As blind Nalasu slowly plodded¹ away, with one hand tapping the path before him and with the other carrying Jerry head-downward suspended by his tied legs, Jerry heard a sudden increase in the wild howling of the dogs as the killing² began and they realized that death was upon them.  
But, unlike the boy Lamai, who had known no better, the old man did not carry Jerry all the way to his house.  At the first stream pouring down between the low hills of the rising land, he paused and put Jerry down to drink.  And Jerry knew only the delight of the wet coolness on his tongue, all about his mouth, and down his throat.  Nevertheless, in his subconsciousness³ was being planted the impression that, kinder than Lamai, than Agno, than Bashti, this was the kindest black he had encountered in Somo.
 
When he had drunk till for the moment he could drink no more, he thanked Nalasu with his tongue—not warmly nor ecstatically as had it been Skipper’s hand, but with due gratefulness for the life-giving draught⁴.  The old man chuckled⁵ in a pleased way, rolled Jerry’s parched⁶ body into the water, and, keeping his head above the surface, rubbed the water into his dry skin and let him lie there for long blissful minutes.
 
From the stream to Nalasu’s house, a goodly distance, Nalasu still carried him with bound legs, although not head-downward but clasped in one arm against his chest.  His idea was to love the dog to him.  For Nalasu, having sat in the lonely dark for many years, had thought far more about the world around him and knew it far better than had he been able to see it.  For his own special purpose he had need of a dog.  Several bush dogs he had tried, but they had shown little appreciation⁷ of his kindness and had invariably run away.  The last had remained longest because he had treated it with the greatest kindness, but run away it had before he had trained it to his purpose.  But the white master’s dog, he had heard, was different.  It never ran away in fear, while it was said to be more intelligent than the dogs of Somo.
 
The invention Lamai had made of tying Jerry with a stick had been noised abroad in the village, and by a stick, in Nalasu’s house, Jerry found himself again tied.  But with a difference.  Never once was the blind man impatient, while he spent hours each day in squatting⁸ on his hams and petting Jerry.  Yet, had he not done this, Jerry, who ate his food and who was growing accustomed to changing his masters, would have accepted Nalasu for master.  Further, it was fairly definite in Jerry’s mind, after the devil devil doctor’s tying him and flinging him amongst the other helpless dogs on the killing-ground, that all mastership of Agno had ceased.  And Jerry, who had never been without a master since his first days in the world, felt the imperative⁹ need of a master.
 
So it was, when the day came that the stick was untied¹⁰ from him, that Jerry remained, voluntarily in Nalasu’s house.  When the old man was satisfied there would be no running away, he began Jerry’s training.  By slow degrees he advanced the training until hours a day were devoted¹¹ to it.
 
First of all Jerry learned a new name for himself, which was Bao, and he was taught to respond to it from an ever-increasing distance no matter how softly it was uttered, and Nalasu continued to utter it more softly until it no longer was a spoken word, but a whisper.  Jerry’s ears were keen, but Nalasu’s, from long use, were almost as keen.
 
Further, Jerry’s own hearing was trained to still greater acuteness.  Hours at a time, sitting by Nalasu or standing¹² apart from him, he was taught to catch the slightest sounds or rustlings from the bush.  Still further, he was taught to differentiate¹³ between the bush noises and between the ways he growled¹⁵ warnings to Nalasu.  If a rustle¹⁶ took place that Jerry identified as a pig or a chicken, he did not growl¹⁴ at all.  If he did not identify the noise, he growled fairly softly.  But if the noise were made by a man or boy who moved softly and therefore suspiciously, Jerry learned to growl loudly; if the noise were loud and careless, then Jerry’s growl was soft.
 
It never entered Jerry’s mind to question why he was taught all this.  He merely did it because it was this latest master’s desire that he should.  All this, and much more, at a cost of interminable time and patience, Nalasu taught him, and much more he taught him, increasing his vocabulary so that, at a distance, they could hold quick and sharply definite conversations.
 
Thus, at fifty feet away, Jerry would “Whuff!” softly the information that there was a noise he did not know; and Nalasu, with different sibilances, would hiss¹⁷ to him to stand still, to whuff more softly, or to keep silent, or to come to him noiselessly, or to go into the bush and investigate the source of the strange noise, or, barking loudly, to rush and attack it.
 
Perhaps, if from the opposite direction Nalasu’s sharp ears alone caught a strange sound, he would ask Jerry if he had heard it.  And Jerry, alert to his toes to listen, by an alteration¹⁸ in the quantity or quality of his whuff, would tell Nalasu that h............