tale and when she told of and dropped the pearl into s hand even she was reconciled to the reality of her mother in law in the said you will sell the pearl to for five thousand french the house objected he will build the house answered he says it will cost four thousand french also will he give one thousand french in credit which is two thousand and it will be six long ay answered six and in the middle room will be the drop clock ay and the round table as well then give me something to eat for i am hungry said complacently and after that we will sleep for i am weary and to morrow we will have more the house of talk about the house before we sell the pearl it will be better if we take the thousand french in cash money is ever better than credit in buying goods the the whale tooth the whale tooth it was in the early days in when john arose in the at village and announced his intention of carrying the gospel throughout all now means the great land it being the largest island in a group composed of many large islands to say nothing of hundreds of small ones here and there on the living by most precarious was a of de and the smoke of the hot arose under their windows and the bodies of the slain were dragged by their doors on the way to the the or the worship was slowly and often in fashion chiefs who announced themselves o the whale tooth christians and were welcomed into the body of the chapel had a distressing habit of in order to partake of the flesh of some favorite enemy eat or be eaten had been the law of the land and eat or be eaten promised to remain the law of the land for a long time to come there were chiefs such as and who had literally eaten hundreds of their fellow men but among these ra highest ra lived at he kept a register of his exploits a row of stones outside his house marked the bodies he had eaten this row was two hundred and thirty paces long and the stones in it numbered eight hundred and seventy two each stone represented a body the row of stones might have been longer had not ra unfortunately received a spear in the small of his back in a bush on and been served up on the table of whose me the whale tooth string of stones numbered only the hard worked fever stricken stuck to their task at times despairing and looking forward for some special some outburst of fire that would bring a glorious harvest of souls but had remained the headed man were to leave their so long as the harvest of human was plentiful sometimes when the harvest was too plentiful they imposed on the by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a promptly the would buy the lives of the victims with stick tobacco of and of trade beads the chiefs drove a handsome trade in thus of their live meat also they could always go out and catch more it was at this juncture that john star the whale tooth proclaimed that he would carry the gospel from coast to coast of the great land and that he would begin by penetrating the mountain of the of the river his words were received with consternation the native teachers wept softly his two fellow strove to him the king of warned him that the mountain would surely him � meaning to eat � and that he the king of having become would be put to the necessity of going to war with the mountain that he could not conquer them he was perfectly aware that they might come down the river and sack village he was likewise perfectly aware but what was he to do if john persisted in going out and being eaten there would be a war that would cost hundreds of lives later in the day a of chiefs waited upon john he the whale tooth heard them patiently and argued patiently with them though he not a whit from his purpose to his fellow he explained that he was not bent upon that the call had come for him to carry the gospel into and that he was merely obeying the lord s wish to the who came and objected most of all he your objections are they consist merely of the damage that may be done your you are interested in making money but i am interested in saving souls the heathen of this dark land must be saved john was not a he would have been the first man to deny the he was eminently sane and practical he was sure that his mission would result in good and he had private visions of the spark in the souls of the and of a revival that would sweep the whale tooth down out of the mountains and across the length and breadth of the great land from sea to sea and to the in the midst of the sea there were no wild lights in his mild gray eyes but only calm resolution and an trust in the higher power that was guiding him one man only he found who approved of his project and that was ra who secretly encouraged him and offered to lend him guides to the first john in turn was greatly pleased by ra s conduct from an heathen with a heart as black as his ra was beginning to light he even spoke of becoming true three years before he had expressed a similar intention and would have entered the church had not john entered objection to his bringing his four wives along with him 