on him, and that it was Lerumie who had thrown him
overboard.

With a cry of rage, a flash of white teeth, and a bristle of short neck-
hair, he sprang for the black. Lerumie fled down the deck, and Jerry
pursued amid the laughter of all the blacks. Several times, in making
the circuit of the deck, he managed to scratch the flying calves with his
teeth. Then Lerumie took to the main rigging, leaving Jerry impotently
to rage on the deck beneath him.

About this point the blacks grouped in a semi-circle at a respectful
distance, with Van Horn to the fore beside Jerry. Van Horn centred his
electric torch on the black in the rigging, and saw the long parallel
scratches on the fingers of the hand that had invaded Jerry's blanket. He
pointed them out significantly to Borckman, who stood outside the circle
so that no black should be able to come at his back.

Skipper picked Jerry up and soothed his anger with:

"Good boy, Jerry. You marked and sealed him. Some dog, you, some big
man-dog."

He turned back to Lerumie, illuminating him as he clung in the rigging,
and his voice was harsh and cold as he addressed him.

"What name belong along you fella boy?" he demanded.

"Me fella Lerumie," came the chirping, quavering answer.

"You come along Pennduffryn?"

"Me come along Meringe."

Captain Van Horn debated the while he fondled the puppy in his arms.
After all, it was a return boy. In a day, in two days at most, he would
have him landed and be quit of him.

"My word," he harangued, "me angry along you. Me angry big fella too
much along you. Me angry along you any amount. What name you fella boy
make 'm pickaninny dog belong along me walk about along water?"

Lerumie was unable to answer. He rolled his eyes helplessly, resigned to
receive a whipping such as he had long since bitterly learned white
masters were wont to administer.

Captain Van Horn repeated the question, and the black repeated the
helpless rolling of his eyes.

"For two sticks tobacco I knock 'm seven bells outa you," the skipper
bullied. "Now me give you strong fella talk too much. You look 'm eye
belong you one time along this fella dog belong me, I knock 'm seven
bells and whole starboard watch outa you. Savve?"

"Me savve," Lerumie, plaintively replied; and the episode was closed.

The return boys went below to sleep in the cabin. Borckman and the
boat's crew hoisted the mainsail and put the _Arangi_ on her course. And
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