The end was now rapidly approaching. On September 29, less than a month after his arrival, he wrote: "The chief and his brother have both been here this morning and abused me shamefully. Their language I could not understand, but they spat in my face and, what was worse, upon the sacred images on the walls. Katlewah seized my vestments and carried them off, and I was left bleeding from a blow struck by an ivory club. Nikita has washed and bandaged my wounds; but from his anxious manner I can see that I am still in danger. The other boys have run away. My wound pains me so that I can scarcely—"
The rest is silence. Nikita, who escaped with Juvenal's journal and papers and delivered them to the revered and beloved Veniaminoff, relates that the young priest was here fallen upon and stabbed to death by his enemies.
Many different versions of this pathetic tragedy are given. I have chosen Bancroft's because he seems to have gone more deeply and painstakingly into the small details that add the touch of human interest than any other historian.
The vital interest of the story, however, lies in what no one has told, and what, therefore, no one but the romancer can ever tell.
It lies between the written lines; it lies in the imagination of this austere young priest's remorseful suffering for his sin. There is no sign that he realized—too late, as usual—his first sin of intolerant criticism and condemnation of the sins of others. But neither did he spare himself, nor shrink from the terrible results of his downfall, so unexpected in his lofty and almost flaunting virtue. He was ready, and eager, to chastise his flesh to atone for his sin; and probably only one who has spent a winter in Alaska could comprehend fully the hourly suffering that would result from a total renouncement of fuel for the long, dark period of winter.
Veniaminoff was of the opinion that the assassination was caused not so much by his preaching against polygamy as by the fact that the chiefs, having given him their children to educate at Kadiak, repented of their action, and being unable to recover them, turned against him and slew him as a deceiver, in their ignorance. During the fatal attack upon him, it is said, Juvenal never thought of flight or self-defence, but surrendered himself into their hands without resistance, asking only for mercy for his companions.
CHAPTER XXX
In 1792 Baranoff having risen to the command of the Shelikoff-Golikoff Company, decided to transfer the settlement of Three Saints to the northern end of the island, as a more central location for the distribution of supplies. To-day only a few crumbling ruins remain to mark the site of the first Russian settlement in America—an event of such vital historic interest to the United States that a monument should be erected there by this country.