With a cry of rage, a flash of white teeth, and a bristle of short neck-
hair, he sprang for the black. Lerumie fled down the deck, and Jerry
pursued amid the laughter of all the blacks. Several times, in making
the circuit of the deck, he managed to scratch the flying calves with his
teeth. Then Lerumie took to the main rigging, leaving Jerry impotently
to rage on the deck beneath him.

About this point the blacks grouped in a semi-circle at a respectful
distance, with Van Horn to the fore beside Jerry. Van Horn centred his
electric torch on the black in the rigging, and saw the long parallel
scratches on the fingers of the hand that had invaded Jerry's blanket. He
pointed them out significantly to Borckman, who stood outside the circle
so that no black should be able to come at his back.

Skipper picked Jerry up and soothed his anger with:

"Good boy, Jerry. You marked and sealed him. Some dog, you, some big
man-dog."

He turned back to Lerumie, illuminating him as he clung in the rigging,
and his voice was harsh and cold as he addressed him.

"What name belong along you fella boy?" he demanded.

"Me fella Lerumie," came the chirping, quavering answer.

"You come along Pennduffryn?"

"Me come along Meringe."