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Updated: May 29, 2025
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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