It was not that Jerry was unkindly. Like Biddy and Terrence, he was
fierce and unafraid; which attributes were wrapped up in his heredity.
And, like Biddy and Terrence, he delighted in nigger-chasing, which, in
turn, was a matter of training. From his earliest puppyhood he had been
so trained. Niggers were niggers, but white men were gods, and it was
the white-gods who had trained him to chase niggers and keep them in
their proper lesser place in the world. All the world was held in the
hollow of the white man's hands. The niggers--well, had not he seen them
always compelled to remain in their lesser place? Had he not seen them,
on occasion, triced up to the palm-trees of the Meringe compound and
their backs lashed to ribbons by the white-gods? Small wonder that a
high-born Irish terrier, in the arms of love of the white-god, should
look at niggers through white-god's eyes, and act toward niggers in the
way that earned the white-god's reward of praise.
It was a busy day for Jerry. Everything about the _Arangi_ was new and
strange, and so crowded was she that exciting things were continually
happening. He had another encounter with the wild-dog, who treacherously
attacked him in flank from ambuscade. Trade boxes belonging to the
blacks had been irregularly piled so that a small space was left between
two boxes in the lower tier. From this hole, as Jerry trotted past in
response to a call from the skipper, the wild-dog sprang, scratched his
sharp puppy-teeth into Jerry's yellow-velvet hide, and scuttled back into
his lair.
Again Jerry's feelings were outraged. He could understand flank attack.
Often he and Michael had played at that, although it had only been
playing. But to retreat without fighting from a fight once started was
alien to Jerry's ways and nature. With righteous wrath he charged into
the hole after his enemy. But this was where the wild-dog fought to best
advantage--in a corner. When Jerry sprang up in the confined space he
bumped his head on the box above, and the next moment felt the snarling
impact of the other's teeth against his own teeth and jaw.
There was no getting at the wild-dog, no chance to rush against him whole
heartedly, with generous full weight in the attack. All Jerry could do
was to crawl and squirm and belly forward, and always he was met by a
snarling mouthful of teeth. Even so, he would have got the wild-dog in
the end, had not Borckman, in passing, reached in and dragged Jerry out
by a hind-leg. Again came Captain Van Horn's call, and Jerry, obedient,
trotted on aft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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