From the pool came occasional cries and laughter, and each time they reached his ears Jerry experienced glad little thrills.  Had he been asked, and had he been able to express the sensations of emotion in terms of thought, he would have said that the sweetest sound in the world was any sound of Villa Kennan’s voice, and that, next sweetest, was any sound of Harley Kennan’s voice.  Their voices thrilled him, always, reminding him of his love for them and that he was beloved of them.

With the first sight of the strange black, which occurred close to the pool, Jerry’s suspicions were aroused.  He was not conducting himself as an ordinary black, not on evil intent, should conduct himself.  Instead, he betrayed all the actions of one who lurked in the perpetration of harm.  He crouched on the jungle floor, peering around a great root of a board tree.  Jerry bristled and himself crouched as he watched.

Once, the black raised his rifle half-way to his shoulder; but, with an outburst of splashing and laughter, his unconscious victims evidently removed themselves from his field of vision.  His rifle was no old-fashioned Snider, but a modern, repeating Winchester; and he showed habituation to firing it from his shoulder rather than from the hip after the manner of most Malaitans.

Not satisfied with his position by the board tree, he lowered his gun to his side and crept closer to the pool.  Jerry crouched low and followed.  So low did he crouch that his head, extended horizontally forward, was much lower than his shoulders which were humped up queerly and composed the highest part of him.  When the black paused, Jerry paused, as if instantly frozen.  When the black moved, he moved, but more swiftly, cutting down the distance between them.  And all the while the hair of his neck and shoulders bristled in recurrent waves of ferocity and wrath.  No golden dog this, ears flattened and tongue laughing in the arms of the lady-god, no Sing Song Silly chanting ancient memories in the cloud-entanglement of her hair; but a four-legged creature of battle, a fanged killer ripe to rend and destroy.

Jerry intended to attack as soon as he had crept sufficiently near.  He was unaware of the Ariel taboo against nigger-chasing.  At that moment it had no place in his consciousness.  All he knew was that harm threatened the man and woman and that this nigger intended this harm.

So much had Jerry gained on his quarry, that when again the black squatted for his shot, Jerry deemed he was near enough to rush.  The rifle was coming to shoulder when he sprang forward.  Swiftly as he sprang, he made no sound, and his victim’s first warning was when Jerry’s body, launched like a projectile, smote the black squarely between the shoulders.  At the same moment his teeth entered the back of the neck, but too near the base in the lumpy shoulder muscles to permit the fangs to penetrate to the spinal cord.