A thousand deaths by Jack London

fear, he exulted in all he saw. He knew that since the beginning of time he

was the first white man ever to tread the mountain stronghold of Gatoka.

The grass houses clung to the steep mountain side or overhung the rushing

Rewa. On either side towered a mighty precipice. At the best, three hours of

sunlight penetrated that narrow gorge. No cocoanuts nor bananas were to be

seen, though dense, tropic vegetation overran everything, dripping in airy

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festoons from the sheer lips of the precipices and running riot in all the

crannied ledges. At the far end of the gorge the Rewa leaped eight hundred

feet in a single span, while the atmosphere of the rock fortress pulsed to the

rhythmic thunder of the fall.

From the Buli’s house, John Starhurst saw emerging the Buli and his followers.

“I bring you good tidings,” was the missionary’s greeting.

“Who has sent you?” the Buli rejoined quietly.

“God.”

“It is a new name in Viti Levu,” the Buli grinned. “Of what islands, villages,

or passes may he be chief?”

“He is the chief over all islands, all villages, all passes,” John Starhurst

answered solemnly. “He is the Lord over heaven and earth, and I am come to

bring His word to you.”

“Has he sent whale teeth?” was the insolent query.

“No, but more precious than whale teeth is the–”

“It is the custom, between chiefs, to send whale teeth,” the Buli interrupted.

“Your chief is either a niggard, or you are a fool, to come empty-handed into

the mountains. Behold, a more generous than you is before you.”

So saying, he showed the whale tooth he had received from Erirola.

Narau groaned.

“It is the whale tooth of Ra Vatu,” he whispered to Starhurst. “I know it

well. Now are we undone.”

“A gracious thing,” the missionary answered, passing his hand through his long

beard and adjusting his glasses. “Ra Vatu has arranged that we should be well

received.”

But Narau groaned again, and backed away from the heels he had dogged so

faithfully.

“Ra Vatu is soon to become Lotu,” Starhurst explained, “and I have come

bringing the Lotu to you.”

“I want none of your Lotu,” said the Buli, proudly. “And it is in my mind that

you will be clubbed this day.”

The Buli nodded to one of his big mountaineers, who stepped forward, swinging

a club. Narau bolted into the nearest house, seeking to hide among the woman

and mats; but John Starhurst sprang in under the club and threw his arms

around his executioner’s neck. From this point of vantage he proceeded to

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argue. He was arguing for his life, and he knew it; but he was neither excited

nor afraid.

“It would be an evil thing for you to kill me,” he told the man. “I have done

you no wrong, nor have I done the Buli wrong.”

So well did he cling to the neck of the one man that they dared not strike

with their clubs. And he continued to cling and to dispute for his life with

those who clamored for his death.

“I am John Starhurst,” he went on calmly. “I have labored in Fiji for three

years, and I have done it for no profit. I am here among you for good. Why

should any man kill me? To kill me will not profit any man.”

The Buli stole a look at the whale tooth. He was well paid for the deed.

The missionary was surrounded by a mass of naked savages, all struggling to

get at him. The death song, which is the song of the oven, was raised, and his

expostulations could no longer be heard. But so cunningly did he twine and

wreathe his body about his captor’s that the death blow could not be struck.

Erirola smiled, and the Buli grew angry.

“Away with you!” he cried. “A nice story to go back to the coast–a dozen of

you and one missionary, without weapons, weak as a woman, overcoming all of

you.”

“Wait, O Buli,” John Starhurst called out from the thick of the scuffle, “and

I will overcome even you. For my weapons are Truth and Right, and no man can

withstand them.”

“Come to me, then,” the Buli answered, “for my weapon is only a poor miserable

club, and, as you say, it cannot withstand you.”

The group separated from him, and John Starhurst stood alone, facing the Buli,

who was leaning on an enormous, knotted warclub.

“Come to me, missionary man, and overcome me,” the Buli challenged.

“Even so will I come to you and overcome you,” John Starhurst made answer,

first wiping his spectacles and settling them properly, then beginning his

advance.

The Buli raised the club and waited.

“In the first place, my death will profit you nothing,” began the argument.

“I leave the answer to my club,” was the Buli’s reply.

And to every point he made the same reply, at the same time watching the

missionary closely in order to forestall that cunning run-in under the lifted

club. Then, and for the first time, John Starhurst knew that his death was at

hand. He made no attempt to run in. Bareheaded, he stood in the sun and prayed

aloud–the mysterious figure of the inevitable white man, who, with Bible,

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bullet, or rum bottle, has confronted the amazed savage in his every

stronghold. Even so stood John Starhurst in the rock fortress of the Buli of

Gatoka.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” he prayed. “O Lord! Have mercy

upon Fiji. Have compasssion for Fiji. O Jehovah, hear us for His sake, Thy

Son, whom Thou didst give that through Him all men might also become Thy

children. From Thee we came, and our mind is that to Thee we may return. The

land is dark, O Lord, the land is dark. But Thou art mighty to save. Reach

out Thy hand, O Lord, and save Fiji, poor cannibal Fiji.”

The Buli grew impatient.

“Now will I answer thee,” he muttered, at the same time swinging his club with

both hands.

Narau, hiding among the women and the mats, heard the impact of the blow and

shuddered. Then the death song arose, and he knew his beloved missionary’s

body was being dragged to the oven as he heard the words:

“Drag me gently. Drag me gently.”

“For I am the champion of my land.”

“Give thanks! Give thanks! Give thanks!”

Next, a single voice arose out of the din, asking:

“Where is the brave man?”

A hundred voices bellowed the answer:

“Gone to be dragged into the oven and cooked.”

“Where is the coward?” the single voice demanded.

“Gone to report!” the hundred voices bellowed back. “Gone to report! Gone to

report!”

Narau groaned in anguish of spirit. The words of the old song were true. He

was the coward, and nothing remained to him but to go and report.

MAUKI

He weighed one hundred and ten pounds. His hair was kinky and negroid, and he

was black. He was peculiarly black. He was neither blue-black nor

purple-black, but plum-black. His name was Mauki, and he was the son of a

chief. He had three tambos. Tambo is Melanesian for taboo, and is first

cousin to that Polynesian word. Mauki’s three tambos were as follows: First,

he must never shake hands with a woman, nor have a woman’s hand touch him or

any of his personal belongings; secondly, he must never eat clams nor any food

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from a fire in which clams had been cooked; thirdly, he must never touch a

crocodile, nor travel in a canoe that carried any part of a crocodile even if

as large as a tooth.

Of a different black were his teeeth, which were deep black, or, perhaps

better, LAMP-black. They had been made so in a single night, by his mother,

who had compressed about them a powdered mineral which was dug from the

landslide back of Port Adams. Port Adams is a salt-water village on Malaita,

and Malaita is the most savage island in the Solomons–so savage that no

traders or planters have yet gained a foothold on it; while, from the time of

the earliest bˆche-de-mer fishers and sandalwood traders down to the latest

labor recruiters equipped with automatic rifles and gasolene engines, scores

of white adventurers have been passed out by tomahawks and soft-nosed Snider

bullets. So Malaita remains today, in the twentieth century, the stamping

ground of the labor recruiters, who farm its coasts for laborers who engage

and contract themselves to toil on the plantations of the neighboring and more

civilized islands for a wage of thirty dollars a year. The natives of those

neighboring and more civilized islands have themselves become too civilized to

work on plantations.

Mauki’s ears were pierced, not in one place, nor two places, but in a couple