and growled. But it was a more serious
affair to attack a god, and no sound came from him as he leaped to meet
the leg flying toward him in another kick. As with the cat, he did not
leap straight at it. To the side to avoid, and in with a curve of body
as it passed, was his way. He had learned the trick with many blacks at
Meringe and on board the _Eugenie_, so that as often he succeeded as
failed at it. His teeth came together in the slack of the white duck
trousers. The consequent jerk on Captain Duncan's leg made that
infuriated mariner lose his balance. Almost he fell forward on his face,
part recovered himself with a violent effort, stumbled over Michael who
was in for another bite, tottered wildly around, and sat down on the
deck.

How long he might have sat there to recover his breath is problematical,
for he rose as rapidly as his stoutness would permit, spurred on by
Michael's teeth already sunk into the fleshy part of his shoulder.
Michael missed his calf as he uprose, but tore the other leg of the
trousers to shreds and received a kick that lifted him a yard above the
deck in a half-somersault and landed him on his back on deck.

Up to this time the Captain had been on the ferocious offensive, and he
was in the act of following up the kick when Michael regained his feet
and soared up in the air, not for leg or thigh, but for the throat. Too
high it was for him to reach it, but his teeth closed on the flowing
black scarf and tore it to tatters as his weight drew him back to deck.

It was not this so much that turned Captain Duncan to the pure defensive
and started him retreating backward, as it was the silence of Michael.
Ominous as death it was. There were no snarls nor throat-threats. With
eyes straight-looking and unblinking, he sprang and sprang again. Neither
did he growl when he attacked nor yelp when he was kicked. Fear of the
blow was not in him. As Tom Haggin had so often bragged of Biddy and
Terrence, they bred true in Jerry and Michael in the matter of not
wincing at a blow. Always--they were so made--they sprang to meet the
blow and to encounter the creature who delivered the blow. With a
silence that was invested with the seriousness of death, they were wont
to attack and to continue to attack.

And so Michael. As the Captain retreated kicking, he attacked, leaping
and slashing. What saved Captain Duncan was a sailor with a deck mop on
the end of a stick. Intervening, he manag