And at the words Michael bristled, dragged himself clear of the woman’s detaining hands, and, with a snarl, whirled about to get a look at the black boy who must have just then entered the room and aroused the white god’s ire.  But there was no black boy.  He looked on, still bristling, to the door.  Harley transferred his own gaze to the door, and Michael knew, beyond all doubt, that outside the door was standing a Solomons nigger.

“Hey!  Michael!” Harley shouted.  “Chase ’m that black fella boy overside!”

With a roaring snarl, Michael flung himself at the door.  Such was the fury and weight of his onslaught that the latch flew loose and the door swung open.  The emptiness of the space which he had expected to see occupied, was appalling, and he shrank down, sick and dizzy with the baffling apparitional past that thus vexed his consciousness.

“And now,” said Harley to Jacob Henderson, “we will talk business . . . "

CHAPTER XXXV

When the train arrived at Glen Ellen, in the Valley of the Moon, it was Harley Kennan himself, at the side-door of the baggage-car, who caught hold of Michael and swung him to the ground.  For the first time Michael had performed a railroad journey uncrated.  Merely with collar and chain had he travelled up from Oakland.  In the waiting automobile he found Villa Kennan, and, chain removed, sat beside her and between her and Harley

As the machine purred along the two miles of road that wound up the side of Sonoma Mountain, Michael scarcely looked at the forest-trees and vistas of wandering glades.  He had been in the United States three years, during which time he had been kept a close prisoner.  Cage and crate and chain had been his portion, and narrow rooms, baggage cars, and station platforms.  The nearest he had come to the country was when chained to benches in the various parks while Jacob Henderson studied Swedenborg.  So that trees and hills and fields had ceased to mean anything.  They were something inaccessible, as inaccessible as the blue of the sky or the drifting cloud-fleeces.  Thus did he regard the trees and hills and fields, if the negative act of not regarding a thing at all can be considered a state of mind.

“Don’t seem to be enthusiastic over the ranch, eh, Michael?” Harley remarked.

He looked up at sound of his old name, and made acknowledgment by flattening his ears a quivering trifle and by touching his nose against Harley’s shoulder.

“Nor does he seem demonstrative,” was Villa’s judgment.  “At least, nothing like Jerry,”

“Wait till they meet,” Harley smiled in anticipation.  “Jerry will furnish enough excitement for both of them.”

“If they remember each other after all this time,” said Villa.  “I wonder if they will.”

“They did at Tulagi,” he reminded her.  “And they were full grown and hadn’t seen each other since they were puppies.  Remember how they barked and scampered all about the beach.  Michael was the hurly-burly one.  At least he made twice as much noise.”