fore 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