The first he knew, he averred, was the gossip of the village that the pig was dead, and that somebody would have to die for it. It was all right, he said, in reply to a query from the steward. It was the custom. Whenever a loved pig died its owners were in custom bound to go out and kill somebody, anybody. Of course, it was better if they killed the one whose magic had made the pig sick. But, failing that one, any one would do. Hence Kwaque was selected for the blood-atonement.
Dag Daughtry drank a seventh quart as he listened, so carried away was he by the sombre sense of romance of this dark jungle event wherein men killed even strangers because a pig was dead.
Scouts out on the runways, Kwaque continued, brought word of the coming of the two bereaved pig-owners, and the village had fled into the jungle and climbed trees – all except Kwaque, who was unable to climb trees.
“My word,” Kwaque concluded, “me no make ’m that fella pig sick.”
“My word,” quoth Dag Daughtry, “you devil-devil along that fella pig too much. You look ’m like hell. You make ’m any fella thing sick look along you. You make ’m me sick too much.”
It became quite a custom for the steward, as he finished his sixth bottle before turning in, to call upon Kwaque for his story. It carried him back to his boyhood when he had been excited by tales of wild cannibals in far lands and dreamed some day to see them for himself. And here he was, he would chuckle to himself, with a real true cannibal for a slave.
A slave Kwaque was, as much as if Daughtry had bought him on the auction-block. Whenever the steward transferred from ship to ship of the Burns Philp fleet, he always stipulated that Kwaque should accompany him and be duly rated at ten shillings. Kwaque had no say in the matter. Even had he desired to escape in Australian ports, there was no need for Daughtry to watch him. Australia, with her “all-white” policy, attended to that. No dark-skinned human, whether Malay, Japanese, or Polynesian, could land on her shore without putting into the Government’s hand a cash security of one hundred pounds.
Nor at the other islands visited by the Makambo had Kwaque any desire to cut and run for it. King William Island, which was the only land he had ever trod, was his yard-stick by which he measured all other islands. And since King William Island was cannibalistic, he could only conclude that the other islands were given to similar dietary practice.
As for King William Island, the Makambo, on the former run of the Cockspur, stopped there every ten weeks; but the direst threat Daughtry ever held over him was the putting ashore of him at the place where the two active young men still mourned their pig. In fact, it was their regular programme, each trip, to paddle out and around the Makambo and make ferocious grimaces up at Kwaque, who grimaced back at them from over the rail. Daughtry even encouraged this exchange of facial amenities for the purpose of deterring him from ever hoping to win ashore to the village of his birth.
For that matter, Kwaque had little desire to leave his master, who, after all, was kindly and just, and never lifted a hand to him. Having survived sea-sickness at the first, and never setting foot upon the land so that he never again knew sea-sickness, Kwaque was certain he lived in an earthly paradise. He never had to regret his inability to climb trees, because danger never threatened him. He had food regularly, and all he wanted, and it was such food! No one in his village could have dreamed of any delicacy of the many delicacies which he consumed all the time. Because of these matters he even pulled through a light attack of home-sickness, and was as contented a human as ever sailed the seas.
And Kwaque it was who pulled Michael through the port-hole into Dag Daughtry’s stateroom and waited for that worthy to arrive by the roundabout way of the door. After a quick look around the room and a sniff of the bunk and under the bunk which informed him that Jerry was not present, Michael turned his attention to Kwaque.
Kwaque tried to be friendly. He uttered a clucking noise in advertisement of his friendliness, and Michael snarled at this black who had dared to lay hands upon him – a contamination, according to Michael’s training – and who now dared to address him who associated only with white gods.
Kwaque passed off the rebuff with a silly gibbering laugh and started to step nearer the door to be in readiness to open it at his master’s coming. But at first lift of his leg, Michael flew at it. Kwaque immediately put it down, and Michael subsided, though he kept a watchful guard. What did he know of this strange black, save that he was a black and that, in the absence of a white master, all blacks required watching? Kwaque tried slowly sliding his foot along the floor, but Michael knew the trick and with bristle and growl put a stop to it.
It was upon this tableau that Daughtry entered, and, while he admired Michael much under the bright electric light, he realized the situation.
“Kwaque, you make ’m walk about leg belong you,” he commanded, in order to make sure.
Kwaque’s glance of apprehension at Michael was convincing enough, but the steward insisted. Kwaque gingerly obeyed, but scarcely had his foot moved an inch when Michael’s was upon him. The foot and leg petrified, while Michael stiff-leggedly drew a half-circle of intimidation about him.
“Got you nailed to the floor, eh?” Daughtry chuckled. “Some nigger-chaser, my word, any amount.”
“Hey, you, Kwaque, go fetch ’m two fella bottle of beer stop ’m along icey-chestis,” he commanded in his most peremptory manner.
Kwaque looked beseechingly, but did not stir. Nor did he stir at a harsher repetition of the order.
“My word!” the steward bullied. “Suppose ’m you no fetch ’m beer close up, I knock ’m eight bells ’n ’a dog-watch onta you. Suppose ’m you no fetch ’m close up, me make ’m you go ashore ’n’ walk about along King William Island.”
“No can,” Kwaque murmured timidly. “Eye belong dog look along me too much. Me no like ’m dog kai-kai along me.”
“You fright along dog?” his master demanded.
“My word, me fright along dog any amount.”
Dag Daughtry was delighted. Also, he was thirsty from his trip ashore and did not prolong the situation.
“Hey, you, dog,” he addressed Michael. “This fella boy he all right. Savvee? He all right.”
Michael bobbed his tail and flattened his ears in token that he was trying to understand. When the steward patted the black on the shoulder, Michael advanced and sniffed both the legs he had kept nailed to the floor.
“Walk about,” Daughtry commanded. “Walk about slow fella,” he cautioned, though there was little need.
Michael bristled, but permitted the first timid step. At the second he glanced up at Daughtry to make certain.
“That’s right,” he was reassured. “That fella boy belong me. He all right, you bet.”
Michael smiled with his eyes that he understood, and turned casually aside to investigate an open box on the floor which contained plates of turtle-shell, hack-saws, and emery paper.
“And now,” Dag Daughtry muttered weightily aloud, as, bottle in hand, he leaned back in his arm-chair while Kwaque knelt at his feet to unlace his shoes, “now to consider a name for you, Mister Dog, that will be just to your breeding and fair to my powers of invention.”
CHAPTER IV
Irish terriers, when they have gained maturity, are notable, not alone for their courage, fidelity, and capacity for love, but for their cool-headedness and power of self-control and restraint. They are less easily excited off their balance; they can recognize and obey their master’s voice in the scuffle and rage of battle; and they never fly into nervous hysterics such as are common, say, with fox-terriers.
Michael possessed no trace of hysteria, though he was more temperamentally excitable and explosive than his blood-brother Jerry, while his father and mother were a sedate old couple indeed compared with him. Far more than mature Jerry, was mature Michael playful and rowdyish. His ebullient spirits were always on tap to spill over on the slightest provocation, and, as he was