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Johann Wolfgang Goethe - "Goetz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand"

Eliot Gregory - "Worldly Ways and Byways"

Dornford Yates - "Project Gutenberg Etext The Brother of Daphne"

J. Walker McSpadden - "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of A Justified Sinner"

Love of Life And Other Stories

J >> Jack London >> Love of Life And Other Stories




"And I took with me meat and fish, and the lash-marks of Ivan, and
I found Kamo-tah no longer groaning, but dead. Then I went back to
Nulato, and, behold, there was no Nulato - only ashes where the
great fort had stood, and the bodies of many men. And I saw the
Russians come up the Yukon in boats, fresh from the sea, many
Russians; and I saw Ivan creep forth from where he lay hid and make
talk with them. And the next day I saw Ivan lead them upon the
trail of the tribe. Even now are they upon the trail, and I am
here, Negore, but no coward."

"This is a tale I hear," said Oona, though her voice was gentler
than before. "Kamo-tah is dead and cannot speak for thee, and I
know only what I know, and I must know thee of my own eyes for no
coward."

Negore made an impatient gesture.

"There be ways and ways," she added. "Art thou willing to do no
less than what Old Kinoos hath done?"

He nodded his head, and waited.

"As thou hast said, they seek for us even now, these Russians.
Show them the way, Negore, even as Old Kinoos showed them the way,
so that they come, unprepared, to where we wait for them, in a
passage up the rocks. Thou knowest the place, where the wall is
broken and high. Then will we destroy them, even Ivan. When they
cling like flies to the wall, and top is no less near than bottom,
our men shall fall upon them from above and either side, with
spears, and arrows, and guns. And the women and children, from
above, shall loosen the great rocks and hurl them down upon them.
It will be a great day, for the Russians will be killed, the land
will be made clean, and Ivan, even Ivan who thrust out my father's
eyes and laid the lash of his dog-whip upon thee, will be killed.
Like a dog gone mad will he die, his breath crushed out of him
beneath the rocks. And when the fighting begins, it is for thee,
Negore, to crawl secretly away so that thou be not slain."

"Even so," he answered. "Negore will show them the way. And
then?"

"And then I shall be thy woman, Negore's woman, the brave man's
woman. And thou shalt hunt meat for me and Old Kinoos, and I shall
cook thy food, and sew thee warm parkas and strong, and make thee
moccasins after the way of my people, which is a better way than
thy people's way. And as I say, I shall be thy woman, Negore,
always thy woman. And I shall make thy life glad for thee, so that
all thy days will be a song and laughter, and thou wilt know the
woman Oona as unlike all other women, for she has journeyed far,
and lived in strange places, and is wise in the ways of men and in
the ways they may be made glad. And in thine old age will she
still make thee glad, and thy memory of her in the days of thy
strength will be sweet, for thou wilt know always that she was ease
to thee, and peace, and rest, and that beyond all women to other
men has she been woman to thee."

"Even so," said Negore, and the hunger for her ate at his heart,
and his arms went out for her as a hungry man's arms might go out
for food.

"When thou hast shown the way, Negore," she chided him; but her
eyes were soft, and warm, and he knew she looked upon him as woman
had never looked before.

"It is well", he said, turning resolutely on his heel. "I go now
to make talk with the chiefs, so that they may know I am gone to
show the Russians the way."

"Oh, Negore, my man! my man!" she said to herself, as she watched
him go, but she said it so softly that even Old Kinoos did not
hear, and his ears were over keen, what of his blindness.


Three days later, having with craft ill-concealed his hiding-place,
Negore was dragged forth like a rat and brought before Ivan - "Ivan
the Terrible" he was known by the men who marched at his back.
Negore was armed with a miserable bone-barbed spear, and he kept
his rabbit-skin robe wrapped closely about him, and though the day
was warm he shivered as with an ague. He shook his head that he
did not understand the speech Ivan put at him, and made that he was
very weary and sick, and wished only to sit down and rest, pointing
the while to his stomach in sign of his sickness, and shivering
fiercely. But Ivan had with him a man from Pastolik who talked the
speech of Negore, and many and vain were the questions they asked
him concerning his tribe, till the man from Pastolik, who was
called Karduk, said:

"It is the word of Ivan that thou shalt be lashed till thou diest
if thou dost not speak. And know, strange brother, when I tell
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
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."

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
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
art my man, Negore."

And in that moment he lived all the life of gladness of which she
had told him, and the laughter and the song, and as the sun went
out of the sky above him, as in his old age, he knew the memory of
her was sweet. And as even the memories dimmed and died in the
darkness that fell upon him, he knew in her arms the fulfilment of
all the ease and rest she had promised him. And as black night
wrapped around him, his head upon her breast, he felt a great peace
steal about him, and he was aware of the hush of many twilights and
the mystery of silence.

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