e than vaguenesses of
sensations, sadly sweet, ghosts of memories that they were. At other
times, incited by such sadness, images of Skipper and Mister Haggin would
throng his mind; images, too, of Terrence, and Biddy, and Michael, and
the rest of the long-vanished life at Meringe Plantation.

"My dear," Harley said to Villa at the conclusion of one such singing,
"it's fortunate for him that you are not an animal trainer, or, rather, I
suppose, it would be better called 'trained animal show-woman'; for you'd
be topping the bill in all the music-halls and vaudeville houses of the
world."

"If I did," she replied, "I know he'd just love to do it with me--"

"Which would make it a very unusual turn," Harley caught her up.

"You mean . . .?"

"That in about one turn in a hundred does the animal love its work or is
the animal loved by its trainer."

"I thought all the cruelty had been done away with long ago," she
contended.

"So the audience thinks, and the audience is ninety-nine times wrong."

Villa heaved a great sigh of renunciation as she said, "Then I suppose I
must abandon such promising and lucrative career right now in the very
moment you have discovered it for me. Just the same the billboards would
look splendid with my name in the hugest letters--"

"Villa Kennan the Thrush-throated Songstress, and Sing Song Silly the
Irish-Terrier Tenor," her husband pictured the head-lines for her.

And with dancing eyes and lolling tongue Jerry joined in the laughter,
not because he knew what it was about, but because it tokened they were
happy and his love prompted him to be happy with them.

For Jerry had found, and in the uttermost, what his nature craved--the
love of a god. Recognizing the duality of their lordship over the
_Ariel_, he loved the pair of them; yet, somehow, perhaps because she had
penetrated deepest into his heart with her magic voice that transported
him to the land of Otherwhere, he loved the lady-god beyond all love he
had ever known, not even excluding his love for Skipper.

CHAPTER XXIII

One thing Jerry learned early on the _Ariel_, namely, that nigger-chasing
was not permitted. Eager to please and serve his new gods, he took
advantage of the first opportunity to worry a canoe-load of blacks who
came visiting on board. The quick chiding of Villa and the command of
Harley made him pause in amazement. Fully believing he had been
mistaken, he resumed his ragging of the partic