on in green leaves, and, surrounding it with the hot
stones from the fire, covered pigeon and stones with earth.

When, after a time, he removed the pigeon and stripped from it the
scorched wrappings of leaves, it gave forth a scent so savoury as to
prick up Jerry's ears and set his nostrils to quivering. When the boy
had torn the steaming carcass across and cooled it, Jerry's meal began;
nor did the meal cease till the last sliver of meat had been stripped and
tongued from the bones and the bones crunched and crackled to fragments
and swallowed. And throughout the meal Lamai made love to Jerry,
crooning over and over his little song, and patting and caressing him.

On the other hand, refreshed by the water and the meat, Jerry did not
reciprocate so heartily in the love-making. He was polite, and received
his petting with soft-shining eyes, tail-waggings and the customary body-
wrigglings; but he was restless, and continually listened to distant
sounds and yearned away to be gone. This was not lost upon the boy, who,
before he curled himself down to sleep, securely tied to a tree the end
of the cord that was about Jerry's neck.

After straining against the cord for a time, Jerry surrendered and slept.
But not for long. Skipper was too much with him. He knew, and yet he
did not know, the irretrievable ultimate disaster to Skipper. So it was,
after low whinings and whimperings, that he applied his sharp first-teeth
to the sennit cord and chewed upon it till it parted.

Free, like a homing pigeon, he headed blindly and directly for the beach
and the salt sea over which had floated the _Arangi_, on her deck Skipper
in command. Somo was largely deserted, and those that were in it were
sunk in sleep. So no one vexed him as he trotted through the winding
pathways between the many houses and past the obscene kingposts of
totemic heraldry, where the forms of men, carved from single tree trunks,
were seated in the gaping jaws of carved sharks. For Somo, tracing back
to Somo its founder, worshipped the shark-god and the salt-water deities
as well as the deities of the bush and swamp and mountain.

Turning to the right until he was past the sea-wall, Jerry came on down
to the beach. No _Arangi_ was to be seen on the placid surface of the
lagoon. All about him was the debris of the feast, and he scented the
smouldering odours of dying fires and burnt meat. Many of the feasters
had not troubled to return to their hous