A thousand deaths by Jack London

thee the word of Ivan is the law, that I am thy friend and no

friend of Ivan. For I come not willingly from my country by the

sea, and I desire greatly to live; wherefore I obey the will of my

master – as thou wilt obey, strange brother, if thou art wise, and

wouldst live.”

“Nay, strange brother,” Negore answered, “I know not the way my

people are gone, for I was sick, and they fled so fast my legs gave

out from under me, and I fell behind.”

Negore waited while Karduk talked with Ivan. Then Negore saw the

Russian’s face go dark, and he saw the men step to either side of

him, snapping the lashes of their whips. Whereupon he betrayed a

great fright, and cried aloud that he was a sick man and knew

nothing, but would tell what he knew. And to such purpose did he

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tell, that Ivan gave the word to his men to march, and on either

side of Negore marched the men with the whips, that he might not

run away. And when he made that he was weak of his sickness, and

stumbled and walked not so fast as they walked, they laid their

lashes upon him till he screamed with pain and discovered new

strength. And when Karduk told him all would he well with him when

they had overtaken his tribe, he asked, “And then may I rest and

move not?”

Continually he asked, “And then may I rest and move not?”

And while he appeared very sick and looked about him with dull

eyes, he noted the fighting strength of Ivan’s men, and noted with

satisfaction that Ivan did not recognize him as the man he had

beaten before the gates of the fort. It was a strange following

his dull eyes saw. There were Slavonian hunters, fair-skinned and

mighty-muscled; short, squat Finns, with flat noses and round

faces; Siberian half-breeds, whose noses were more like eagle-

beaks; and lean, slant-eyed men, who bore in their veins the Mongol

and Tartar blood as well as the blood of the Slav. Wild

adventurers they were, forayers and destroyers from the far lands

beyond the Sea of Bering, who blasted the new and unknown world

with fire and sword and clutched greedily for its wealth of fur and

hide. Negore looked upon them with satisfaction, and in his mind’s

eye he saw them crushed and lifeless at the passage up the rocks.

And ever he saw, waiting for him at the passage up the rocks, the

face and the form of Oona, and ever he heard her voice in his ears

and felt the soft, warm glow of her eyes. But never did he forget

to shiver, nor to stumble where the footing was rough, nor to cry

aloud at the bite of the lash. Also, he was afraid of Karduk, for

he knew him for no true man. His was a false eye, and an easy

tongue – a tongue too easy, he judged, for the awkwardness of

honest speech.

All that day they marched. And on the next, when Karduk asked him

at command of Ivan, he said he doubted they would meet with his

tribe till the morrow. But Ivan, who had once been shown the way

by Old Kinoos, and had found that way to lead through the white

water and a deadly fight, believed no more in anything. So when

they came to a passage up the rocks, he halted his forty men, and

through Karduk demanded if the way were clear.

Negore looked at it shortly and carelessly. It was a vast slide

that broke the straight wall of a cliff, and was overrun with brush

and creeping plants, where a score of tribes could have lain well

hidden.

He shook his head. “Nay, there be nothing there,” he said. “The

way is clear.”

Again Ivan spoke to Karduk, and Karduk said:

“Know, strange brother, if thy talk be not straight, and if thy

people block the way and fall upon Ivan and his men, that thou

shalt die, and at once.”

“My talk is straight,” Negore said. “The way is clear.”

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Still Ivan doubted, and ordered two of his Slavonian hunters to go

up alone. Two other men he ordered to the side of Negore. They

placed their guns against his breast and waited. All waited. And

Negore knew, should one arrow fly, or one spear be flung, that his

death would come upon him. The two Slavonian hunters toiled upward

till they grew small and smaller, and when they reached the top and

waved their hats that all was well, they were like black specks

against the sky.

The guns were lowered from Negore’s breast and Ivan gave the order

for his men to go forward. Ivan was silent, lost in thought. For

an hour he marched, as though puzzled, and then, through Karduk’s

mouth, he said to Negore:

“How didst thou know the way was clear when thou didst look so

briefly upon it?”

Negore thought of the little birds he had seen perched among the

rocks and upon the bushes, and smiled, it was so simple; but he

shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. For he was thinking,

likewise, of another passage up the rocks, to which they would soon

come, and where the little birds would all be gone. And he was

glad that Karduk came from the Great Fog Sea, where there were no

trees or bushes, and where men learned water-craft instead of land-

craft and wood-craft.

Three hours later, when the sun rode overhead, they came to another

passage up the rocks, and Karduk said:

“Look with all thine eyes, strange brother, and see if the way be

clear, for Ivan is not minded this time to wait while men go up

before.”

Negore looked, and he looked with two men by his side, their guns

resting against his breast. He saw that the little birds were all

gone, and once he saw the glint of sunlight on a rifle-barrel. And

he thought of Oona, and of her words: “And when the fighting

begins, it is for thee, Negore, to crawl secretly away so that thou

be not slain.”

He felt the two guns pressing on his breast. This was not the way

she had planned. There would be no crawling secretly away. He

would be the first to die when the fighting began. But he said,

and his voice was steady, and he still feigned to see with dull

eyes and to shiver from his sickness:

“The way is clear.”

And they started up, Ivan and his forty men from the far lands

beyond the Sea of Bering. And there was Karduk, the man from

Pastolik, and Negore, with the two guns always upon him. It was a

long climb, and they could not go fast; but very fast to Negore

they seemed to approach the midway point where top was no less near

than bottom.

A gun cracked among the rocks to the right, and Negore heard the

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96

war-yell of all his tribe, and for an instant saw the rocks and

bushes bristle alive with his kinfolk. Then he felt torn asunder

by a burst of flame hot through his being, and as he fell he knew

the sharp pangs of life as it wrenches at the flesh to be free.

But he gripped his life with a miser’s clutch and would not let it

go. He still breathed the air, which bit his lungs with a painful

sweetness; and dimly he saw and heard, with passing spells of

blindness and deafness, the flashes of sight and sound again

wherein he saw the hunters of Ivan falling to their deaths, and his

own brothers fringing the carnage and filling the air with the

tumult of their cries and weapons, and, far above, the women and

children loosing the great rocks that leaped like things alive and

thundered down.

The sun danced above him in the sky, the huge walls reeled and

swung, and still he heard and saw dimly. And when the great Ivan

fell across his legs, hurled there lifeless and crushed by a down-

rushing rock, he remembered the blind eyes of Old Kinoos and was

glad.

Then the sounds died down, and the rocks no longer thundered past,

and he saw his tribespeople creeping close and closer, spearing the

wounded as they came. And near to him he heard the scuffle of a

mighty Slavonian hunter, loath to die, and, half uprisen, borne

back and down by the thirsty spears.

Then he saw above him the face of Oona, and felt about him the arms

of Oona; and for a moment the sun steadied and stood still, and the

great walls were upright and moved not.

“Thou art a brave man, Negore,” he heard her say in his ear; “thou