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.