Northward, along the leeward¹ coast of Malaita, the Ariel worked her leisurely² way, threading the colour-riotous lagoon³ that lay between the shore-reefs and outer-reefs, daring passages so narrow and coral-patched that Captain Winters averred⁴ each day added a thousand grey hairs to his head, and dropping anchor off every walled inlet of the outer reef and every mangrove⁵ swamp of the mainland that looked promising⁶ of cannibal life.  For Harley and Villa⁷ Kennan were in no hurry.  So long as the way was interesting, they dared not how long it proved from anywhere to anywhere.  
During this time Jerry learned a new name for himself—or, rather, an entire series of names for himself.  This was because of an aversion on Harley Kennan’s part against renaming a named thing.
 
“A name he must have had,” he argued to Villa.  “Haggin must have named him before he sailed on the Arangi.  Therefore, nameless he must be until we get back to Tulagi and find out his real name.”
 
“What’s in a name?” Villa had begun to tease.
 
“Everything,” her husband retorted.  “Think of yourself, shipwrecked, called by your rescuers ‘Mrs. Riggs,’ or ‘Mademoiselle de Maupin,’ or just plain ‘Topsy.’  And think of me being called ‘Benedict Arnold,’ or ‘ Judas,’ or . . . or . . . ‘Haman.’  No, keep him nameless, until we find out his original name.”
 
“Must call him something,” she objected.  “Can’t think of him without thinking something.”
 
“Then call him many names, but never the same name twice.  Call him ‘Dog’ to-day, and ‘Mister Dog’ to-morrow, and the next day something else.”
 
So it was, more by tone and emphasis and context of situation than by anything else, that Jerry came hazily⁸ to identify himself with names such as: Dog, Mister Dog, Adventurer, Strong Useful One, Sing Song Silly, Noname, and Quivering Love-Heart.  These were a few of the many names lavished⁹ on him by Villa.  Harley, in turn, addressed him as: Man-Dog, Incorruptible One, Brass¹⁰ Tacks¹¹, Then Some, Sin of Gold, South Sea Satrap, Nimrod, Young Nick, and Lion-Slayer.  In brief, the man and woman competed with each other to name him most without naming him ever the same.  And Jerry, less by sound and syllable¹² than by what of their hearts vibrated in their throats, soon learned to know himself by any name they chose to address to him.  He no longer thought of himself as Jerry, but, instead, as any sound that sounded nice or was love-sounded.
 
His great disappointment (if “disappointment” may be considered to describe an unconsciousness of failure to realize the expected) was in the matter of language.  No one on board, not even Harley and Villa, talked Nalasu’s talk.  All Jerry’s large vocabulary, all his proficiency¹³ in the use of it, which would have set him apart as a marvel¹⁴ beyond all other dogs in the mastery of speech, was wasted on those of the Ariel.  They did not speak, much less guess, the existence of the whiff-whuff shorthand language which Nalasu had taught him, and which, Nalasu dead, Jerry alone knew of all living creatures in the world.
 
In vain Jerry tried it on the lady-god.  Sitting squatted¹⁵ on his haunches, his head bowed forward and held between her hands, he would talk and talk and elicit¹⁶ never a responsive word from her.  With tiny whines¹⁷ and thin whimperings, with whiffs and whuffs and growly sorts of noises down in his throat, he would try to tell her somewhat of his tale.  She was all meltingness of sympathy; she would hold her ear so near to the articulate mouth of him as almost to drown him in the flowing fragrance¹⁸ of her hair; and yet her brain told her nothing of what he uttered, although her heart surely sensed his intent.
 
“Bless me, Husband-Man!” she would cry out.  “The Dog is talking.  I know he is talking.  He is telling me all about himself.  The story of his life is mine, could I but understand.  It’s right here pouring into my miserable¹⁹ inadequate²⁰ ears, only I can’t catch it.”
 
Harley was sceptical, but her woman’s intuition guessed aright.
 
“I know it!” she would assure her husband.  “I tell you he could tell the tale of all his adventures if only we had understanding.  No other dog has ever talked this way to me.  There’s a tale there.  I feel its touches.  Sometimes almost do I know he is telling of joy, of love, of high elation²¹, and combat.  Again, it is indignation, hurt of outrage²², despair and sadness.”
 
“Naturally,” Harley agreed quietly.  “A white man’s dog, adrift among the anthropophagi of Malaita, would experience all such sensations and, just as naturally, a white man’s woman, a Wife-Woman, a dear, delightful²³ Villa Kennan woman, can of herself imagine such a dog’s experiences and deem his silly noises a recital²⁴ of them, failing to recognize them as projections²⁵ of her own delicious, sensitive, sympathetic self.  The song of the sea from the lips of the shell—Pshaw!  The song oneself makes of the sea and puts into the shell.”
 
“Just the same—”
 
“Always the same,” he gallantly²⁶ cut her off.  “Always right, especially when most wrong.  Not in navigation, of course, nor in affairs such as the multiplication²⁷ table, where the brass tacks of reality stud the way of one’s ship among the rocks and shoals of the sea; but right, truth beyond truth to truth higher than truth, namely, intuitional truth.”
 
“Now you are laughing at me with your superior man-wisdom,” she retorted.  “But I know—” she paused for the strength of words she needed, and words forsook²⁸ her, so that her quick sweeping²⁹ gesture of hand-touch to heart named authority that overrode³⁰ all speech.
 
“We agree—I salute,” he laughed gaily³¹.  “It was just precisely³² what I was saying.  Our hearts can talk our heads down almost any time, and, best all, our hearts are always right despite the statistic³³ that they are mostly wrong.”
 
Harley Kennan did not believe, and never did believe, his wife’s report of the tales Jerry told.  And through all his days to the last one of them, he considered the whole matter a pleasant fancy, all poesy of sentiment, on Villa’s part.
 
But Jerry, four-legged, smooth-coated, Irish terrier that he was, had the gift of tongues.  If he could not teach languages, at least he could learn languages.  Without effort, and quickly, practically with no teaching, he began picking up the language of the Ariel.  Unfortunately, it was not a whiff-whuff, dog-possible language such as Nalasu had invented.  While Jerry came to understand much that was spoken on the Ariel, he could speak none of it.  Three names, at least, he had for the lady-god: “Villa,” “Wife-Woman,” “Missis Kennan,” for so he heard her variously called.  But he could not so call her.  This was god-language entire, which only gods could talk.  It was unlike the language of Nalasu’s devising, which had been a compromise between god-talk and dog-talk, so that a god and a dog could talk in the common medium.
 
In the same way he learned many names for the one-man god: “Mister Kennan,” “Harley,” “Captain Kennan,” and “Skipper.”  Only in the intimacy³⁴ of the three of them alone did Jerry hear him called: “Husband-Man,” “My Man,” “Patient One,” “Dear Man,” “Lover,” and “This Woman’s Delight.”  But in no way could Jerry utter these names in address of the one-man nor the many name............