at the door of Meringe.

Many precautions by the white-gods had Jerry been aware of, and so,
sensing it almost in intangible ways, as a matter of course he accepted
this barbed-wire fence on the floating world as a mark of the persistence
of danger. Disaster and death hovered close about, waiting the chance to
leap upon life and drag it down. Life had to be very alive in order to
live was the law Jerry had learned from the little of life he knew.

Watching the rigging up of the barbed wire, Jerry's next adventure was an
encounter with Lerumie, the return boy from Meringe, who, only that
morning, on the beach embarking, had been rolled by Biddy, along with his
possessions into the surf. The encounter occurred on the starboard side
of the skylight, alongside of which Lerumie was standing as he gazed into
a cheap trade-mirror and combed his kinky hair with a hand-carved comb of
wood.

Jerry, scarcely aware of Lerumie's presence, was trotting past on his way
aft to where Borckman, the mate, was superintending the stringing of the
barbed wire to the stanchions. And Lerumie, with a side-long look to see
if the deed meditated for his foot was screened from observation, aimed a
kick at the son of his four-legged enemy. His bare foot caught Jerry on
the sensitive end of his recently bobbed tail, and Jerry, outraged, with
the sense of sacrilege committed upon him, went instantly wild.

Captain Van Horn, standing aft on the port quarter, gauging the slant of
the wind on the sails and the inadequate steering of the black at the
wheel, had not seen Jerry because of the intervening skylight. But his
eyes had taken in the shoulder movement of Lerumie that advertised the
balancing on one foot while the other foot had kicked. And from what