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On the beach, Biddy, who had hushed her grief, lifted it again when
she heard Jerry's wail. And Jerry, desisting a moment to listen,
heard Michael beside her, barking his challenge, and saw, without
being conscious of it, Michael's withered ear with its persistent
upward cock. Again, while Captain Van Horn and the mate, Borckman,
gave orders, and while the Arangi's mainsail and spanker began to
rise up the masts, Jerry loosed all his heart of woe in what Bob
told Derby on the beach was the "grandest vocal effort" he had ever
heard from any dog, and that, except for being a bit thin, Caruso
didn't have anything on Jerry. But the song was too much for
Haggin, who, as soon as he had landed, whistled Biddy to him and
strode rapidly away from the beach.
At sight of her disappearing, Jerry was guilty of even more Caruso-like
effects, which gave great joy to a Pennduffryn return boy who
stood beside him. He laughed and jeered at Jerry with falsetto
chucklings that were more like the jungle-noises of tree-dwelling
creatures, half-bird and half-man, than of a man, all man, and
therefore a god. This served as an excellent counter-irritant.
Indignation that a mere black should laugh at him mastered Jerry,
and the next moment his puppy teeth, sharp-pointed as needles, had
scored the astonished black's naked calf in long parallel scratches
from each of which leaped the instant blood. The black sprang away
in trepidation, but the blood of Terrence the Magnificent was true
in Jerry, and, like his father before him, he followed up, slashing
the black's other calf into a ruddy pattern.
At this moment, anchor broken out and headsails running up, Captain
Van Horn, whose quick eye had missed no detail of the incident, with
an order to the black helmsman turned to applaud Jerry.
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