That this was a precaution against danger, Jerry sensed without a passing thought to it.
All his life, from his first impressions of life, had been passed in the heart of danger, ever-impending, from the blacks.

In the plantation house at Meringe, always the several white men had looked askance at the many blacks who toiled for them and belonged to them.

In the living-room, where were the eating-table, the billiard-table, and the phonograph, stood stands of rifles, and in each bedroom, beside each bed, ready to hand, had been revolvers and rifles.

As well, _Mister_ Haggin and Derby and Bob had always carried revolvers in their belts when they left the house to go among their blacks.
Jerry knew these noise-making things for what they were--instruments of destruction and death.

He had seen live things destroyed by them, such as puarkas, goats, birds, and crocodiles.