another vanished world, that, in
his consciousness, partook of the ultimate nothingness that had befallen
Skipper. For all Jerry might have known, though he pondered it not,
Malaita was a universe, beheaded and resting on the knees of some
brooding lesser god, himself vastly mightier than Bashti whose knees bore
the brooding weight of Skipper's sun-dried, smoke-cured head, this lesser
god vexed and questing, feeling and guessing at the dual twin-mysteries
of time and space and of motion and matter, above, beneath, around, and
beyond him.

Only, in Jerry's case, there was no pondering of the problem, no
awareness of the existence of such mysteries. He merely accepted Malaita
as another world that had ceased to be. He remembered it as he
remembered dreams. Himself a live thing, solid and substantial,
possessed of weight and dimension, a reality incontrovertible, he moved
through the space and place of being, concrete, hard, quick, convincing,
an absoluteness of something surrounded by the shades and shadows of the
fluxing phantasmagoria of nothing.

He took his worlds one by one. One by one his worlds evaporated, rose
beyond his vision as vapours in the hot alembic of the sun, sank for ever
beneath sea-levels, themselves unreal and passing as the phantoms of a
dream. The totality of the minute, simple world of the humans,
microscopic and negligible as it was in the siderial universe, was as far
beyond his guessing as is the siderial universe beyond the starriest
guesses and most abysmal imaginings of man.

Jerry was never to see the dark island of savagery again, although often
in his sleeping dreams it was to return to him in vivid illusion, as he
relived his days upon it, from the destruction of the _Arangi_ and the
man-eating orgy on the beach to his flight from the shell-scattered house
and flesh of Nalasu. These dream episodes constituted for him another
land of Otherwhere, mysterious, unreal, and evanescent as clouds drifting
across the sky or bubbles taking iridescent form and bursting on the
surface of the sea. Froth and foam it was, quick-vanishing as he awoke,
non-existent as Skipper, Skipper's head on the withered knees of Bashti
in the lofty grass house. Malaita the real, Malaita the concrete and
ponderable, vanished and vanished for ever, as Meringe had vanished, as
Skipper had vanished, into the nothingness.

From Malaita the _Ariel_ steered west of north to Ongtong Java and to
Tasman--great atolls that sweltered under the Line not quite awash in the
vast waste of the West South Pacific. After Tasman was another wide sea-
stretch to the high island of Bougainville. Thence, bearing generally
south-east and making slow progress in the dead beat to windward, the
_Ariel_ dropped anchor in nearly every harbour of the Solomons, from
Choiseul and Ronongo islands, to the islands of Kulambangra, Vangunu,
Pavuvu, and New Georgia. Even did she ride to anchor, desolately lonely,
in the Bay of a Thousand Ships.

Last of all, so far as concerned the Solomons, her anchor rumbled down
and bit into the coral-sanded bottom of the harbour of Tulagi, where,
ashore on Florida Island, lived and ruled the Resident Commissioner.

To the Commissioner, Harley Kennan duly turned over Makawao, who was
committed to a grass-house jail, well guarded, to sit in leg-irons
against the time of trial for his many crimes. And Johnny, the pilot,
ere he returned to the service of the Commissioner, received a fair
portion of the twenty pounds of head money that Kennan divided among the
members of the launch crew who had raced through the jungle to the rescue
the day Jerry had taken Makawao by the back of the neck and startled him
into pulling the trigger of his unaimed rifle.

"I'll tell you his name," the Commissioner said, as they sat on the wide
veranda of his bungalow. "It's one of Haggin's terriers--Haggin of
Meringe Lagoon. The dog's father is Terrence, the mother is Biddy. The
dog's own name is Jerry, for I was present at the christening before ever
his eyes were open. Better yet, I'll show you his brother. His
brother's name is Michael. He's nigger-chaser on the _Eugenie_, the two-
topmast schooner that rides abreast of you. Captain Kellar is the
skipper. I'll have him bring Michael ashore. Beyond all doubt, this
Jerry is the sole survivor of the _Arangi_."

"When I get the time, and a sufficient margin of funds, I shall pay a
visit to Chief Bashti--oh, no British cruiser program. I'll charter a
couple of trading ketches, take my own black police force and as many
white men as I cannot prevent from volunteering. There won't be any
shelling of grass houses. I'll land my shore party down the coast and
cut in and come down upon Somo from the rear, timing my vessels to arrive
on Somo's sea-front at the same time."

"You will answer slaughter with slaughter?" Villa Kennan objected.

"I will answer slaughter with law," the Commissioner replied. "I will
teach Somo law. I hope that no accidents will occur. I hope that no
life will be lost on either side. I know, however, that I shall recover
Captain Van Horn's head, and his mate Borckman's, and bring them back to
Tulagi for Christian burial. I know that I shall get old Bashti by the
scruff of the neck and sit him down while I pump law and square-dealing
into him. Of course . . . "

The Commissioner, ascetic-looking, an Oxford graduate, narrow-shouldered
and elderly, tired-eyed and bespectacled like the scholar he was, like
the scientist he was, shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, if they are
not amenable to reason, there may be trouble, and some of them and some
of us will get hurt. But, one way or the other, the conclusion will be
the same. Old Bashti will learn that it is expedient to maintain white
men's heads on their shoulders."

"But how will he learn?" Villa Kennan asked. "If he is shrewd enough not
to fight you, and merely sits and listens to your English law, it will be
no more than a huge joke to him. He will no more than pay the price of
listening to a lecture for any atrocity he commits."

"On the contrary, my dear Mrs. Kennan. If he listens peaceably to the
lecture, I shall fine him only a hundred thousand coconuts, five tons of
ivory nut, one hundred fathoms of shell money, and twenty fat pigs. If
he refuses to listen to the lecture and goes on the war path, then,
unpleasantly for me, I assure you, I shall be compelled to thrash him and
his village, first: and, next, I shall triple the fine he must pay and
lecture the law into him a trifle more compendiously."

"Suppose he doesn't fight, stops his ears to the lecture, and declines to
pay?" Villa Kennan persisted.

"Then he shall be my guest, here in Tulagi, until he changes his mind and
heart, and does pay, and listens to an entire course of lectures."

* * * * *

So it was that Jerry came to hear his old-time name on the lips of Villa
and Harley, and saw once again his full-brother Michael.

"Say nothing," Harley muttered to Villa, as they made out, peering over
the bow of the shore-coming whaleboat, the rough coat, red-wheaten in
colour, of Michael. "We won't know anything about anything, and we won't
even let on we're watching what they do."

Jerry, feigning interest in digging a hole in the sand as if he were on a
fresh scent, was unaware of Michael's nearness. In fact, so well had
Jerry feigned that he had forgotten it was all a game, and his interest
was very real as he sniffed and snorted joyously in the bottom of the
hole he had dug. So deep was it, that all he showed of himself was his
hind-legs, his rump, and an intelligent and stiffly erect stump of a
tail.

Little wonder that he and Michael failed to see each other. And Michael,
spilling over with unused vitality from the cramped space of the
_Eugenie's_ deck, scampered down the beach in a hurly-burly of joy,
scenting a thousand intimate land-scents as he ran, and describing a
jerky and eccentric course as he made short dashes and good-natured snaps
at the coconut crabs that scuttled across his path to the safety of the
water or reared up and menaced him with formidable claws and a
spluttering and foaming of the shell-lids of their mouths.

The beach was only so long. The end of it reached where rose the rugged
wall of a headland, and while the Commissioner introduced Captain Kellar
to Mr. and Mrs. Kennan, Michael came tearing back across the wet-hard
sand. So interested was he in everything that he failed to notice the
small rear-end portion of Jerry that was visible above the level surface
of the beach. Jerry's ears had given him warning, and, the precise
instant that he backed hurriedly up and out of the hole, Michael collided
with him. As Jerry was rolled, and as Michael fell clear over him, both
erupted into ferocious snarls and growls. They regained their legs,
bristled and showed teeth at each other, and stalked stiff-leggedly, in a
stately and dignified sort of way, as they drew intimidating semi-circles
about each other.

But they were fooling all the while, and were more than a trifle
embarrassed. For in each of their brains were bright identification
pictures of the plantation house and compound and beach of Meringe. They
knew, but they were reticent of recognition. No longer puppies, vaguely
proud of the sedateness of maturity, they strove to be proud and sedate
while all their impulse was to rush together in a frantic ecstasy.

Michael it was, less travelled in the world than Jerry, by nature not so
self-controlled, who threw the play-acting of dignity to the wind, and,
with shrill whinings of emotion, with body-wrigglings of delight, flashed
out his tongue of love and shouldered his brother roughly in eagerness to
get near to him.

Jerry responded as eagerly with kiss of tongue and contact of shoulder;
then both, springing apart, looked at each other, alert and querying,
almost in half challenge, Jerry's ears pricked into living
interrogations, Michael's one good ear similarly questioning, his
withered ear retaining its permanent queer and crinkly cock in the tip of
it. As one, they sprang away in a wild scurry down the beach, side by
side, laughing to each other and occasionally striking their shoulders
together as they ran.

"No doubt of it," said the Commissioner. "The very way their father and
mother run. I have watched them often."

* * * * *

But, after ten days of comradeship, came the parting. It was Michael's
first visit on the _Ariel_, and he and Jerry had spent a frolicking half-
hour on her white deck amid the sound and commotion of hoisting in boats,
making sail, and heaving out anchor. As the _Ariel_ began to move
through the water and heeled to the filling of her canvas by the brisk
trade-wind, the Commissioner and Captain Kellar shook last farewells and
scrambled down the gang-plank to their waiting whaleboats. At the last
moment Captain Kellar had caught Michael up, tucked him under an arm, and
with him dropped into the, sternsheets of his whaleboat.

Painters were cast off, and in the sternsheets of each boat solitary
white men were standing up, heads bared in graciousness of conduct to the
furnace-stab of the tropic sun, as they waved additional and final
farewells. And Michael, swept by the contagion of excitement, barked and
barked again, as if it were a festival of the gods being celebrated.

"Say good-bye to your brother, Jerry," Villa Kennan prompted in Jerry's
ear, as she held him, his quivering flanks between her two palms, on the
rail where she had lifted him.

And Jerry, not understanding her speech, torn about with conflicting
desires, acknowledged her speech with wriggling body, a quick back-toss
of head, and a red flash of kissing tongue, and, the next moment, his
head over the rail and lowered to see the swiftly diminishing Michael,
was mouthing grief and woe very much akin to the grief and woe his
mother, Biddy, had mouthed in the long ago, on the beach of Meringe, when
he had sailed away with Skipper.

For Jerry had learned partings, and beyond all peradventure this was a
parting, though little he dreamed that he would again meet Michael across
the years and across the world, in a fabled valley of far California,
where they would live out their days in the hearts and arms of the
beloved gods.

Michael, his forefeet on the gunwale, barked to him in a puzzled,
questioning sort of way, and Jerry whimpered back incommunicable
understanding. The lady-god pressed his two flanks together
reassuringly, and he turned to her, his cool nose touched questioningly
to her cheek. She gathered his body close against her breast in one
encircling arm, her free hand resting on the rail, half-closed, a pink-
and-white heart of flower, fragrant and seducing. Jerry's nose quested
the way of it. The aperture invited. With snuggling, budging, and
nudging-movements he spread the fingers slightly wider as his nose
penetrated into the sheer delight and loveliness of her hand.

He came to rest, his golden muzzle soft-enfolded to the eyes, and was
very still, all forgetful of the _Ariel_ showing her copper to the sun
under the press of the wind, all forgetful of Michael growing small in
the distance as the whaleboat grew small astern. No less still was
Villa. Both were playing the game, although to her it was new.

As long as he could possibly contain himself, Jerry maintained his
stiffness. And then, his love bursting beyond the control of him, he
gave a sniff--as prodigious a one as he had sniffed into the tunnel of
Skipper's hand in the long ago on the deck of the _Arangi_. And, as
Skipper had relaxed into the laughter of love, so did the lady-god now.
She gurgled gleefully. Her fingers tightened, in a caress that almost
hurt, on Jerry's muzzle. Her other hand and arm crushed him against her
till he gasped. Yet all the while his stump of tail valiantly bobbed
back and forth, and, when released from such blissful contact, his silky
ears flattened back and down as, with first a scarlet slash of tongue to
cheek, he seized her hand between his teeth and dented the soft skin with
a love bite that did not hurt.

And so, for Jerry, vanished Tulagi, its Commissioner's bungalow on top of
the hill, its vessels riding to anchor in the harbour, and Michael, his
full blood-brother. He had grown accustomed to such vanishments. In
such way had vanished as in the mirage of a dream, Meringe, Somo, and the
_Arangi_. In such way had vanished all the worlds and harbours and
roadsteads and atoll lagoons where the _Ariel_ had lifted her laid anchor
and gone on across and over the erasing sea-rim.