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+Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Last of the Mohicans
+       A Narrative of 1757
+
+Author: James Fenimore Cooper
+
+Illustrator: N. C. Wyeth
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2009 [EBook #27681]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Greg Bergquist and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
+preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+ _The_ LAST _of the_ MOHICANS
+
+ A NARRATIVE OF 1757
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ _by_ JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
+
+ _Illustrated by_ N.C. Wyeth
+
+
+ "_Mislike me not for my complexion,
+ The shadowed livery of the burnished sun._"
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+ 1933
+
+ _Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                  FACING PAGE
+
+ UNCAS SLAYS A DEER                        26
+
+ Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to
+ his side, and passed his knife across the throat
+
+ THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS                 66
+
+ Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that effort,
+ and the result was, that both tottered on the brink of the
+ precipice
+
+ THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST                  114
+
+ The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception
+ of the protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le
+ Gros Serpent
+
+ THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS              166
+
+ As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm moved
+ towards them with a quick but graceful step, baring his head
+ to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly to the
+ earth in courtesy
+
+ THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE               214
+
+ The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were
+ sufficient of themselves to maintain the requisite distance,
+ deliberately laid aside his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle
+
+ THE TERMAGANT                            250
+
+ Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth her
+ long skinny arm, in derision
+
+ THE MASQUERADER                          268
+
+ The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the
+ honest, sturdy countenance of the scout
+
+ THE LOVERS                               278
+
+ Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the
+ distant village of the Delawares
+
+ THE SUPPLICANT                           320
+
+ Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched
+ in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a
+ beauteous and breathing model of her sex
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  "Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:
+  The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:
+  Say, is my kingdom lost?"
+
+  SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that
+the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before
+the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious
+boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
+France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who
+fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the
+rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
+mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
+martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the
+practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
+and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so
+dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from
+the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their
+vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant
+monarchs of Europe.
+
+Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate
+frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness
+of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies
+between the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.
+
+The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the
+combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the
+Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the
+borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural
+passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to
+master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,
+it received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so
+limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries
+to perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the
+title of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought
+they conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they
+bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of
+Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded
+scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of
+"Horican."[1]
+
+Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the
+"holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With
+the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of
+the water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the
+adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual
+obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the
+language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
+
+While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
+enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges
+of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial
+acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we
+have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which
+most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.
+Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities
+of the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory
+alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from
+the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient
+settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the
+sceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these
+forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
+haggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were
+unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its
+shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes
+of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of
+many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the
+noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
+
+It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
+attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which
+England and France last waged for the possession of a country that
+neither was destined to retain.
+
+The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of
+energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
+Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed, by the
+talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer
+dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of
+self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though
+innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her
+blunders, were but the natural participators.
+
+They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which,
+reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army
+led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors,
+for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of
+French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and
+spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself,
+with the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of
+Christendom.[2] A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected
+disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand
+fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the
+yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
+from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of
+their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of
+warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their
+recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
+have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of
+midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal
+and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveller related the
+hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled
+with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children
+which slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the
+magnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of
+reason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood,
+the slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the
+stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming
+doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who
+thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America
+subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
+relentless allies.
+
+When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered
+the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the
+lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army
+"numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more
+of the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior
+should feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had
+been brought, towards the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian
+runner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of a
+work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful
+reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between
+these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which
+originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the
+passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the
+son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
+of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting
+of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to
+one of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the
+other that of Fort Edward; calling each after a favorite prince of the
+reigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a
+regiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far too
+small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was
+leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay
+General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern
+provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the
+several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
+nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising
+Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army
+but little superior in numbers.
+
+But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and
+men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable
+antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their
+march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du
+Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance.
+
+After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a
+rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the
+margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the
+fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to
+depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern
+extremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor, soon
+became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the
+commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
+service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the
+intention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps
+and anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from
+point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his
+violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practised veteran
+made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance
+of haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently
+betrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the as yet
+untried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in
+a flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew
+its veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished;
+the last light finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer;
+the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling
+stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which
+reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.
+
+According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the
+army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling
+echoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista
+of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall
+pines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and cloudless
+eastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest
+soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his
+comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The
+simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
+and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right
+of the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position
+on its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The
+scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering
+vehicles that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning
+was mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants
+wheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high
+military bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of
+many a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While
+in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered
+array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter in
+distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass
+which had slowly entered its bosom.
+
+The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be
+borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had
+already disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of
+another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and
+accommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,
+who were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot
+were gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which
+showed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females,
+of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the
+country. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff;
+while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling
+mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the
+reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the
+pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this
+unusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some
+admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and
+others gazing at the preparations, with dull wonder of vulgar curiosity.
+There was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions, formed
+a marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,
+being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.
+
+The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without
+being in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints
+of other men, without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature
+surpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the
+ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed
+to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders
+narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not
+delicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of
+extraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered
+tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on
+which this false superstructure of the blended human orders was so
+profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the
+individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A
+sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long
+thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of
+the evil disposed. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely
+fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of
+white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and
+shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the
+costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of
+which was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,
+through the vanity or simplicity of its owner. From beneath the flap of
+an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk, heavily ornamented
+with tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which, from being
+seen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for some
+mischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon
+engine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp,
+though several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only
+without fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked
+hat, like those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years,
+surmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat
+vacant countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to
+support the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.
+
+While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb,
+the figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics,
+freely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the
+horses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.
+
+"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
+from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the
+blue water?" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and
+sweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: "I
+may speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at
+both havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named
+after the capital of Old England, and that which is called 'Haven,' with
+the addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the snows and brigantines
+collecting their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward
+bound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in
+four-footed animals; but never before have I beheld a beast which
+verified the true Scripture war-horse like this: 'He paweth in the
+valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed
+men. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle
+afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.' It would seem
+that the stock of the horse of Israel has descended to our own time;
+would it not, friend?"
+
+Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it
+was delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some
+sort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book
+turned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed
+himself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in the
+object that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still, upright,
+and rigid form of the "Indian runner," who had borne to the camp the
+unwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a state of
+perfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with characteristic
+stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a sullen
+fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to
+arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now
+scanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk
+and knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that
+of a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his
+person, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent
+exertion, which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The colors of
+the war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce
+countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and
+repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus
+produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star
+amid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness.
+For a single instant, his searching and yet wary glance met the
+wondering look of the other, and then changing its direction, partly in
+cunning, and partly in disdain, it remained fixed, as if penetrating the
+distant air.
+
+It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
+communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from
+the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other
+objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of
+gentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was
+wanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the
+war-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that
+was unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by; where,
+leaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology for a
+saddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was quietly
+making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same animal.
+
+A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two
+females, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to
+encounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the
+most juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted
+glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue
+eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow
+aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. The flush
+which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more
+bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day
+more cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth,
+as he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share
+equally in the attentions of the young officer, concealed her charms
+from the gaze of the soldiery, with a care that seemed better fitted to
+the experience of four or five additional years. It could be seen,
+however, that her person, though moulded with the same exquisite
+proportions, of which none of the graces were lost by the travelling
+dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than that of her
+companion.
+
+No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly
+into the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb,
+who, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin,
+and turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble,
+followed by their train, towards the northern entrance of the
+encampment. As they traversed that short distance, not a voice was
+heard amongst them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger
+of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and
+led the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and
+startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in
+the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed
+an indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye
+followed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were
+shining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not
+brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,
+that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither
+coarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely
+regular and dignified, and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in
+pity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of
+teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil,
+she bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were
+abstracted from the scene around her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  "Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!"
+
+  SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+While one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the
+reader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the
+alarm which induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness,
+she inquired of the youth who rode by her side,--
+
+"Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an
+especial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must
+close our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to
+draw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even
+before we are made to encounter the redoubtable Montcalm."
+
+"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his
+people, he may be accounted a hero," returned the officer. "He has
+volunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known, sooner
+than if we followed the tardy movements of the column: and, by
+consequence, more agreeably."
+
+"I like him not," said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more
+in real terror. "You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself
+so freely to his keeping?"
+
+"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he
+would not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He is
+said to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the
+Mohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations.[3] He was
+brought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which
+your father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt
+by--but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our
+friend."
+
+"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the
+now really anxious girl. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that
+I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me
+avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"
+
+"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.
+Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be
+ignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak
+it, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he
+stops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at
+hand."
+
+The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot
+where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the
+military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little
+inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.
+
+"Here, then, lies our way," said the young man, in a low voice.
+"Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to
+apprehend."
+
+"Cora, what think you?" asked the reluctant fair one. "If we journey
+with the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not
+feel better assurance of our safety?"
+
+"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you
+mistake the place of real danger," said Heyward. "If enemies have
+reached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts
+are abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps
+abound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours,
+having been determined within the hour, must still be secret."
+
+"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and
+that his skin is dark?" coldly asked Cora.
+
+Alice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett[4] a smart cut
+of the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the
+bushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The
+young man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even
+permitted her fairer though certainly not more beautiful companion to
+proceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the
+passage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the
+domestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating
+the thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which
+Heyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in
+order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian
+savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many
+minutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue;
+after which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew
+along the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark
+arches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted, and the
+instant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds,
+he moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which
+kept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode, at a fast yet easy
+amble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the
+distant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken
+way in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions
+drew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in
+order to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption.
+
+In a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, among the
+straight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the
+ungainly man described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as
+much rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without
+coming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the
+observation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any
+wandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his
+equestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention.
+Notwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the
+flanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was
+a Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward
+assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a
+loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces
+to the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the
+powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a
+true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost
+ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his
+sinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.
+
+The industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than
+those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the
+former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this
+manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and
+diminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be
+made as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in
+consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the
+mare appeared to journey faster than the other; and that the aggrieved
+flank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail,
+we finish the picture of both horse and man.
+
+The frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow
+of Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile,
+as he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to
+control her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted
+with a humor that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of
+its mistress repressed.
+
+"Seek you any here?" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived
+sufficiently nigh to abate his speed; "I trust you are no messenger of
+evil tidings?"
+
+"Even so," replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular
+castor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and
+leaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he
+responded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his
+breath, he continued, "I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am
+journeying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem
+consistent to the wishes of both parties."
+
+"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote," returned
+Heyward; "we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself."
+
+"Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once
+sure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next
+is, to act up to the decision. I have endeavored to do both, and here I
+am."
+
+"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route," said
+Heyward, haughtily; "the highway thither is at least half a mile behind
+you."
+
+"Even so," returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold
+reception; "I have tarried at 'Edward' a week, and I should be dumb not
+to have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be
+an end to my calling." After simpering in a small way, like one whose
+modesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a
+witticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he
+continued: "It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too
+familiar with those he is to instruct; for which reason I follow not the
+line of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your
+character has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have
+therefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made
+agreeable, and partake of social communion."
+
+"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!" exclaimed Heyward,
+undecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the
+other's face. "But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are
+you an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science
+of defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and
+angles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?"
+
+The stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then,
+losing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn
+humility, he answered:--
+
+"Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make
+none--by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last
+entreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about
+lines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called
+and set apart for that holy office. I lay claim to no higher gift than a
+small insight into the glorious art of petitioning and thanksgiving, as
+practised in psalmody."
+
+"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo," cried the amused
+Alice, "and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw
+aside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to
+journey in our train. Besides," she added, in a low and hurried voice,
+casting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps
+of their silent but sullen guide, "it may be a friend added to our
+strength, in time of need."
+
+"Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path,
+did I imagine such need could happen?"
+
+"Nay, nay, I think not of it now; but this strange man amuses me; and if
+he 'hath music in his soul,' let us not churlishly reject his company."
+She pointed persuasively along the path with her riding-whip, while
+their eyes met in a look which the young man lingered a moment to
+prolong; then yielding to her gentle influence, he clapped his spurs
+into his charger, and in a few bounds was again at the side of Cora.
+
+"I am glad to encounter thee, friend," continued the maiden, waving her
+hand to the stranger to proceed, as she urged her Narragansett to renew
+its amble. "Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not
+entirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by
+indulging in our favorite pursuit. It might be of signal advantage to
+one, ignorant as I, to hear the opinions and experience of a master in
+the art."
+
+"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in
+psalmody, in befitting seasons," returned the master of song,
+unhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow; "and nothing
+would relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four
+parts are altogether necessary to the perfection of melody. You have all
+the manifestations of a soft and rich treble; I can, by especial aid,
+carry a full tenor to the highest letter; but we lack counter and bass!
+Yon officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might
+fill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in
+common dialogue."
+
+"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances," said the
+lady, smiling; "though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on
+occasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow
+tenor than the bass you heard."
+
+"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?" demanded her
+simple companion.
+
+Alice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her
+merriment, ere she answered,--
+
+"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of
+a soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more
+sober inclinations."
+
+"Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and
+not to be abused. None can say they have ever known me neglect my gifts!
+I am thankful that, though my boyhood may be said to have been set
+apart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no
+syllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips."
+
+"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?"
+
+"Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the
+psalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the
+land, surpass all vain poetry. Happily, I may say that I utter nothing
+but the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for
+though the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version
+which we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other
+versions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual
+simplicity, it approacheth, as near as may be, to the great work of the
+inspired writer. I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without
+an example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition,
+promulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, _The Psalms,
+Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully
+translated into English Metre, for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of
+the Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England_."
+
+During this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the
+stranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of
+iron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and
+veneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution
+or apology, first pronouncing the word "Standish," and placing the
+unknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a
+high, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own
+voice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and
+melodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy
+motion of his ill-trained beast at defiance:--
+
+  "How good it is, O see,
+    And how it pleaseth well,
+  Together, e'en in unity,
+    For brethren so to dwell.
+  It's like the choice ointment,
+    From the head to the beard did go:
+  Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,
+    His garment's skirts unto."
+
+The delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the
+stranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which
+terminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on
+the leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish
+of the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate. It
+would seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment
+necessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had
+selected for the close of his verse, had been duly delivered like a word
+of two syllables.
+
+Such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not
+fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in
+advance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,
+who, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for
+the time, closing his musical efforts.
+
+"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey
+through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will,
+then, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting
+this gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity."
+
+"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl, "for never did
+I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that
+to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry
+into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you
+broke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!"
+
+"I know not what you call my bass," said Heyward, piqued at her remark,
+"but I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than
+could be any orchestra of Handel's music." He paused and turned his head
+quickly towards a thicket, and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their
+guide, who continued his steady pace, in undisturbed gravity. The young
+man smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining
+berry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage, and
+he rode forward, continuing the conversation which had been interrupted
+by the passing thought.
+
+Major Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous
+pride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long
+passed, before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were
+cautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage
+art and unbridled passions could make it, peered out on the retiring
+footsteps of the travellers. A gleam of exultation shot across the
+darkly painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced
+the route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward; the
+light and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the
+curvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of
+Heyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing-master was
+concealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark
+lines, in the intermediate space.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  "Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
+    Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
+  The melody of waters filled
+    The fresh and boundless wood;
+  And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,
+    And fountains spouted in the shade."
+
+  BRYANT.
+
+
+Leaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to
+penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous
+inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few
+miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.
+
+On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid
+stream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those
+who awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some
+expected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of
+the river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a
+deeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and
+the intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the
+springs and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the
+atmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy
+sultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,
+interrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy
+tap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling
+on the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.
+
+These feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the
+foresters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of
+their dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and
+wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,
+through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,
+though sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent
+from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy
+log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his
+earnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian
+engaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a
+terrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and
+black. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well
+known and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without
+ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,
+that crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk
+and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a
+short military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites
+armed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy
+knee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of
+this warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days,
+though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood.
+
+The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed
+by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and
+exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was
+rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung
+and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt
+of forest green, fringed with faded yellow[6], and a summer cap of skins
+which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of
+wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but
+no tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the
+natives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the
+hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides,
+and which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A
+pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of
+great length[7], which the theory of the more ingenious whites had
+taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a
+neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might
+be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on
+every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden
+approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual
+suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment
+at which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy
+honesty.
+
+"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook," he said,
+speaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly
+inhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac, and of which
+we shall give a free translation for the benefit of the reader;
+endeavoring, at the same time, to preserve some of the peculiarities,
+both of the individual and of the language. "Your fathers came from the
+setting sun, crossed the big river,[8] fought the people of the country,
+and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over
+the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been
+set them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends
+spare their words!"
+
+"My fathers fought with the naked redmen!" returned the Indian sternly,
+in the same language. "Is there no difference, Hawkeye, between the
+stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you
+kill?"
+
+"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red
+skin!" said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an
+appeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to
+be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again,
+he answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his
+limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who
+knows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel
+hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their
+grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head
+might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye."
+
+"You have the story told by your fathers," returned the other, coldly
+waving his hand. "What say your old men? do they tell the young
+warriors, that the pale-faces met the redmen, painted for war and armed
+with the stone hatchet and wooden gun?"
+
+"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural
+privileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an
+Iroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white," the scout replied,
+surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and
+sinewy hand; "and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of
+which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to
+write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in
+their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly
+boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for
+the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man who is
+too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the
+names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor
+feel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the
+Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must
+have been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy
+commandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I
+should be loth to answer for other people in such a matter. But every
+story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed,
+according to the traditions of the redmen, when our fathers first met?"
+
+A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then,
+full of the dignity of his office, he commenced his brief tale, with a
+solemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth.
+
+"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers
+have said, and what the Mohicans have done." He hesitated a single
+instant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he
+continued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and
+assertion, "Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer,
+until its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?"
+
+"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these
+matters," said the white man; "for I have been there, and have seen
+them; though, why water, which is so sweet in the shade, should become
+bitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to
+account."
+
+"And the current!" demanded the Indian, who expected his reply with that
+sort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at
+which he marvels even while he respects it; "the fathers of Chingachgook
+have not lied!"
+
+"The Holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in
+nature. They call this up-stream current the tide, which is a thing soon
+explained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours
+they run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the
+sea than in the river, they run in, until the river gets to be highest,
+and then it runs out again."
+
+"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until
+they lie like my hand," said the Indian, stretching the limb
+horizontally before him, "and then they run no more."
+
+"No honest man will deny it," said the scout, a little nettled at the
+implied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; "and I
+grant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level.
+But everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the
+small scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In
+this manner, pools and ponds, and even the great fresh-water lake, may
+be stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when
+you come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the
+earth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well
+expect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile
+above us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at
+this very moment!"
+
+If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far
+too dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was
+convinced, and resumed his narrative in his former solemn manner.
+
+"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, over great plains
+where the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we
+fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the
+banks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to
+meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should
+be ours from the place where the water runs up no longer on this stream,
+to a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken
+like warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with
+the bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from
+the great lake; we threw them the bones."
+
+"All this I have heard and believe," said the white man, observing that
+the Indian paused: "but it was long before the English came into the
+country."
+
+"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale-faces
+who came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my
+fathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then,
+Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion only by permitting
+his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which rendered his
+language, as spoken at times, so very musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were
+one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood
+its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we
+worshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of
+our songs of triumph!"
+
+"Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white.
+"But you are a just man, for an Indian! and, as I suppose you hold their
+gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the
+council fire."
+
+"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The
+blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch
+landed, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens
+and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found
+the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they
+were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a
+sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have
+never visited the graves of, my fathers!"
+
+"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned the scout, a good
+deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; "and they often aid
+a man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my
+own bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the
+wolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their
+kin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?"
+
+"Where are the blossoms of those summers!--fallen, one by one: so all of
+my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on
+the hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows
+in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the
+sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans."
+
+"Uncas is here!" said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,
+near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?"
+
+The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an
+involuntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden
+interruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head
+at the unexpected sounds.
+
+At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a
+noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No
+exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked,
+or reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment
+when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish
+impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs,
+and, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and
+reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son,
+and demanded,--
+
+"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these
+woods?"
+
+"I have been on their trail," replied the young Indian, "and know that
+they number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid,
+like cowards."
+
+"The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!" said the white man,
+whom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. "That
+bushy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but
+he will know what road we travel!"
+
+"Tis enough!" returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting
+sun; "they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us
+eat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow."
+
+"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois
+'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get
+the game--talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the
+biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the
+hill! Now, Uncas," he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a
+kind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, "I will
+bet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum,
+that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the
+left."
+
+"It cannot be!" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with
+youthful eagerness; "all but the tips of his horns are hid!"
+
+"He's a boy!" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and
+addressing the father. "Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the
+creatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be!"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+UNCAS SLAYS A DEER
+
+_Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side,
+and passed his knife across the throat_]
+
+Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill,
+on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece
+with his hand, saying--
+
+"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?"
+
+"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by
+instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like
+a man who was convinced of his error. "I must leave the buck to your
+arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to
+eat."
+
+The instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture
+of the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the
+animal with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he
+fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers
+moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another
+moment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing
+into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the
+very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated
+animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the
+throat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the
+waters with its blood.
+
+"'Twas done with Indian skill," said the scout, laughing inwardly, but
+with vast satisfaction; "and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an
+arrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work."
+
+"Hugh!" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who
+scented game.
+
+"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes
+began to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; "if they come
+within range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations
+should be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to
+my ears the woods are dumb."
+
+"There is but one deer, and he is dead," said the Indian, bending his
+body till his ear nearly touched the earth. "I hear the sounds of feet!"
+
+"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following
+on his trail."
+
+"No. The horses of white men are coming!" returned the other, raising
+himself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former
+composure. "Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them."
+
+"That will I, and in English that the king needn't be ashamed to
+answer," returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he
+boasted; "but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast;
+'tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a
+man who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although
+he may have lived with the redskins long enough to be suspected! Ha!
+there goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too--now I hear
+the bushes move--yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the
+falls--and--but here they come themselves; God keep them from the
+Iroquois!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  "Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
+  Till I torment thee for this injury."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the
+party, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the
+Indian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the
+periodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great
+distance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his
+red companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers,
+who had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest,
+advanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates,
+in readiness to receive them.
+
+"Who comes?" demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across
+his left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the
+trigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act, "Who
+comes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?"
+
+"Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,"
+returned he who rode foremost. "Men who have journeyed since the rising
+sun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly
+tired of their wayfaring."
+
+"You are, then, lost," interrupted the hunter, "and have found how
+helpless 'tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?"
+
+"Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them
+than we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the
+stature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of
+the crown called William Henry?"
+
+"Hoot!" shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though,
+instantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at
+less risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies. "You are as much
+off the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer!
+William Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business
+with the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to
+Edward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of
+pushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across
+Champlain, into his den again."
+
+Before the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition,
+another horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into
+the pathway, in front of his companion.
+
+"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?" demanded a new
+speaker; "the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our
+destination is the head of the lake."
+
+"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the
+road across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a
+path, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the
+palace of the king himself."
+
+"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage," returned
+Heyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. "It is
+enough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us
+by a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his
+knowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are."
+
+"An Indian lost in the woods!" said the scout, shaking his head
+doubtingly; "when the sun is scorching the tree-tops, and the
+water-courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees, will tell
+him in which quarter the north star will shine at night! The woods are
+full of deer paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known
+to everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters
+altogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican
+and the bend in the river. Is he a Mohawk?"
+
+"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was
+farther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued,
+until this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently
+indifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an
+activity and interest that had evidently got the better of their
+reserve, by surprise.
+
+"A Huron!" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open
+distrust; "they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are
+adopted; you can never make anything of them but skulks and vagabonds.
+Since you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only
+wonder that you have not fallen in with more."
+
+"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles in
+our front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,
+and that he serves with our forces as a friend."
+
+"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo," returned
+the other, positively. "A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican
+for honesty; and when they will fight, which they won't all do, having
+suffered their cunning enemies, the Maquas, to make them women--but when
+they will fight at all, look to a Delaware, or a Mohican, for a
+warrior!"
+
+"Enough of this," said Heyward, impatiently; "I wish not to inquire into
+the character of a man that I know, and to whom you must be a stranger.
+You have not yet answered my question: what is our distance from the
+main army at Edward?"
+
+"It seems that may depend on who is your guide. One would think such a
+horse as that might get over a good deal of ground atwixt sun-up and
+sun-down."
+
+"I wish no contention of idle words with you, friend," said Heyward,
+curbing his dissatisfied manner, and speaking in a more gentle voice;
+"if you will tell me the distance to Fort Edward, and conduct me
+thither, your labor shall not go without its reward."
+
+"And in so doing, how know I that I don't guide an enemy, and a spy of
+Montcalm, to the works of the army? It is not every man who can speak
+the English tongue that is an honest subject."
+
+"If you serve with the troops, of whom I judge you to be a scout, you
+should know of such a regiment of the king as the 60th."
+
+"The 60th! you can tell me little of the Royal Americans that I don't
+know, though I do wear a hunting-shirt instead of a scarlet jacket."
+
+"Well, then, among the other things, you may know the name of its
+major?"
+
+"Its major!" interrupted the hunter, elevating his body like one who was
+proud of his trust. "If there is a man in the country who knows Major
+Effingham, he stands before you."
+
+"It is a corps which has many majors; the gentleman you name is the
+senior, but I speak of the junior of them all; he who commands the
+companies in garrison at William Henry."
+
+"Yes, yes, I have heard that a young gentleman of vast riches, from one
+of the provinces far south, has got the place. He is over young, too, to
+hold such rank, and to be put above men whose heads are beginning to
+bleach; and yet they say he is a soldier in his knowledge, and a gallant
+gentleman!"
+
+"Whatever he may be, or however he may be qualified for his rank, he now
+speaks to you, and of course can be no enemy to dread."
+
+The scout regarded Heyward in surprise, and then lifting his cap, he
+answered, in a tone less confident than before, though still expressing
+doubt,--
+
+"I have heard a party was to leave the encampment this morning, for the
+lake shore."
+
+"You have heard the truth; but I preferred a nearer route, trusting to
+the knowledge of the Indian I mentioned."
+
+"And he deceived you, and then deserted?"
+
+"Neither, as I believe; certainly not the latter, for he is to be found
+in the rear."
+
+"I should like to look at the creatur'; if it is a true Iroquois I can
+tell him by his knavish look, and by his paint," said the scout,
+stepping past the charger of Heyward, and entering the path behind the
+mare of the singing-master, whose foal had taken advantage of the halt
+to exact the maternal contribution. After shoving aside the bushes, and
+proceeding a few paces, he encountered the females, who awaited the
+result of the conference with anxiety, and not entirely without
+apprehension. Behind these, the runner leaned against a tree, where he
+stood the close examination of the scout with an air unmoved, though
+with a look so dark and savage, that it might in itself excite fear.
+Satisfied with his scrutiny, the hunter soon left him. As he repassed
+the females, he paused a moment to gaze upon their beauty, answering to
+the smile and nod of Alice with a look of open pleasure. Thence he went
+to the side of the motherly animal, and spending a minute in a fruitless
+inquiry into the character of her rider, he shook his head and returned
+to Heyward.
+
+"A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor
+any other tribe can alter him," he said, when he had regained his former
+position. "If we were alone, and you would leave that noble horse at the
+mercy of the wolves to-night, I could show you the way to Edward,
+myself, within an hour, for it lies only about an hour's journey hence;
+but with such ladies in your company 'tis impossible!"
+
+"And why? they are fatigued, but they are quite equal to a ride of a few
+more miles."
+
+"'Tis a natural impossibility!" repeated the scout; "I wouldn't walk a
+mile in these woods after night gets into them, in company with that
+runner, for the best rifle in the colonies. They are full of outlying
+Iroquois, and your mongrel Mohawk knows where to find them too well, to
+be my companion."
+
+"Think you so?" said Heyward, leaning forward in the saddle, and
+dropping his voice nearly to a whisper; "I confess I have not been
+without my own suspicions, though I have endeavored to conceal them, and
+affected a confidence I have not always felt, on account of my
+companions. It was because I suspected him that I would follow no
+longer; making him, as you see, follow me."
+
+"I knew he was one of the cheats as soon as I laid eyes on him!"
+returned the scout, placing a finger on his nose, in sign of caution.
+"The thief is leaning against the foot of the sugar sapling, that you
+can see over them bushes; his right leg is in a line with the bark of
+the tree, and," tapping his rifle, "I can take him from where I stand,
+between the ankle and the knee, with a single shot, putting an end to
+his tramping through the woods, for at least a month to come. If I
+should go back to him, the cunning varmint would suspect something, and
+be dodging through the trees like a frightened deer."
+
+"It will not do. He may be innocent, and I dislike the act. Though, if I
+felt confident of his treachery--"
+
+"'Tis a safe thing to calculate on the knavery of an Iroquois," said the
+scout, throwing his rifle forward, by a sort of instinctive movement.
+
+"Hold!" interrupted Heyward, "it will not do--we must think of some
+other scheme; and yet, I have much reason to believe the rascal has
+deceived me."
+
+The hunter, who had already abandoned his intention of maiming the
+runner, mused a moment, and then made a gesture, which instantly brought
+his two red companions to his side. They spoke together earnestly in the
+Delaware language, though in an undertone; and by the gestures of the
+white man, which were frequently directed towards the top of the
+sapling, it was evident he pointed out the situation of their hidden
+enemy. His companions were not long in comprehending his wishes, and
+laying aside their fire-arms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the
+path, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious
+movements, that their steps were inaudible.
+
+"Now, go you back," said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward, "and
+hold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without breaking
+his paint."
+
+"Nay," said Heyward, proudly, "I will seize him myself."
+
+"Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the bushes?"
+
+"I will dismount."
+
+"And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he
+would wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to
+deal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to
+prosper in his undertakings. Go, then, talk openly to the miscreant, and
+seem to believe him the truest friend you have on 'arth."
+
+Heyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of
+the office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed
+upon him a conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered
+his invaluable trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun
+had already disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his
+light,[9] were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the
+hour the savage usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless
+acts of vengeance or hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by
+apprehension, he left the scout, who immediately entered into a loud
+conversation with the stranger that had so unceremoniously enlisted
+himself in the party of travellers that morning. In passing his gentler
+companions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement, and was pleased
+to find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day, they
+appeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was
+other than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was
+merely employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he
+spurred his charger, and drew the reins again, when the animal had
+carried him within a few yards of the place where the sullen runner
+still stood, leaning against the tree.
+
+"You may see, Magua," he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom
+and confidence, "that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no
+nearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with
+the rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate.
+But, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking
+to the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the
+woods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely
+till the morning."
+
+The Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his
+imperfect English, "Is he alone?"
+
+"Alone!" hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to
+be assumed without embarrassment. "O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you
+know that we are with him."
+
+"Then Le Renard Subtil will go," returned the runner, coolly raising his
+little wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; "and the
+pale-faces will see none but their own color."
+
+"Go! Whom call you Le Renard?"
+
+"'Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua," returned the
+runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. "Night
+is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him."
+
+"And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry
+concerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman
+that his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be
+one?"
+
+"Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will
+not hear him, or feel him, in the woods."
+
+"But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid
+him stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted
+with the business of a man."
+
+"Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones
+of his fathers," was the answer of the unmoved runner.
+
+"Enough, Magua," said Heyward; "are we not friends? Why should there be
+bitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services
+when performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary
+limbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to
+spare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the
+ladies are refreshed we will proceed."
+
+"The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women," muttered the
+Indian, in his native language, "and when they want to eat, their
+warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness."
+
+"What say you, Renard?"
+
+"Le Subtil says it is good."
+
+The Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of
+Heyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and
+seating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of
+some former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending
+his looks slowly and cautiously around him.
+
+"This is well," continued Heyward; "and Le Renard will have strength and
+sight to find the path in the morning;" he paused, for sounds like the
+snapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the
+adjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,--"we
+must be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path,
+and shut us out from the fortress."
+
+The hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his
+eyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his
+nostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than
+usual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to
+represent intense attention.
+
+Heyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly
+extricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand
+towards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect
+the point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the
+tremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single
+instant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be
+hardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil
+cautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and
+guarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change.
+Heyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg
+over the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and
+seize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood.
+In order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an
+air of calmness and friendship.
+
+"Le Renard Subtil does not eat," he said, using the appellation he had
+found most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. "His corn is not well
+parched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be
+found among my own provisions that will help his appetite."
+
+Magua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered
+their hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his
+riveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward
+moving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the
+young man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged,
+at a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the
+form of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in
+its paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed
+the shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that
+was accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter's rifle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+                      "In such a night
+  Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;
+  And saw the lion's shadow ere himself."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the
+pursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive
+surprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he
+dashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend
+his aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards,
+he met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful
+pursuit.
+
+"Why so soon disheartened!" he exclaimed; "the scoundrel must be
+concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not
+safe while he goes at large."
+
+"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed
+scout; "I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black
+snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I
+pulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a
+reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should
+call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in
+these matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its
+leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow
+blossom, in the month of July!"
+
+"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!"
+
+"No, no," returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,
+"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the
+longer for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks
+him, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens
+motion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But
+when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,
+a stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!"
+
+"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!"
+
+"Is life grievous to you?" interrupted the scout. "Yonder red devils
+would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you
+were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so
+often slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece
+within sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!
+'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such
+a fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent,
+or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,
+ag'in this hour to-morrow."
+
+This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool
+assurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face
+the danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge
+with which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with
+a vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy
+arches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid, his
+unresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those
+barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the
+gathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His
+awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each
+waving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and
+twenty times he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his
+lurking foes, peering from their hiding-places, in never-ceasing
+watchfulness of the movements of his party. Looking upward, he found
+that the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on the blue sky,
+were already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the
+imbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he stood, was to be
+traced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.
+
+"What is to be done?" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt
+in such a pressing strait; "desert me not, for God's sake! remain to
+defend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!"
+
+His companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe,
+heeded not this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was
+maintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a whisper,
+Heyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones
+of the younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.
+It was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure that
+nearly concerned the welfare of the travellers. Yielding to his
+powerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that seemed
+fraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the
+dusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more
+definite, when the white man, motioning, with his hand, as if he
+conceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,
+and in the English tongue,--
+
+"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless
+things to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place
+forever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the
+worst of serpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor
+resolution to throw away!"
+
+"How can such a wish be doubted! have I not already offered--"
+
+"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the
+cunning of the devils who fill these woods," calmly interrupted the
+scout, "but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to
+realize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man's
+thoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were
+never made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any
+other recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.
+First, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your
+friends, or without serving you, we shall only injure ourselves!"
+
+"Name them."
+
+"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen;
+and the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a
+secret from all mortal men."
+
+"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled."
+
+"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the
+heart's blood to a stricken deer!"
+
+Heyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through
+the increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps,
+swiftly, towards the place where he had left the remainder of his party.
+When they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly
+acquainted them with the conditions of their new guide, and with the
+necessity that existed for their hushing every apprehension, in instant
+and serious exertions. Although his alarming communication was not
+received without much secret terror by the listeners, his earnest and
+impressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the danger, succeeded
+in bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.
+Silently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist
+them from their saddles, when they descended quickly to the water's
+edge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more by the
+agency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.
+
+"What to do with these dumb creatures!" muttered the white man, on whom
+the sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; "it
+would be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river;
+and to leave them here, would be to tell the Mingos that they have not
+far to seek to find their owners!"
+
+"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods," Heyward
+ventured to suggest.
+
+"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they
+must equal a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will
+blind their fire-balls of eyes! Chingach--Hist? what stirs the bush?"
+
+"The colt."
+
+"That colt, at least, must die," muttered the scout, grasping the mane
+of the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; "Uncas, your arrows!"
+
+"Hold!" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without
+regard to the whispering tones used by the others; "spare the foal of
+Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would
+willingly injure naught."
+
+"When men struggle for the single life God has given them," said the
+scout sternly, "even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the
+wood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
+Draw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows."
+
+The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,
+when the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward
+to its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its
+throat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the
+struggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it
+glided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed
+of apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the
+travellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,
+heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors
+in the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,
+while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had
+just drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge
+and those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before
+the bosom of the forest.
+
+The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,
+they led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.
+
+At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed
+by the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a
+direction opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the
+scout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some
+low bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,
+into which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied
+without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown
+behind them towards the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark
+barrier along the margin of the stream.
+
+So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the
+element, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and
+posting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,
+followed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they
+proceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only interrupted by the
+rippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the low dash
+made by their own cautious footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of
+the canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or receded from the
+shore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the river,
+with a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.
+Occasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness,
+that the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render
+more impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any
+sounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that
+all was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practised
+senses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume
+his slow and unguarded progress. At length they reached a point in the
+river, where the roving eye of Heyward became riveted on a cluster of
+black objects, collected at a spot where the high bank threw a deeper
+shadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating to advance, he pointed
+out the place to the attention of his companion.
+
+"Ay," returned the composed scout, "the Indians have hid the beasts
+with the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes
+would be blinded by the darkness of such a hole."
+
+The whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held
+between the scout and his new comrades, during which, they whose fates
+depended on the faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a
+little leisure to observe their situation more minutely.
+
+The river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which
+impended above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were
+surmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the
+precipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep
+and narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree-tops,
+which were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay
+alike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks
+soon bounded the view, by the same dark and wooded outline; but in
+front, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled
+against the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued
+those sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,
+in truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a
+soothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic, though
+not unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors,
+however, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that
+night had assisted to lend the place, to a painful sense of their real
+peril.
+
+The horses had been secured to some scattered shrubs that grew in the
+fissures of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to
+pass the night. The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate
+fellow-travellers to seat themselves in the forward end of the canoe,
+and took possession of the other himself, as erect and steady as if he
+floated in a vessel of much firmer materials. The Indians warily
+retraced their steps towards the place they had left, when the scout,
+placing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail
+bark directly into the centre of the turbulent stream. For many minutes
+the struggle between the light bubble in which they floated, and the
+swift current, was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand,
+and almost afraid to breathe, lest they should expose the frail fabric
+to the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters in
+feverish suspense. Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were
+sweeping them to destruction, when the master-hand of their pilot would
+bring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid. A long, a vigorous, and,
+as it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the struggle.
+Just as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they
+were about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract,
+the canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a
+level with the water.
+
+"Where are we? and what is next to be done?" demanded Heyward,
+perceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.
+
+"You are at the foot of Glenn's," returned the other, speaking aloud,
+without fear of consequences, within the roar of the cataract; "and the
+next thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and you
+should go down again the hard road we have travelled, faster than you
+came up; 'tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;
+and five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in the hurry-skurry, with a
+little birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will
+bring up the Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without
+his scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty."
+
+His passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot
+touched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form
+of the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before
+it disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of
+the river. Left by their guide, the travellers remained a few minutes in
+helpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a
+false step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and
+roaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of
+them. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for aided by the skill
+of the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at
+the side of the low rock before they thought the scout had even time to
+rejoin his companions.
+
+"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned," cried Heyward,
+cheerfully, "and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,
+my vigilant sentinel, can you see anything of those you call the
+Iroquois, on the mainland?"
+
+"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign
+tongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!
+If Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the
+tribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and
+Oneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,
+among the French!"
+
+"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard
+that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
+called women!"
+
+"Ay, shame on the Hollanders[10] and Iroquois, who circumvented them by
+their deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty
+years, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins
+of a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and
+would now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night
+upon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign
+tongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle[11] of his tribe be in Canada,
+or be in New York."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the
+cause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches
+of the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,
+changed the subject.
+
+"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are
+brave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our
+enemies?"
+
+"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen," returned the scout,
+ascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. "I trust to
+other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the
+trail of the Mingos."
+
+"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?"
+
+"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout
+courage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but
+the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the
+wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian
+ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."
+
+"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the
+dead colt? Ha! what noise is that?"
+
+"Poor Miriam!" murmured the stranger; "thy foal was foreordained to
+become a prey to ravenous beasts!" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,
+amid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,--
+
+  "First born of Egypt, smite did He,
+  Of mankind, and of beast also;
+  O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,
+  On Pharaoh and his servants too!"
+
+"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner," said the
+scout; "but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.
+He has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will
+happen; and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits
+to the rationality of killing a four-footed beast, to save the lives of
+human men. It may be as you say," he continued, reverting to the purport
+of Heyward's last remark; "and the greater the reason why we should cut
+our steaks, and let the carcase drive down the stream, or we shall have
+the pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.
+Besides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the
+Iroquois, the cunning varlets are quick enough at understanding the
+reason of a wolf's howl."
+
+The scout, whilst making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain
+necessary implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of
+travellers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his
+intentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared
+in succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a
+perpendicular rock, that rose to the height of a few yards within as
+many feet of the water's edge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  "Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;
+  He wales a portion with judicious care;
+  And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air."
+
+  BURNS.
+
+
+Heyward, and his female companions, witnessed this mysterious movement
+with secret uneasiness; for, though the conduct of the white man had
+hitherto been above reproach, his rude equipments, blunt address, and
+strong antipathies, together with the character of his silent
+associates, were all causes for exciting distrust in minds that had been
+so recently alarmed by Indian treachery.
+
+The stranger alone disregarded the passing incidents. He seated himself
+on a projection of the rocks, whence he gave no other signs of
+consciousness than by the struggles of his spirit, as manifested in
+frequent and heavy sighs. Smothered voices were next heard, as though
+men called to each other in the bowels of the earth, when a sudden light
+flashed upon those without, and laid bare the much-prized secret of the
+place.
+
+At the farther extremity of a narrow, deep cavern in the rock, whose
+length appeared much extended by the perspective and the nature of the
+light by which it was seen, was seated the scout, holding a blazing knot
+of pine. The strong glare of the fire fell full upon his sturdy,
+weather-beaten countenance and forest attire, lending an air of romantic
+wildness to the aspect of an individual, who, seen by the sober light of
+day, would have exhibited the peculiarities of a man remarkable for the
+strangeness of his dress, the iron-like inflexibility of his frame, and
+the singular compound of quick, vigilant sagacity, and of exquisite
+simplicity, that by turns usurped the possession of his muscular
+features. At a little distance in advance stood Uncas, his whole person
+thrown powerfully into view. The travellers anxiously regarded the
+upright, flexible figure of the young Mohican, graceful and unrestrained
+in the attitudes and movements of nature. Though his person was more
+than usually screened by a green and fringed hunting-shirt, like that of
+the white man, there was no concealment to his dark, glancing, fearless
+eye, alike terrible and calm; the bold outline of his high, haughty
+features, pure in their native red; or to the dignified elevation of his
+receding forehead, together with all the finest proportions of a noble
+head, bared to the generous scalping tuft. It was the first opportunity
+possessed by Duncan and his companions, to view the marked lineaments of
+either of their Indian attendants, and each individual of the party felt
+relieved from a burden of doubt, as the proud and determined, though
+wild expression of the features of the young warrior forced itself on
+their notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the
+vale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote
+his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The
+ingenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would
+have looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which
+life had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward,
+though accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the
+uncorrupted natives, openly expressed his admiration at such an
+unblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man.
+
+"I could sleep in peace," whispered Alice, in reply, "with such a
+fearless and generous looking youth for my sentinel. Surely, Duncan,
+those cruel murders, those terrific scenes of torture, of which we read
+and hear so much, are never acted in the presence of such as he!"
+
+"This, certainly, is a rare and brilliant instance of those natural
+qualities, in which these peculiar people are said to excel," he
+answered. "I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and
+eye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not
+practise a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition
+of what we esteem virtue than according to the fashion of a savage. As
+bright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among
+Christians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though,
+for the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing
+them. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes,
+but prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant
+friend."
+
+"Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should," said Cora; "who,
+that looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!"
+
+A short, and apparently an embarrassed silence succeeded this remark,
+which was interrupted by the scout calling to them, aloud, to enter.
+
+"This fire begins to show too bright a flame," he continued, as they
+complied, "and might light the Mingos to our undoing. Uncas, drop the
+blanket, and show the knaves its dark side. This is not such a supper as
+a major of the Royal Americans has a right to expect, but I've known
+stout detachments of the corps glad to eat their venison raw, and
+without a relish too.[12] Here, you see, we have plenty of salt, and can
+make a quick broil. There's fresh sassafras boughs for the ladies to sit
+on, which may not be as proud as their my-hog-guinea chairs, but which
+sends up a sweeter flavor than the skin of any hog can do, be it of
+Guinea, or be it of any other land. Come, friend, don't be mournful for
+the colt; 'twas an innocent thing, and had not seen much hardship. Its
+death will save the creature many a sore back and weary foot!"
+
+Uncas did as the other had directed, and when the voice of Hawkeye
+ceased, the roar of the cataract sounded like the rumbling of distant
+thunder.
+
+"Are we quite safe in this cavern?" demanded Heyward. "Is there no
+danger of surprise? A single armed man, at its entrance, would hold us
+at his mercy."
+
+A spectral-looking figure stalked from out the darkness behind the
+scout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it towards the farther
+extremity of their place of retreat. Alice uttered a faint shriek, and
+even Cora rose to her feet, as this appalling object moved into the
+light; but a single word from Heyward calmed them, with the assurance it
+was only their attendant, Chingachgook, who, lifting another blanket,
+discovered that the cavern had two outlets. Then, holding the brand, he
+crossed a deep, narrow chasm in the rocks, which ran at right angles
+with the passage they were in, but which, unlike that, was open to the
+heavens, and entered another cave, answering to the description of the
+first, in every essential particular.
+
+"Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often caught in a
+burrow with one hole," said Hawkeye, laughing; "you can easily see the
+cunning of the place--the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows
+is soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is
+scarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say
+was, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any
+along the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these
+sweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These
+rocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at
+othersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until
+it has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing
+there, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency."
+
+"In what part of them are we?" asked Heyward.
+
+"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but
+where, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved
+softer on each side of us, and so they left the centre of the river bare
+and dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in."
+
+"We are then on an island?"
+
+"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and
+below. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up on
+the height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It
+falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;
+there, it skips; here, it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and
+in another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep
+hollows, that rumble and quake the 'arth; and hereaway, it ripples and
+sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gulleys in the old stone,
+as it 'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river
+seems disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the
+descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the
+shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if
+unwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt! Ay, lady,
+the fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat, is coarse, and
+like a fish-net, to little spots I can show you, where the river
+fabricates all sorts of images, as if, having broke loose from order, it
+would try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After
+the water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a
+headstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a
+few rods below you may see it all, flowing on steadily towards the sea,
+as was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!"
+
+While his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of
+their place of concealment, from this untutored description of
+Glenn's,[13] they were much inclined to judge differently from Hawkeye,
+of its wild beauties. But they were not in a situation to suffer their
+thoughts to dwell on the charms of natural objects; and, as the scout
+had not found it necessary to cease his culinary labors while he spoke,
+unless to point out, with a broken fork, the direction of some
+particularly obnoxious point in the rebellious stream, they now suffered
+their attention to be drawn to the necessary, though more vulgar
+consideration of their supper.
+
+The repast, which was greatly aided by the addition of a few delicacies
+that Heyward had the precaution to bring with him when they left their
+horses, was exceedingly refreshing to the wearied party. Uncas acted as
+attendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his
+power, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse
+Heyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian
+customs, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial
+employment, especially in favor of their women. As the rites of
+hospitality were, however, considered sacred among them, this little
+departure from the dignity of manhood excited no audible comment. Had
+there been one there sufficiently disengaged to become a close observer,
+he might have fancied that the services of the young chief were not
+entirely impartial. That while he tendered to Alice the gourd of sweet
+water and the venison in a trencher, neatly carved from the knot of the
+pepperidge, with sufficient courtesy, in performing the same offices to
+her sister, his dark eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance.
+Once or twice he was compelled to speak, to command the attention of
+those he served. In such cases, he made use of English, broken and
+imperfect, but sufficiently intelligible, and which he rendered so mild
+and musical, by his deep,[14] guttural voice, that it never failed to
+cause both ladies to look up in admiration and astonishment. In the
+course of these civilities, a few sentences were exchanged, that served
+to establish the appearance of an amicable intercourse between the
+parties.
+
+In the meanwhile, the gravity of Chingachgook remained immovable. He had
+seated himself more within the circle of light, where the frequent
+uneasy glances of his guests were better enabled to separate the natural
+expression of his face from the artificial terrors of the war-paint.
+They found a strong resemblance between father and son, with the
+difference that might be expected from age and hardships. The fierceness
+of his countenance now seemed to slumber, and in its place was to be
+seen the quiet, vacant composure, which distinguishes an Indian warrior,
+when his faculties are not required for any of the greater purposes of
+his existence. It was, however, easy to be seen, by the occasional
+gleams that shot across his swarthy visage, that it was only necessary
+to arouse his passions, in order to give full effect to the terrific
+device which he had adopted to intimidate his enemies. On the other
+hand, the quick, roving eye of the scout seldom rested. He ate and drank
+with an appetite that no sense of danger could disturb, but his
+vigilance seemed never to desert him. Twenty times the gourd or the
+venison was suspended before his lips, while his head was turned aside,
+as though he listened to some distant and distrusted sounds--a movement
+that never failed to recall his guests from regarding the novelties of
+their situation, to a recollection of the alarming reasons that had
+driven them to seek it. As these frequent pauses were never followed by
+any remark, the momentary uneasiness they created quickly passed away,
+and for a time was forgotten.
+
+"Come, friend," said Hawkeye, drawing out a keg from beneath a cover of
+leaves, towards the close of the repast, and addressing the stranger who
+sat at his elbow, doing great justice to his culinary skill, "try a
+little spruce; 'twill wash away all thoughts of the colt, and quicken
+the life in your bosom. I drink to our better friendship, hoping that a
+little horse-flesh may leave no heartburnings atween us. How do you name
+yourself?"
+
+"Gamut--David Gamut," returned the singing-master, preparing to wash
+down his sorrows in a powerful draught of the woodman's high-flavored
+and well-laced compound.
+
+"A very good name, and, I dare say, handed down from honest
+forefathers. I'm an admirator of names, though the Christian fashions
+fall far below savage customs in this particular. The biggest coward I
+ever knew was called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out
+of hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod. With an
+Indian 'tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally
+is--not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a
+snake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings
+of human natur', and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least
+expect him. What may be your calling?"
+
+"I am an unworthy instructor in the art of psalmody."
+
+"Anan!"
+
+"I teach singing to the youths, of the Connecticut levy."
+
+"You might be better employed. The young hounds go laughing and singing
+too much already through the woods, when they ought not to breathe
+louder than a fox in his cover. Can you use the smooth bore, or handle
+the rifle?"
+
+"Praised be God, I have never had occasion to meddle with murderous
+implements!"
+
+"Perhaps you understand the compass, and lay down the water-courses and
+mountains of the wilderness on paper, in order that they who follow may
+find places by their given names?"
+
+"I practise no such employment."
+
+"You have a pair of legs that might make a long path seem short! you
+journey sometimes, I fancy, with tidings for the general."
+
+"Never; I follow no other than my own high vocation, which is
+instruction in sacred music!"
+
+"'Tis a strange calling!" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, "to go
+through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may
+happen to come out of other men's throats. Well, friend, I suppose it is
+your gift, and mustn't be denied any more than if 'twas shooting, or
+some other better inclination. Let us hear what you can do in that way;
+'twill be a friendly manner of saying good-night, for 'tis time that
+these ladies should be getting strength for a hard and a long push, in
+the pride of the morning, afore the Maquas are stirring!"
+
+"With joyful pleasure do I consent," said David, adjusting his
+iron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which
+he immediately tendered to Alice. "What can be more fitting and
+consolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such
+exceeding jeopardy!"
+
+Alice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.
+
+"Indulge yourself," he whispered: "ought not the suggestion of the
+worthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?"
+
+Encouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her
+keen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book
+was open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the
+poet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of
+Israel, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora
+betrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song
+proceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and
+the tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.
+
+The air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of
+the rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy
+excitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran
+through their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and
+true ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined
+cavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling
+notes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the
+rocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into
+stone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an
+expression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features
+to relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature
+subdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his
+ears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the
+settlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before
+the hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long
+seemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener
+felt the storms of heaven than any testimonials of weakness. The singers
+were dwelling on one of those low, dying chords, which the ear devours
+with such greedy rapture, as if conscious that it is about to lose them,
+when a cry, that seemed neither human nor earthly, rose in the outward
+air, penetrating not only the recesses of the cavern, but to the inmost
+hearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a stillness apparently as
+deep as if the waters had been checked in their furious progress, at
+such a horrid and unusual interruption.
+
+"What is it?" murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible suspense.
+
+"What is it?" repeated Heyward aloud.
+
+Neither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if
+expecting the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed
+their own astonishment. At length they spoke together earnestly, in the
+Delaware language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed
+aperture, cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first
+spoke in English.
+
+"What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell; though two of us
+have ranged the woods for more than thirty years! I did believe there
+was no cry that Indians or beast could make, that my ears had not heard;
+but this has proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal!"
+
+"Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to
+intimidate their enemies?" asked Cora, who stood drawing her veil about
+her person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.
+
+"No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound;
+but when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for
+anything else! Well, Uncas!" speaking in Delaware to the young chief as
+he re-entered, "what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?"
+
+The answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same
+tongue.
+
+"There is nothing to be seen without," continued Hawkeye, shaking his
+head in discontent; "and our hiding-place is still in darkness! Pass
+into the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be
+afoot long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to
+Edward, while the Mingos are taking their morning nap."
+
+Cora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the
+more timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place,
+however, she whispered a request to Duncan that he would follow. Uncas
+raised the blanket for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank
+him for this act of attention, they saw the scout seated again before
+the dying embers, with his face resting on his hands, in a manner which
+showed how deeply he brooded on the unaccountable interruption which
+had broken up their evening devotions.
+
+Heyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through
+the narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable
+position, he joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him
+for the first time since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort
+Edward.
+
+"Leave us not, Duncan," said Alice; "we cannot sleep in such a place as
+this, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears!"
+
+"First let us examine into the security of your fortress," he answered,
+"and then we will speak of rest."
+
+He approached the farther end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like
+the others, was concealed by blankets, and removing the thick screen,
+breathed the fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the
+river flowed through a deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn
+in the soft rock, directly beneath his feet, forming an effectual
+defence, as he believed, against any danger from that quarter; the
+water, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing, and sweeping along, in
+its most violent and broken manner.
+
+"Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side," he continued,
+pointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current, before
+he dropped the blanket; "and as you know that good men and true are on
+guard in front, I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should
+be disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is
+necessary to you both."
+
+"Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion, though she cannot put
+it in practise," returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by
+the side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; "there would be other causes
+to chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this
+mysterious noise. Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the
+anxiety a father must endure, whose children lodge, he knows not where
+or how, in such a wilderness, and in the midst of so many perils?"
+
+"He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the woods."
+
+"He is a father, and cannot deny his nature."
+
+"How kind has he ever been to all my follies! how tender and indulgent
+to all my wishes!" sobbed Alice. "We have been selfish, sister, in
+urging our visit at such hazard!"
+
+"I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much
+embarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might
+neglect him in his strait, his children at least were faithful!"
+
+"When he heard of your arrival at Edward," said Heyward, kindly, "there
+was a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though the
+latter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly
+prevailed. 'It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them,
+Duncan,' he said, 'and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he who
+holds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but
+half her firmness!'"
+
+"And did he not speak of me, Heyward?" demanded Alice, with jealous
+affection. "Surely, he forgot not altogether his little Elsie?"
+
+"That was impossible," returned the young man; "he called you by a
+thousand endearing epithets, that I may not presume to use, but to the
+justice of which I can warmly testify. Once, indeed, he said--"
+
+Duncan ceased speaking; for while his eyes were riveted on those of
+Alice, who had turned towards him with the eagerness of filial
+affection, to catch his words, the same strong horrid cry, as before,
+filled the air, and rendered him mute. A long, breathless silence
+succeeded, during which each looked at the others in fearful expectation
+of hearing the sound repeated. At length the blanket was slowly raised,
+and the scout stood in the aperture with a countenance whose firmness
+evidently began to give way, before a mystery that seemed to threaten
+some danger, against which all his cunning and experience might prove of
+no avail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+                  "They do not sleep.
+  On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
+  I see them sit."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+"'Twould be neglecting a warning that is given for our good, to lie hid
+any longer," said Hawkeye, "when such sounds are raised in the forest!
+The gentle ones may keep close, but the Mohicans and I will watch upon
+the rock, where I suppose a major of the 60th would wish to keep us
+company."
+
+"Is then our danger so pressing?" asked Cora.
+
+"He who makes strange sounds, and gives them out for man's information,
+alone knows our danger. I should think myself wicked, unto rebellion
+against his will, was I to burrow with such warnings in the air! Even
+the weak soul who passes his days in singing, is stirred by the cry,
+and, as he says, is 'ready to go forth to the battle.' If 'twere only a
+battle, it would be a thing understood by us all, and easily managed;
+but I have heard that when such shrieks are atween heaven and 'arth, it
+betokens another sort of warfare!"
+
+"If all our reasons for fear, my friend, are confined to such as proceed
+from supernatural causes, we have but little occasion to be alarmed,"
+continued the undisturbed Cora; "are you certain that our enemies have
+not invented some new and ingenious method to strike us with terror,
+that their conquest may become more easy?"
+
+"Lady," returned the scout, solemnly, "I have listened to all the sounds
+of the woods for thirty years, as a man will listen, whose life and
+death depend on the quickness of his ears. There is no whine of the
+panther, no whistle of the catbird, nor any invention of the devilish
+Mingos, that can cheat me! I have heard the forest moan like mortal men
+in their affliction; often, and again, have I listened to the wind
+playing its music in the branches of the girdled trees; and I have heard
+the lightning cracking in the air, like the snapping of blazing brush,
+as it spitted forth sparks and forked flames; but never have I thought
+that I heard more than the pleasure of Him who sported with the things
+of his hand. But neither the Mohicans, nor I, who am a white man without
+a cross, can explain the cry just heard. We, therefore, believe it a
+sign given for our good."
+
+"It is extraordinary!" said Heyward, taking his pistols from the place
+where he had laid them on entering; "be it a sign of peace or a signal
+of war, it must be looked to. Lead the way, my friend; I follow."
+
+On issuing from their place of confinement, the whole party instantly
+experienced a grateful renovation of spirits, by exchanging the pent air
+of the hiding-place for the cool and invigorating atmosphere, which
+played around the whirlpools and pitches of the cataract. A heavy
+evening breeze swept along the surface of the river, and seemed to drive
+the roar of the falls into the recesses of their own caverns, whence it
+issued heavily and constant, like thunder rumbling beyond the distant
+hills. The moon had risen, and its light was already glancing here and
+there on the waters above them; but the extremity of the rock where they
+stood still lay in shadow. With the exception of the sounds produced by
+the rushing waters, and an occasional breathing of the air, as it
+murmured past them in fitful currents, the scene was as still as night
+and solitude could make it. In vain were the eyes of each individual
+bent along the opposite shores, in quest of some signs of life, that
+might explain the nature of the interruption they had heard. Their
+anxious and eager looks were baffled by the deceptive light, or rested
+only on naked rocks, and straight and immovable trees.
+
+"There is nothing to be seen but the gloom and quiet of a lovely
+evening," whispered Duncan: "how much should we prize such a scene, and
+all this breathing solitude, at any other moment, Cora! Fancy yourselves
+in security and what now, perhaps, increases your terror, may be made
+conducive to enjoyment--"
+
+"Listen!" interrupted Alice.
+
+The caution was unnecessary. Once more the same sound arose, as if from
+the bed of the river, and having broken out of the narrow bounds of the
+cliffs, was heard undulating through the forest, in distant and dying
+cadences.
+
+"Can any here give a name to such a cry?" demanded Hawkeye, when the
+last echo was lost in the woods; "if so, let him speak; for myself, I
+judge it not to belong to 'arth!"
+
+"Here, then, is one who can undeceive you," said Duncan; "I know the
+sound full well, for often have I heard it on the field of battle, and
+in situations which are frequent in a soldier's life. 'Tis the horrid
+shriek that a horse will give in his agony; oftener drawn from him in
+pain, though sometimes in terror. My charger is either a prey to the
+beasts of the forest, or he sees his danger, without the power to avoid
+it. The sound might deceive me in the cavern, but in the open air I know
+it too well to be wrong."
+
+The scout and his companions listened to this simple explanation with
+the interest of men who imbibe new ideas, at the same time that they get
+rid of old ones, which had proved disagreeable inmates. The two latter
+uttered their usual and expressive exclamation, "Hugh!" as the truth
+first glanced upon their minds, while the former, after a short musing
+pause, took upon himself to reply.
+
+"I cannot deny your words," he said; "for I am little skilled in horses,
+though born where they abound. The wolves must be hovering above their
+heads on the bank, and the timorsome creatures are calling on man for
+help, in the best manner they are able. Uncas,"--he spoke in
+Delaware--"Uncas, drop down in the canoe, and whirl a brand among the
+pack; or fear may do what the wolves can't get at to perform, and leave
+us without horses in the morning, when we shall have so much need to
+journey swiftly!"
+
+The young native had already descended to the water, to comply, when a
+long howl was raised on the edge of the river, and was borne swiftly off
+into the depths of the forest, as though the beasts, of their own
+accord, were abandoning their prey in sudden terror. Uncas, with
+instinctive quickness, receded, and the three foresters held another of
+their low, earnest conferences.
+
+"We have been like hunters who have lost the points of the heavens, and
+from whom the sun has been hid for days," said Hawkeye, turning away
+from his companions; "now we begin again to know the signs of our
+course, and the paths are cleared from briers! Seat yourselves in the
+shade which the moon throws from yonder beech--'tis thicker than that of
+the pines--and let us wait for that which the Lord may choose to send
+next. Let all your conversation be in whispers; though it would be
+better, and perhaps, in the end, wiser, if each one held discourse with
+his own thoughts, for a time."
+
+The manner of the scout was seriously impressive, though no longer
+distinguished by any signs of unmanly apprehension. It was evident that
+his momentary weakness had vanished with the explanation of a mystery
+which his own experience had not served to fathom; and though he now
+felt all the realities of their actual condition, that he was prepared
+to meet them with the energy of his hardy nature. This feeling seemed
+also common to the natives, who placed themselves in positions which
+commanded a full view of both shores, while their own persons were
+effectually concealed from observation. In such circumstances, common
+prudence dictated that Heyward and his companions should imitate a
+caution that proceeded from so intelligent a source. The young man drew
+a pile of the sassafras from the cave, and placing it in the chasm which
+separated the two caverns, it was occupied by the sisters, who were thus
+protected by the rocks from any missiles, while their anxiety was
+relieved by the assurance that no danger could approach without a
+warning. Heyward himself was posted at hand, so near that he might
+communicate with his companions without raising his voice to a dangerous
+elevation, while David, in imitation of the woodsmen, bestowed his
+person in such a manner among the fissures of the rocks, that his
+ungainly limbs were no longer offensive to the eye.
+
+In this manner, hours passed by without further interruption. The moon
+reached the zenith, and shed its mild light perpendicularly on the
+lovely sight of the sisters slumbering peacefully in each other's arms.
+Duncan cast the wide shawl of Cora before a spectacle he so much loved
+to contemplate, and then suffered his own head to seek a pillow on the
+rock. David began to utter sounds that would have shocked his delicate
+organs in more wakeful moments; in short, all but Hawkeye and the
+Mohicans lost every idea of consciousness, in uncontrollable drowsiness.
+But the watchfulness of these vigilant protectors neither tired nor
+slumbered. Immovable as that rock, of which each appeared to form a
+part, they lay, with their eyes roving, without intermission, along the
+dark margin of trees that bounded the adjacent shores of the narrow
+stream. Not a sound escaped them; the most subtle examination could not
+have told they breathed. It was evident that this excess of caution
+proceeded from an experience that no subtlety on the part of their
+enemies could deceive. It was, however, continued without any apparent
+consequences, until the moon had set, and a pale streak above the
+tree-tops, at the bend of the river a little below, announced the
+approach of day.
+
+Then, for the first time, Hawkeye was seen to stir. He crawled along
+the rock, and shook Duncan from his heavy slumbers.
+
+"Now is the time to journey," he whispered; "awake the gentle ones, and
+be ready to get into the canoe when I bring it to the landing-place."
+
+"Have you had a quiet night?" said Heyward; "for myself, I believe sleep
+has got the better of my vigilance."
+
+"All is yet still as midnight. Be silent, but be quick."
+
+By this time Duncan was thoroughly awake, and he immediately lifted the
+shawl from the sleeping females. The motion caused Cora to raise her
+hand as if to repulse him, while Alice murmured, in her soft, gentle
+voice, "No, no, dear father, we were not deserted; Duncan was with us!"
+
+"Yes, sweet innocence," whispered the youth; "Duncan is here, and while
+life continues or danger remains, he will never quit thee. Cora! Alice!
+awake! The hour has come to move!"
+
+A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the form of the other
+standing upright before him, in bewildered horror, was the unexpected
+answer he received. While the words were still on the lips of Heyward,
+there had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries as served to drive the
+swift currents of his own blood back from its bounding course into the
+fountains of his heart. It seemed, for near a minute, as if demons of
+hell had possessed themselves of the air about them, and were venting
+their savage humors in barbarous sounds. The cries came from no
+particular direction, though it was evident they filled the woods, and
+as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the caverns of the falls, the
+rocks, the bed of the river, and the upper air. David raised his tall
+person in the midst of the infernal din, with a hand on either ear,
+exclaiming--
+
+"Whence comes this discord! Has hell broke loose, that man should utter
+sounds like these!"
+
+The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles, from the
+opposite banks of the stream, followed this incautious exposure of his
+person, and left the unfortunate singing-master senseless on that rock
+where he had been so long slumbering. The Mohicans boldly sent back the
+intimidating yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of savage triumph
+at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then quick and close
+between them, but either party was too well skilled to leave even a limb
+exposed to the hostile aim. Duncan listened with intense anxiety for
+the strokes of the paddle, believing that flight was now their only
+refuge. The river glanced by with its ordinary velocity, but the canoe
+was nowhere to be seen on its dark waters. He had just fancied they were
+cruelly deserted by the scout, as a stream of flame issued from the rock
+beneath him, and a fierce yell, blended with a shriek of agony,
+announced that the messenger of death, sent from the fatal weapon of
+Hawkeye, had found a victim. At this slight repulse the assailants
+instantly withdrew, and gradually the place became as still as before
+the sudden tumult.
+
+Duncan seized the favorable moment to spring to the body of Gamut, which
+he bore within the shelter of the narrow chasm that protected the
+sisters. In another minute the whole party was collected in this spot of
+comparative safety.
+
+"The poor fellow has saved his scalp," said Hawkeye, coolly passing his
+hand over the head of David; "but he is a proof that a man may be born
+with too long a tongue! 'Twas downright madness to show six feet of
+flesh and blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages. I only wonder
+he has escaped with life."
+
+"Is he not dead!" demanded Cora, in a voice whose husky tones showed how
+powerfully natural horror struggled with her assumed firmness. "Can we
+do aught to assist the wretched man?"
+
+"No, no! the life is in his heart yet, and after he has slept awhile he
+will come to himself, and be a wiser man for it, till the hour of his
+real time shall come," returned Hawkeye, casting another oblique glance
+at the insensible body, while he filled his charger with admirable
+nicety. "Carry him in, Uncas, and lay him on the sassafras. The longer
+his nap lasts the better it will be for him, as I doubt whether he can
+find a proper cover for such a shape on these rocks; and singing won't
+do any good with the Iroquois."
+
+"You believe, then, the attack will be renewed?" asked Heyward.
+
+"Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouthful!
+They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, when they meet a loss, and
+fail in the surprise, to fall back; but we shall have them on again,
+with new expedients to circumvent us, and master our scalps. Our main
+hope," he continued, raising his rugged countenance, across which a
+shade of anxiety just then passed like a darkening cloud, "will be to
+keep the rock until Munro can send a party to our help! God send it may
+be soon, and under a leader that knows the Indian customs!"
+
+"You hear our probable fortunes, Cora," said Duncan, "and you know we
+have everything to hope from the anxiety and experience of your father.
+Come, then, with Alice, into this cavern, where you, at least, will be
+safe from the murderous rifles of our enemies and where you may bestow a
+care suited to your gentle natures on our unfortunate comrade."
+
+The sisters followed him into the outer cave, where David was beginning,
+by his sighs, to give symptoms of returning consciousness; and then
+commending the wounded man to their attention, he immediately prepared
+to leave them.
+
+"Duncan!" said the tremulous voice of Cora, when he had reached the
+mouth of the cavern. He turned, and beheld the speaker, whose color had
+changed to a deadly paleness, and whose lip quivered, gazing after him,
+with an expression of interest which immediately recalled him to her
+side. "Remember, Duncan, how necessary your safety is to our own--how
+you bear a father's sacred trust--how much depends on your discretion
+and care--in short," she added, while the tell-tale blood stole over her
+features, crimsoning her very temples, "how very deservedly dear you are
+to all of the name of Munro."
+
+"If anything could add to my own base love of life," said Heyward,
+suffering his unconscious eyes to wander to the youthful form of the
+silent Alice, "it would be so kind an assurance. As major of the 60th,
+our honest host will tell you I must take my share of the fray; but our
+task will be easy; it is merely to keep these blood-hounds at bay for a
+few hours."
+
+Without waiting for reply, he tore himself from the presence of the
+sisters, and joined the scout and his companions, who still lay within
+the protection of the little chasm between the two caves.
+
+"I tell you, Uncas," said the former, as Heyward joined them, "you are
+wasteful of your powder, and the kick of the rifle disconcerts your aim!
+Little powder, light lead, and a long arm, seldom fail of bringing the
+death screech from a Mingo! At least, such has been my experience with
+the creatur's. Come, friends; let us to our covers, for no man can tell
+when or where a Maqua[15] will strike his blow."
+
+The Indians silently repaired to their appointed stations, which were
+fissures in the rocks, whence they could command the approaches to the
+foot of the falls. In the centre of the little island, a few short and
+stunted pines had found root, forming a thicket, into which Hawkeye
+darted with the swiftness of a deer, followed by the active Duncan. Here
+they secured themselves, as well as circumstances would permit, among
+the shrubs and fragments of stone that were scattered about the place.
+Above them was a bare, rounded rock, on each side of which the water
+played its gambols, and plunged into the abysses beneath, in the manner
+already described. As the day had now dawned, the opposite shores no
+longer presented a confused outline, but they were able to look into the
+woods, and distinguish objects beneath the canopy of gloomy pines.
+
+A long and anxious watch succeeded, but without any further evidences of
+a renewed attack; and Duncan began to hope that their fire had proved
+more fatal than was supposed, and that their enemies had been
+effectually repulsed. When he ventured to utter this impression to his
+companion, it was met by Hawkeye with an incredulous shake of the head.
+
+"You know not the nature of a Maqua, if you think he is so easily beaten
+back without a scalp!" he answered. "If there was one of the imps
+yelling this morning, there were forty! and they know our number and
+quality too well to give up the chase so soon. Hist! look into the water
+above, just where it breaks over the rocks. I am no mortal, if the risky
+devils haven't swam down upon the very pitch, and, as bad luck would
+have it, they have hit the head of the island. Hist! man, keep close! or
+the hair will be off your crown in the turning of a knife!"
+
+Heyward lifted his head from the cover, and beheld what he justly
+considered a prodigy of rashness and skill. The river had worn away the
+edge of the soft rock in such a manner, as to render its first pitch
+less abrupt and perpendicular than is usual at waterfalls. With no other
+guide than the ripple of the stream where it met the head of the island,
+a party of their insatiable foes had ventured into the current, and swam
+down upon this point, knowing the ready access it would give, if
+successful, to their intended victims. As Hawkeye ceased speaking, four
+human heads could be seen peering above a few logs of drift-wood that
+had lodged on these naked rocks, and which had probably suggested the
+idea of the practicability of the hazardous undertaking. At the next
+moment, a fifth form was seen floating over the green edge of the fall,
+a little from the line of the island. The savage struggled powerfully to
+gain the point of safety, and, favored by the glancing water, he was
+already stretching forth an arm to meet the grasp of his companions,
+when he shot away again with the whirling current, appeared to rise into
+the air, with uplifted arms and starting eyeballs, and fell, with a
+sullen plunge, into that deep and yawning abyss over which he hovered. A
+single, wild, despairing shriek rose from the cavern, and all was hushed
+again, as the grave.
+
+The first generous impulse of Duncan was to rush to the rescue of the
+hapless wretch; but he felt himself bound to the spot by the iron grasp
+of the immovable scout.
+
+"Would ye bring certain death upon us, by telling the Mingos where we
+lie?" demanded Hawkeye, sternly; "'tis a charge of powder saved, and
+ammunition is as precious now as breath to a worried deer! Freshen the
+priming of your pistols--the mist of the falls is apt to dampen the
+brimstone--and stand firm for a close struggle, while I fire on their
+rush."
+
+He placed his finger in his mouth, and drew a long, shrill whistle,
+which was answered from the rocks that were guarded by the Mohicans.
+Duncan caught glimpses of heads above the scattered drift-wood, as this
+signal rose on the air, but they disappeared again as suddenly as they
+had glanced upon his sight. A low, rustling sound next drew his
+attention behind him, and turning his head, he beheld Uncas within a few
+feet, creeping to his side. Hawkeye spoke to him in Delaware, when the
+young chief took his position with singular caution and undisturbed
+coolness. To Heyward this was a moment of feverish and impatient
+suspense; though the scout saw fit to select it as a fit occasion to
+read a lecture to his more youthful associates on the art of using
+fire-arms with discretion.
+
+"Of all we'pons," he commenced, "the long-barrelled, true-grooved,
+soft-metalled rifle is the most dangerous in skilful hands, though it
+wants a strong arm, a quick eye, and great judgment in charging, to put
+forth all its beauties. The gunsmiths can have but little insight into
+their trade, when they make their fowling-pieces and short horsemen's--"
+
+He was interrupted by the low but expressive "Hugh!" of Uncas.
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS
+
+_Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that effort, and the
+result was, that both tottered on the brink of the precipice_]
+
+"I see them, boy, I see them!" continued Hawkeye; "they are gathering
+for the rush, or they would keep their dingy backs below the logs. Well,
+let them," he added, examining his flint; "the leading man certainly
+comes on to his death, though it should be Montcalm himself!"
+
+At that moment the woods were filled with another burst of cries, and at
+the signal four savages sprang from the cover of the drift-wood. Heyward
+felt a burning desire to rush forward to meet them, so intense was the
+delirious anxiety of the moment; but he was restrained by the deliberate
+examples of the scout and Uncas. When their foes who leaped over the
+black rock that divided them, with long bounds, uttering the wildest
+yells, were within a few rods, the rifle of Hawkeye slowly rose among
+the shrubs, and poured out its fatal contents. The foremost Indian
+bounded like a stricken deer, and fell headlong among the clefts of the
+island.
+
+"Now, Uncas!" cried the scout, drawing his long knife, while his quick
+eyes began to flash with ardor, "take the last of the screeching imps;
+of the other two we are sartain!"
+
+He was obeyed; and but two enemies remained to be overcome. Heyward had
+given one of his pistols to Hawkeye, and together they rushed down a
+little declivity towards their foes; they discharged their weapons at
+the same instant, and equally without success.
+
+"I know'd it! and I said it!" muttered the scout, whirling the despised
+little implement over the falls with bitter disdain. "Come on, ye bloody
+minded hell-hounds! ye meet a man without a cross!"
+
+The words were barely uttered, when he encountered a savage of gigantic
+stature, and of the fiercest mien. At the same moment, Duncan found
+himself engaged with the other, in a similar contest of hand to hand.
+With ready skill, Hawkeye and his antagonist each grasped that uplifted
+arm of the other which held the dangerous knife. For near a minute they
+stood looking one another in the eye, and gradually exerting the power
+of their muscles for the mastery. At length, the toughened sinews of the
+white man prevailed over the less practised limbs of the native. The arm
+of the latter slowly gave way before the increasing force of the scout,
+who suddenly wresting his armed hand from the grasp of the foe, drove
+the sharp weapon through his naked bosom to the heart. In the meantime
+Heyward had been pressed in a more deadly struggle. His slight sword was
+snapped in the first encounter. As he was destitute of any other means
+of defence, his safety now depended entirely on bodily strength and
+resolution. Though deficient in neither of these qualities, he had met
+an enemy every way his equal. Happily, he soon succeeded in disarming
+his adversary, whose knife fell on the rock at their feet; and from this
+moment it became a fierce struggle, who should cast the other over the
+dizzy height into a neighboring cavern of the falls. Every successive
+struggle brought them nearer to the verge, where Duncan perceived the
+final and conquering effort must be made. Each of the combatants threw
+all his energies into that effort, and the result was, that both
+tottered on the brink of the precipice. Heyward felt the grasp of the
+other at his throat, and saw the grim smile the savage gave, under the
+revengeful hope that he hurried his enemy to a fate similar to his own,
+as he felt his body slowly yielding to a resistless power, and the young
+man experienced the passing agony of such a moment in all its horrors.
+At that instant of extreme danger, a dark hand and glancing knife
+appeared before him; the Indian released his hold, as the blood flowed
+freely from around the several tendons of the wrist; and while Duncan
+was drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, his charmed eyes were
+still riveted on the fierce and disappointed countenance of his foe, who
+fell sullenly and disappointed down the irrecoverable precipice.
+
+"To cover! to cover!" cried Hawkeye, who just then had despatched the
+enemy; "to cover, for your lives! the work is but half ended!"
+
+The young Mohican gave a shout of triumph, and, followed by Duncan, he
+glided up the acclivity they had descended to the combat, and sought the
+friendly shelter of the rocks and shrubs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+      "They linger yet,
+  Avengers of their native land."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+The warning call of the scout was not uttered without occasion. During
+the occurrence of the deadly encounter just related, the roar of the
+falls was unbroken by any human sound whatever. It would seem that
+interest in the result had kept the natives on the opposite shores in
+breathless suspense, while the quick evolutions and swift changes in the
+position of the combatants, effectually prevented a fire that might
+prove dangerous alike to friend and enemy. But the moment the struggle
+was decided, a yell arose as fierce and savage as wild and revengful
+passions could throw into the air. It was followed by the swift flashes
+of the rifles, which sent their leaden messengers across the rock in
+volleys, as though the assailants would pour out their impotent fury on
+the insensible scene of the fatal contest.
+
+A steady, though deliberate return was made from the rifle of
+Chingachgook, who had maintained his post throughout the fray with
+unmoved resolution. When the triumphant shout of Uncas was borne to his
+ears, the gratified father raised his voice in a single responsive cry,
+after which his busy piece alone proved that he still guarded his pass
+with unwearied diligence. In this manner many minutes flew by with the
+swiftness of thought: the rifles of the assailants speaking, at times,
+in rattling volleys, and at others, in occasional, scattering shots.
+Though the rock, the trees, and the shrubs, were cut and torn in a
+hundred places around the besieged, their cover was so close, and so
+rigidly maintained, that, as yet, David had been the only sufferer in
+their little band.
+
+"Let them burn their powder," said the deliberate scout, while bullet
+after bullet whizzed by the place where he securely lay; "there will be
+a fine gathering of lead when it is over, and I fancy the imps will tire
+of the sport, afore these old stones cry out for mercy! Uncas, boy, you
+waste the kernels by overcharging: and a kicking rifle never carries a
+true bullet. I told you to take that loping miscreant under the line of
+white paint; now, if your bullet went a hair's breadth, it went two
+inches above it. The life lies low in a Mingo, and humanity teaches us
+to make a quick end of the sarpents."
+
+A quiet smile lighted the haughty features of the young Mohican,
+betraying his knowledge of the English language, as well as of the
+other's meaning; but he suffered it to pass away without vindication or
+reply.
+
+"I cannot permit you to accuse Uncas of want of judgment or of skill,"
+said Duncan; "he saved my life in the coolest and readiest manner, and
+he has made a friend who never will require to be reminded of the debt
+he owes."
+
+Uncas partly raised his body, and offered his hand to the grasp of
+Heyward. During this act of friendship, the two young men exchanged
+looks of intelligence which caused Duncan to forget the character and
+condition of his wild associate. In the meanwhile, Hawkeye, who looked
+on this burst of youthful feeling with a cool but kind regard, made the
+following reply:--
+
+"Life is an obligation which friends often owe each other in the
+wilderness. I dare say I may have served Uncas some such turn myself
+before now; and I very well remember that he has stood between me and
+death five different times: three times from the Mingos, once in
+crossing Horican, and--"
+
+"That bullet was better aimed than common!" exclaimed Duncan,
+involuntarily shrinking from a shot which struck the rock at his side
+with a smart rebound.
+
+Hawkeye laid his hand on the shapeless metal, and shook his head, as he
+examined it, saying, "Falling lead is never flattened! had it come from
+the clouds this might have happened!"
+
+But the rifle of Uncas was deliberately raised towards the heavens,
+directing his companions to a point, where the mystery was immediately
+explained. A ragged oak grew on the right bank of the river, nearly
+opposite to their position, which, seeking the freedom of the open
+space, had inclined so far forward, that its upper branches overhung
+that arm of the stream which flowed nearest to its own shore. Among the
+topmost leaves, which scantily concealed the gnarled and stunted limbs,
+a savage was nestled, partly concealed by the trunk of the tree, and
+partly exposed, as though looking down upon them to ascertain the effect
+produced by his treacherous aim.
+
+"These devils will scale heaven to circumvent us to our ruin," said
+Hawkeye; "keep him in play, boy, until I can bring 'Killdeer' to bear,
+when we will try his metal on each side of the tree at once."
+
+Uncas delayed his fire until the scout uttered the word. The rifles
+flashed, the leaves and the bark of the oak flew into the air, and were
+scattered by the wind, but the Indian answered their assault by a
+taunting laugh, sending down upon them another bullet in return, that
+struck the cap of Hawkeye from his head. Once more the savage yells
+burst out of the woods, and the leaden hail whistled above the heads of
+the besieged, as if to confine them to a place where they might become
+easy victims to the enterprise of the warrior who had mounted the tree.
+
+"This must be looked to!" said the scout, glancing about him with an
+anxious eye. "Uncas, call up your father; we have need of all our
+we'pons to bring the cunning varmint from his roost."
+
+The signal was instantly given; and, before Hawkeye had reloaded his
+rifle, they were joined by Chingachgook. When his son pointed out to the
+experienced warrior the situation of their dangerous enemy, the usual
+exclamatory "Hugh!" burst from his lips; after which, no further
+expression of surprise or alarm was suffered to escape him. Hawkeye and
+the Mohicans conversed earnestly together in Delaware for a few moments,
+when each quietly took his post, in order to execute the plan they had
+speedily devised.
+
+The warrior in the oak had maintained a quick, though ineffectual fire,
+from the moment of his discovery. But his aim was interrupted by the
+vigilance of his enemies, whose rifles instantaneously bore on any part
+of his person that was left exposed. Still his bullets fell in the
+centre of the crouching party. The clothes of Heyward, which rendered
+him peculiarly conspicuous, were repeatedly cut, and once blood was
+drawn from a slight wound in his arm.
+
+At length, emboldened by the long and patient watchfulness of his
+enemies, the Huron attempted a better and more fatal aim. The quick eye
+of the Mohicans caught the dark line of his lower limbs incautiously
+exposed through the thin foliage, a few inches from the trunk of the
+tree. Their rifles made a common report, when, sinking on his wounded
+limb, part of the body of the savage came into view. Swift as thought,
+Hawkeye seized the advantage and discharged his fatal weapon into the
+top of the oak. The leaves were unusually agitated; the dangerous rifle
+fell from its commanding elevation, and after a few moments of vain
+struggling, the form of the savage was seen swinging in the wind, while
+he still grasped a ragged and naked branch of the tree, with hands
+clenched in desperation.
+
+"Give him, in pity give him--the contents of another rifle!" cried
+Duncan, turning away his eyes in horror from the spectacle of a
+fellow-creature in such awful jeopardy.
+
+"Not a karnel!" exclaimed the obdurate Hawkeye; "his death is certain,
+and we have no powder to spare, for Indian fights sometimes last for
+days; 'tis their scalps or ours!--and God, who made us, has put into our
+natures the craving to keep the skin on the head!"
+
+Against this stern and unyielding morality, supported as it was by such
+visible policy, there was no appeal. From that moment the yells in the
+forest once more ceased, the fire was suffered to decline, and all eyes,
+those of friends as well as enemies, became fixed on the hopeless
+condition of the wretch who was dangling between heaven and earth. The
+body yielded to the currents of air, and though no murmur or groan
+escaped the victim, there were instants when he grimly faced his foes,
+and the anguish of cold despair might be traced, through the intervening
+distance, in possession of his swarthy lineaments. Three several times
+the scout raised his piece in mercy, and as often prudence getting the
+better of his intention, it was again silently lowered. At length one
+hand of the Huron lost its hold, and dropped exhausted to his side. A
+desperate and fruitless struggle to recover the branch succeeded, and
+then the savage was seen for a fleeting instant, grasping wildly at the
+empty air. The lightning is not quicker than was the flame from the
+rifle of Hawkeye; the limbs of the victim trembled and contracted, the
+head fell to the bosom, and the body parted the foaming waters like
+lead, when the element closed above it, in its ceaseless velocity, and
+every vestige of the unhappy Huron was lost forever.
+
+No shout of triumph succeeded this important advantage, but even the
+Mohicans gazed at each other in silent horror. A single yell burst from
+the woods, and all was again still. Hawkeye, who alone appeared to
+reason on the occasion, shook his head at his own momentary weakness,
+even uttering his self-disapprobation aloud.
+
+"'Twas the last charge in my horn, and the last bullet in my pouch, and
+'twas the act of a boy!" he said; "what mattered it whether he struck
+the rock living or dead: feeling would soon be over. Uncas, lad, go down
+to the canoe, and bring up the big horn; it is all the powder we have
+left, and we shall need it to the last grain, or I am ignorant of the
+Mingo nature."
+
+The young Mohican complied, leaving the scout turning over the useless
+contents of his pouch, and shaking the empty horn with renewed
+discontent. From this unsatisfactory examination, however, he was soon
+called by a loud and piercing exclamation from Uncas, that sounded, even
+to the unpractised ears of Duncan, as the signal of some new and
+unexpected calamity. Every thought filled with apprehension for the
+precious treasure he had concealed in the cavern, the young man started
+to his feet, totally regardless of the hazard he incurred by such an
+exposure. As if actuated by a common impulse, his movement was imitated
+by his companions, and, together, they rushed down the pass to the
+friendly chasm, with a rapidity that rendered the scattering fire of
+their enemies perfectly harmless. The unwonted cry had brought the
+sisters, together with the wounded David, from their place of refuge;
+and the whole party, at a single glance, was made acquainted with the
+nature of the disaster that had disturbed even the practised stoicism of
+their youthful Indian protector.
+
+At a short distance from the rock, their little bark was to be seen
+floating across the eddy, towards the swift current of the river, in a
+manner which proved that its course was directed by some hidden agent.
+The instant this unwelcome sight caught the eye of the scout, his rifle
+was levelled as by instinct, but the barrel gave no answer to the bright
+sparks of the flint.
+
+"'Tis too late, 'tis too late!" Hawkeye exclaimed, dropping the useless
+piece in bitter disappointment; "the miscreant has struck the rapid; and
+had we powder, it could hardly send the lead swifter than he now goes!"
+
+The adventurous Huron raised his head above the shelter of the canoe,
+and while it glided swiftly down the stream, he waved his hand, and gave
+forth the shout, which was the known signal of success. His cry was
+answered by a yell and a laugh from the woods, as tauntingly exulting as
+if fifty demons were uttering their blasphemies at the fall of some
+Christian soul.
+
+"Well may you laugh, ye children of the devil!" said the scout, seating
+himself on a projection of the rock, and suffering his gun to fall
+neglected at his feet, "for the three quickest and surest rifles in
+these woods are no better than so many stalks of mullein, or the last
+year's horns of a buck!"
+
+"What is to be done?" demanded Duncan, losing the first feeling of
+disappointment in a more manly desire for exertion; "what will become of
+us?"
+
+Hawkeye made no other reply than by passing his finger around the crown
+of his head, in a manner so significant, that none who witnessed the
+action could mistake its meaning.
+
+"Surely, surely, our case is not so desperate!" exclaimed the youth;
+"the Hurons are not here; we may make good the caverns; we may oppose
+their landing."
+
+"With what?" coolly demanded the scout. "The arrows of Uncas, or such
+tears as women shed! No, no; you are young, and rich, and have friends,
+and at such an age I know it is hard to die! But," glancing his eyes at
+the Mohicans, "let us remember we are men without a cross, and let us
+teach these natives of the forest that white blood can run as freely as
+red, when the appointed hour is come."
+
+Duncan turned quickly in the direction indicated by the other's eyes,
+and read a confirmation of his worst apprehensions in the conduct of the
+Indians. Chingachgook, placing himself in a dignified posture on another
+fragment of the rock, had already laid aside his knife and tomahawk, and
+was in the act of taking the eagle's plume from his head, and smoothing
+the solitary tuft of hair in readiness to perform its last and revolting
+office. His countenance was composed, though thoughtful, while his dark
+gleaming eyes were gradually losing the fierceness of the combat in an
+expression better suited to the change he expected momentarily to
+undergo.
+
+"Our case is not, cannot be so hopeless!" said Duncan; "even at this
+moment succor may be at hand. I see no enemies! they have sickened of a
+struggle in which they risk so much with so little prospect of gain!"
+
+"It may be a minute, or it may be an hour, afore the wily sarpents steal
+upon us, and it is quite in natur' for them to be lying within hearing
+at this very moment," said Hawkeye; "but come they will, and in such a
+fashion as will leave us nothing to hope! Chingachgook"--he spoke in
+Delaware--"my brother, we have fought our last battle together, and the
+Maquas will triumph in the death of the sage man of the Mohicans, and of
+the pale-face, whose eyes can make night as day, and level the clouds
+to the mists of the springs!"
+
+"Let the Mingo women go weep over their slain!" returned the Indian,
+with characteristic pride and unmoved firmness; "the Great Snake of the
+Mohicans has coiled himself in their wigwams, and has poisoned their
+triumph with the wailings of children whose fathers have not returned!
+Eleven warriors lie hid from the graves of their tribes since the snows
+have melted, and none will tell where to find them when the tongue of
+Chingachgook shall be silent! Let them draw the sharpest knife, and
+whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their
+hands. Uncas, topmost branch of a noble trunk, call on the cowards to
+hasten or their hearts will soften, and they will change to women!"
+
+"They look among the fishes for their dead!" returned the low, soft
+voice of the youthful chieftain; "the Hurons float with the slimy eels!
+They drop from the oaks like fruit that is ready to be eaten! and the
+Delawares laugh!"
+
+"Ay, ay," muttered the scout, who had listened to this peculiar burst of
+the natives with deep attention; "they have warmed their Indian
+feelings, and they'll soon provoke the Maquas to give them a speedy end.
+As for me, who am of the whole blood of the whites, it is befitting that
+I should die as becomes my color, with no words of scoffing in my mouth,
+and without bitterness at the heart!"
+
+"Why die at all!" said Cora, advancing from the place where natural
+horror had, until this moment, held her riveted to the rock; "the path
+is open on every side; fly, then, to the woods, and call on God for
+succor. Go, brave men, we owe you too much already; let us no longer
+involve you in our hapless fortunes!"
+
+"You but little know the craft of the Iroquois, lady, if you judge they
+have left the path open to the woods!" returned Hawkeye, who, however,
+immediately added in his simplicity, "the down stream current, it is
+certain, might soon sweep us beyond the reach of their rifles or the
+sounds of their voices."
+
+"Then try the river. Why linger to add to the number of the victims of
+our merciless enemies?"
+
+"Why," repeated the scout, looking about him proudly, "because it is
+better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an
+evil conscience! What answer could we give Munro, when he asked us where
+and how we left his children?"
+
+"Go to him, and say, that you left them with a message to hasten to
+their aid," returned Cora, advancing nigher to the scout, in her
+generous ardor; "that the Hurons bear them into the northern wilds, but
+that by vigilance and speed they may yet be rescued; and if, after all,
+it should please heaven that his assistance come too late, bear to him,"
+she continued, her voice gradually lowering, until it seemed nearly
+choked, "the love, the blessings, the final prayers of his daughters,
+and bid him not mourn their early fate, but to look forward with humble
+confidence to the Christian's goal to meet his children."
+
+The hard, weather-beaten features of the scout began to work, and when
+she had ended, he dropped his chin to his hand, like a man musing
+profoundly on the nature of the proposal.
+
+"There is reason in her words!" at length broke from his compressed and
+trembling lips; "ay, and they bear the spirit of Christianity; what
+might be right and proper in a redskin, may be sinful in a man who has
+not even a cross in blood to plead for his ignorance. Chingachgook!
+Uncas! hear you the talk of the dark-eyed woman!"
+
+He now spoke in Delaware to his companions, and his address, though calm
+and deliberate, seemed very decided. The elder Mohican heard him with
+deep gravity, and appeared to ponder on his words, as though he felt the
+importance of their import. After a moment of hesitation, he waved his
+hand in assent, and uttered the English word "Good!" with the peculiar
+emphasis of his people. Then, replacing his knife and tomahawk in his
+girdle, the warrior moved silently to the edge of the rock which was
+most concealed from the banks of the river. Here he paused a moment,
+pointed significantly to the woods below, and saying a few words in his
+own language, as if indicating his intended route, he dropped into the
+water, and sank from before the eyes of the witnesses of his movements.
+
+The scout delayed his departure to speak to the generous girl, whose
+breathing became lighter as she saw the success of her remonstrance.
+
+"Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old," he
+said; "and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better
+word. If you are led into the woods, that is such of you as may be
+spared for a while, break the twigs on the bushes as you pass, and make
+the marks of your trail as broad as you can, when, if mortal eyes can
+see them, depend on having a friend who will follow to the ends of 'arth
+afore he desarts you."
+
+He gave Cora an affectionate shake of the hand, lifted his rifle, and
+after regarding it a moment with melancholy solicitude, laid it
+carefully aside, and descended to the place where Chingachgook had just
+disappeared. For an instant he hung suspended by the rock; and looking
+about him, with a countenance of peculiar care, he added, bitterly, "Had
+the powder held out, this disgrace could never have befallen!" then,
+loosening his hold, the water closed above his head, and he also became
+lost to view.
+
+All eyes were now turned on Uncas, who stood leaning against the ragged
+rock, in immovable composure. After waiting a short time, Cora pointed
+down the river, and said:--
+
+"Your friends have not been seen, and are now, most probably, in safety;
+is it not time for you to follow?"
+
+"Uncas will stay," the young Mohican calmly answered in English.
+
+"To increase the horror of our capture, and to diminish the chances of
+our release! Go, generous young man," Cora continued, lowering her eyes
+under the gaze of the Mohican, and, perhaps, with an intuitive
+consciousness of her power; "go to my father, as I have said, and be the
+most confidential of my messengers. Tell him to trust you with the means
+to buy the freedom of his daughters. Go! 'tis my wish, 'tis my prayer,
+that you will go!"
+
+The settled, calm look of the young chief changed to an expression of
+gloom, but he no longer hesitated. With a noiseless step he crossed the
+rock, and dropped into the troubled stream. Hardly a breath was drawn by
+those he left behind, until they caught a glimpse of his head emerging
+for air, far down the current, when he again sank, and was seen no more.
+
+These sudden and apparently successful experiments had all taken place
+in a few minutes of that time which had now become so precious. After
+the last look at Uncas, Cora turned, and, with a quivering lip,
+addressed herself to Heyward:--
+
+"I have heard of your boasted skill in the water, too, Duncan," she
+said; "follow, then, the wise example set you by these simple and
+faithful beings."
+
+"Is such the faith that Cora Munro would exact from her protector?" said
+the young man, smiling mournfully, but with bitterness.
+
+"This is not a time for idle subtleties and false opinions," she
+answered; "but a moment when every duty should be equally considered.
+To us you can be of no further service here, but your precious life may
+be saved for other and nearer friends."
+
+He made no reply, though his eyes fell wistfully on the beautiful form
+of Alice, who was clinging to his arm with the dependency of an infant.
+
+"Consider," continued Cora, after a pause, during which she seemed to
+struggle with a pang even more acute than any that her fears had
+excited, "that the worst to us can be but death; a tribute that all must
+pay at the good time of God's appointment."
+
+"There are evils worse than death," said Duncan, speaking hoarsely, and
+as if fretful at her importunity, "but which the presence of one who
+would die in your behalf may avert."
+
+Cora ceased her entreaties; and, veiling her face in her shawl, drew the
+nearly insensible Alice after her into the deepest recess of the inner
+cavern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+                            "Be gay securely;
+  Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous clouds,
+  That hang on thy clear brow."
+
+  _Death of Agrippina._
+
+
+The sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the
+combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated
+imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images
+and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he
+felt a difficulty in persuading himself of their truth. Still ignorant
+of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he
+at first listened intently to any signal, or sounds of alarm, which
+might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking.
+His attention was, however, bestowed in vain; for, with the
+disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost,
+leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.
+
+In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look about
+him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before
+had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect
+the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies, was as
+fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of
+the rivers seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life.
+The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest
+was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the
+currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk,
+which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant
+spectator of the fray, now stooped from his high and ragged perch, and
+soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice
+had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to
+open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed
+possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural
+accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began
+to rally his faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a
+reviving confidence of success.
+
+"The Hurons are not to be seen," he said, addressing David, who had by
+no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had
+received; "let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to
+Providence."
+
+"I remember to have united with two comely maidens, in lifting up our
+voices in praise and thanksgiving," returned the bewildered
+singing-master; "since which time I have been visited by a heavy
+judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep,
+while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the
+fulness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony."
+
+"Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment!
+But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but
+those of your own psalmody shall be excluded."
+
+"There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many
+waters is sweet to the senses!" said David, pressing his hand confusedly
+on his brow. "Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as
+though the departed spirits of the damned--"
+
+"Not now, not now," interrupted the impatient Heyward, "they have
+ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone too!
+everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may
+create those sounds you love so well to hear."
+
+David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at
+this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led
+to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied
+senses; and, leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow
+mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew
+before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an
+aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned
+by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its
+outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which
+one arm of the river rushed, to form the junction with its sister
+branch, a few rods below.
+
+"I like not that principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit
+without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate," he said,
+while busied in this employment; "our own maxim, which says, 'while life
+remains there is hope,' is more consoling, and better suited to a
+soldier's temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle
+encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you
+all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that
+trembling weeper on your bosom?"
+
+"I am calmer, Duncan," said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her
+sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; "much
+calmer, now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret,
+free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who
+have risked so much already in our behalf."
+
+"Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!" said
+Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed towards the outer
+entrance of the cavern. "With two such examples of courage before him, a
+man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero." He then seated himself
+in the centre of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand
+convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced
+the sullen desperation of his purpose. "The Hurons, if they come, may
+not gain our position so easily as they think," he lowly muttered; and
+dropping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result
+in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to
+their place of retreat.
+
+With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless
+silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the
+recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its
+inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed
+security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining
+possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give
+utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully
+destroy.
+
+David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of
+light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the
+pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in
+turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition
+than any that had yet met his eye. He was, most probably, acting all
+this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of
+Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward;
+for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words "Isle
+of Wight," drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran
+through the preliminary modulations of the air, whose name he had just
+mentioned with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.
+
+"May not this prove dangerous?" asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at
+Major Heyward.
+
+"Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard amid the din of the
+falls," was the answer; "besides, the cavern will prove his friend. Let
+him indulge his passion, since it may be done without hazard."
+
+"Isle of Wight!" repeated David, looking about him with that dignity
+with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his
+school; "'tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words; let it be sung with
+meet respect!"
+
+After allowing a moment of stillness, to enforce his discipline, the
+voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually
+stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds
+rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced
+by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually
+wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even
+prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the
+singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the
+sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice
+unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid
+features of Gamut with an expression of chastened delight that she
+neither affected nor wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile
+on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward
+soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to
+fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the
+wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice.
+The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of
+music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that
+touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated
+powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with
+long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that
+instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as
+though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.
+
+"We are lost!" exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora.
+
+"Not yet, not yet," returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward; "the
+sound came from the centre of the island, and it has been produced by
+the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there
+is still hope."
+
+Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of
+Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters
+in such a manner that they awaited the result in silence. A second yell
+soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down
+the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached
+the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage
+triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as
+man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest
+barbarity.
+
+The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to
+their fellows from the water's edge, and were answered from the heights
+above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between
+the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the
+abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds
+diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for
+the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in
+truth they were above and on every side of them.
+
+In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few
+yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope,
+with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the
+impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot
+where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the
+jargon of the Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to
+distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the _patois_ of the
+Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, "La Longue
+Carabine!" causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which,
+Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated
+hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learnt for the
+first time, had been his late companion.
+
+"La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!" passed from mouth to mouth,
+until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which
+would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a
+vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of
+savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a
+foe, whose body, Heyward could collect from their expressions, they
+hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island.
+
+"Now," he whispered to the trembling sisters, "now is the moment of
+uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are still
+safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our
+enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may
+look for succor from Webb."
+
+There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward
+well knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance
+and method. More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they
+brushed the sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the
+branches to snap. At length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of the
+blanket fell, and a faint ray of light gleamed into the inner part of
+the cave. Cora folded Alice to her bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to
+his feet. A shout was at that moment heard, as if issuing from the
+centre of the rock, announcing that the neighboring cavern had at length
+been entered. In a minute, the number and loudness of the voices
+indicated that the whole party was collected in and around that secret
+place.
+
+As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other,
+Duncan, believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and
+the sisters, to place himself between the latter and the first onset of
+the terrible meeting. Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the
+slight barrier which separated him only by a few feet from his
+relentless pursuers, and placing his face to the casual opening, he even
+looked out, with a sort of desperate indifference, on their movements.
+
+Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian,
+whose deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the
+proceedings of his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the
+vault opposite, which was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the
+humble furniture of the scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of
+sassafras with a color that the natives well knew was anticipating the
+season. Over this sign of their success, they set up a howl, like an
+opening from so many hounds who had recovered a lost trail. After this
+yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant bed of the cavern, and bore
+the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs, as if they suspected
+them of concealing the person of the man they had so long hated and
+feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached the chief
+bearing a load of the brush, and pointing, exultingly, to the deep red
+stains with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells,
+whose meaning Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent
+repetition of the name of "La Longue Carabine!" When his triumph had
+ceased, he cast the brush on the slight heap that Duncan had made before
+the entrance of the second cavern, and closed the view. His example was
+followed by others, who, as they drew the branches from the cave of the
+scout, threw them into one pile, adding, unconsciously, to the security
+of those they sought. The very slightness of the defence was its chief
+merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush, which all of
+them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been
+accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.
+
+As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches
+settled in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a
+compact body, Duncan once more breathed freely. With a light step, and
+lighter heart, he returned to the centre of the cave, and took the place
+he had left, where he could command a view of the opening next the
+river. While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as
+if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the
+cavern in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, towards
+the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry
+betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead
+comrades.
+
+Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most
+critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the
+anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to
+those who were so little able to sustain it.
+
+"They are gone, Cora!" he whispered; "Alice, they are returned whence
+they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone delivered us from
+the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!"
+
+"Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!" exclaimed the younger sister,
+rising from the encircling arms of Cora, and casting herself with
+enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; "to that Heaven who has spared
+the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so
+much love--"
+
+Both Heyward, and the more tempered Cora, witnessed the act of
+involuntary emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly
+believing that piety had never worn a form so lovely as it had now
+assumed in the youthful person of Alice. Her eyes radiant with the glow
+of grateful feelings; the flush of her beauty was again seated on her
+cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and anxious to pour out its
+thanksgivings, through the medium of her eloquent features. But when her
+lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared frozen by some
+new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her
+soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror;
+while those hands which she had raised, clasped in each other, towards
+heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed
+forward in convulsed motion. Heyward turned, the instant she gave a
+direction to his suspicions, and, peering just above the ledge which
+formed the threshold of the open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the
+malignant, fierce, and savage features of Le Renard Subtil.
+
+In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not
+desert him. He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian's
+countenance, that his eye, accustomed to the open air, had not yet been
+able to penetrate the dusky light which pervaded the depth of the
+cavern. He had even thought of retreating beyond a curvature in the
+natural wall, which might still conceal him and his companions, when, by
+the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot across the features of the
+savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were betrayed.
+
+The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible
+truth was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the
+impulses of his hot blood, Duncan levelled his pistol and fired. The
+report of the weapon made the cavern bellow like an eruption from a
+volcano; and when the smoke it vomited had been driven away before the
+current of air which issued from the ravine, the place so lately
+occupied by the features of his treacherous guide was vacant. Rushing to
+the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure, stealing around
+a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.
+
+Among the savages, a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which
+had just been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le
+Renard raised his voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was
+answered by a spontaneous yell from the mouth of every Indian within
+hearing of the sound. The clamorous noises again rushed down the
+island; and before Duncan had time to recover from the shock, his feeble
+barrier of brush was scattered to the winds, the cavern was entered at
+both its extremities, and he and his companions were dragged from their
+shelter and borne into the day, where they stood surrounded by the whole
+band of the triumphant Hurons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  "I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
+  As much as we this night have overwatched!"
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The instant the shock of this sudden misfortune had abated, Duncan began
+to make his observations on the appearance and proceedings of their
+captors. Contrary to the usages of the natives in the wantonness of
+their success, they had respected, not only the persons of the trembling
+sisters, but his own. The rich ornaments of his military attire had
+indeed been repeatedly handled by different individuals of the tribe
+with eyes expressing a savage longing to possess the baubles; but before
+the customary violence could be resorted to, a mandate in the
+authoritative voice of the large warrior already mentioned, stayed the
+uplifted hand, and convinced Heyward that they were to be reserved for
+some object of particular moment.
+
+While, however, these manifestations of weakness were exhibited by the
+young and vain of the party, the more experienced warriors continued
+their search throughout both caverns, with an activity that denoted they
+were far from being satisfied with those fruits of their conquest which
+had already been brought to light. Unable to discover any new victim,
+these diligent workers of vengeance soon approached their male
+prisoners, pronouncing the name of "La Longue Carabine," with a
+fierceness that could not easily be mistaken. Duncan affected not to
+comprehend the meaning of their repeated and violent interrogatories,
+while his companion was spared the effort of a similar deception by his
+ignorance of French. Wearied, at length, by their importunities, and
+apprehensive of irritating his captors by too stubborn a silence, the
+former looked about him in quest of Magua; who might interpret his
+answers to questions which were at each moment becoming more earnest and
+threatening.
+
+The conduct of this savage had formed a solitary exception to that of
+all his fellows. While the others were busily occupied in seeking to
+gratify their childish passion for finery, by plundering even the
+miserable effects of the scout, or had been searching, with such
+bloodthirsty vengeance in their looks, for their absent owner, Le Renard
+had stood at a little distance from the prisoners, with a demeanor so
+quiet and satisfied, as to betray that he had already effected the grand
+purpose of this treachery. When the eyes of Heyward first met those of
+his recent guide, he turned them away in horror at the sinister though
+calm look he encountered. Conquering his disgust, however, he was able,
+with an averted face, to address his successful enemy.
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is too much of a warrior," said the reluctant Heyward,
+"to refuse telling an unarmed man what his conquerors say."
+
+"They ask for the hunter who knows the paths through the woods,"
+returned Magua, in his broken English, laying his hand, at the same
+time, with a ferocious smile, on the bundle of leaves with which a wound
+on his own shoulder was bandaged. "La Longue Carabine! his rifle is
+good, and his eye never shut; but, like the short gun of the white
+chief, it is nothing against the life of Le Subtil!"
+
+"Le Renard is too brave to remember the hurts received in war, or the
+hands that gave them!"
+
+"Was it war, when the tired Indian rested at the sugar-tree to taste his
+corn! who filled the bushes with creeping enemies! who drew the knife!
+whose tongue was peace, while his heart was colored with blood! Did
+Magua say that the hatchet was out of the ground, and that his hand had
+dug it up?"
+
+As Duncan dared not retort upon his accuser by reminding him of his own
+premeditated treachery, and disdained to deprecate his resentment by any
+words of apology, he remained silent. Magua seemed also content to rest
+the controversy as well as all further communication there, for he
+resumed the leaning attitude against the rock, from which, in momentary
+energy, he had arisen. But the cry of "La Longue Carabine" was renewed
+the instant the impatient savages perceived that the short dialogue was
+ended.
+
+"You hear," said Magua, with stubborn indifference; "the red Hurons call
+for the life of 'The Long Rifle,' or they will have the blood of them
+that keep him hid!"
+
+"He is gone--escaped; he is far beyond their reach."
+
+Renard smiled with cold contempt, as he answered,--
+
+"When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace; but the redmen know
+how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies. Where is his body? Let
+the Hurons see his scalp!"
+
+"He is not dead, but escaped."
+
+Magua shook his head incredulously.
+
+"Is he a bird, to spread his wings; or is he a fish, to swim without
+air! The white chief reads in his books, and he believes the Hurons are
+fools!"
+
+"Though no fish, The Long Rifle can swim. He floated down the stream
+when the powder was all burnt, and when the eyes of the Hurons were
+behind a cloud."
+
+"And why did the white chief stay?" demanded the still incredulous
+Indian. "Is he a stone that goes to the bottom, or does the scalp burn
+his head?"
+
+"That I am not a stone, your dead comrade, who fell into the falls,
+might answer, were the life still in him," said the provoked young man,
+using, in his anger, that boastful language which was most likely to
+excite the admiration of an Indian. "The white man thinks none but
+cowards desert their women."
+
+Magua muttered a few words, inaudibly, between his teeth, before he
+continued, aloud,--
+
+"Can the Delawares swim, too, as well as crawl in the bushes? Where is
+Le Gros Serpent?"
+
+Duncan, who perceived by the use of these Canadian appellations, that
+his late companions were much better known to his enemies than to
+himself, answered, reluctantly, "He also is gone down with the water."
+
+"Le Cerf Agile is not here?"
+
+"I know not whom you call 'The Nimble Deer,'" said Duncan, gladly
+profiting by any excuse to create delay.
+
+"Uncas," returned Magua, pronouncing the Delaware name with even greater
+difficulty than he spoke his English words. "'Bounding Elk' is what the
+white man says, when he calls to the young Mohican."
+
+"Here is some confusion in names between us, Le Renard," said Duncan,
+hoping to provoke a discussion. "_Daim_ is the French for deer, and
+_cerf_ for stag; _élan_ is the true term, when one would speak of an
+elk."
+
+"Yes," muttered the Indian, in his native tongue; "the pale-faces are
+prattling women! they have two words for each thing, while a redskin
+will make the sound of his voice speak for him." Then changing his
+language, he continued, adhering to the imperfect nomenclature of his
+provincial instructors, "The deer is swift, but weak; the elk is swift,
+but strong; and the son of Le Serpent is Le Cerf Agile. Has he leaped
+the river to the woods?"
+
+"If you mean the younger Delaware, he too is gone down with the water."
+
+As there was nothing improbable to an Indian in the manner of the
+escape, Magua admitted the truth of what he had heard, with a readiness
+that afforded additional evidence how little he would prize such
+worthless captives. With his companions, however, the feeling was
+manifestly different.
+
+The Hurons had awaited the result of this short dialogue with
+characteristic patience, and with a silence that increased until there
+was a general stillness in the band. When Heyward ceased to speak, they
+turned their eyes, as one man, on Magua, demanding, in this expressive
+manner, an explanation of what had been said. Their interpreter pointed
+to the river, and made them acquainted with the result, as much by the
+action as by the few words he uttered. When the fact was generally
+understood, the savages raised a frightful yell, which declared the
+extent of their disappointment. Some ran furiously to the water's edge,
+beating the air with frantic gestures, while others spat upon the
+element, to resent the supposed treason it had committed against their
+acknowledged rights as conquerors. A few, and they not the least
+powerful and terrific of the band, threw lowering looks, in which the
+fiercest passion was only tempered by habitual self-command, at those
+captives who still remained in their power; while one or two even gave
+vent to their malignant feelings by the most menacing gestures, against
+which neither the sex nor the beauty of the sisters was any protection.
+The young soldier made a desperate, but fruitless effort, to spring to
+the side of Alice, when he saw the dark hand of a savage twisted in the
+rich tresses which were flowing in volumes over her shoulders, while a
+knife was passed around the head from which they fell, as if to denote
+the horrid manner in which it was about to be robbed of its beautiful
+ornament. But his hands were bound; and at the first movement he made,
+he felt the grasp of the powerful Indian who directed the band, pressing
+his shoulder like a vise. Immediately conscious how unavailing any
+struggle against such an overwhelming force must prove, he submitted to
+his fate, encouraging his gentle companions by a few low and tender
+assurances that the natives seldom failed to threaten more than they
+performed.
+
+But, while Duncan resorted to these words of consolation to quiet the
+apprehensions of the sisters, he was not so weak as to deceive himself.
+He well knew that the authority of an Indian chief was so little
+conventional, that it was oftener maintained by physical superiority
+than by any moral supremacy he might possess. The danger was, therefore,
+magnified exactly in proportion to the number of the savage spirits by
+which they were surrounded. The most positive mandate from him who
+seemed the acknowledged leader, was liable to be violated at each
+moment, by any rash hand that might choose to sacrifice a victim to the
+_manes_ of some dead friend or relative. While, therefore, he sustained
+an outward appearance of calmness and fortitude, his heart leaped into
+his throat, whenever any of their fierce captors drew nearer than common
+to the helpless sisters, or fastened one of their sullen wandering looks
+on those fragile forms which were so little able to resist the slightest
+assault.
+
+His apprehensions were, however, greatly relieved, when he saw that the
+leader had summoned his warriors to himself in council. Their
+deliberations were short, and it would seem, by the silence of most of
+the party, the decision unanimous. By the frequency with which the few
+speakers pointed in the direction of the encampment of Webb, it was
+apparent they dreaded the approach of danger from that quarter. This
+consideration probably hastened their determination, and quickened the
+subsequent movements.
+
+During this short conference, Heyward, finding a respite from his
+greatest fears, had leisure to admire the cautious manner in which the
+Hurons had made their approaches, even after hostilities had ceased.
+
+It has already been stated, that the upper half of the island was a
+naked rock, and destitute of any other defences than a few scattered
+logs of drift-wood. They had selected this point to make their descent,
+having borne the canoe through the wood around the cataract for that
+purpose. Placing their arms in the little vessel, a dozen men clinging
+to its sides had trusted themselves to the direction of the canoe, which
+was controlled by two of the most skilful warriors, in attitudes that
+enabled them to command a view of the dangerous passage. Favored by this
+arrangement, they touched the head of the island at that point which had
+proved so fatal to their first adventures, but with the advantages of
+superior numbers, and the possession of fire-arms. That such had been
+the manner of their descent was rendered quite apparent to Duncan; for
+they now bore the light bark from the upper end of the rock, and placed
+it in the water, near the mouth of the outer cavern. As soon as this
+change was made, the leader made signs to the prisoners to descend and
+enter.
+
+As resistance was impossible, and remonstrance useless, Heyward set the
+example of submission, by leading the way into the canoe, where he was
+soon seated with the sisters, and the still wondering David.
+Notwithstanding the Hurons were necessarily ignorant of the little
+channels among the eddies and rapids of the stream, they knew the common
+signs of such a navigation too well to commit any material blunder. When
+the pilot chosen for the task of guiding the canoe had taken his
+station, the whole band plunged again into the river, the vessel glided
+down the current, and in a few moments the captives found themselves on
+the south bank of the stream, nearly opposite to the point where they
+had struck it the preceding evening.
+
+Here was held another short but earnest consultation, during which the
+horses, to whose panic their owners ascribed their heaviest misfortune,
+were led from the cover of the woods, and brought to the sheltered spot.
+The band now divided. The great chief so often mentioned, mounting the
+charger of Heyward, led the way directly across the river, followed by
+most of his people, and disappeared in the woods, leaving the prisoners
+in charge of six savages, at whose head was Le Renard Subtil. Duncan
+witnessed all their movements with renewed uneasiness.
+
+He had been fond of believing, from the uncommon forbearance of the
+savages, that he was reserved as a prisoner to be delivered to Montcalm.
+As the thoughts of those who are in misery seldom slumber, and the
+invention is never more lively than when it is stimulated by hope,
+however feeble and remote, he had even imagined that the parental
+feelings of Munro were to be made instrumental in seducing him from his
+duty to the king. For though the French commander bore a high character
+for courage and enterprise, he was also thought to be expert in those
+political practices, which do not always respect the nicer obligations
+of morality, and which so generally disgraced the European diplomacy of
+that period.
+
+All those busy and ingenious speculations were now annihilated by the
+conduct of his captors. That portion of the band who had followed the
+huge warrior took the route towards the foot of the Horican, and no
+other expectation was left for himself and companions, than that they
+were to be retained as hopeless captives by their savage conquerors.
+Anxious to know the worst, and willing, in such an emergency, to try the
+potency of gold, he overcame his reluctance to speak to Magua.
+Addressing himself to his former guide, who had now assumed the
+authority and manner of one who was to direct the future movements of
+the party, he said, in tones as friendly and confiding as he could
+assume,--
+
+"I would speak to Magua, what is fit only for so great a chief to hear."
+
+The Indian turned his eyes on the young soldier scornfully, as he
+answered,--
+
+"Speak; trees have no ears!"
+
+"But the red Hurons are not deaf; and counsel that is fit for the great
+men of a nation would make the young warriors drunk. If Magua will not
+listen, the officer of the king knows how to be silent."
+
+The savage spoke carelessly to his comrades, who were busied, after
+their awkward manner, in preparing the horses for the reception of the
+sisters, and moved a little to one side, whither, by a cautious gesture,
+he induced Heyward to follow.
+
+"Now speak," he said; "if the words are such as Magua should hear."
+
+"Le Renard Subtil has proved himself worthy of the honorable name given
+to him by his Canada fathers," commenced Heyward; "I see his wisdom, and
+all that he has done for us, and shall remember it, when the hour to
+reward him arrives. Yes! Renard has proved that he is not only a great
+chief in council, but one who knows how to deceive his enemies!"
+
+"What has Renard done?" coldly demanded the Indian.
+
+"What! has he not seen that the woods were filled with outlying parties
+of the enemies, and that the Serpent could not steal through them
+without being seen? Then, did he not lose his path to blind the eyes of
+the Hurons? Did he not pretend to go back to his tribe, who had treated
+him ill, and driven him from their wigwams like a dog? And, when we saw
+what he wished to do, did we not aid him, by making a false face, that
+the Hurons might think the white man believed that his friend was his
+enemy? Is not all this true? And when Le Subtil had shut the eyes and
+stopped the ears of his nation by his wisdom, did they not forget that
+they had once done him wrong, and forced him to flee to the Mohawks? And
+did they not leave him on the south side of the river, with their
+prisoners, while they have gone foolishly on the north? Does not Renard
+mean to turn like a fox on his footsteps, and to carry to the rich and
+gray-headed Scotchman his daughters? Yes, Magua, I see it all, and I
+have already been thinking how so much wisdom and honesty should be
+repaid. First, the chief of William Henry will give as a great chief
+should for such a service. The medal[16] of Magua will no longer be of
+tin, but of beaten gold; his horn will run over with powder; dollars
+will be as plenty in his pouch as pebbles on the shore of Horican; and
+the deer will lick his hand, for they will know it to be vain to fly
+from the rifle he will carry! As for myself, I know not how to exceed
+the gratitude of the Scotchman, but I--yes, I will--"
+
+"What will the young chief who comes from towards the sun, give?"
+demanded the Huron, observing that Heyward hesitated in his desire to
+end the enumeration of benefits with that which might form the climax of
+an Indian's wishes.
+
+"He will make the fire-water from the Islands in the salt lake flow
+before the wigwam of Magua, until the heart of the Indian shall be
+lighter than the feathers of the humming-bird, and his breath sweeter
+than the wild honeysuckle."
+
+Le Renard had listened gravely as Heyward slowly proceeded in his subtle
+speech. When the young man mentioned the artifice he supposed the Indian
+to have practised on his own nation, the countenance of the listener was
+veiled in an expression of cautious gravity. At the allusion to the
+injury which Duncan affected to believe had driven the Huron from his
+native tribe, a gleam of such ungovernable ferocity flashed from the
+other's eyes, as induced the adventurous speaker to believe he had
+struck the proper chord. And by the time he reached the part where he so
+artfully blended the thirst of vengeance with the desire of gain, he
+had, at least, obtained a command of the deepest attention of the
+savage. The question put by Le Renard had been calm, and with all the
+dignity of an Indian; but it was quite apparent, by the thoughtful
+expression of the listener's countenance, that the answer was most
+cunningly devised. The Huron mused a few moments, and then laying his
+hand on the rude bandages of his wounded shoulder, he said, with some
+energy,--
+
+"Do friends make such remarks?"
+
+"Would La Longue Carabine cut one so light on an enemy?"
+
+"Do the Delawares crawl upon those they love, like snakes, twisting
+themselves to strike?"
+
+"Would Le Gros Serpent have been heard by the ears of one he wished to
+be deaf?"
+
+"Does the white chief burn his powder in the faces of his brothers?"
+
+"Does he ever miss his aim, when seriously bent to kill?" returned
+Duncan, smiling with well acted sincerity.
+
+Another long and deliberate pause succeeded these sententious questions
+and ready replies. Duncan saw that the Indian hesitated. In order to
+complete his victory, he was in the act of recommencing the enumeration
+of the rewards, when Magua made an expressive gesture and said--
+
+"Enough; Le Renard is a wise chief, and what he does will be seen. Go,
+and keep the mouth shut. When Magua speaks, it will be the time to
+answer."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that the eyes of his companion were warily fastened
+on the rest of the band, fell back immediately, in order to avoid the
+appearance of any suspicious confederacy with their leader. Magua
+approached the horses, and affected to be well pleased with the
+diligence and ingenuity of his comrades. He then signed to Heyward to
+assist the sisters into the saddles, for he seldom deigned to use the
+English tongue, unless urged by some motive of more than usual moment.
+
+There was no longer any plausible pretext for delay; and Duncan was
+obliged, however reluctantly, to comply. As he performed this office, he
+whispered his reviving hopes in the ears of the trembling females, who,
+through dread of encountering the savage countenances of their captors,
+seldom raised their eyes from the ground. The mare of David had been
+taken with the followers of the large chief; in consequence, its owner,
+as well as Duncan, was compelled to journey on foot. The latter did not,
+however, so much regret this circumstance, as it might enable him to
+retard the speed of the party; for he still turned his longing looks in
+the direction of Fort Edward, in the vain expectation of catching some
+sound from that quarter of the forest, which might denote the approach
+of succor.
+
+When all were prepared, Magua made the signal to proceed, advancing in
+front to lead the party in person. Next followed David, who was
+gradually coming to a true sense of his condition, as the effects of the
+wound became less and less apparent. The sisters rode in his rear, with
+Heyward at their side, while the Indians flanked the party, and brought
+up the close of the march, with a caution that seemed never to tire.
+
+In this manner they proceeded in uninterrupted silence, except when
+Heyward addressed some solitary word of comfort to the females, or David
+gave vent to the moanings of his spirit in piteous exclamations, which
+he intended should express the humility of resignation. Their direction
+lay towards the south, and in a course nearly opposite to the road to
+William Henry. Notwithstanding this apparent adherence in Magua to the
+original determination of his conquerors, Heyward could not believe his
+tempting bait was so soon forgotten; and he knew the windings of an
+Indian path too well, to suppose that its apparent course led directly
+to its object, when artifice was at all necessary. Mile after mile was,
+however, passed through the boundless woods, in this painful manner,
+without any prospect of a termination to their journey. Heyward watched
+the sun, as he darted his meridian rays through the branches of the
+trees, and pined for the moment when the policy of Magua should change
+their route to one more favorable to his hopes. Sometimes he fancied the
+wary savage, despairing of passing the arm of Montcalm in safety, was
+holding his way towards a well-known border settlement, where a
+distinguished officer of the crown, and a favored friend of the Six
+Nations, held his large possessions, as well as his usual residence. To
+be delivered into the hands of Sir William Johnson was far preferable to
+being led into the wilds of Canada; but in order to effect even the
+former, it would be necessary to traverse the forest for many weary
+leagues, each step of which was carrying him farther from the scene of
+the war, and, consequently, from the post, not only of honor, but of
+duty.
+
+Cora alone remembered the parting injunctions of the scout, and whenever
+an opportunity offered, she stretched forth her arm to bend aside the
+twigs that met her hands. But the vigilance of the Indians rendered this
+act of precaution both difficult and dangerous. She was often defeated
+in her purpose, by encountering their watchful eyes, when it became
+necessary to feign an alarm she did not feel, and occupy the limb by
+some gesture of feminine apprehension. Once, and once only, was she
+completely successful; when she broke down the bough of a large sumach,
+and, by a sudden thought, let her glove fall at the same instant. This
+sign, intended for those that might follow, was observed by one of her
+conductors, who restored the glove, broke the remaining branches of the
+bush in such a manner that it appeared to proceed from the struggling of
+some beast in its branches, and then laid his hand on his tomahawk, with
+a look so significant, that it put an effectual end to these stolen
+memorials of their passage.
+
+As there were horses, to leave the prints of their footsteps, in both
+bands of the Indians, this interruption cut off any probable hopes of
+assistance being conveyed through the means of their trail.
+
+Heyward would have ventured a remonstrance, had there been anything
+encouraging in the gloomy reserve of Magua. But the savage, during all
+this time, seldom turned to look at his followers, and never spoke. With
+the sun for his only guide, or aided by such blind marks as are only
+known to the sagacity of a native, he held his way along the barrens of
+pine, through occasional little fertile vales, across brooks and
+rivulets, and over undulating hills, with the accuracy of instinct, and
+nearly with the directness of a bird. He never seemed to hesitate.
+Whether the path was hardly distinguishable, whether it disappeared, or
+whether it lay beaten and plain before him, made no sensible difference
+in his speed or certainty. It seemed as if fatigue could not affect him.
+Whenever the eyes of the wearied travellers rose from the decayed leaves
+over which they trod, his dark form was to be seen glancing among the
+stems of the trees in front, his head immovably fastened in a forward
+position, with the light plume on his crest fluttering in a current of
+air, made solely by the swiftness of his own motion.
+
+But all this diligence and speed were not without an object. After
+crossing a low vale, through which a gushing brook meandered, he
+suddenly ascended a hill, so steep and difficult of ascent, that the
+sisters were compelled to alight, in order to follow. When the summit
+was gained, they found themselves on a level spot, but thinly covered
+with trees, under one of which Magua had thrown his dark form, as if
+willing and ready to seek that rest which was so much needed by the
+whole party.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+            "Cursed by my tribe
+  If I forgive him."
+
+  _Shylock._
+
+
+The Indian had selected, for this desirable purpose, one of those steep,
+pyramidal hills, which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds,
+and which so frequently occur in the valleys of America. The one in
+question was high and precipitous; its top flattened, as usual; but with
+one of its sides more than ordinarily irregular. It possessed no other
+apparent advantage for a resting-place than in its elevation and form,
+which might render defence easy, and surprise nearly impossible. As
+Heyward, however, no longer expected that rescue which time and distance
+now rendered so improbable, he regarded these little peculiarities with
+an eye devoid of interest, devoting himself entirely to the comfort and
+condolence of his feebler companions. The Narragansetts were suffered to
+browse on the branches of the trees and shrubs that were thinly
+scattered over the summit of the hill, while the remains of their
+provisions were spread under the shade of a beech, that stretched its
+horizontal limbs like a canopy above them.
+
+Notwithstanding the swiftness of their flight, one of the Indians had
+found an opportunity to strike a straggling fawn with an arrow, and had
+borne the more preferable fragments of the victim patiently on his
+shoulders, to the stopping-place. Without any aid from the science of
+cookery, he was immediately employed, in common with his fellows, in
+gorging himself with this digestible sustenance. Magua alone sat apart,
+without participation in the revolting meal, and apparently buried in
+the deepest thought.
+
+This abstinence, so remarkable in an Indian, when he possessed the means
+of satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Heyward. The
+young man willingly believed that the Huron deliberated on the most
+eligible manner of eluding the vigilance of his associates. With a view
+to assist his plans, by any suggestion of his own, and to strengthen the
+temptation, he left the beech, and straggled as if without an object, to
+the spot where Le Renard was seated.
+
+"Has not Magua kept the sun in his face long enough to escape all danger
+from the Canadians?" he asked, as though no longer doubtful of the good
+intelligence established between them; "and will not the chief of
+William Henry be better pleased to see his daughters before another
+night may have hardened his heart to their loss, to make him less
+liberal in his reward?"
+
+"Do the pale-faces love their children less in the morning than at
+night?" asked the Indian, coldly.
+
+"By no means," returned Heyward, anxious to recall his error, if he had
+made one; "the white man may, and does often, forget the burial-place of
+his fathers; he sometimes ceases to remember those he should love and
+has promised to cherish; but the affection of a parent for his child is
+never permitted to die."
+
+"And is the heart of the white-headed chief soft, and will he think of
+the babes that his squaws have given him? He is hard to his warriors,
+and his eyes are made of stone!"
+
+"He is severe to the idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he
+is a leader, but just and humane. I have known many fond and tender
+parents, but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer towards his
+child. You have seen the gray-head in front of his warriors, Magua; but
+I have seen his eyes swimming in water, when he spoke of those children
+who are now in your power!"
+
+Heyward paused, for he knew not how to construe the remarkable
+expression that gleamed across the swarthy features of the attentive
+Indian. At first it seemed as if the remembrance of the promised reward
+grew vivid in his mind, while he listened to the sources of parental
+feeling which were to assure its possession; but as Duncan proceeded,
+the expression of joy became so fiercely malignant, that it was
+impossible not to apprehend it proceeded from some passion more sinister
+than avarice.
+
+"Go," said the Huron, suppressing the alarming exhibition in an instant,
+in a death-like calmness of countenance; "go to the dark-haired
+daughter, and say, Magua waits to speak. The father will remember what
+the child promises."
+
+Duncan, who interpreted this speech to express a wish for some
+additional pledge that the promised gifts should not be withheld,
+slowly and reluctantly repaired to the place where the sisters were now
+resting from their fatigue, to communicate its purport to Cora.
+
+"You understand the nature of an Indian's wishes," he concluded, as he
+led her towards the place where she was expected, "and must be prodigal
+of your offers of powder and blankets. Ardent spirits are, however, the
+most prized by such as he; nor would it be amiss to add some boon from
+your own hand, with that grace you so well know how to practise.
+Remember, Cora, that on your presence of mind and ingenuity even your
+life, as well as that of Alice, may in some measure depend."
+
+"Heyward, and yours!"
+
+"Mine is of little moment; it is already sold to my king, and is a prize
+to be seized by any enemy who may possess the power. I have no father to
+expect me, and but few friends to lament a fate which I have courted
+with the insatiable longings of youth after distinction. But hush! we
+approach the Indian. Magua, the lady with whom you wish to speak is
+here."
+
+The Indian rose slowly from his seat, and stood for near a minute silent
+and motionless. He then signed with his hand for Heyward to retire,
+saying coldly,--
+
+"When the Huron talks to the women, his tribe shut their ears."
+
+Duncan, still lingering, as if refusing to comply, Cora said, with a
+calm smile--
+
+"You hear, Heyward, and delicacy at least should urge you to retire. Go
+to Alice, and comfort her with our reviving prospects."
+
+She waited until he had departed, and then turning to the native, with
+the dignity of her sex in her voice and manner, she added, "What would
+Le Renard say to the daughter of Munro?"
+
+"Listen," said the Indian, laying his hand firmly upon her arm, as if
+willing to draw her utmost attention to his words; a movement that Cora
+as firmly but quietly repulsed, by extricating the limb from his grasp:
+"Magua was born a chief and a warrior among the red Hurons of the lakes;
+he saw the suns of twenty summers make the snows of twenty winters run
+off in the streams, before he saw a pale-face; and he was happy! Then
+his Canada fathers came into the woods, and taught him to drink the
+fire-water, and he became a rascal. The Hurons drove him from the graves
+of his fathers, as they would chase the hunted buffalo. He ran down the
+shores of the lakes, and followed their outlet to the 'city of cannon.'
+There he hunted and fished, till the people chased him again through the
+woods into the arms of his enemies. The chief, who was born a Huron, was
+at last a warrior among the Mohawks!"
+
+"Something like this I had heard before," said Cora, observing that he
+paused to suppress those passions which began to burn with too bright a
+flame, as he recalled the recollection of his supposed injuries.
+
+"Was it the fault of Le Renard that his head was not made of rock? Who
+gave him the fire-water? who made him a villain? 'Twas the pale-faces,
+the people of your own color."
+
+"And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist, whose
+shades of countenance may resemble mine?" Cora calmly demanded of the
+excited savage.
+
+"No; Magua is a man, and not a fool; such as you never open their lips
+to the burning stream: the Great Spirit has given you wisdom!"
+
+"What then have I to do, or say, in the matter of your misfortunes, not
+to say of your errors?"
+
+"Listen," repeated the Indian, resuming his earnest attitude; "when his
+English and French fathers dug up the hatchet, Le Renard struck the
+war-post of the Mohawks, and went out against his own nation. The
+pale-faces have driven the redskins from their hunting-grounds, and now
+when they fight, a white man leads the way. The old chief at Horican,
+your father, was the great captain of our war-party. He said to the
+Mohawks do this, and do that, and he was minded. He made a law, that if
+an Indian swallowed the fire-water, and came into the cloth wigwams of
+his warriors, it should not be forgotten. Magua foolishly opened his
+mouth, and the hot liquor led him into the cabin of Munro. What did the
+gray-head? let his daughter say."
+
+"He forgot not his words, and did justice by punishing the offender,"
+said the undaunted daughter.
+
+"Justice!" repeated the Indian, casting an oblique glance of the most
+ferocious expression at her unyielding countenance; "is it justice to
+make evil, and then punish for it? Magua was not himself; it was the
+fire-water that spoke and acted for him! but Munro did not believe it.
+The Huron chief was tied up before all the pale-faced warriors, and
+whipped like a dog."
+
+Cora remained silent, for she knew not how to palliate this imprudent
+severity on the part of her father, in a manner to suit the
+comprehension of an Indian.
+
+"See!" continued Magua, tearing aside the slight calico that very
+imperfectly concealed his painted breast; "here are scars given by
+knives and bullets--of these a warrior may boast before his nation; but
+the gray-head has left marks on the back of the Huron chief, that he
+must hide, like a squaw, under this painted cloth of the whites."
+
+"I had thought," resumed Cora, "that an Indian warrior was patient, and
+that his spirit felt not, and knew not, the pain his body suffered."
+
+"When the Chippewas tied Magua to the stake, and cut this gash," said
+the other, laying his finger on a deep scar, "the Huron laughed in their
+faces, and told them, Women struck so light! His spirit was then in the
+clouds! But when he felt the blows of Munro, his spirit lay under the
+birch. The spirit of a Huron is never drunk; it remembers forever!"
+
+"But it may be appeased. If my father has done you this injustice, show
+him how an Indian can forgive an injury, and take back his daughters.
+You have heard from Major Heyward--"
+
+Magua shook his head, forbidding the repetition of offers he so much
+despised.
+
+"What would you have?" continued Cora, after a most painful pause, while
+the conviction forced itself on her mind that the too sanguine and
+generous Duncan had been cruelly deceived by the cunning of the savage.
+
+"What a Huron loves--good for good; bad for bad!"
+
+"You would then revenge the injury inflicted by Munro on his helpless
+daughters. Would it not be more like a man to go before his face, and
+take the satisfaction of a warrior?"
+
+"The arms of the pale-faces are long, and their knives sharp!" returned
+the savage, with a malignant laugh: "why should Le Renard go among the
+muskets of his warriors, when he holds the spirit of the gray-head in
+his hand?"
+
+"Name your intention, Magua," said Cora, struggling with herself to
+speak with steady calmness. "Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or
+do you contemplate even some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means
+of palliating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least, release
+my gentle sister, and pour out all your malice on me. Purchase wealth by
+her safety, and satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of
+both of his daughters might bring the aged man to his grave, and where
+would then be the satisfaction of Le Renard?"
+
+"Listen," said the Indian again. "The light eyes can go back to the
+Horican, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired
+woman will swear by the Great Spirit of her fathers to tell no lie."
+
+"What must I promise?" demanded Cora, still maintaining a secret
+ascendency over the fierce native, by the collected and feminine dignity
+of her presence.
+
+"When Magua left his people, his wife was given to another chief; he has
+now made friends with the Hurons, and will go back to the graves of his
+tribe, on the shores of the great lake. Let the daughter of the English
+chief follow, and live in his wigwam forever."
+
+However revolting a proposal of such a character might prove to Cora,
+she retained, notwithstanding her powerful disgust, sufficient
+self-command to reply, without betraying the weakness.
+
+"And what pleasure would Magua find in sharing his cabin with a wife he
+did not love; one who would be of a nation and color different from his
+own? It would be better to take the gold of Munro, and buy the heart of
+some Huron maid with his gifts."
+
+The Indian made no reply for near a minute, but bent his fierce looks on
+the countenance of Cora, in such wavering glances, that her eyes sank
+with shame, under an impression that, for the first time, they had
+encountered an expression that no chaste female might endure. While she
+was shrinking within herself, in dread of having her ears wounded by
+some proposal still more shocking than the last, the voice of Magua
+answered, in its tones of deepest malignancy--
+
+"When the blows scorched the back of the Huron, he would know where to
+find a woman to feel the smart. The daughter of Munro would draw his
+water, hoe his corn, and cook his venison. The body of the gray-head
+would sleep among his cannon, but his heart would lie within reach of
+the knife of Le Subtil."
+
+"Monster! well dost thou deserve thy treacherous name!" cried Cora, in
+an ungovernable burst of filial indignation. "None but a fiend could
+meditate such a vengeance! But thou overratest thy power! You shall find
+it is, in truth, the heart of Munro you hold, and that it will defy your
+utmost malice!"
+
+The Indian answered this bold defiance by a ghastly smile, that showed
+an unaltered purpose, while he motioned her away, as if to close the
+conference forever. Cora, already regretting her precipitation, was
+obliged to comply, for Magua instantly left the spot, and approached his
+gluttonous comrades. Heyward flew to the side of the agitated female,
+and demanded the result of a dialogue that he had watched at a distance
+with so much interest. But unwilling to alarm the fears of Alice, she
+evaded a direct reply, betraying only by her countenance her utter want
+of success, and keeping her anxious looks fastened on the slightest
+movements of their captors. To the reiterated and earnest questions of
+her sister, concerning their probable destination, she made no other
+answer than by pointing towards the dark group, with an agitation she
+could not control, and murmuring, as she folded Alice to her bosom--
+
+"There, there; read our fortunes in their faces; we shall see; we shall
+see!"
+
+The action, and the choked utterance of Cora, spoke more impressively
+than any words, and quickly drew the attention of her companions on that
+spot where her own was riveted with an intenseness that nothing but the
+importance of the stake could create.
+
+When Magua reached the cluster of lolling savages, who, gorged with
+their disgusting meal, lay stretched on the earth in brutal indulgence,
+he commenced speaking with the dignity of an Indian chief. The first
+syllables he uttered had the effect to cause his listeners to raise
+themselves in attitudes of respectful attention. As the Huron used his
+native language, the prisoners, notwithstanding the caution of the
+natives had kept them within the swing of their tomahawks, could only
+conjecture the substance of his harrangue, from the nature of those
+significant gestures with which an Indian always illustrates his
+eloquence.
+
+At first, the language, as well as the action of Magua, appeared calm
+and deliberate. When he had succeeded in sufficiently awakening the
+attention of his comrades, Heyward fancied, by his pointing so
+frequently towards the direction of the great lakes, that he spoke of
+the land of their fathers, and of their distant tribe. Frequent
+indications of applause escaped the listeners, who, as they uttered the
+expressive "Hugh!" looked at each other in commendation of the speaker.
+Le Renard was too skilful to neglect his advantage. He now spoke of the
+long and painful route by which they had left those spacious grounds and
+happy villages, to come and battle against the enemies of their
+Canadian fathers. He enumerated the warriors of the party; their
+several merits; their frequent services to the nation; their wounds, and
+the number of the scalps they had taken. Whenever he alluded to any
+present (and the subtle Indian neglected none), the dark countenance of
+the flattered individual gleamed with exultation, nor did he even
+hesitate to assert the truth of the words, by gestures of applause and
+confirmation. Then the voice of the speaker fell, and lost the loud,
+animated tones of triumph with which he had enumerated their deeds of
+success and victory. He described the cataract of Glenn's; the
+impregnable position of its rocky island, with its caverns, and its
+numerous rapids and whirlpools; he named the name of La Longue Carabine,
+and paused until the forest beneath them had sent up the last echo of a
+loud and long yell, with which the hated appellation was received. He
+pointed towards the youthful military captive, and described the death
+of a favorite warrior, who had been precipitated into the deep ravine by
+his hand. He not only mentioned the fate of him who, hanging between
+heaven and earth, had presented such a spectacle of horror to the whole
+band, but he acted anew the terrors of his situation, his resolution and
+his death, on the branches of a sapling; and, finally, he rapidly
+recounted the manner in which each of their friends had fallen, never
+failing to touch upon their courage, and their most acknowledged
+virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once more
+changed, and became plaintive, and even musical, in its low guttural
+sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain; their
+destitution; their misery, both physical and moral; their distance; and,
+at last, of their unavenged wrongs. Then suddenly lifting his voice to a
+pitch of terrific energy, he concluded, by demanding,--
+
+"Are the Hurons dogs to bear this? Who shall say to the wife of Menowgua
+that the fishes have his scalp, and that his nation have not taken
+revenge! Who will dare meet the mother of Wassawattimie, that scornful
+woman, with his hands clean! What shall be said to the old men when they
+ask us for scalps, and we have not a hair from a white head to give
+them! The women will point their fingers at us. There is a dark spot on
+the names of the Hurons, and it must be hid in blood!"
+
+His voice was no longer audible in the burst of rage which now broke
+into the air, as if the wood, instead of containing so small a band, was
+filled with the nation. During the foregoing address the progress of the
+speaker was too plainly read by those most interested in his success,
+through the medium of the countenances of the men he addressed. They had
+answered his melancholy and mourning by sympathy and sorrow; his
+assertions, by gestures of confirmation; and his boastings, with the
+exultation of savages. When he spoke of courage, their looks were firm
+and responsive; when he alluded to their injuries, their eyes kindled
+with fury; when he mentioned the taunts of the women, they dropped their
+heads in shame; but when he pointed out their means of vengeance, he
+struck a chord which never failed to thrill in the breast of an Indian.
+With the first intimation that it was within their reach, the whole band
+sprang upon their feet as one man; giving utterance to their rage in the
+most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body with
+drawn knives and uplifted tomahawks. Heyward threw himself between the
+sisters and the foremost, whom he grappled with a desperate strength
+that for a moment checked his violence. This unexpected resistance gave
+Magua time to interpose, and with rapid enunciation and animated
+gesture, he drew the attention of the band again to himself. In that
+language he knew so well how to assume, he diverted his comrades from
+their instant purpose, and invited them to prolong the misery of their
+victims. His proposal was received with acclamations, and executed with
+the swiftness of thought.
+
+Two powerful warriors cast themselves on Heyward, while another was
+occupied in securing the less active singing-master. Neither of the
+captives, however, submitted without a desperate though fruitless
+struggle. Even David hurled his assailant to the earth; nor was Heyward
+secured until the victory over his companion enabled the Indians to
+direct their united force to that object. He was then bound and fastened
+to the body of the sapling, on whose branches Magua had acted the
+pantomime of the falling Huron. When the young soldier regained his
+recollection, he had the painful certainty before his eyes that a common
+fate was intended for the whole party. On his right was Cora, in a
+durance similar to his own, pale and agitated, but with an eye, whose
+steady look still read the proceedings of their enemies. On his left,
+the withes which bound her to a pine, performed that office for Alice
+which her trembling limbs refused, and alone kept her fragile form from
+sinking. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer, but instead of
+looking upwards towards that power which alone could rescue them, her
+unconscious looks wandered to the countenance of Duncan with infantile
+dependency. David had contended, and the novelty of the circumstance
+held him silent, in deliberation on the propriety of the unusual
+occurrence.
+
+The vengeance of the Hurons had now taken a new direction, and they
+prepared to execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they
+were familiarized by the practice of centuries. Some sought knots, to
+raise the blazing pile; one was riving the splinters of pine, in order
+to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments; and
+others bent the tops of two saplings to the earth, in order to suspend
+Heyward by the arms between the recoiling branches. But the vengeance of
+Magua sought a deeper and a more malignant enjoyment.
+
+While the less refined monsters of the band prepared, before the eyes of
+those who were to suffer, these well known and vulgar means of torture,
+he approached Cora, and pointed out, with the most malign expression of
+countenance, the speedy fate that awaited her:--
+
+"Ha!" he added, "what says the daughter of Munro? Her head is too good
+to find a pillow in the wigwam of Le Renard; will she like it better
+when it rolls about this hill a plaything for the wolves? Her bosom
+cannot nurse the children of a Huron; she will see it spit upon by
+Indians!"
+
+"What means the monster!" demanded the astonished Heyward.
+
+"Nothing!" was the firm reply. "He is a savage, a barbarous and ignorant
+savage, and knows not what he does. Let us find leisure, with our dying
+breath, to ask for him penitence and pardon."
+
+"Pardon!" echoed the fierce Huron, mistaking, in his anger, the meaning
+of her words; "the memory of an Indian is longer than the arm of the
+pale-faces; his mercy shorter than their justice! Say; shall I send the
+yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Magua to the great lakes,
+to carry his water, and feed him with corn?"
+
+Cora beckoned him away, with an emotion of disgust she could not
+control.
+
+"Leave me," she said, with a solemnity that for a moment checked the
+barbarity of the Indian; "you mingle bitterness in my prayers; you stand
+between me and my God!"
+
+The slight impression produced on the savage was, however, soon
+forgotten, and he continued pointing, with taunting irony, towards
+Alice.
+
+"Look! the child weeps! She is young to die! Send her to Munro, to comb
+his gray hairs, and keep life in the heart of the old man."
+
+Cora could not resist the desire to look upon her youthful sister, in
+whose eyes she met an imploring glance, that betrayed the longings of
+nature.
+
+"What says he, dearest Cora?" asked the trembling voice of Alice. "Did
+he speak of sending me to our father?"
+
+For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a
+countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At
+length she spoke, though her tones had lost their rich and calm fulness,
+in an expression of tenderness that seemed maternal.
+
+"Alice," she said, "the Huron offers us both life, nay, more than both;
+he offers to restore Duncan, our invaluable Duncan, as well as you, to
+our friends--to our father--to our heart-stricken, childless father, if
+I will bow down this rebellious, stubborn pride of mine, and consent--"
+
+Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands, she looked upward, as
+if seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite.
+
+"Say on," cried Alice; "to what, dearest Cora? O, that the proffer were
+made to me! to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore Duncan,
+how cheerfully could I die!"
+
+"Die!" repeated Cora, with a calmer and a firmer voice, "that were easy!
+Perhaps the alternative may not be less so. He would have me," she
+continued, her accents sinking under a deep consciousness of the
+degradation of the proposal, "follow him to the wilderness; go to the
+habitations of the Hurons; to remain there: in short to become his wife!
+Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections! sister of my love! And you,
+too, Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel. Is life to be
+purchased by such a sacrifice? Will you, Alice, receive it at my hands
+at such a price? And _you_, Duncan, guide me; control me between you;
+for I am wholly yours."
+
+"Would I!" echoed the indignant and astonished youth. "Cora! Cora! you
+jest with our misery! Name not the horrid alternative again; the thought
+itself is worse than a thousand deaths."
+
+"That such would be _your_ answer, I well knew!" exclaimed Cora, her
+cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the
+lingering emotions of a woman. "What says my Alice? for her will I
+submit without another murmur."
+
+Although both Heyward and Cora listened with painful suspense and the
+deepest attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the
+delicate and sensitive form of Alice would shrink into itself, as she
+listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her,
+the fingers moving in slight convulsions; her head dropped upon her
+bosom, and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking
+like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of
+animation, and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head
+began to move slowly, in a sign of deep, unconquerable disapprobation.
+
+"No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!"
+
+"Then die!" shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at the
+unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no
+longer be bridled, at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he
+believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of
+Heyward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered in
+the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation.
+Collecting all his energies in one effort, he snapped the twigs which
+bound him and rushed upon another savage who was preparing with loud
+yells, and a more deliberate aim, to repeat the blow. They encountered,
+grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked body of his
+antagonist afforded Heyward no means of holding his adversary, who
+glided from his grasp, and rose again with one knee on his chest,
+pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the
+knife gleaming in the air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and
+was rather accompanied, than followed, by the sharp crack of a rifle. He
+felt his breast relieved from the load it had endured; he saw the savage
+expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant
+wildness, when the Indian fell dead on the faded leaves by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+  "_Clo._--I am gone, sir,
+      And anon, sir,
+  I'll be with you again."
+
+  _Twelfth Night._
+
+
+The Hurons stood aghast at this sudden visitation of death on one of
+their band. But, as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had
+dared to immolate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name of
+"La Longue Carabine" burst simultaneously from every lip, and was
+succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered
+by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had
+piled their arms; and at the next moment, Hawkeye, too eager to load the
+rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the
+clubbed weapon, and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold
+and rapid as was the progress of the scout, it was exceeded by that of a
+light and vigorous form which, bounding past him, leaped, with
+incredible activity and daring, into the very centre of the Hurons,
+where it stood, whirling a tomahawk, and flourishing a glittering knife,
+with fearful menaces, in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could
+follow these unexpected and audacious movements, an image, armed in the
+emblematic panoply of death, glided before their eyes, and assumed a
+threatening attitude at the other's side. The savage tormentors recoiled
+before these warlike intruders, and uttered as they appeared in such
+quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamation of
+surprise, followed by the well known and dreaded appellations of--
+
+"Le Cerf Agile! Le Gros Serpent!"
+
+But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily
+disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he
+comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his
+followers by his voice as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long
+and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud whoop upon the expecting
+Chingachgook. It was the signal for a general combat. Neither party had
+fire-arms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner;
+hand to hand, with weapons of offence, and none of defence.
+
+Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single, well
+directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward tore the
+weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly towards the fray.
+As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent
+from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a
+whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another
+enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable
+weapon he beat down the slight and inartificial defences of his
+antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the blow. Heyward ventured to
+hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment of
+closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and
+checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight
+advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon
+his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him of
+the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully
+engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the
+desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to
+foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and
+succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron
+grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long.
+In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting--
+
+"Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!"
+
+At the next moment, the breech of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head
+of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as
+he sank from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless.
+
+When Uncas had brained his first antagonist, he turned, like a hungry
+lion, to seek another. The fifth and only Huron disengaged at the first
+onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were
+employed in the deadly strife, he sought, with hellish vengeance, to
+complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph, he
+sprang towards the defenceless Cora, sending his keen axe, as the
+dreadful precursor of his approach. The tomahawk grazed her shoulder,
+and cutting the withes which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at
+liberty to fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless of her
+own safety, threw herself on the bosom of Alice, striving with
+convulsed and ill-directed fingers, to tear asunder the twigs which
+confined the person of her sister. Any other than a monster would have
+relented at such an act of generous devotion to the best and purest
+affection; but the breast of the Huron was a stranger to sympathy.
+Seizing Cora by the rich tresses which fell in confusion about her form,
+he tore her from her frantic hold, and bowed her down with brutal
+violence to her knees. The savage drew the flowing curls through his
+hand, and raising them on high with an outstretched arm, he passed the
+knife around the exquisitely moulded head of his victim, with a taunting
+and exulting laugh. But he purchased this moment of fierce gratification
+with the loss of the fatal opportunity. It was just then the sight
+caught the eye of Uncas. Bounding from his footsteps he appeared for an
+instant darting through the air, and descending in a ball he fell on the
+chest of his enemy, driving him many yards from the spot, headlong and
+prostrate. The violence of the exertion cast the young Mohican at his
+side. They arose together, fought, and bled, each in his turn. But the
+conflict was soon decided; the tomahawk of Heyward and the rifle of
+Hawkeye descended on the skull of the Huron, at the same moment that the
+knife of Uncas reached his heart.
+
+The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le Gros Serpent. Well
+did these barbarous warriors prove that they deserved those significant
+names which had been bestowed for deeds in former wars. When they
+engaged, some little time was lost in eluding the quick and vigorous
+thrusts which had been aimed at their lives. Suddenly darting on each
+other, they closed, and came to the earth, twisted together like twining
+serpents, in pliant and subtle folds. At the moment when the victors
+found themselves unoccupied, the spot where these experienced and
+desperate combatants lay, could only be distinguished by a cloud of dust
+and leaves which moved from the centre of the little plain towards its
+boundary, as if raised by the passage of a whirlwind. Urged by the
+different motives of filial affection, friendship, and gratitude,
+Heyward and his companions rushed with one accord to the place,
+encircling the little canopy of dust which hung above the warriors. In
+vain did Uncas dart around the cloud, with a wish to strike his knife
+into the heart of his father's foe; the threatening rifle of Hawkeye was
+raised and suspended in vain, while Duncan endeavored to seize the
+limbs of the Huron with hands that appeared to have lost their power.
+Covered, as they were, with dust and blood, the swift evolutions of the
+combatants seemed to incorporate their bodies into one. The death-like
+looking figure of the Mohican, and the dark form of the Huron, gleamed
+before their eyes in such quick and confused succession, that the
+friends of the former knew not where nor when to plant the succoring
+blow. It is true there were short and fleeting moments, when the fiery
+eyes of Magua were seen glittering, like the fabled organs of the
+basilisk, through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he
+read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the
+presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile hand could descend on
+his devoted head, its place was filled by the scowling visage of
+Chingachgook. In this manner the scene of the combat was removed from
+the centre of the little plain to its verge. The Mohican now found an
+opportunity to make a powerful thrust with his knife; Magua suddenly
+relinquished his grasp, and fell backward without motion, and seemingly
+without life. His adversary leaped on his feet, making the arches of the
+forest ring with the sounds of triumph.
+
+"Well done for the Delawares! victory to the Mohican!" cried Hawkeye,
+once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle; "a finishing
+blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor
+rob him of his right to the scalp."
+
+But, at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of
+descending, the subtle Huron rolled swiftly from beneath the danger,
+over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet, was seen
+leaping, with a single bound, into the centre of a thicket of low
+bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed
+their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were
+following with speed and clamor, like hounds in open view of the deer,
+when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their
+purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill.
+
+"'Twas like himself," cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices
+contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all
+matters which concerned the Mingos; "a lying and deceitful varlet as he
+is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain
+still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to
+life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go--let him go; 'tis but
+one man, and he without rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French
+commerades; and, like a rattler that has lost his fangs, he can do no
+further mischief, until such time as he, and we too, may leave the
+prints of our moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. See, Uncas,"
+he added, in Delaware, "your father is flaying the scalps already. It
+may be well to go round and feel the vagabonds that are left, or we may
+have another of them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay
+that has been winged."
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST
+
+_The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le Gros Serpent_]
+
+So saying, the honest, but implacable scout, made the circuit of the
+dead, into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much
+coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had,
+however, been anticipated by the elder Mohican, who had already torn the
+emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain.
+
+But Uncas, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with
+instinctive delicacy, accompanied by Heyward, to the assistance of the
+females, and quickly releasing Alice, placed her in the arms of Cora. We
+shall not attempt to describe the gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of
+events which glowed in the bosoms of the sisters, who were thus
+unexpectedly restored to life and to each other. Their thanksgivings
+were deep and silent; the offerings of their gentle spirits, burning
+brightest and purest on the secret altars of their hearts; and their
+renovated and more earthly feelings exhibiting themselves in long and
+fervent, though speechless caresses. As Alice rose from her knees, where
+she had sunk by the side of Cora, she threw herself on the bosom of the
+latter; and sobbed aloud the name of their aged father, while her soft,
+dove-like eyes sparkled with the rays of hope.
+
+"We are saved! we are saved!" she murmured; "to return to the arms of
+our dear, dear father, and his heart will not be broken with grief. And
+you too, Cora, my sister; my more than sister, my mother; you too are
+spared. And Duncan," she added, looking round upon the youth with a
+smile of ineffable innocence, "even our own brave and noble Duncan has
+escaped without a hurt."
+
+To these ardent and nearly incoherent words Cora made no other answer
+than by straining the youthful speaker to her heart, as she bent over
+her, in melting tenderness. The manhood of Heyward felt no shame in
+dropping tears over this spectacle of affectionate rapture; and Uncas
+stood, fresh and blood-stained from the combat, a calm, and, apparently,
+an unmoved looker-on, it is true, but with eyes that had already lost
+their fierceness, and were beaming with a sympathy that elevated him far
+above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before the
+practices of his nation.
+
+During this display of emotions so natural in their situation, Hawkeye,
+whose vigilant distrust had satisfied itself that the Hurons, who
+disfigured the heavenly scene, no longer possessed the power to
+interrupt its harmony, approached David, and liberated him from the
+bonds he had, until that moment, endured with the most exemplary
+patience.
+
+"There," exclaimed the scout, casting the last withe behind him, "you
+are once more master of your own limbs, though you seem not to use them
+with greater judgment than that in which they were first fashioned. If
+advice from one who is not older than yourself, but who having lived
+most of his time in the wilderness, may be said to have experience
+beyond his years, will give no offence, you are welcome to my thoughts;
+and these are, to part with the little tooting instrument in your jacket
+to the first fool you meet with, and buy some useful we'pon with the
+money, if it be only the barrel of a horseman's pistol. By industry and
+care, you might thus come to some prefarment; for by this time, I should
+think, your eyes would plainly tell you that a carrion crow is a better
+bird than a mocking thresher. The one will, at least, remove foul sights
+from before the face of man, while the other is only good to brew
+disturbances in the woods, by cheating the ears of all that hear them."
+
+"Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to
+the victory!" answered the liberated David. "Friend," he added,
+thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand towards Hawkeye, in kindness,
+while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee that the hairs of
+my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence; for,
+though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever
+found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not
+join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the
+bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skilful hast thou proved thyself in
+the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge
+other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well
+worthy of a Christian's praise."
+
+"The thing is but a trifle, and what you may often see, if you tarry
+long among us," returned the scout, a good deal softened towards the
+man of song, by this unequivocal expression of gratitude. "I have got
+back my old companion, 'Killdeer,'" he added, striking his hand on the
+breech of his rifle; "and that in itself is a victory. These Iroquois
+are cunning, but they outwitted themselves when they placed their
+fire-arms out of reach; and had Uncas or his father been gifted with
+only their common Indian patience, we should have come in upon the
+knaves with three bullets instead of one, and that would have made a
+finish of the whole pack; yon loping varlet, as well as his commerades.
+But 'twas all foreordered, and for the best."
+
+"Thou sayest well," returned David, "and hast caught the true spirit of
+Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is
+predestined to be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth,
+and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer."
+
+The scout, who by this time was seated, examining into the state of his
+rifle with a species of parental assiduity, now looked up at the other
+in a displeasure that he did not affect to conceal, roughly interrupting
+further speech.
+
+"Doctrine, or no doctrine," said the sturdy woodsman, "'tis the belief
+of knaves, and the curse of an honest man. I can credit that yonder
+Huron was to fall by my hand, for with my own eyes I have seen it; but
+nothing short of being a witness will cause me to think he had met with
+any reward, or that Chingachgook, there, will be condemned at the final
+day."
+
+"You have no warranty for such an audacious doctrine, nor any covenant
+to support it," cried David, who was deeply tinctured with the subtle
+distinctions which, in his time, and more especially in his province,
+had been drawn around the beautiful simplicity of revelation, by
+endeavoring to penetrate the awful mystery of the divine nature,
+supplying faith by self-sufficiency, and by consequence, involving those
+who reasoned from such human dogmas in absurdities and doubt; "your
+temple is reared on the sands, and the first tempest will wash away its
+foundation. I demand your authorities for such an uncharitable assertion
+(like other advocates of a system, David was not always accurate in his
+use of terms). Name chapter and verse; in which of the holy books do you
+find language to support you?"
+
+"Book!" repeated Hawkeye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do
+you take me for a whimpering boy at the apron-string of one of your old
+gals; and this good rifle on my knee for the feather of a goose's wing,
+my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a
+cross-barred handkercher to carry my dinner? Book! what have such as I,
+who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do
+with books? I never read but in one, and the words that are written
+there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may
+boast that of forty long and hard-working years."
+
+"What call you the volume?" said David, misconceiving the other's
+meaning.
+
+"Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it is
+not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who
+read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man
+may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so
+clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If
+any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the
+windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a
+fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the
+level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power."
+
+The instant David discovered that he battled with a disputant who
+imbibed his faith from the lights of nature, eschewing all subtleties of
+doctrine, he willingly abandoned a controversy from which he believed
+neither profit nor credit was to be derived. While the scout was
+speaking, he had also seated himself, and producing the ready little
+volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty,
+which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his
+orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of
+the western continent--of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted
+bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but
+after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared to
+exercise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or rather in
+thanksgiving for, the recent victory. He waited patiently for Hawkeye to
+cease, then lifting his eyes, together with his voice, he said, aloud,--
+
+"I invite you, friends, to join in praise for this signal deliverance
+from the hands of barbarians and infidels, to the comfortable and solemn
+tones of the tune, called 'Northampton.'"
+
+He next named the page and verse where the rhymes selected were to be
+found, and applied the pitch-pipe to his lips, with the decent gravity
+that he had been wont to use in the temple. This time he was, however,
+without any accompaniment, for the sisters were just then pouring out
+those tender effusions of affection which have been already alluded to.
+Nothing deterred by the smallness of his audience, which, in truth,
+consisted only of the discontented scout, he raised his voice,
+commencing and ending the sacred song without accident or interruption
+of any kind.
+
+Hawkeye listened, while he coolly adjusted his flint and reloaded his
+rifle; but the sounds, wanting the extraneous assistance of scene and
+sympathy, failed to awaken his slumbering emotions. Never minstrel, or
+by whatever more suitable name David should be known, drew upon his
+talents in the presence of more insensible auditors; though considering
+the singleness and sincerity of his motive, it is probable that no bard
+of profane song ever uttered notes that ascended so near to that throne
+where all homage and praise is due. The scout shook his head, and
+muttering some unintelligible words, among which "throat" and
+"Iroquois," were alone audible, he walked away, to collect, and to
+examine into, the state of the captured arsenal of the Hurons. In this
+office he was now joined by Chingachgook, who found his own, as well as
+the rifle of his son, among the arms. Even Heyward and David were
+furnished with weapons; nor was ammunition wanting to render them all
+effectual.
+
+When the foresters had made their selection, and distributed their
+prizes, the scout announced that the hour had arrived when it was
+necessary to move. By this time the song of Gamut had ceased, and the
+sisters had learned to still the exhibition of their emotions. Aided by
+Duncan and the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous
+sides of that hill which they had so lately ascended under so very
+different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of
+their massacre. At the foot, they found the Narragansetts browsing the
+herbage of the bushes; and having mounted, they followed the movements
+of a guide, who, in the most deadly straits, had so often proved himself
+their friend. The journey was, however, short. Hawkeye, leaving the
+blind path that the Hurons had followed, turned short to his right, and
+entering the thicket, he crossed a babbling brook, and halted in a
+narrow dell, under the shade of a few water elms. Their distance from
+the base of the fatal hill was but a few rods, and the steeds had been
+serviceable only in crossing the shallow stream.
+
+The scout and the Indians appeared to be familiar with the sequestered
+place where they now were; for, leaning their rifles against the trees,
+they commenced throwing aside the dried leaves, and opening the blue
+clay, out of which a clear and sparkling spring of bright, glancing
+water, quickly bubbled. The white man then looked about him, as though
+seeking for some object, which was not to be found as readily as he
+expected:--
+
+"Them careless imps, the Mohawks, with their Tuscarora and Onondaga
+brethren, have been here slaking their thirst," he muttered, "and the
+vagabonds have thrown away the gourd! This is the way with benefits,
+when they are bestowed on such disremembering hounds! Here has the Lord
+laid his hand, in the midst of the howling wilderness, for their good,
+and raised a fountain of water from the bowels of the 'arth, that might
+laugh at the richest shop of apothecary's ware in all the colonies; and
+see! the knaves have trodden in the clay, and deformed the cleanliness
+of the place, as though they were brute beasts, instead of human men."
+
+Uncas silently extended towards him the desired gourd, which the spleen
+of Hawkeye had hitherto prevented him from observing, on a branch of an
+elm. Filling it with water, he retired a short distance, to a place
+where the ground was more firm and dry; here he coolly seated himself,
+and after taking a long, and, apparently, a grateful draught, he
+commenced a very strict examination of the fragments of food left by the
+Hurons, which had hung in a wallet on his arm.
+
+"Thank you, lad!" he continued, returning the empty gourd to Uncas; "now
+we will see how these rampaging Hurons lived, when outlying in
+ambushments. Look at this! The varlets know the better pieces of the
+deer; and one would think they might carve and roast a saddle, equal to
+the best cook in the land! But everything is raw, for the Iroquois are
+thorough savages. Uncas, take my steel, and kindle a fire; a mouthful of
+a tender broil will give natur' a helping hand, after so long a trail."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that their guides now set about their repast in
+sober earnest, assisted the ladies to alight, and placed himself at
+their side, not unwilling to enjoy a few moments of grateful rest, after
+the bloody scene he had just gone through. While the culinary process
+was in hand, curiosity induced him to inquire into the circumstances
+which had led to their timely and unexpected rescue:--
+
+"How is it that we see you so soon, my generous friend," he asked, "and
+without aid from the garrison of Edward?"
+
+"Had we gone to the bend in the river, we might have been in time to
+rake the leaves over your bodies, but too late to have saved your
+scalps," coolly answered the scout. "No, no; instead of throwing away
+strength and opportunity by crossing to the fort, we lay by, under the
+bank of the Hudson, waiting to watch the movements of the Hurons."
+
+"You were, then, witnesses of all that passed?"
+
+"Not of all; for Indian sight is too keen to be easily cheated, and we
+kept close. A difficult matter it was, too, to keep this Mohican boy
+snug in the ambushment. Ah! Uncas, Uncas, your behavior was more like
+that of a curious woman than of a warrior on his scent."
+
+Uncas permitted his eyes to turn for an instant on the sturdy
+countenance of the speaker, but he neither spoke nor gave any indication
+of repentance. On the contrary, Heyward thought the manner of the young
+Mohican was disdainful, if not a little fierce, and that he suppressed
+passions that were ready to explode, as much in compliment to the
+listeners, as from the deference he usually paid to his white associate.
+
+"You saw our capture?" Heyward next demanded.
+
+"We heard it," was the significant answer. "An Indian yell is plain
+language to men who have passed their days in the woods. But when you
+landed, we were driven to crawl, like sarpents, beneath the leaves; and
+then we lost sight of you entirely, until we placed eyes on you again,
+trussed to the trees, and ready bound for an Indian massacre."
+
+"Our rescue was the deed of Providence. It was nearly a miracle that you
+did not mistake the path, for the Hurons divided, and each band had its
+horses."
+
+"Ay! there we were thrown off the scent, and might, indeed, have lost
+the trail, had it not been for Uncas; we took the path, however, that
+led into the wilderness; for we judged, and judged rightly, that the
+savages would hold that course with their prisoners. But when we had
+followed it for many miles, without finding a single twig broken, as I
+had advised, my mind misgave me; especially as all the footsteps had the
+prints of moccasins."
+
+"Our captors had the precaution to see us shod like themselves," said
+Duncan, raising a foot, and exhibiting the buckskin he wore.
+
+"Ay, 'twas judgmatical, and like themselves; though we were too expart
+to be thrown from a trail by so common an invention."
+
+"To what, then, are we indebted for our safety?"
+
+"To what, as a white man who has no taint of Indian blood, I should be
+ashamed to own; to the judgment of the young Mohican, in matters which I
+should know better than he, but which I can now hardly believe to be
+true, though my own eyes tell me it is so."
+
+"'Tis extraordinary! will you not name the reason?"
+
+"Uncas was bold enough to say, that the beasts ridden by the gentle
+ones," continued Hawkeye, glancing his eyes, not without curious
+interest, on the fillies of the ladies, "planted the legs of one side on
+the ground at the same time, which is contrary to the movements of all
+trotting four-footed animals of my knowledge, except the bear. And yet
+here are horses that always journey in this manner, as my own eyes have
+seen, and as their trail has shown for twenty long miles."
+
+"'Tis the merit of the animal! They come from the shores of
+Narragansett Bay, in the small province of Providence Plantations, and
+are celebrated for their hardihood, and the ease of this peculiar
+movement; though other horses are not unfrequently trained to the same."
+
+"It may be--it may be," said Hawkeye, who had listened with singular
+attention to this explanation; "though I am a man who has the full blood
+of the whites, my judgment in deer and beaver is greater than in beasts
+of burden. Major Effingham has many noble chargers, but I have never
+seen one travel after such a sideling gait."
+
+"True; for he would value the animals for very different properties.
+Still is this a breed highly esteemed, and as you witness, much honored
+with the burdens it is often destined to bear."
+
+The Mohicans had suspended their operations about the glimmering fire,
+to listen; and when Duncan had done, they looked at each other
+significantly, the father uttering the never-failing exclamation of
+surprise. The scout ruminated, like a man digesting his newly acquired
+knowledge, and once more stole a curious glance at the horses.
+
+"I dare to say there are even stranger sights to be seen in the
+settlements!" he said, at length; "natur' is sadly abused by man, when
+he once gets the mastery. But, go sideling or go straight, Uncas had
+seen the movement, and their trail led us on to the broken bush. The
+outer branch, near the prints of one of the horses, was bent upward, as
+a lady breaks a flower from its stem, but all the rest were ragged and
+broken down, as if the strong hand of a man had been tearing them! So I
+concluded that the cunning varmints had seen the twig bent, and had torn
+the rest, to make us believe a buck had been feeling the boughs with his
+antlers."
+
+"I do believe your sagacity did not deceive you; for some such thing
+occurred!"
+
+"That was easy to see," added the scout, in no degree conscious of
+having exhibited any extraordinary sagacity; "and a very different
+matter it was from a waddling horse! It then struck me the Mingos would
+push for this spring, for the knaves well know the vartue of its
+waters!"
+
+"Is it, then, so famous?" demanded Heyward, examining, with a more
+curious eye, the secluded dell, with its bubbling fountain, surrounded,
+as it was, by earth of a deep dingy brown.
+
+"Few redskins, who travel south and east of the great lakes, but have
+heard of its qualities. Will you taste for yourself?"
+
+Heyward took the gourd, and after swallowing a little of the water,
+threw it aside with grimaces of discontent. The scout laughed in his
+silent, but heartfelt manner, and shook his head with vast satisfaction.
+
+"Ah! you want the flavor that one gets by habit; the time was when I
+liked it as little as yourself; but I have come to my taste, and I now
+crave it, as a deer does the licks.[17] Your high spiced wines are not
+better liked than a redskin relishes this water; especially when his
+natur' is ailing. But Uncas has made his fire, and it is time we think
+of eating, for our journey is long, and all before us."
+
+Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had
+instant recourse to the fragments of food which had escaped the voracity
+of the Hurons. A very summary process completed the simple cookery, when
+he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal, with the silence and
+characteristic diligence of men who ate in order to enable themselves
+to endure great and unremitting toil.
+
+When this necessary, and, happily, grateful duty had been performed,
+each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draught at
+that solitary and silent spring,[18] around which and its sister
+fountains, within fifty years, the wealth, beauty, and talents of a
+hemisphere were to assemble in throngs, in pursuit of health and
+pleasure. Then Hawkeye announced his determination to proceed. The
+sisters resumed their saddles; Duncan and David grasped their rifles,
+and followed on their footsteps; the scout leading the advance, and the
+Mohicans bringing up the rear. The whole party moved swiftly through the
+narrow path, towards the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle
+unheeded with the adjacent brook, and the bodies of the dead to fester
+on the neighboring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too
+common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or
+comment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+  "I'll seek a readier path."
+
+  PARNELL.
+
+
+The route taken by Hawkeye lay across those sandy plains, relieved by
+occasional valleys and swells of land, which had been traversed by their
+party on the morning of the same day, with the baffled Magua for their
+guide. The sun had now fallen low towards the distant mountains; and as
+their journey lay through the interminable forest, the heat was no
+longer oppressive. Their progress, in consequence, was proportionate;
+and long before the twilight gathered about them, they had made good
+many toilsome miles on their return.
+
+The hunter, like the savage whose place he filled, seemed to select
+among the blind signs of their wild route, with a species of instinct,
+seldom abating his speed, and never pausing to deliberate. A rapid and
+oblique glance at the moss on the trees, with an occasional upward gaze
+towards the setting sun, or a steady but passing look at the direction
+of the numerous water-courses, through which he waded, were sufficient
+to determine his path, and remove his greatest difficulties. In the
+meantime, the forest began to change its hues, losing that lively green
+which had embellished its arches, in the graver light which is the usual
+precursor of the close of day.
+
+While the eyes of the sisters were endeavoring to catch glimpses through
+the trees, of the flood of golden glory which formed a glittering halo
+around the sun, tinging here and there with ruby streaks, or bordering
+with narrow edgings of shining yellow, a mass of clouds that lay piled
+at no great distance above the western hills, Hawkeye turned suddenly,
+and, pointing upwards towards the gorgeous heavens, he spoke:--
+
+"Yonder is the signal given to a man to seek his food and natural rest,"
+he said: "better and wiser would it be, if he could understand the signs
+of nature, and take a lesson from the fowls of the air and the beasts of
+the fields! Our night, however, will soon be over; for, with the moon,
+we must be up and moving again. I remember to have fou't the Maquas,
+hereaways, in the first war in which I ever drew blood from man; and we
+threw up a work of blocks, to keep the ravenous varmints from handling
+our scalps. If my marks do not fail me, we shall find the place a few
+rods farther to our left."
+
+Without waiting for an assent, or, indeed, for any reply, the sturdy
+hunter moved boldly into a dense thicket of young chestnuts, shoving
+aside the branches of the exuberant shoots which nearly covered the
+ground, like a man who expected, at each step, to discover some object
+he had formerly known. The recollection of the scout did not deceive
+him. After penetrating through the brush, matted as it was with briers,
+for a few hundred feet he entered an open space, that surrounded a low,
+green hillock, which was crowned by the decayed block-house in question.
+This rude and neglected building was one of those deserted works, which,
+having been thrown up on an emergency, had been abandoned with the
+disappearance of danger, and was now quietly crumbling in the solitude
+of the forest, neglected, and nearly forgotten, like the circumstances
+which had caused it to be reared. Such memorials of the passage and
+struggles of man are yet frequent throughout the broad barrier of
+wilderness which once separated the hostile provinces, and form a
+species of ruins that are intimately associated with the recollections
+of colonial history, and which are in appropriate keeping with the
+gloomy character of the surrounding scenery.[19] The roof of bark had
+long since fallen, and mingled with the soil; but the huge logs of pine,
+which had been hastily thrown together, still preserved their relative
+positions, though one angle of the work had given way under the
+pressure, and threatened a speedy downfall to the remainder of the
+rustic edifice. While Heyward and his companions hesitated to approach a
+building so decayed, Hawkeye and the Indians entered within the low
+walls, not only without fear, but with obvious interest. While the
+former surveyed the ruins, both internally and externally, with the
+curiosity of one whose recollections were reviving at each moment,
+Chingachgook related to his son, in the language of the Delawares, and
+with the pride of a conqueror, the brief history of the skirmish which
+had been fought, in his youth, in that secluded spot. A strain of
+melancholy, however, blended with his triumph, rendering his voice, as
+usual, soft and musical.
+
+In the meantime, the sisters gladly dismounted, and prepared to enjoy
+their halt in the coolness of the evening, and in a security which they
+believed nothing but the beasts of the forest could invade.
+
+"Would not our resting-place have been more retired, my worthy friend,"
+demanded the more vigilant Duncan, perceiving that the scout had already
+finished his short survey, "had we chosen a spot less known, and one
+more rarely visited than this?"
+
+"Few live who know the block-house was ever raised," was the slow and
+musing answer; "'tis not often that books are made, and narratives
+written, of such a scrimmage as was here fou't atween the Mohicans and
+the Mohawks, in a war of their own waging. I was then a younker, and
+went out with the Delawares, because I know'd they were a scandalized
+and wronged race. Forty days and forty nights did the imps crave our
+blood around this pile of logs, which I designed and partly reared,
+being, as you'll remember, no Indian myself, but a man without a cross.
+The Delawares lent themselves to the work, and we made it good, ten to
+twenty, until our numbers were nearly equal, and then we sallied out
+upon the hounds, and not a man of them ever got back to tell the fate of
+his party. Yes, yes; I was then young, and new to the sight of blood;
+and not relishing the thought that creatures who had spirits like myself
+should lay on the naked ground, to be torn asunder by beasts, or to
+bleach in the rains, I buried the dead with my own hands, under that
+very little hillock where you have placed yourselves; and no bad seat
+does it make neither, though it be raised by the bones of mortal men."
+
+Heyward and the sisters arose, on the instant, from the grassy
+sepulchre; nor could the two latter, notwithstanding the terrific scenes
+they had so recently passed through, entirely suppress an emotion of
+natural horror, when they found themselves in such familiar contact with
+the grave of the dead Mohawks. The gray light, the gloomy little area of
+dark grass, surrounded by its border of brush, beyond which the pines
+rose, in breathing silence, apparently, into the very clouds, and the
+death-like stillness of the vast forest, were all in unison to deepen
+such a sensation.
+
+"They are gone, and they are harmless," continued Hawkeye, waving his
+hand, with a melancholy smile, at their manifest alarm: "they'll never
+shout the war-whoop nor strike a blow with the tomahawk again! And of
+all those who aided in placing them where they lie, Chingachgook and I
+only are living! The brothers and family of the Mohican formed our
+war-party; and you see before you all that are now left of his race."
+
+The eyes of the listeners involuntarily sought the forms of the Indians,
+with a compassionate interest in their desolate fortune. The dark
+persons were still to be seen within the shadows of the block-house, the
+son listening to the relation of his father with that sort of
+intenseness which would be created by a narrative that redounded so much
+to the honor of those whose names he had long revered for their courage
+and savage virtues.
+
+"I had thought the Delawares a pacific people," said Duncan, "and that
+they never waged war in person; trusting the defence of their lands to
+those very Mohawks that you slew!"
+
+"'Tis true in part," returned the scout, "and yet, at the bottom, 'tis a
+wicked lie. Such a treaty was made in ages gone by, through the
+deviltries of the Dutchers, who wished to disarm the natives that had
+the best right to the country where they had settled themselves. The
+Mohicans, though a part of the same nation, having to deal with the
+English, never entered into the silly bargain, but kept to their
+manhood; as in truth did the Delawares, when their eyes were opened to
+their folly. You see before you a chief of the great Mohican Sagamores!
+Once his family could chase their deer over tracts of country wider than
+that which belongs to the Albany Patteroon, without crossing brook or
+hill that was not their own; but what is left to their descendant! He
+may find his six feet of earth when God chooses, and keep it in peace,
+perhaps, if he has a friend who will take the pains to sink his head so
+low that the ploughshares cannot reach it!"
+
+"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive that the subject might lead to a
+discussion that would interrupt the harmony so necessary to the
+preservation of his fair companions: "we have journeyed far, and few
+among us are blessed with forms like that of yours, which seems to know
+neither fatigue nor weakness."
+
+"The sinews and bones of a man carry me through it all," said the
+hunter, surveying his muscular limbs with a simplicity that betrayed the
+honest pleasure the compliment afforded him: "there are larger and
+heavier men to be found in the settlements, but you might travel many
+days in a city before you could meet one able to walk fifty miles
+without stopping to take breath, or who has kept the hounds within
+hearing during a chase of hours. However, as flesh and blood are not
+always the same, it is quite reasonable to suppose that the gentle ones
+are willing to rest, after all they have seen and done this day. Uncas,
+clear out the spring, while your father and I make a cover for their
+tender heads of these chestnut shoots, and a bed of grass and leaves."
+
+The dialogue ceased, while the hunter and his companions busied
+themselves in preparations for the comfort and protection of those they
+guided. A spring, which many long years before had induced the natives
+to select the place for their temporary fortification, was soon cleared
+of leaves, and a fountain of crystal gushed from the bed, diffusing its
+waters over the verdant hillock. A corner of the building was then
+roofed in such a manner as to exclude the heavy dew of the climate, and
+piles of sweet shrubs and dried leaves were laid beneath it for the
+sisters to repose on.
+
+While the diligent woodsmen were employed in this manner, Cora and Alice
+partook of that refreshment which duty required much more than
+inclination prompted them to accept. They then retired within the walls,
+and first offering up their thanksgivings for past mercies, and
+petitioning for a continuance of the divine favor throughout the coming
+night, they laid their tender forms on the fragrant couch, and in spite
+of recollections and forebodings, soon sank into those slumbers which
+nature so imperiously demanded, and which were sweetened by hopes for
+the morrow. Duncan had prepared himself to pass the night in
+watchfulness near them, just without the ruin, but the scout, perceiving
+his intention, pointed towards Chingachgook, as he coolly disposed his
+own person on the grass, and said--
+
+"The eyes of a white man are too heavy and too blind for such a watch as
+this! The Mohican will be our sentinel, therefore let us sleep."
+
+"I proved myself a sluggard on my post during the past night," said
+Heyward, "and have less need of repose than you, who did more credit to
+the character of a soldier. Let all the party seek their rest, then,
+while I hold guard."
+
+"If we lay among the white tents of the 60th, and in front of an enemy
+like the French, I could not ask for a better watchman," returned the
+scout; "but in the darkness and among the signs of the wilderness your
+judgment would be like the folly of a child, and your vigilance thrown
+away. Do then, like Uncas and myself, sleep, and sleep in safety."
+
+Heyward perceived, in truth, that the younger Indian had thrown his form
+on the side of the hillock while they were talking, like one who sought
+to make the most of the time allotted to rest, and that his example had
+been followed by David, whose voice literally "clove to his jaws," with
+the fever of his wound, heightened, as it was, by their toilsome march.
+Unwilling to prolong a useless discussion, the young man affected to
+comply, by posting his back against the logs of the block-house, in a
+half-recumbent posture, though resolutely determined, in his own mind,
+not to close an eye until he had delivered his precious charge into the
+arms of Munro himself. Hawkeye, believing he had prevailed, soon fell
+asleep, and a silence as deep as the solitude in which they had found
+it, pervaded the retired spot.
+
+For many minutes Duncan succeeded in keeping his senses on the alert,
+and alive to every moaning sound that arose from the forest. His vision
+became more acute as the shades of evening settled on the place; and
+even after the stars were glimmering above his head, he was able to
+distinguish the recumbent forms of his companions, as they lay stretched
+on the grass, and to note the person of Chingachgook, who sat upright
+and motionless as one of the trees which formed the dark barrier on
+every side. He still heard the gentle breathings of the sisters, who lay
+within a few feet of him, and not a leaf was ruffled by the passing air,
+of which his ear did not detect the whispering sound. At length,
+however, the mournful notes of a whippoorwill became blended with the
+moanings of an owl; his heavy eyes occasionally sought the bright rays
+of the stars, and then he fancied he saw them through the fallen lids.
+At instants of momentary wakefulness he mistook a bush for his associate
+sentinel; his head next sank upon his shoulder, which, in its turn,
+sought the support of the ground; and, finally, his whole person become
+relaxed and pliant, and the young man sank into a deep sleep, dreaming
+that he was a knight of ancient chivalry, holding his midnight vigils
+before the tent of a recaptured princess, whose favor he did not despair
+of gaining, by such a proof of devotion and watchfulness.
+
+How long the tired Duncan lay in this insensible state he never knew
+himself, but his slumbering visions had been long lost in total
+forgetfulness, when he was awakened by a light tap on the shoulder.
+Aroused by this signal, slight as it was, he sprang upon his feet with a
+confused recollection of the self-imposed duty he had assumed with the
+commencement of the night.
+
+"Who comes?" he demanded, feeling for his sword at the place where it
+was usually suspended, "Speak! friend or enemy?"
+
+"Friend," replied the low voice of Chingachgook; who, pointing upwards
+at the luminary which was shedding its mild light through the opening in
+the trees, directly in their bivouac, immediately added, in his rude
+English, "moon comes, and white man's fort far--far off; time to move,
+when sleep shuts both eyes of the Frenchman!"
+
+"You say true! call up your friends, and bridle the horses, while I
+prepare my own companions for the march!"
+
+"We are awake, Duncan," said the soft, silvery tones of Alice within the
+building, "and ready to travel very fast after so refreshing a sleep;
+but you have watched through the tedious night in our behalf, after
+having endured so much fatigue the live-long day!"
+
+"Say, rather, I would have watched, but my treacherous eyes betrayed me;
+twice have I proved myself unfit for the trust I bear."
+
+"Nay, Duncan, deny it not," interrupted the smiling Alice, issuing from
+the shadows of the building into the light of the moon, in all the
+loveliness of her freshened beauty; "I know you to be a heedless one,
+when self is the object of your care, and but too vigilant in favor of
+others. Can we not tarry here a little longer, while you find the rest
+you need? Cheerfully, most cheerfully, will Cora and I keep the vigils,
+while you, and all these brave men, endeavor to snatch a little sleep!"
+
+"If shame could cure me of my drowsiness, I should never close an eye
+again," said the uneasy youth, gazing at the ingenuous countenance of
+Alice, where, however, in its sweet solicitude, he read nothing to
+confirm his half awakened suspicion. "It is but too true, that after
+leading you into danger by my heedlessness, I have not even the merit of
+guarding your pillows as should become a soldier."
+
+"No one but Duncan himself should accuse Duncan of such a weakness. Go,
+then, and sleep; believe me, neither of us, weak girls as we are, will
+betray our watch."
+
+The young man was relieved from the awkwardness of making any further
+protestations of his own demerits, by an exclamation from Chingachgook,
+and the attitude of riveted attention assumed by his son.
+
+"The Mohicans hear an enemy!" whispered Hawkeye, who, by this time, in
+common with the whole party, was awake and stirring. "They scent danger
+in the wind!"
+
+"God forbid!" exclaimed Heyward. "Surely we have had enough of
+bloodshed!"
+
+While he spoke, however, the young soldier seized his rifle, and
+advancing towards the front, prepared to atone for his venial
+remissness, by freely exposing his life in defence of those he attended.
+
+"'Tis some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of food,"
+he said, in a whisper, as soon as the low, and apparently distant
+sounds, which had startled the Mohicans, reached his own ears.
+
+"Hist!" returned the attentive scout; "'tis man; even I can now tell his
+tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an Indian's! That
+scampering Huron has fallen in with one of Montcalm's outlying parties,
+and they have struck upon our trail. I shouldn't like, myself, to spill
+more human blood in this spot," he added, looking around with anxiety in
+his features, at the dim objects by which he was surrounded; "but what
+must be, must! Lead the horses into the block-house, Uncas; and,
+friends, do you follow to the same shelter. Poor and old as it is, it
+offers a cover, and has rung with the crack of a rifle afore to-night!"
+
+He was instantly obeyed, the Mohicans leading the Narragansetts within
+the ruin, whither the whole party repaired with the most guarded
+silence.
+
+The sounds of approaching footsteps were now too distinctly audible to
+leave any doubts as to the nature of the interruption. They were soon
+mingled with voices calling to each other in an Indian dialect, which
+the hunter, in a whisper, affirmed to Heyward was the language of the
+Hurons. When the party reached the point where the horses had entered
+the thicket which surrounded the block-house, they were evidently at
+fault, having lost those marks which, until that moment, had directed
+their pursuit.
+
+It would seem by the voices that twenty men were soon collected at that
+one spot, mingling their different opinions and advice in noisy clamor.
+
+"The knaves know our weakness," whispered Hawkeye, who stood by the side
+of Heyward, in deep shade, looking through an opening in the logs, "or
+they wouldn't indulge their idleness in such a squaw's march. Listen to
+the reptiles! each man among them seems to have two tongues, and but a
+single leg."
+
+Duncan, brave as he was in the combat, could not, in such a moment of
+painful suspense, make any reply to the cool and characteristic remark
+of the scout. He only grasped his rifle more firmly, and fastened his
+eyes upon the narrow opening, through which he gazed upon the moonlight
+view with increasing anxiety. The deeper tones of one who spoke as
+having authority were next heard, amid a silence that denoted the
+respect with which his orders, or rather advice, was received. After
+which, by the rustling of leaves, and cracking of dried twigs, it was
+apparent the savages were separating in pursuit of the lost trail.
+Fortunately for the pursued, the light of the moon, while it shed a
+flood of mild lustre upon the little area around the ruin, was not
+sufficiently strong to penetrate the deep arches of the forest, where
+the objects still lay in deceptive shadow. The search proved fruitless;
+for so short and sudden had been the passage from the faint path the
+travellers had journeyed into the thicket, that every trace of their
+footsteps was lost in the obscurity of the woods.
+
+It was not long, however, before the restless savages were heard beating
+the brush, and gradually approaching the inner edge of that dense border
+of young chestnuts which encircled the little area.
+
+"They are coming," muttered Heyward, endeavoring to thrust his rifle
+through the chink in the logs; "let us fire on their approach."
+
+"Keep everything in the shade," returned the scout; "the snapping of a
+flint, or even the smell of a single karnel of the brimstone, would
+bring the hungry varlets upon us in a body. Should it please God that we
+must give battle for the scalps, trust to the experience of men who know
+the ways of the savages, and who are not often backward when the
+war-whoop is howled."
+
+Duncan cast his eyes behind him, and saw that the trembling sisters were
+cowering in the far corner of the building, while the Mohicans stood in
+the shadow, like two upright posts, ready, and apparently willing, to
+strike when the blow should be needed. Curbing his impatience, he again
+looked out upon the area, and awaited the result in silence. At that
+instant the thicket opened, and a tall and armed Huron advanced a few
+paces into the open space. As he gazed upon the silent block-house, the
+moon fell upon his swarthy countenance, and betrayed its surprise and
+curiosity. He made the exclamation which usually accompanies the former
+emotion in an Indian, and, calling in a low voice, soon drew a companion
+to his side.
+
+These children of the woods stood together for several moments pointing
+at the crumbling edifice, and conversing in the unintelligible language
+of their tribe. They then approached, though with slow and cautious
+steps, pausing every instant to look at the building, like startled
+deer, whose curiosity struggled powerfully with their awakened
+apprehensions for the mastery. The foot of one of them suddenly rested
+on the mound, and he stooped to examine its nature. At this moment,
+Heyward observed that the scout loosened his knife in his sheath, and
+lowered the muzzle of his rifle. Imitating these movements, the young
+man prepared himself for the struggle, which now seemed inevitable.
+
+The savages were so near, that the least motion in one of the horses, or
+even a breath louder than common, would have betrayed the fugitives.
+But, in discovering the character of the mound, the attention of the
+Hurons appeared directed to a different object. They spoke together, and
+the sounds of their voices were low and solemn, as if influenced by a
+reverence that was deeply blended with awe. Then they drew warily back,
+keeping their eyes riveted on the ruin, as if they expected to see the
+apparitions of the dead issue from its silent walls, until having
+reached the boundary of the area, they moved slowly into the thicket,
+and disappeared.
+
+Hawkeye dropped the breech of his rifle to the earth, and drawing a
+long, free breath, exclaimed, in an audible whisper,--
+
+"Ay! they respect the dead, and it has this time saved their own lives,
+and, it may be, the lives of better men too."
+
+Heyward lent his attention for a single moment to his companion, but
+without replying, he again turned towards those who just then interested
+him more. He heard the two Hurons leave the bushes, and it was soon
+plain that all the pursuers were gathered about them, in deep attention
+to their report. After a few minutes of earnest and solemn dialogue,
+altogether different from the noisy clamor with which they had first
+collected about the spot, the sounds grew fainter and more distant, and
+finally were lost in the depths of the forest.
+
+Hawkeye waited until a signal from the listening Chingachgook assured
+him that every sound from the retiring party was completely swallowed by
+the distance, when he motioned to Heyward to lead forth the horses, and
+to assist the sisters into their saddles. The instant this was done,
+they issued through the broken gateway, and stealing out by a direction
+opposite to the one by which they had entered, they quitted the spot,
+the sisters casting furtive glances at the silent grave and crumbling
+ruin, as they left the soft light of the moon, to bury themselves in the
+gloom of the woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+  "_Guard._--Qui est là?
+
+  _Puc._--Paisans, pauvres gens de France."
+
+  _King Henry VI._
+
+
+During the rapid movement from the block-house, and until the party was
+deeply buried in the forest, each individual was too much interested in
+the escape to hazard a word even in whispers. The scout resumed his post
+in the advance, though his steps, after he had thrown a safe distance
+between himself and his enemies, were more deliberate than in their
+previous march, in consequence of his utter ignorance of the localities
+of the surrounding woods. More than once he halted to consult with his
+confederates, the Mohicans, pointing upwards at the moon, and examining
+the barks of the trees with care. In these brief pauses, Heyward and the
+sisters listened, with senses rendered doubly acute by the danger, to
+detect any symptoms which might announce the proximity of their foes. At
+such moments, it seemed as if a vast range of country lay buried in
+eternal sleep; not the least sound arising from the forest, unless it
+was the distant and scarcely audible rippling of a water-course. Birds,
+beasts, and man, appeared to slumber alike, if, indeed, any of the
+latter were to be found in that wide tract of wilderness. But the sounds
+of the rivulet, feeble and murmuring as they were, relieved the guides
+at once from no trifling embarrassment, and towards it they immediately
+held their way.
+
+When the banks of the little stream were gained, Hawkeye made another
+halt; and, taking the moccasins from his feet, he invited Heyward and
+Gamut to follow his example. He then entered the water, and for near an
+hour they travelled in the bed of the brook, leaving no trail. The moon
+had already sunk into an immense pile of black clouds, which lay
+impending above the western horizon, when they issued from the low and
+devious water-course to rise again to the light and level of the sandy
+but wooded plain. Here the scout seemed to be once more at home, for he
+held on his way with the certainty and diligence of a man who moved in
+the security of his own knowledge. The path soon became more uneven, and
+the travellers could plainly perceive that the mountains drew nigher to
+them on each hand, and that they were, in truth, about entering one of
+their gorges. Suddenly, Hawkeye made a pause, and waiting until he was
+joined by the whole party, he spoke, though in tones so low and
+cautious, that they added to the solemnity of his words, in the quiet
+and darkness of the place.
+
+"It is easy to know the pathways, and to find the licks and
+water-courses of the wilderness," he said; "but who that saw this spot
+could venture to say, that a mighty army was at rest among yonder silent
+trees and barren mountains?"
+
+"We are then at no great distance from William Henry?" said Heyward,
+advancing nigher to the scout.
+
+"It is yet a long and weary path, and when and where to strike it, is
+now our greatest difficulty. See," he said, pointing through the trees
+towards a spot where a little basin of water reflected the stars from
+its placid bosom, "here is the 'bloody pond'; and I am on the ground
+that I have not only often travelled, but over which I have fou't the
+enemy, from the rising to the setting sun."
+
+"Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is the sepulchre of the
+brave men who fell in the contest. I have heard it named, but never have
+I stood on its banks before."
+
+"Three battles did we make with the Dutch-Frenchman[20] in a day,"
+continued Hawkeye, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, rather than
+replying to the remark of Duncan. "He met us hard by, in our outward
+march to ambush his advance, and scattered us, like driven deer, through
+the defile, to the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our fallen
+trees, and made head against him, under Sir William--who was made Sir
+William for that very deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace of
+the morning! Hundreds of Frenchmen saw the sun that day for the last
+time; and even the leader, Dieskau himself, fell into our hands so cut
+and torn with the lead, that he has gone back to his own country, unfit
+for further acts in war."
+
+"'Twas a noble repulse!" exclaimed Heyward, in the heat of his youthful
+ardor; "the fame of it reached us early, in our southern army."
+
+"Ay! but it did not end there. I was sent by Major Effingham, at Sir
+William's own bidding, to outflank the French, and carry the tidings of
+their disaster across the portage, to the fort on the Hudson. Just
+hereaway, where you see the trees rise into a mountain swell, I met a
+party coming down to our aid, and I led them where the enemy were taking
+their meal, little dreaming that they had not finished the bloody work
+of the day."
+
+"And you surprised them?"
+
+"If death can be a surprise to men who are thinking only of the cravings
+of their appetites. We gave them but little breathing time, for they had
+borne hard upon us in the fight of the morning, and there were few in
+our party who had not lost friend or relative by their hands. When all
+was over, the dead, and some say the dying, were cast into that little
+pond. These eyes have seen its waters colored with blood, as natural
+water never yet flowed from the bowels of the 'arth."
+
+"It was a convenient, and, I trust, will prove a peaceful grave for a
+soldier. You have, then, seen much service on this frontier?"
+
+"I!" said the scout, erecting his tall person with an air of military
+pride; "there are not many echoes among these hills that haven't rung
+with the crack of my rifle, nor is there the space of a square mile
+atwixt Horican and the river, that 'Killdeer' hasn't dropped a living
+body on, be it an enemy or be it a brute beast. As for the grave, there,
+being as quiet as you mention, it is another matter. There are them in
+the camp who say and think, man, to lie still, should not be buried
+while the breath is in the body; and certain it is that in the hurry of
+that evening, the doctors had but little time to say who was living and
+who was dead. Hist! see you nothing walking on the shore of the pond?"
+
+"'Tis not probable that any are as houseless as ourselves, in this
+dreary forest."
+
+"Such as he may care but little for house or shelter, and night dew can
+never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout,
+grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to
+make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror
+had got the mastery of a man usually so dauntless.
+
+"By heaven! there is a human form, and it approaches! Stand to your
+arms, my friends; for we know not whom we encounter."
+
+"Qui vive?" demanded a stern, quick voice, which sounded like a
+challenge from another world, issuing out of that solitary and solemn
+place.
+
+"What says it?" whispered the scout; "it speaks neither Indian nor
+English!"
+
+"Qui vive?" repeated the same voice, which was quickly followed by the
+rattling of arms, and a menacing attitude.
+
+"France!" cried Heyward, advancing from the shadow of the trees to the
+shore of the pond, within a few yards of the sentinel.
+
+"D'où venez-vous--où allez-vous, d'aussi bonne heure?" demanded the
+grenadier, in the language and with the accent of a man from old France.
+
+"Je viens de là découverte, et je vais me coucher."
+
+"Etes-vous officier du roi?"
+
+"Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour un provincial! Je suis
+capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward well knew that the other was of a
+regiment in the line); j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant de
+là fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler! je les ai fait
+prisonnières près de l'autre fort, et je les conduis au général."
+
+"Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis faché pour vous," exclaimed the young
+soldier, touching his cap with grace; "mais--fortune de guerre! vous
+trouverez notre général un brave homme, et bien poli avec les dames."
+
+"C'est le caractère des gens de guerre," said Cora, with admirable
+self-possession. "Adieu, mon ami; je vous souhaiterais un devoir plus
+agréable à remplir."
+
+The soldier made a low and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and
+Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately
+forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond,
+little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself
+those words, which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and
+perhaps by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France--
+
+  "Vive le vin, l'amour," etc., etc.
+
+"'Tis well you understood the knave!" whispered the scout, when they had
+gained a little distance from the place, and letting his rifle fall into
+the hollow of his arm again; "I soon saw that he was one of them uneasy
+Frenchers; and well for him it was that his speech was friendly and his
+wishes kind, or a place might have been found for his bones among those
+of his countrymen."
+
+He was interrupted by a long and heavy groan which arose from the little
+basin, as though, in truth, the spirits of the departed lingered about
+their watery sepulchre.
+
+"Surely it was of flesh!" continued the scout; "no spirit could handle
+its arms so steadily!"
+
+"It _was_ of flesh; but whether the poor fellow still belongs to this
+world may well be doubted," said Heyward, glancing his eyes around him,
+and missing Chingachgook from their little band. Another groan more
+faint than the former, was succeeded by a heavy and sullen plunge into
+the water, and all was as still again as if the borders of the dreary
+pool had never been awakened from the silence of creation. While they
+yet hesitated in uncertainty, the form of the Indian was seen gliding
+out of the thicket. As the chief rejoined them, with one hand he
+attached the reeking scalp of the unfortunate young Frenchman to his
+girdle, and with the other he replaced the knife and tomahawk that had
+drunk his blood. He then took his wonted station, with the air of a man
+who believed he had done a deed of merit.
+
+The scout dropped one end of his rifle to the earth, and leaning his
+hands on the other, he stood musing in profound silence. Then shaking
+his head in a mournful manner, he muttered,--
+
+"'T would have been a cruel and an unhuman act for a white-skin; but
+'tis the gift and natur' of an Indian, and I suppose it should not be
+denied. I could wish, though, it had befallen an accursed Mingo, rather
+than that gay young boy from the old countries."
+
+"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive the unconscious sisters might
+comprehend the nature of the detention, and conquering his disgust by a
+train of reflections very much like that of the hunter; "'tis done; and
+though better it were left undone, cannot be amended. You see we are,
+too obviously, within the sentinels of the enemy; what course do you
+propose to follow?"
+
+"Yes," said Hawkeye, rousing himself again, "'tis as you say, too late
+to harbor further thoughts about it. Ay, the French have gathered around
+the fort in good earnest, and we have a delicate needle to thread in
+passing them."
+
+"And but little time to do it in," added Heyward, glancing his eyes
+upward, toward the bank of vapor that concealed the setting moon.
+
+"And little time to do it in!" repeated the scout. "The thing may be
+done in two fashions, by the help of Providence, without which it may
+not be done at all."
+
+"Name them quickly, for time presses."
+
+"One would be to dismount the gentle ones, and let their beasts range
+the plain; by sending the Mohicans in front, we might then cut a lane
+through their sentries, and enter the fort over the dead bodies."
+
+"It will not do--it will not do!" interrupted the generous Heyward; "a
+soldier might force his way in this manner, but never with such a
+convoy."
+
+"'Twould be, indeed, a bloody path for tender feet to wade in," returned
+the equally reluctant scout; "but I thought it befitting my manhood to
+name it. We must then turn on our trail and get without the line of
+their look-outs, when we will bend short to the west, and enter the
+mountains; where I can hide you, so that all the devil's hounds in
+Montcalm's pay would be thrown off the scent, for months to come."
+
+"Let it be done, and that instantly."
+
+Further words were unnecessary; for Hawkeye, merely uttering the mandate
+to "follow," moved along the route by which they had just entered their
+present critical and even dangerous situation. Their progress, like
+their late dialogue, was guarded, and without noise; for none knew at
+what moment a passing patrol, or a crouching picket of the enemy, might
+rise upon their path. As they held their silent way along the margin of
+the pond, again Heyward and the scout stole furtive glances at its
+appalling dreariness. They looked in vain for the form they had so
+recently seen stalking along its silent shores, while a low and regular
+wash of the little waves, by announcing that the waters were not yet
+subsided, furnished a frightful memorial of the deed of blood they had
+just witnessed. Like all that passing and gloomy scene, the low basin,
+however, quickly melted in the darkness, and became blended with the
+mass of black objects in the rear of the travellers.
+
+Hawkeye soon deviated from the line of their retreat, and striking off
+towards the mountains which form the western boundary of the narrow
+plain, he led his followers, with swift steps, deep within the shadows
+that were cast from their high and broken summits. The route was now
+painful; lying over ground ragged with rocks, and intersected with
+ravines, and their progress proportionately slow. Bleak and black hills
+lay on every side of them, compensating in some degree for the
+additional toil of the march, by the sense of security they imparted. At
+length the party began slowly to climb a steep and rugged ascent by a
+path that curiously wound among rocks and trees, avoiding the one, and
+supported by the other, in a manner that showed it had been devised by
+men long practised in the arts of the wilderness. As they gradually rose
+from the level of the valleys, the thick darkness which usually precedes
+the approach of day began to disperse, and objects were seen in the
+plain and palpable colors with which they had been gifted by nature.
+When they issued from the stunted woods which clung to the barren sides
+of the mountain, upon a flat and mossy rock that formed its summit, they
+met the morning, as it came blushing above the green pines of a hill
+that lay on the opposite side of the valley of the Horican.
+
+The scout now told the sisters to dismount; and taking the bridles from
+the mouths, and the saddles off the backs of the jaded beasts, he turned
+them loose, to glean a scanty subsistence among the shrubs and meagre
+herbage of that elevated region.
+
+"Go," he said, "and seek your food where natur' gives it you; and beware
+that you become not food to ravenous wolves yourselves, among these
+hills."
+
+"Have we no further need of them?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"See, and judge with your own eyes," said the scout, advancing towards
+the eastern brow of the mountain, whither he beckoned for the whole
+party to follow; "if it was as easy to look into the heart of man as it
+is to spy out the nakedness of Montcalm's camp from this spot,
+hypocrites would grow scarce, and the cunning of a Mingo might prove a
+losing game, compared to the honesty of a Delaware."
+
+When the travellers reached the verge of the precipice, they saw, at a
+glance, the truth of the scout's declaration, and the admirable
+foresight with which he had led them to their commanding station.
+
+The mountain on which they stood, elevated, perhaps, a thousand feet in
+the air, was a high cone that rose a little in advance of that range
+which stretches for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
+meeting its sister piles, beyond the water, it ran off towards the
+Canadas, in confused and broken masses of rock, thinly sprinkled with
+evergreens. Immediately at the feet of the party, the southern shore of
+the Horican swept in a broad semicircle, from mountain to mountain,
+marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat
+elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared
+from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented
+with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted
+with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the
+waters became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of
+vapor that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning
+air. But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills pointed out
+the passage by which they found their way still farther north, to spread
+their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute into
+the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather
+broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction,
+the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
+reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and
+sandy lands, across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their
+double journey. Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
+sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light vapor were rising in
+spiral wreaths from the uninhabited woods, looking like the smokes of
+hidden cottages; or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle with
+the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary, snow-white cloud floated
+above the valley, and marked the spot beneath which lay the silent pool
+of the "bloody pond."
+
+Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its western than to its
+eastern margin, lay the extensive earthen ramparts and low buildings of
+William Henry. Two of the sweeping bastions appeared to rest on the
+water which washed their bases, while a deep ditch and extensive
+morasses guarded its other sides and angles. The land had been cleared
+of wood for a reasonable distance around the work, but every other part
+of the scene lay in the green livery of nature, except where the limpid
+water mellowed the view, or the bold rocks thrust their black and naked
+heads above the undulating outline of the mountain ranges. In its front
+might be seen the scattered sentinels, who held a weary watch against
+their numerous foes; and within the walls themselves, the travellers
+looked down upon men still drowsy with a night of vigilance. Towards the
+southeast, but in immediate contact with the fort, was an entrenched
+camp, posted on a rocky eminence, that would have been far more eligible
+for the work itself, in which Hawkeye pointed out the presence of those
+auxiliary regiments that had so recently left the Hudson in their
+company. From the woods, a little farther to the south, rose numerous
+dark and lurid smokes, that were easily to be distinguished from the
+purer exhalations of the springs, and which the scout also showed to
+Heyward, as evidences that the enemy lay in force in that direction.
+
+But the spectacle which most concerned the young soldier was on the
+western bank of the lake, though quite near to its southern termination.
+On a strip of land, which appeared, from his stand, too narrow to
+contain such an army, but which, in truth, extended many hundreds of
+yards from the shores of the Horican to the base of the mountain, were
+to be seen the white tents and military engines of an encampment of ten
+thousand men. Batteries were already thrown up in their front, and even
+while the spectators above them were looking down, with such different
+emotions, on a scene which lay like a map beneath their feet, the roar
+of artillery rose from the valley, and passed off in thundering echoes,
+along the eastern hills.
+
+"Morning is just touching them below," said the deliberate and musing
+scout, "and the watchers have a mind to wake up the sleepers by the
+sound of cannon. We are a few hours too late? Montcalm has already
+filled the woods with his accursed Iroquois."
+
+"The place is, indeed, invested," returned Duncan, "but is there no
+expedient by which we may enter? capture in the works would be far
+preferable to falling again into the hands of roving Indians."
+
+"See!" exclaimed the scout, unconsciously directing the attention of
+Cora to the quarters of her own father, "how that shot has made the
+stones fly from the side of the commandant's house! Ay! these Frenchers
+will pull it to pieces faster than it was put together, solid and thick
+though it be."
+
+"Heyward, I sicken at the sight of danger that I cannot share," said the
+undaunted, but anxious daughter. "Let us go to Montcalm, and demand
+admission: he dare not deny a child the boon."
+
+"You would scarce find the tent of the Frenchman with the hair on your
+head," said the blunt scout. "If I had but one of the thousand boats
+which lie empty along that shore, it might be done. Ha! here will soon
+be an end of the firing, for yonder comes a fog that will turn day to
+night, and make an Indian arrow more dangerous than a moulded cannon.
+Now, if you are equal to the work, and will follow, I will make a push;
+for I long to get down into that camp, if it be only to scatter some
+Mingo dogs that I see lurking in the skirts of yonder thicket of birch."
+
+"We are equal," said Cora, firmly: "on such an errand we will follow to
+any danger."
+
+The scout turned to her with a smile of honest and cordial approbation
+as he answered,--
+
+"I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs and quick eyes, that
+feared death as little as you! I'd send them jabbering Frenchers back
+into their den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so many
+fettered hounds or hungry wolves. But stir," he added, turning from her
+to the rest of the party, "the fog comes rolling down so fast, we shall
+have but just the time to meet it on the plain, and use it as a cover.
+Remember, if any accident should befall me, to keep the air blowing on
+your left cheeks--or rather, follow the Mohicans; they'd scent their
+way, be it in day or be it at night."
+
+He then waved his hand for them to follow, and threw himself down the
+steep declivity, with free, but careful footsteps. Heyward assisted the
+sisters to descend, and in a few minutes they were all far down a
+mountain whose sides they had climbed with so much toil and pain.
+
+The direction taken by Hawkeye soon brought the travellers to the level
+of the plain, nearly opposite to a sally-port in the western curtain of
+the fort, which lay, itself, at the distance of about half a mile from
+the point where he halted to allow Duncan to come up with his charge. In
+their eagerness, and favored by the nature of the ground, they had
+anticipated the fog, which was rolling heavily down the lake, and it
+became necessary to pause, until the mists had wrapped the camp of the
+enemy in their fleecy mantle. The Mohicans profited by the delay, to
+steal out of the woods, and to make a survey of surrounding objects.
+They were followed at a little distance by the scout, with a view to
+profit early by their report, and to obtain some faint knowledge for
+himself of the more immediate localities.
+
+In a very few moments he returned, his face reddened with vexation,
+while he muttered his disappointment in words of no very gentle import.
+
+"Here has the cunning Frenchman been posting a picket directly in our
+path," he said; "redskins and whites; and we shall be as likely to fall
+into their midst as to pass them in the fog!"
+
+"Cannot we make a circuit to avoid the danger," asked Heyward, "and come
+into our path again when it is passed?"
+
+"Who that once bends from the line of his march in a fog can tell when
+or how to turn to find it again! The mists of Horican are not like the
+curls from a peace-pipe, or the smoke which settles above a mosquito
+fire."
+
+He was yet speaking, when a crashing sound was heard, and a cannon-ball
+entered the thicket, striking the body of a sapling, and rebounding to
+the earth, its force being much expended by previous resistance. The
+Indians followed instantly like busy attendants on the terrible
+messenger, and Uncas commenced speaking earnestly and with much action,
+in the Delaware tongue.
+
+"It may be so, lad," muttered the scout, when he had ended; "for
+desperate fevers are not to be treated like a toothache. Come, then, the
+fog is shutting in."
+
+"Stop!" cried Heyward; "first explain your expectations."
+
+"'Tis soon done, and a small hope it is; but it is better than nothing.
+This shot that you see," added the scout, kicking the harmless iron with
+his foot, "has ploughed the 'arth in its road from the fort, and we
+shall hunt for the furrow it has made, when all other signs may fail. No
+more words, but follow, or the fog may leave us in the middle of our
+path, a mark for both armies to shoot at."
+
+Heyward perceiving that, in fact, a crisis had arrived when acts were
+more required than words, placed himself between the sisters, and drew
+them swiftly forward, keeping the dim figure of their leader in his eye.
+It was soon apparent that Hawkeye had not magnified the power of the
+fog, for before they had proceeded twenty yards, it was difficult for
+the different individuals of the party to distinguish each other, in the
+vapor.
+
+They had made their little circuit to the left, and were already
+inclining again towards the right, having, as Heyward thought, got over
+nearly half the distance to the friendly works, when his ears were
+saluted with the fierce summons, apparently within twenty feet of them,
+of--
+
+"Qui va là?"
+
+"Push on!" whispered the scout, once more bending to the left.
+
+"Push on!" repeated Heyward; when the summons was renewed by a dozen
+voices, each of which seemed charged with menace.
+
+"C'est moi," cried Duncan, dragging, rather than leading those he
+supported, swiftly onward.
+
+"Bête!--qui?--moi!"
+
+"Ami de là France."
+
+"Tu m'as plus l'air d'un _ennemi_ de là France; arrête! où pardieu je te
+ferai ami du diable. Non! feu, camarades, feu!"
+
+The order was instantly obeyed, and the fog was stirred by the explosion
+of fifty muskets. Happily, the aim was bad, and the bullets cut the air
+in a direction a little different from that taken by the fugitives;
+though still so nigh them, that to the unpractised ears of David and the
+two females, it appeared as if they whistled within a few inches of the
+organs. The outcry was renewed, and the order, not only to fire again,
+but to pursue, was too plainly audible. When Heyward briefly explained
+the meaning of the words they heard, Hawkeye halted, and spoke with
+quick decision and great firmness.
+
+"Let us deliver our fire," he said; "they will believe it a sortie, and
+give way, or they will wait for reinforcements."
+
+The scheme was well conceived, but failed in its effect. The instant the
+French heard the pieces, it seemed as if the plain was alive with men,
+muskets rattling along its whole extent, from the shores of the lake to
+the farthest boundary of the woods.
+
+"We shall draw their entire army upon us, and bring on a general
+assault," said Duncan: "lead on, my friend, for your own life, and
+ours."
+
+The scout seemed willing to comply; but, in the hurry of the moment, and
+in the change of position, he had lost the direction. In vain he turned
+either cheek towards the light air; they felt equally cool. In this
+dilemma, Uncas lighted on the furrow of the cannon-ball, where it had
+cut the ground in three adjacent ant-hills.
+
+"Give me the range!" said Hawkeye, bending to catch a glimpse of the
+direction, and then instantly moving onward.
+
+Cries, oaths, voices calling to each other, and the reports of muskets,
+were now quick and incessant, and, apparently, on every side of them.
+Suddenly, a strong glare of light flashed across the scene, the fog
+rolled upwards in thick wreaths, and several cannon belched across the
+plain, and the roar was thrown heavily back from the bellowing echoes of
+the mountain.
+
+"'Tis from the fort!" exclaimed Hawkeye, turning short on his tracks;
+"and we, like stricken fools, were rushing to the woods, under the very
+knives of the Maquas."
+
+The instant their mistake was rectified, the whole party retraced the
+error with the utmost diligence. Duncan willingly relinquished the
+support of Cora to the arm of Uncas, and Cora as readily accepted the
+welcome assistance. Men, hot and angry in pursuit, were evidently on
+their footsteps, and each instant threatened their capture, if not their
+destruction.
+
+"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to
+direct the operations of the enemy.
+
+"Stand firm, and be ready, my gallant 60ths!" suddenly exclaimed a voice
+above them; "wait to see the enemy,--fire low, and sweep the glacis."
+
+"Father! father!" exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; "it is I!
+Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!"
+
+"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
+agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn
+echo. "'Tis she! God has restored me my children! Throw open the
+sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field; pull not a trigger, lest
+ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel."
+
+Duncan heard the grating of the rusty hinges, and darting to the spot,
+directed by the sound, he met a long line of dark red warriors, passing
+swiftly towards the glacis. He knew them for his own battalion of the
+royal Americans, and flying to their head, soon swept every trace of his
+pursuers from before the works.
+
+For an instant, Cora and Alice had stood trembling and bewildered by
+this unexpected desertion; but, before either had leisure for speech, or
+even thought, an officer of gigantic frame whose locks were bleached
+with years and service, but whose air of military grandeur had been
+rather softened than destroyed by time, rushed out of the body of the
+mist, and folded them to his bosom, while large scalding tears rolled
+down his pale and wrinkled cheeks, and he exclaimed, in the peculiar
+accent of Scotland,--
+
+"For this I thank thee, Lord! Let danger come as it will, thy servant is
+now prepared!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+  "Then go we in, to know his embassy;
+  Which I could, with ready guess, declare,
+  Before the Frenchman speak a word of it."
+
+  _King Henry V._
+
+
+A few succeeding days were passed amid the privations, the uproar, and
+the dangers of the siege, which was vigorously pressed by a power
+against whose approaches Munro possessed no competent means of
+resistance. It appeared as if Webb, with his army, which lay slumbering
+on the banks of the Hudson, had utterly forgotten the strait to which
+his countrymen were reduced. Montcalm had filled the woods of the
+portage with his savages, every yell and whoop from whom rang through
+the British encampment, chilling the hearts of men who were already but
+too much disposed to magnify the danger.
+
+Not so, however, with the besieged. Animated by the words, and
+stimulated by the examples, of their leaders, they had found their
+courage, and maintained their ancient reputation, with zeal that did
+justice to the stern character of their commander. As if satisfied with
+the toil of marching through the wilderness to encounter his enemy, the
+French general, though of approved skill, had neglected to seize the
+adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might have been exterminated
+with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of the country,
+would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of contempt
+for eminences, or rather dread of the labor of ascending them, might
+have been termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It
+originated in the simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the
+nature of the combats, and the density of the forests, fortresses were
+rare, and artillery next to useless. The carelessness engendered by
+these usages descended even to the war of the Revolution, and lost the
+States the important fortress of Ticonderoga, opening a way for the army
+of Burgoyne into what was then the bosom of the country. We look back at
+this ignorance, or infatuation, whichever it may be called, with wonder,
+knowing that the neglect of an eminence, whose difficulties, like those
+of Mount Defiance, have been so greatly exaggerated, would, at the
+present time, prove fatal to the reputation of the engineer who had
+planned the works at their base, or to that of the general whose lot it
+was to defend them.
+
+The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of
+nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the
+scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health,
+or pleasure, or floats steadily towards his object on those artificial
+waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman[21]
+who has dared to stake his political character on the hazardous issue,
+is not to suppose that his ancestors traversed those hills, or struggled
+with the same currents with equal facility. The transportation of a
+single heavy gun was often considered equal to a victory gained; if,
+happily, the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it
+from its necessary concomitant, the ammunition, as to render it no more
+than an useless tube of unwieldy iron.
+
+The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
+resolute Scotsman who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
+neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the
+plain, and caused them to be served with vigor and skill. Against this
+assault, the besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty
+preparations of a fortress in the wilderness.
+
+It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of
+his own service in it, that Major Heyward profited by a parley that had
+just been beaten, by repairing to the ramparts of one of the water
+bastions, to breathe the cool air from the lake, and to take a survey of
+the progress of the siege. He was alone, if the solitary sentinel who
+paced the mound be excepted; for the artillerists had hastened also to
+profit by the temporary suspension of their arduous duties. The evening
+was delightfully calm, and the light air from the limpid water fresh and
+soothing. It seemed as if, with the termination to the roar of artillery
+and the plunging of shot, nature had also seized the moment to assume
+her mildest and most captivating form. The sun poured down his parting
+glory on the scene, without the oppression of those fierce rays that
+belong to the climate and the season. The mountains looked green and
+fresh and lovely; tempered with the milder light, or softened in shadow,
+as thin vapors floated between them and the sun. The numerous islands
+rested on the bosom of the Horican, some low and sunken, as if imbedded
+in the waters, and others appearing to hover above the element, in
+little hillocks of green velvet; among which the fishermen of the
+beleaguering army peacefully rowed their skiffs, or floated at rest on
+the glassy mirror, in quiet pursuit of their employment.
+
+The scene was at once animated and still. All that pertained to nature
+was sweet, or simply grand; while those parts which depended on the
+temper and movements of man were lively and playful.
+
+Two little spotless flags were abroad, the one on a salient angle of the
+fort, and the other on the advanced battery of the besiegers; emblems of
+the truce which existed, not only to the acts, but it would seem, also,
+to the enmity of the combatants.
+
+Behind these, again, swung, heavily opening and closing in silken folds,
+the rival standards of England and France.
+
+A hundred gay and thoughtless young Frenchmen were drawing a net to the
+pebbly beach, within dangerous proximity to the sullen but silent cannon
+of the fort, while the eastern mountain was sending back the loud shouts
+and gay merriment that attended their sport. Some were rushing eagerly
+to enjoy the aquatic games of the lake, and others were already toiling
+their way up the neighboring hills, with the restless curiosity of their
+nation. To all these sports and pursuits, those of the enemy who watched
+the besieged, and the besieged themselves, were, however, merely the
+idle, though sympathizing spectators. Here and there a picket had,
+indeed, raised a song, or mingled in a dance, which had drawn the dusky
+savages around them, from their lairs in the forest. In short,
+everything wore rather the appearance of a day of pleasure, than of an
+hour stolen from the dangers and toil of a bloody and vindictive
+warfare.
+
+Duncan had stood in a musing attitude, contemplating this scene a few
+minutes, when his eyes were directed to the glacis in front of the
+sally-port already mentioned, by the sounds of approaching footsteps. He
+walked to an angle of the bastion, and beheld the scout advancing, under
+the custody of a French officer, to the body of the fort. The
+countenance of Hawkeye was haggard and careworn, and his air dejected,
+as though he felt the deepest degradation at having fallen into the
+power of his enemies. He was without his favorite weapon, and his arms
+were even bound behind him with thongs, made of the skin of a deer. The
+arrival of flags, to cover the messengers of summons, had occurred so
+often of late, that when Heyward first threw his careless glance on this
+group, he expected to see another of the officers of the enemy, charged
+with a similar office; but the instant he recognized the tall person,
+and still sturdy, though downcast features of his friend the woodsman,
+he started with surprise, and turned to descend from the bastion into
+the bosom of the work.
+
+The sounds of other voices, however, caught his attention, and for a
+moment caused him to forget his purpose. At the inner angle of the mound
+he met the sisters, walking along the parapet in search, like himself,
+of air and relief from confinement. They had not met from that painful
+moment when he deserted them on the plain, only to assure their safety.
+He had parted from them worn with care, and jaded with fatigue; he now
+saw them refreshed and blooming, though timid and anxious. Under such an
+inducement, it will cause no surprise that the young man lost sight, for
+a time, of other objects in order to address them. He was, however,
+anticipated by the voice of the ingenuous and youthful Alice.
+
+"Ah! thou truant! thou recreant knight! he who abandons his damsels in
+the very lists!" she cried; "here have we been days, nay, ages,
+expecting you at our feet, imploring mercy and forgetfulness of your
+craven backsliding, or, I should rather say, back-running--for verily
+you fled in a manner that no stricken deer, as our worthy friend the
+scout would say, could equal!"
+
+"You know that Alice means our thanks and our blessings," added the
+graver and more thoughtful Cora. "In truth, we have a little wondered
+why you should so rigidly absent yourself from a place where the
+gratitude of the daughters might receive the support of a parent's
+thanks."
+
+"Your father himself could tell you, that though absent from your
+presence, I have not been altogether forgetful of your safety," returned
+the young man; "the mastery of yonder village of huts," pointing to the
+neighboring entrenched camp, "has been keenly disputed; and he who holds
+it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My
+days and my nights have all been passed there since we separated,
+because I thought that duty called me thither. But," he added with an
+air of chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal,
+"had I been aware that what I then believed a soldier's conduct could so
+be construed, shame would have been added to the list of reasons."
+
+"Heyward!--Duncan!" exclaimed Alice, bending forward to read his
+half-averted countenance, until a lock of her golden hair rested on her
+flushed cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her
+eye; "did I think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would
+silence it forever, Cora can say, if Cora would, how justly we have
+prized your services, and how deep--I had almost said, how fervent--is
+our gratitude."
+
+"And will Cora attest the truth of this?" cried Duncan, suffering the
+cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure.
+"What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of
+the knight in the duty of a soldier?"
+
+Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face towards the water, as
+if looking on the sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes
+on the young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish
+that at once drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his
+mind.
+
+"You are not well, dearest Miss Munro!" he exclaimed; "we have trifled
+while you are in suffering."
+
+"'Tis nothing," she answered, refusing his offered support with feminine
+reserve. "That I cannot see the sunny side of the picture of life, like
+this artless but ardent enthusiast," she added, laying her hand lightly,
+but affectionately, on the arm of her sister, "is the penalty of
+experience, and, perhaps, the misfortune of my nature. See," she
+continued, as if determined to shake off infirmity, in a sense of duty;
+"look around you, Major Heyward, and tell me what a prospect is this for
+the daughter of a soldier whose greatest happiness is his honor and his
+military renown."
+
+"Neither ought nor shall be tarnished by circumstances over which he has
+had no control," Duncan warmly replied. "But your words recall me to my
+own duty. I go now to your gallant father, to hear his determination in
+matters of the last moment to the defence. God bless you in every
+fortune, noble--Cora--I may and must call you." She frankly gave him her
+hand, though her lip quivered, and her cheeks gradually became of an
+ashy paleness. "In every fortune, I know you will be an ornament and
+honor to your sex. Alice, adieu"--his tone changed from admiration to
+tenderness--"adieu, Alice; we shall soon meet again; as conquerors, I
+trust, and amid rejoicings!"
+
+Without waiting for an answer from either, the young man threw himself
+down the grassy steps of the bastion, and moving rapidly across the
+parade, he was quickly in the presence of their father. Munro was
+pacing his narrow apartment with a disturbed air and gigantic strides as
+Duncan entered.
+
+"You have anticipated my wishes, Major Heyward," he said; "I was about
+to request this favor."
+
+"I am sorry to see, sir, that the messenger I so warmly recommended has
+returned in custody of the French! I hope there is no reason to distrust
+his fidelity?"
+
+"The fidelity of 'The Long Rifle' is well known to me," returned Munro,
+"and is above suspicion; though his usual good fortune seems, at last,
+to have failed. Montcalm has got him, and with the accursed politeness
+of his nation, he has sent him in with a doleful tale, of 'knowing how I
+valued the fellow, he could not think of retaining him.' A Jesuitical
+way, that, Major Duncan Heyward, of telling a man of his misfortunes!"
+
+"But the general and his succor?"
+
+"Did ye look to the south as ye entered, and could ye not see them?"
+said the old soldier, laughing bitterly. "Hoot! hoot! you're an
+impatient boy, sir, and cannot give the gentlemen leisure for their
+march!"
+
+"They are coming, then? The scout has said as much?"
+
+"When? and by what path? for the dunce has omitted to tell me this.
+There is a letter, it would seem, too; and that is the only agreeable
+part of the matter. For the customary attentions of your Marquis of
+Montcalm--I warrant me, Duncan, that he of Lothian would buy a dozen
+such marquisates--but, if the news of the letter were bad, the gentility
+of this French monsieur would certainly compel him to let us know it."
+
+"He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger!"
+
+"Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your
+'_bonhommie_,' I would venture, if the truth was known, the fellow's
+grandfather taught the noble science of dancing."
+
+"But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue: what
+verbal report does he make?"
+
+"O! sir, he is not wanting in natural organs, and he is free to tell all
+that he has seen and heard. The whole amount is this: there is a fort of
+his majesty's on the banks of the Hudson, called Edward, in honor of his
+gracious highness of York, you'll know; and it is well filled with armed
+men, as such a work should be."
+
+"But was there no movement, no signs of any intention to advance to our
+relief?"
+
+"There were the morning and evening parades; and when one of the
+provincial loons--you'll know, Duncan, you're half a Scotsman
+yourself--when one of them dropped his powder over his porretch, if it
+touched the coals, it just burnt!" Then suddenly changing his bitter,
+ironical manner, to one more grave and thoughtful, he continued; "and
+yet there might, and must be, something in that letter which it would be
+well to know!"
+
+"Our decision should be speedy," said Duncan, gladly availing himself of
+this change of humor, to press the more important objects of their
+interview; "I cannot conceal from you, sir, that the camp will not be
+much longer tenable; and I am sorry to add, that things appear no better
+in the fort; more than half the guns are bursted."
+
+"And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the
+lake; some have been rusting in the woods since the discovery of the
+country; and some were never guns at all--mere privateersmen's
+playthings! Do you think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst
+of a wilderness, three thousand miles from Great Britain!"
+
+"The walls are crumbling about our ears, and provisions begin to fail
+us," continued Heyward, without regarding this new burst of indignation;
+"even the men show signs of discontent and alarm."
+
+"Major Heyward," said Munro, turning to his youthful associate with the
+dignity of his years and superior rank; "I should have served his
+majesty for half a century, and earned these gray hairs, in vain, were I
+ignorant of all you say, and of the pressing nature of our
+circumstances; still, there is everything due to the honor of the king's
+arms and something to ourselves. While there is hope of succor, this
+fortress will I defend, though it be to be done with pebbles gathered on
+the lake shore. It is a sight of the letter, therefore, that we want,
+that we may know the intentions of the man the Earl of Loudon has left
+among us as his substitute."
+
+"And can I be of service in the matter?"
+
+"Sir, you can; the Marquis of Montcalm has, in addition to his other
+civilities, invited me to a personal interview between the works and his
+own camp; in order, as he says, to impart some additional information.
+Now, I think it would not be wise to show any undue solicitude to meet
+him, and I would employ you, an officer of rank, as my substitute; for
+it would but ill comport with the honor of Scotland to let it be said
+one of her gentlemen was outdone in civility by a native of any other
+country on earth."
+
+Without assuming the supererogatory task of entering into a discussion
+of the comparative merits of national courtesy, Duncan cheerfully
+assented to supply the place of the veteran in the approaching
+interview. A long and confidential communication now succeeded, during
+which the young man received some additional insight into his duty, from
+the experience and native acuteness of his commander, and then the
+former took his leave.
+
+As Duncan could only act as the representative of the commandant of the
+fort, the ceremonies which should have accompanied a meeting between the
+heads of the adverse forces were of course dispensed with. The truce
+still existed, and with a roll and beat of the drum, and covered by a
+little white flag, Duncan left the sally-port, within ten minutes after
+his instructions were ended. He was received by the French officer in
+advance with the usual formalities, and immediately accompanied to a
+distant marquee of the renowned soldier who led the forces of France.
+
+The general of the enemy received the youthful messenger, surrounded by
+his principal officers, and by a swarthy band of the native chiefs, who
+had followed him to the field, with the warriors of their several
+tribes. Heyward paused short, when, in glancing his eyes rapidly over
+the dark group of the latter, he beheld the malignant countenance of
+Magua, regarding him with the calm but sullen attention which marked the
+expression of that subtle savage. A slight exclamation of surprise even
+burst from the lips of the young man; but instantly recollecting his
+errand, and the presence in which he stood, he suppressed every
+appearance of emotion, and turned to the hostile leader, who had already
+advanced a step to receive him.
+
+The Marquis of Montcalm was, at the period of which we write, in the
+flower of his age, and, it may be added, in the zenith of his fortunes.
+But, even in that enviable situation, he was affable, and distinguished
+as much for his attention to the forms of courtesy, as for that
+chivalrous courage which, only two short years afterwards, induced him
+to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham. Duncan, in turning his
+eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them to rest with
+pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble military
+air, of the French general.
+
+"Monsieur," said the latter, "j'ai beaucoup de plaisir à--bah!--où est
+cet interprête?"
+
+"Je crois, monsieur, qu'il ne sera pas nécessaire," Heyward modestly
+replied; "je parle un peu Français."
+
+"Ah! j'en suis bien aise," said Montcalm, taking Duncan familiarly by
+the arm, and leading him deep into the marquee, a little out of
+ear-shot; "je déteste ces fripons-là; on ne sait jamais sur quel pié on
+est avec eux. Eh, bien! monsieur," he continued, still speaking in
+French; "though I should have been proud of receiving your commandant, I
+am very happy that he has seen proper to employ an officer so
+distinguished, and who, I am sure, is so amiable, as yourself."
+
+Duncan bowed low, pleased with the compliment, in spite of a most heroic
+determination to suffer no artifice to allure him into forgetfulness of
+the interest of his prince; and Montcalm, after a pause of a moment, as
+if to recollect his thoughts, proceeded,--
+
+"Your commandant is a brave man, and well qualified to repel my assault.
+Mais, monsieur, is it not time to begin to take more counsel of
+humanity, and less of your courage? The one as strongly characterizes
+the hero as the other."
+
+"We consider the qualities as inseparable," returned Duncan, smiling;
+"but while we find in the vigor of your excellency every motive to
+stimulate the one, we can, as yet, see no particular call for the
+exercise of the other."
+
+Montcalm, in his turn, slightly bowed, but it was with the air of a man
+too practised to remember the language of flattery. After musing a
+moment, he added,--
+
+"It is possible my glasses have deceived me, and that your works resist
+our cannon better than I had supposed. You know our force?"
+
+"Our accounts vary," said Duncan, carelessly; "the highest, however, has
+not exceeded twenty thousand men."
+
+The Frenchman bit his lip, and fastened his eyes keenly on the other as
+if to read his thoughts; then, with a readiness peculiar to himself, he
+continued, as if assenting to the truth of an enumeration which quite
+doubled his army,--
+
+"It is a poor compliment to the vigilance of us soldiers, monsieur,
+that, do what we will, we never can conceal our numbers. If it were to
+be done at all, one would believe it might succeed in these woods.
+Though you think it too soon to listen to the calls of humanity," he
+added, smiling archly, "I may be permitted to believe that gallantry is
+not forgotten by one so young as yourself. The daughters of the
+commandant, I learn, have passed into the fort since it was invested?"
+
+"It is true, monsieur; but, so far from weakening our efforts, they set
+us an example of courage in their own fortitude. Were nothing but
+resolution necessary to repel so accomplished a soldier as M. de
+Montcalm, I would gladly trust the defence of William Henry to the elder
+of those ladies."
+
+"We have a wise ordinance in our Salique laws, which says, 'The crown of
+France shall never degrade the lance to the distaff,'" said Montcalm,
+dryly, and with a little hauteur; but instantly adding, with his former
+frank and easy air, "as all the nobler qualities are hereditary, I can
+easily credit you; though, as I said before, courage has its limits, and
+humanity must not be forgotten. I trust, monsieur, you come authorized
+to treat for the surrender of the place?"
+
+"Has your excellency found our defence so feeble as to believe the
+measure necessary?"
+
+"I should be sorry to have the defence protracted in such a manner as to
+irritate my red friends there," continued Montcalm, glancing his eyes at
+the group of grave and attentive Indians, without attending to the
+other's question; "I find it difficult, even now, to limit them to the
+usages of war."
+
+Heyward was silent; for a painful recollection of the dangers he had so
+recently escaped came over his mind, and recalled the images of those
+defenceless beings who had shared in all his sufferings.
+
+"Ces messieurs-là," said Montcalm, following up the advantage which he
+conceived he had gained, "are most formidable when baffled: and it is
+unnecessary to tell you with what difficulty they are restrained in
+their anger. Eh bien, monsieur! shall we speak of the terms?"
+
+"I fear your excellency has been deceived as to the strength of William
+Henry, and the resources of its garrison!"
+
+"I have not sat down before Quebec, but an earthen work, that is
+defended by twenty-three hundred gallant men," was the laconic reply.
+
+"Our mounds are earthen, certainly--nor are they seated on the rocks of
+Cape Diamond; but they stand on that shore which proved so destructive
+to Dieskau and his army. There is also a powerful force within a few
+hours' march of us, which we account upon as part of our means."
+
+"Some six or eight thousand men," returned Montcalm, with much apparent
+indifference, "whom their leader wisely judges to be safer in their
+works than in the field."
+
+It was now Heyward's turn to bite his lip with vexation, as the other so
+coolly alluded to a force which the young man knew to be overrated. Both
+mused a little while in silence, when Montcalm renewed the conversation,
+in a way that showed he believed the visit of his guest was solely to
+propose terms of capitulation. On the other hand, Heyward began to throw
+sundry inducements in the way of the French general, to betray the
+discoveries he had made through the intercepted letter. The artifice of
+neither, however, succeeded; and after a protracted and fruitless
+interview, Duncan took his leave, favorably impressed with an opinion of
+the courtesy and talents of the enemy's captain, but as ignorant of what
+he came to learn as when he arrived. Montcalm followed him as far as the
+entrance of the marquee, renewing his invitations to the commandant of
+the fort to give him an immediate meeting in the open ground, between
+the two armies.
+
+There they separated, and Duncan returned to the advanced post of the
+French, accompanied as before; whence he instantly proceeded to the
+fort, and to the quarters of his own commander.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+  "_Edg._--Before you fight the battle, ope this letter."
+
+  _King Lear._
+
+
+Major Heyward found Munro attended only by his daughters. Alice sat upon
+his knee, parting the gray hairs on the forehead of the old man with her
+delicate fingers; and, whenever he affected to frown on her trifling,
+appeasing his assumed anger by pressing her ruby lips fondly on his
+wrinkled brow. Cora was seated nigh them, a calm and amused looker-on;
+regarding the wayward movements of her more youthful sister, with that
+species of maternal fondness which characterized her love for Alice. Not
+only the dangers through which they had passed, but those which still
+impended above them, appeared to be momentarily forgotten, in the
+soothing indulgence of such a family meeting. It seemed as if they had
+profited by the short truce, to devote an instant to the purest and best
+affections: the daughters forgetting their fears, and the veteran his
+cares, in the security of the moment. Of this scene, Duncan, who in his
+eagerness to report his arrival had entered unannounced, stood many
+moments an unobserved and a delighted spectator. But the quick and
+dancing eyes of Alice soon caught a glimpse of his figure reflected from
+a glass, and she sprang blushing from her father's knee, exclaiming
+aloud,--
+
+"Major Heyward!"
+
+"What of the lad?" demanded the father; "I have sent him to crack a
+little with the Frenchman. Ha! sir, you are young, and you're nimble!
+Away with you, ye baggage; as if there were not troubles enough for a
+soldier, without having his camp filled with such prattling hussies as
+yourself!"
+
+Alice laughingly followed her sister, who instantly led the way from an
+apartment where she perceived their presence was no longer desirable.
+Munro, instead of demanding the result of the young man's mission, paced
+the room for a few moments, with his hands behind his back, and his head
+inclined towards the floor, like a man lost in thought. At length he
+raised his eyes, glistening with a father's fondness, and exclaimed,--
+
+"They are a pair of excellent girls, Heyward, and such as any one may
+boast of."
+
+"You are not now to learn my opinion of your daughters, Colonel Munro."
+
+"True, lad, true," interrupted the impatient old man; "you were about
+opening your mind more fully on that matter the day you got in; but I
+did not think it becoming in an old soldier to be talking of nuptial
+blessings and wedding jokes when the enemies of his king were likely to
+be unbidden guests at the feast! But I was wrong, Duncan, boy, I was
+wrong there; and I am now ready to hear what you have to say."
+
+"Notwithstanding the pleasure your assurance gives me, dear sir, I have
+just now a message from Montcalm--"
+
+"Let the Frenchman and all his host go to the devil, sir?" exclaimed the
+hasty veteran. "He is not yet master of William Henry, nor shall he ever
+be, provided Webb proves himself the man he should. No, sir! thank
+Heaven, we are not yet in such a strait that it can be said Munro is too
+much pressed to discharge the little domestic duties of his own family.
+Your mother was the only child of my bosom friend, Duncan; and I'll just
+give you a hearing, though all the knights of St. Louis were in a body
+at the sally-port, with the French saint at their head, craving to speak
+a word under favor. A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which
+can be bought with sugar-hogsheads! and then your two-penny marquisates!
+The thistle is the order for dignity and antiquity; the veritable _nemo
+me impune lacessit_ of chivalry! Ye had ancestors in that degree,
+Duncan, and they were an ornament to the nobles of Scotland."
+
+Heyward, who perceived that his superior took a malicious pleasure in
+exhibiting his contempt for the message of the French general, was fain
+to humor a spleen that he knew would be short-lived; he therefore
+replied with as much indifference as he could assume on such a
+subject,--
+
+"My request, as you know, sir, went so far as to presume to the honor of
+being your son."
+
+"Ay, boy, you found words to make yourself very plainly comprehended.
+But, let me ask ye, sir, have you been as intelligible to the girl?"
+
+"On my honor, no," exclaimed Duncan, warmly; "there would have been an
+abuse of a confided trust, had I taken advantage of my situation for
+such a purpose."
+
+"Your notions are those of a gentleman, Major Heyward, and well enough
+in their place. But Cora Munro is a maiden too discreet, and of a mind
+too elevated and improved, to need the guardianship even of a father."
+
+"Cora!"
+
+"Ay--Cora! we are talking of your pretensions to Miss Munro, are we not,
+sir?"
+
+"I--I--I was not conscious of having mentioned her name," said Duncan,
+stammering.
+
+"And to marry whom, then, did you wish my consent, Major Heyward?"
+demanded the old soldier, erecting himself in the dignity of offended
+feeling.
+
+"You have another, and not less lovely child."
+
+"Alice!" exclaimed the father, in an astonishment equal to that with
+which Duncan had just repeated the name of her sister.
+
+"Such was the direction of my wishes, sir."
+
+The young man awaited in silence the result of the extraordinary effect
+produced by a communication which, as it now appeared, was so
+unexpected. For several minutes Munro paced the chamber with long and
+rapid strides, his rigid features working convulsively, and every
+faculty seemingly absorbed in the musings of his own mind. At length, he
+paused directly in front of Heyward, and riveting his eyes upon those of
+the other, he said, with a lip that quivered violently,--
+
+"Duncan Heyward, I have loved you for the sake of him whose blood is in
+your veins; I have loved you for your own good qualities; and I have
+loved you, because I thought you would contribute to the happiness of my
+child. But all this love would turn to hatred, were I assured that what
+I so much apprehend is true."
+
+"God forbid that any act or thought of mine should lead to such a
+change!" exclaimed the young man, whose eye never quailed under the
+penetrating look it encountered. Without adverting the impossibility of
+the other's comprehending those feelings which were hid in his own
+bosom, Munro suffered himself to be appeased by the unaltered
+countenance he met, and with a voice sensibly softened, he continued,--
+
+"You would be my son, Duncan, and you're ignorant of the history of the
+man you wish to call your father. Sit ye down, young man, and I will
+open to you the wounds of a seared heart, in as few words as may be
+suitable."
+
+By this time, the message of Montcalm was as much forgotten by him who
+bore it as by the man for whose ears it was intended. Each drew a chair,
+and while the veteran communed a few moments with his own thoughts,
+apparently in sadness, the youth suppressed his impatience in a look and
+attitude of respectful attention. At length the former spoke:--
+
+"You'll know, already, Major Heyward, that my family was both ancient
+and honorable," commenced the Scotsman; "though it might not altogether
+be endowed with that amount of wealth that should correspond with its
+degree. I was, may be, such an one as yourself when I plighted my faith
+to Alice Graham, the only child of a neighboring laird of some estate.
+But the connection was disagreeable to her father, on more accounts than
+my poverty. I did therefore what an honest man should--restored the
+maiden her troth, and departed the country in the service of my king. I
+had seen many regions, and had shed much blood in different lands,
+before duty called me to the islands of the West Indies. There it was my
+lot to form a connection with one who in time became my wife, and the
+mother of Cora. She was the daughter of a gentleman of those isles, by a
+lady whose misfortune it was, if you will," said the old man, proudly,
+"to be descended, remotely, from that unfortunate class who are so
+basely enslaved to administer to the wants of a luxurious people. Ay,
+sir, that is a curse entailed on Scotland by her unnatural union with a
+foreign and trading people. But could I find a man among them who would
+dare to reflect on my child, he should feel the weight of a father's
+anger! Ha! Major Heyward, you are yourself born at the south, where
+these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own."
+
+"'Tis most unfortunately true, sir," said Duncan, unable any longer to
+prevent his eyes from sinking to the floor in embarrassment.
+
+"And you cast it on my child as a reproach! You scorn to mingle the
+blood of the Heywards with one so degraded--lovely and virtuous though
+she be?" fiercely demanded the jealous parent.
+
+"Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!" returned
+Duncan, at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply
+rooted as if it had been ingrafted in his nature. "The sweetness, the
+beauty, the witchery of your younger daughter, Colonel Munro, might
+explain my motives, without imputing to me this injustice."
+
+"Ye are right, sir," returned the old man, again changing his tones to
+those of gentleness, or rather softness; "the girl is the image of what
+her mother was at her years, and before she had become acquainted with
+grief. When death deprived me of my wife I returned to Scotland,
+enriched by the marriage; and would you think it, Duncan! The suffering
+angel had remained in the heartless state of celibacy twenty long years,
+and that for the sake of a man who could forget her! She did more, sir;
+she over-looked my want of faith, and all difficulties being now
+removed, she took me for her husband."
+
+"And became the mother of Alice?" exclaimed Duncan, with an eagerness
+that might have proved dangerous at a moment when the thoughts of Munro
+were less occupied than at present.
+
+"She did, indeed," said the old man, "and dearly did she pay for the
+blessing she bestowed. But she is a saint in heaven, sir; and it ill
+becomes one whose foot rests on the grave to mourn a lot so blessed. I
+had her but a single year, though; a short term of happiness for one who
+had seen her youth fade in hopeless pining."
+
+There was something so commanding in the distress of the old man, that
+Heyward did not dare to venture a syllable of consolation. Munro sat
+utterly unconscious of the other's presence, his features exposed and
+working with the anguish of his regrets, while heavy tears fell from his
+eyes, and rolled unheeded from his cheeks to the floor. At length he
+moved, as if suddenly recovering his recollection; when he arose, and
+taking a single turn across the room, he approached his companion with
+an air of military grandeur, and demanded,--
+
+"Have you not, Major Heyward, some communication that I should hear from
+the Marquis de Montcalm?"
+
+Duncan started, in his turn, and immediately commenced, in an
+embarrassed voice, the half-forgotten message. It is unnecessary to
+dwell upon the evasive, though polite manner, with which the French
+general had eluded every attempt of Heyward to worm from him the purport
+of the communication he had proposed making, or on the decided, though
+still polished message, by which he now gave his enemy to understand,
+that unless he chose to receive it in person, he should not receive it
+at all. As Munro listened to the detail of Duncan, the excited feelings
+of the father gradually gave way before the obligations of his station,
+and when the other was done, he saw before him nothing but the veteran,
+swelling with the wounded feelings of a soldier.
+
+"You have said enough, Major Heyward!" exclaimed the angry old man:
+"enough to make a volume of commentary on French civility. Here has this
+gentleman invited me to a conference, and when I send him a capable
+substitute, for ye're all that, Duncan, though your years are but few,
+he answers me with a riddle."
+
+"He may have thought less favorably of the substitute, my dear sir; and
+you will remember that the invitation, which he now repeats, was to the
+commandant of the works, and not to his second."
+
+"Well, sir, is not a substitute clothed with all the power and dignity
+of him who grants the commission? He wishes to confer with Munro! Faith,
+sir, I have much inclination to indulge the man, if it should only be to
+let him behold the firm countenance we maintain in spite of his numbers
+and his summons. There might be no bad policy in such a stroke, young
+man."
+
+Duncan, who believed it of the last importance that they should speedily
+come at the contents of the letter borne by the scout, gladly encouraged
+this idea.
+
+"Without doubt, he could gather no confidence by witnessing our
+indifference," he said.
+
+"You never said truer word. I could wish, sir, that he would visit the
+works in open day, and in the form of a storming party: that is the
+least failing method of proving the countenance of an enemy, and would
+be far preferable to the battering system he has chosen. The beauty and
+manliness of warfare has been much deformed, Major Heyward, by the arts
+of your Monsieur Vauban. Our ancestors were far above such scientific
+cowardice!"
+
+"It may be very true, sir; but we are now obliged to repel art by art.
+What is your pleasure in the matter of the interview?"
+
+"I will meet the Frenchman, and that without fear or delay; promptly;
+sir, as becomes a servant of my royal master. Go, Major Heyward, and
+give them a flourish of the music; and send out a messenger to let them
+know who is coming. We will follow with a small guard, for such respect
+is due to one who holds the honor of his king in keeping; and harkee,
+Duncan," he added, in a half whisper, though they were alone, "it may be
+prudent to have some aid at hand, in case there should be treachery at
+the bottom of it all."
+
+The young man availed himself of this order to quit the apartment; and,
+as the day was fast coming to a close, he hastened, without delay, to
+make the necessary arrangements. A very few minutes only were necessary
+to parade a few files, and to despatch an orderly with a flag to
+announce the approach of the commandant of the fort. When Duncan had
+done both these, he led the guard to the sally-port, near which he found
+his superior ready, waiting his appearance. As soon as the usual
+ceremonials of a military departure were observed, the veteran and his
+more youthful companion left the fortress, attended by the escort.
+
+They had proceeded only a hundred yards from the works, when the little
+array which attended the French general to the conference, was seen
+issuing from the hollow way, which formed the bed of a brook that ran
+between the batteries of the besiegers and the fort. From the moment
+that Munro left his own works to appear in front of his enemies, his air
+had been grand, and his step and countenance highly military. The
+instant he caught a glimpse of the white plume that waved in the hat of
+Montcalm, his eye lighted, and age no longer appeared to possess any
+influence over his vast and still muscular person.
+
+"Speak to the boys to be watchful, sir," he said, in an undertone, to
+Duncan; "and to look well to their flints and steel, for one is never
+safe with a servant of these Louises; at the same time, we will show
+them the front of men in deep security. Ye'll understand me, Major
+Heyward!"
+
+He was interrupted by the clamor of a drum from the approaching
+Frenchmen, which was immediately answered, when each party pushed an
+orderly in advance, bearing a white flag, and the wary Scotsman halted,
+with his guard close at his back. As soon as this slight salutation had
+passed, Montcalm moved towards them with a quick but graceful step,
+baring his head to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly
+to the earth in courtesy. If the air of Munro was more commanding and
+manly, it wanted both the ease and insinuating polish of that of the
+Frenchman. Neither spoke for a few moments, each regarding the other
+with curious and interested eyes. Then, as became his superior rank and
+the nature of the interview, Montcalm broke the silence. After uttering
+the usual words of greeting, he turned to Duncan, and continued with a
+smile of recognition, speaking always in French,--
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS
+
+_As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm moved towards
+them with a quick but graceful step, baring his head to the veteran, and
+dropping his spotless plume nearly to the earth in courtesy_]
+
+"I am rejoiced, monsieur, that you have given us the pleasure of your
+company on this occasion. There will be no necessity to employ an
+ordinary interpreter; for, in your hands, I feel the same security as if
+I spoke your language myself."
+
+Duncan acknowledged the compliment, when Montcalm, turning to his guard,
+which, in imitation of that of their enemies, pressed close upon him,
+continued,--
+
+"En arrière, mes enfans--il fait chaud; retirez-vous un peu."
+
+Before Major Heyward would imitate this proof of confidence, he glanced
+his eyes around the plain, and beheld with uneasiness the numerous dusky
+groups of savages, who looked out from the margin of the surrounding
+woods, curious spectators of the interview.
+
+"Monsieur de Montcalm will readily acknowledge the difference in our
+situation," he said, with some embarrassment, pointing at the same time
+towards those dangerous foes, who were to be seen in almost every
+direction. "Were we to dismiss our guard, we should stand here at the
+mercy of our enemies."
+
+"Monsieur, you have the plighted faith of _un gentilhomme Français_; for
+your safety," returned Montcalm, laying his hand impressively on his
+heart; "it should suffice."
+
+"It shall. Fall back," Duncan added to the officer who led the escort;
+"fall back, sir, beyond hearing, and wait for orders."
+
+Munro witnessed this movement with manifest uneasiness; nor did he fail
+to demand an instant explanation.
+
+"Is it not our interest, sir, to betray no distrust?" retorted Duncan.
+"Monsieur de Montcalm pledges his word for our safety, and I have
+ordered the men to withdraw a little, in order to prove how much we
+depend on his assurance."
+
+"It may be all right, sir, but I have no overweening reliance on the
+faith of these marquesses, or marquis, as they call themselves. Their
+patents of nobility are too common to be certain that they bear the seal
+of true honor."
+
+"You forget, dear sir, that we confer with an officer distinguished
+alike in Europe and America for his deeds. From a soldier of his
+reputation we can have nothing to apprehend."
+
+The old man made a gesture of resignation, though his rigid features
+still betrayed his obstinate adherence to a distrust, which he derived
+from a sort of hereditary contempt of his enemy, rather than from any
+present signs which might warrant so uncharitable a feeling. Montcalm
+waited patiently until this little dialogue in demi-voice was ended,
+when he drew nigher, and opened the subject of their conference.
+
+"I have solicited this interview from your superior, monsieur," he said,
+"because I believe he will allow himself to be persuaded that he has
+already done everything which is necessary for the honor of his prince,
+and will not listen to the admonitions of humanity. I will forever bear
+testimony that his resistance has been gallant, and was continued as
+long as there was hope."
+
+When this opening was translated to Munro, he answered with dignity, but
+with sufficient courtesy,--
+
+"However I may prize such testimony from Monsieur Montcalm, it will be
+more valuable when it shall be better merited."
+
+The French general smiled, as Duncan gave him the purport of this reply,
+and observed,--
+
+"What is now so freely accorded to approved courage, may be refused to
+useless obstinacy. Monsieur would wish to see my camp, and witness, for
+himself, our numbers, and the impossibility of his resisting them, with
+success?"
+
+"I know that the king of France is well served," returned the unmoved
+Scotsman, as soon as Duncan ended his translation; "but my own royal
+master has as many and as faithful troops."
+
+"Though not at hand, fortunately for us," said Montcalm, without
+waiting, in his ardor, for the interpreter. "There is a destiny in war,
+to which a brave man knows how to submit, with the same courage that he
+faces his foes."
+
+"Had I been conscious that Monsieur Montcalm was master of the English,
+I should have spared myself the trouble of so awkward a translation,"
+said the vexed Duncan, dryly; remembering instantly his recent by-play
+with Munro.
+
+"Your pardon, monsieur," rejoined the Frenchman, suffering a slight
+color to appear on his dark cheek. "There is a vast difference between
+understanding and speaking a foreign tongue; you will, therefore, please
+to assist me still." Then after a short pause, he added, "These hills
+afford us every opportunity of reconnoitring your works, messieurs, and
+I am possibly as well acquainted with their weak condition as you can be
+yourselves."
+
+"Ask the French general if his glasses can reach to the Hudson," said
+Munro, proudly; "and if he knows when and where to expect the army of
+Webb."
+
+"Let General Webb be his own interpreter," returned the politic
+Montcalm, suddenly extending an open letter towards Munro, as he spoke;
+"you will there learn, monsieur, that his movements are not likely to
+prove embarrassing to my army."
+
+The veteran seized the offered paper, without waiting for Duncan to
+translate the speech, and with an eagerness that betrayed how important
+he deemed its contents. As his eye passed hastily over the words, his
+countenance changed from its look of military pride to one of deep
+chagrin: his lip began to quiver; and, suffering the paper to fall from
+his hand, his head dropped upon his chest, like that of a man whose
+hopes were withered at a single blow. Duncan caught the letter from the
+ground, and without apology for the liberty he took, he read at a glance
+its cruel purport. Their common superior, so far from encouraging them
+to resist, advised a speedy surrender, urging in the plainest language
+as a reason, the utter impossibility of his sending a single man to
+their rescue.
+
+"Here is no deception!" exclaimed Duncan, examining the billet both
+inside and out; "this is the signature of Webb, and must be the captured
+letter."
+
+"The man has betrayed me!" Munro at length bitterly exclaimed: "he has
+brought dishonor to the door of one where disgrace was never before
+known to dwell, and shame has he heaped heavily on my gray hairs."
+
+"Say not so," cried Duncan; "we are yet masters of the fort, and of our
+honor. Let us then sell our lives at such a rate as shall make our
+enemies believe the purchase too dear."
+
+"Boy, I thank thee," exclaimed the old man, rousing himself from his
+stupor; "you have, for once, reminded Munro of his duty. We will go
+back, and dig our graves behind those ramparts."
+
+"Messieurs," said Montcalm, advancing towards them a step, in generous
+interest, "you little know Louis de St. Véran, if you believe him
+capable of profiting by this letter to humble brave men, or to build up
+a dishonest reputation for himself. Listen to my terms before you leave
+me."
+
+"What says the Frenchman?" demanded the veteran, sternly; "does he make
+a merit of having captured a scout, with a note from headquarters? Sir,
+he had better raise this siege, to go and sit down before Edward if he
+wishes to frighten his enemy with words."
+
+Duncan explained the other's meaning.
+
+"Monsieur de Montcalm, we will hear you," the veteran added, more calmly,
+as Duncan ended.
+
+"To retain the fort is now impossible," said his liberal enemy; "it is
+necessary to the interests of my master that it should be destroyed;
+but, as for yourselves, and your brave comrades, there is no privilege
+dear to a soldier that shall be denied."
+
+"Our colors?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Carry them to England, and show them to your king."
+
+"Our arms?"
+
+"Keep them; none can use them better."
+
+"Our march; the surrender of the place?"
+
+"Shall all be done in a way most honorable to yourselves."
+
+Duncan now turned to explain these proposals to his commander, who heard
+him with amazement, and a sensibility that was deeply touched by such
+unusual and unexpected generosity.
+
+"Go you, Duncan," he said; "go with this marquess, as indeed marquess he
+should be; go to his marquee and arrange it all. I have lived to see two
+things in my old age, that never did I expect to behold. An Englishman
+afraid to support a friend, and a Frenchman too honest to profit by his
+advantage."
+
+So saying, the veteran again dropped his head to his chest, and returned
+slowly towards the fort, exhibiting, by the dejection of his air, to the
+anxious garrison, a harbinger of evil tidings.
+
+From the shock of this unexpected blow the haughty feelings of Munro
+never recovered; but from that moment there commenced a change in his
+determined character, which accompanied him to a speedy grave. Duncan
+remained to settle the terms of the capitulation. He was seen to
+re-enter the works during the first watches of the night, and
+immediately after a private conference with the commandant, to leave
+them again, It was then openly announced, that hostilities must
+cease--Munro having signed a treaty, by which the place was to be
+yielded to the enemy, with the morning; the garrison to retain their
+arms, their colors, and their baggage, and consequently, according to
+military opinion, their honor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+  "Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.
+  The web is wove. The work is done."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+The hostile armies, which lay in the wilds of the Horican, passed the
+night of the 9th of August, 1757, much in the manner they would had they
+encountered on the fairest fields of Europe. While the conquered were
+still, sullen, and dejected, the victors triumphed. But there are limits
+alike to grief and joy; and long before the watches of the morning came,
+the stillness of those boundless woods was only broken by a gay call
+from some exulting young Frenchman of the advanced pickets, or a
+menacing challenge from the fort, which sternly forbade the approach of
+any hostile footsteps before the stipulated moment. Even these
+occasional threatening sounds ceased to be heard in that dull hour which
+precedes the day, at which period a listener might have sought in vain
+any evidence of the presence of those armed powers that then slumbered
+on the shores of the "holy lake."
+
+It was during these moments of deep silence, that the canvas which
+concealed the entrance to a spacious marquee in the French encampment
+was shoved aside, and a man issued from beneath the drapery into the
+open air. He was enveloped in a cloak that might have been intended as a
+protection from the chilling damps of the woods, but which served
+equally well as a mantle, to conceal his person. He was permitted to
+pass the grenadier, who watched over the slumbers of the French
+commander, without interruption, the man making the usual salute which
+betokens military deference, as the other passed swiftly through the
+little city of tents, in the direction of William Henry. Whenever this
+unknown individual encountered one of the numberless sentinels who
+crossed his path, his answer was prompt, and as it appeared
+satisfactory; for he was uniformly allowed to proceed, without further
+interrogation.
+
+With the exception of such repeated, but brief interruptions, he had
+moved, silently, from the centre of the camp, to its most advanced
+outposts, when he drew nigh the soldier who held his watch nearest to
+the works of the enemy. As he approached he was received with the usual
+challenge,--
+
+"Qui vive?"
+
+"France," was the reply.
+
+"Le mot d'ordre?"
+
+"La victoire," said the other, drawing so nigh as to be heard in a loud
+whisper.
+
+"C'est bien," returned the sentinel, throwing his musket from the charge
+to his shoulder; "vous vous promenez bien matin, monsieur!"
+
+"Il est nécessaire d'être vigilant, mon enfant," the other observed,
+dropping a fold of his cloak, and looking the soldier close in the face,
+as he passed him, still continuing his way towards the British
+fortification. The man started; his arms rattled heavily, as he threw
+them forward, in the lowest and most respectful salute; and when he had
+again recovered his piece, he turned to walk his post, muttering between
+his teeth,--
+
+"Il faut être vigilant, en vérité! je crois que nous avons là, un
+caporal qui ne dort jamais!"
+
+The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped
+the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause until he had
+reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the
+western water bastion of the fort. The light of an obscure moon was just
+sufficient to render objects, though dim, perceptible in their outlines.
+He, therefore, took the precaution to place himself against the trunk of
+a tree, where he leaned for many minutes, and seemed to contemplate the
+dark and silent mounds of the English works in profound attention. His
+gaze at the ramparts was not that of a curious or idle spectator; but
+his looks wandered from point to point, denoting his knowledge of
+military usages, and betraying that his search was not unaccompanied by
+distrust. At length he appeared satisfied; and having cast his eyes
+impatiently upwards towards the summit of the eastern mountain, as if
+anticipating the approach of the morning, he was in the act of turning
+on his footsteps, when a light sound on the nearest angle of the bastion
+caught his ear, and induced him to remain.
+
+Just then a figure was seen to approach the edge of the rampart, where
+it stood, apparently contemplating in its turn the distant tents of the
+French encampment. Its head was then turned towards the east, as though
+equally anxious for the appearance of light, when the form leaned
+against the mound, and seemed to gaze upon the glassy expanse of the
+waters, which, like a submarine firmament, glittered with its thousand
+mimic stars. The melancholy air, the hour, together with the vast frame
+of the man who thus leaned, in musing, against the English ramparts,
+left no doubt as to his person, in the mind of his observant spectator.
+Delicacy, no less than prudence, now urged him to retire; and he had
+moved cautiously round the body of the tree for that purpose, when
+another sound drew his attention, and once more arrested his footsteps.
+It was a low and almost inaudible movement of the water, and was
+succeeded by a grating of pebbles one against the other. In a moment he
+saw a dark form rise, as it were out of the lake, and steal without
+further noise to the land, within a few feet of the place where he
+himself stood. A rifle next slowly rose between his eyes and the watery
+mirror; but before it could be discharged his own hand was on the lock.
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the savage, whose treacherous aim was so singularly
+and so unexpectedly interrupted.
+
+Without making any reply, the French officer laid his hand on the
+shoulder of the Indian, and led him in profound silence to a distance
+from the spot, where their subsequent dialogue might have proved
+dangerous, and where it seemed that one of them, at least, sought a
+victim. Then, throwing open his cloak, so as to expose his uniform and
+the cross of St. Louis which was suspended at his breast, Montcalm
+sternly demanded,--
+
+"What means this! Does not my son know that the hatchet is buried
+between the English and his Canadian Father?"
+
+"What can the Hurons do?" returned the savage, speaking also, though
+imperfectly, in the French language. "Not a warrior has a scalp, and the
+pale-faces make friends!"
+
+"Ha! Le Renard Subtil! Methinks this is an excess of zeal for a friend
+who was so late an enemy! How many suns have set since Le Renard struck
+the war-post of the English?"
+
+"Where is that sun!" demanded the sullen savage. "Behind the hill; and
+it is dark and cold. But when he comes again, it will be bright and
+warm. Le Subtil is the sun of his tribe. There have been clouds, and
+many mountains between him and his nation; but now he shines, and it is
+a clear sky!"
+
+"That Le Renard has power with his people, I well know," said Montcalm;
+"for yesterday he hunted for their scalps, and to-day they hear him at
+the council-fire."
+
+"Magua is a great chief."
+
+"Let him prove it, by teaching his nation how to conduct itself towards
+our new friends."
+
+"Why did the chief of the Canadas bring his young men into the woods,
+and fire his cannon at the earthen house?" demanded the subtle Indian.
+
+"To subdue it. My master owns the land, and your father has been ordered
+to drive off these English squatters. They have consented to go, and now
+he calls them enemies no longer."
+
+"'Tis well. Magua took the hatchet to color it with blood. It is now
+bright; when it is red, it shall be buried."
+
+"But Magua is pledged not to sully the lilies of France. The enemies of
+the great king across the salt lake are his enemies; his friends, the
+friends of the Hurons."
+
+"Friends!" repeated the Indian, in scorn. "Let his father give Magua a
+hand."
+
+Montcalm, who felt that his influence over the warlike tribes he had
+gathered was to be maintained by concession rather than by power,
+complied reluctantly with the other's request. The savage placed the
+finger of the French commander on a deep scar in his bosom, and then
+exultingly demanded,--
+
+"Does my father know that?"
+
+"What warrior does not? 'tis where a leaden bullet has cut."
+
+"And this?" continued the Indian, who had turned his naked back to the
+other, his body being without its usual calico mantle.
+
+"This!--my son has been sadly injured, here; who has done this?"
+
+"Magua slept hard in the English wigwams, and the sticks have left their
+mark," returned the savage, with a hollow laugh, which did not conceal
+the fierce temper that nearly choked him. Then recollecting himself,
+with sudden and native dignity, he added, "Go; teach your young men, it
+is peace. Le Renard Subtil knows how to speak to a Huron warrior."
+
+Without deigning to bestow further words, or to wait for any answer, the
+savage cast his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and moved silently
+through the encampment towards the woods where his own tribe was known
+to lie. Every few yards as he proceeded he was challenged by the
+sentinels; but he stalked sullenly onward, utterly disregarding the
+summons of the soldiers, who only spared his life because they knew the
+air and tread no less than the obstinate daring of an Indian.
+
+Montcalm lingered long and melancholy on the strand, where he had been
+left by his companion, brooding deeply on the temper which his
+ungovernable ally had just discovered. Already had his fair fame been
+tarnished by one horrid scene, and in circumstances fearfully resembling
+those under which he now found himself. As he mused he became keenly
+sensible of the deep responsibility they assume who disregard the means
+to attain their end, and of all the danger of setting in motion an
+engine which it exceeds human power to control. Then shaking off a train
+of reflections that he accounted a weakness in such a moment of triumph,
+he retraced his steps towards his tent, giving the order as he passed,
+to make the signal that should arouse the army from its slumbers.
+
+The first tap of the French drums was echoed from the bosom of the fort,
+and presently the valley was filled with the strains of martial music,
+rising long, thrilling, and lively above the rattling accompaniment. The
+horns of the victors sounded merry and cheerful flourishes, until the
+last laggard of the camp was at his post; but the instant the British
+fifes had blown their shrill signal, they became mute. In the meantime
+the day had dawned, and when the line of the French army was ready to
+receive its general, the rays of a brilliant sun were glancing along the
+glittering array. Then that success, which was already so well known,
+was officially announced; the favored band who were selected to guard
+the gates of the fort were detailed, and defiled before their chief; the
+signal of their approach was given, and all the usual preparations for a
+change of masters were ordered and executed directly under the guns of
+the contested works.
+
+A very different scene presented itself within the lines of the
+Anglo-American army. As soon as the warning signal was given, it
+exhibited all the signs of a hurried and forced departure. The sullen
+soldiers shouldered their empty tubes and fell into their places, like
+men whose blood had been heated by the past contest, and who only
+desired the opportunity to revenge an indignity which was still wounding
+to their pride, concealed as it was under all the observances of
+military etiquette. Women and children ran from place to place, some
+bearing the scanty remnants of their baggage, and others searching in
+the ranks for those countenances they looked up to for protection.
+
+Munro appeared among his silent troops firm but dejected. It was evident
+that the unexpected blow had struck deep into his heart, though he
+struggled to sustain his misfortune with the port of man.
+
+Duncan was touched at the quiet and impressive exhibition of his grief.
+He had discharged his own duty, and he now pressed to the side of the
+old man, to know in what particular he might serve him.
+
+"My daughters," was the brief but expressive reply.
+
+"Good heavens! are not arrangements already made for their convenience?"
+
+"To-day I am only a soldier, Major Heyward," said the veteran. "All that
+you see here, claim alike to be my children."
+
+Duncan had heard enough. Without losing one of those moments which had
+now become so precious, he flew towards the quarters of Munro, in quest
+of the sisters. He found them on the threshold of the low edifice,
+already prepared to depart, and surrounded by a clamorous and weeping
+assemblage of their own sex, that had gathered about the place, with a
+sort of instinctive consciousness that it was the point most likely to
+be protected. Though the cheeks of Cora were pale, and her countenance
+anxious, she had lost none of her firmness; but the eyes of Alice were
+inflamed, and betrayed how long and bitterly she had wept. They both,
+however, received the young man with undisguised pleasure; the former,
+for a novelty, being the first to speak.
+
+"The fort is lost," she said, with a melancholy smile; "though our good
+name, I trust, remains."
+
+"'Tis brighter than ever. But, dearest Miss Munro, it is time to think
+less of others, and to make some provision for yourself. Military
+usage,--pride,--that pride on which you so much value yourself, demands
+that your father and I should for a little while continue with the
+troops. Then where to seek a proper protector for you against the
+confusion and chances of such a scene?"
+
+"None is necessary," returned Cora; "who will dare to injure or insult
+the daughter of such a father, at a time like this?"
+
+"I would not leave you alone," continued the youth, looking about him in
+a hurried manner, "for the command of the best regiment in the pay of
+the king. Remember, our Alice is not gifted with all your firmness, and
+God only knows the terror she might endure."
+
+"You may be right," Cora replied, smiling again, but far more sadly than
+before. "Listen! chance has already sent us a friend when he is most
+needed."
+
+Duncan did listen, and on the instant comprehended her meaning. The low
+and serious sounds of the sacred music, so well known to the eastern
+provinces, caught his ear, and instantly drew him to an apartment in an
+adjacent building, which had already been deserted by its customary
+tenants. There he found David, pouring out his pious feelings, through
+the only medium in which he ever indulged. Duncan waited, until, by the
+cessation of the movement of the hand, he believed the strain was ended,
+when, by touching his shoulder, he drew the attention of the other to
+himself, and in a few words explained his wishes.
+
+"Even so," replied the single-minded disciple of the King of Israel,
+when the young man had ended; "I have found much that is comely and
+melodious in the maidens, and it is fitting that we who have consorted
+in so much peril, should abide together in peace. I will attend them,
+when I have completed my morning praise, to which nothing is now wanting
+but the doxology. Wilt thou bear a part, friend? The metre is common,
+and the tune, 'Southwell.'"
+
+Then, extending the little volume, and giving the pitch of the air anew
+with considerate attention, David recommenced and finished his strains,
+with a fixedness of manner that it was not easy to interrupt. Heyward
+was fain to wait until the verse was ended; when, seeing David relieving
+himself from the spectacles, and replacing the book, he continued,--
+
+"It will be your duty to see that none dare to approach the ladies with
+any rude intention, or to offer insult or taunt at the misfortune of
+their brave father. In this task you will be seconded by the domestics
+of their household."
+
+"Even so."
+
+"It is possible that the Indians and stragglers of the enemy may
+intrude, in which case you will remind them of the terms of the
+capitulation, and threaten to report their conduct to Montcalm. A word
+will suffice."
+
+"If not, I have that here which shall," returned David, exhibiting his
+book, with an air in which meekness and confidence were singularly
+blended. "Here are words which, uttered, or rather thundered, with
+proper emphasis, and in measured time, shall quiet the most unruly
+temper:--
+
+  "'Why rage the heathen furiously!'"--
+
+"Enough," said Heyward, interrupting the burst of his musical
+invocation: "we understand each other; it is time that we should now
+assume our respective duties."
+
+Gamut cheerfully assented, and together they sought the females. Cora
+received her new, and somewhat extraordinary protector, courteously at
+least; and even the pallid features of Alice lighted again with some of
+their native archness as she thanked Heyward for his care. Duncan took
+occasion to assure them he had done the best that circumstances
+permitted, and, as he believed, quite enough for the security of their
+feelings; of danger there was none. He then spoke gladly of his
+intention to rejoin them the moment he had led the advance a few miles
+towards the Hudson, and immediately took his leave.
+
+By this time the signal of departure had been given, and the head of the
+English column was in motion. The sisters started at the sound, and
+glancing their eyes around, they saw the white uniforms of the French
+grenadiers, who had already taken possession of the gates of the fort.
+At that moment, an enormous cloud seemed to pass suddenly above their
+heads, and looking upward, they discovered that they stood beneath the
+wide folds of the standard of France.
+
+"Let us go," said Cora; "this is no longer a fit place for the children
+of an English officer."
+
+Alice clung to the arm of her sister, and together they left the parade,
+accompanied by the moving throng that surrounded them.
+
+As they passed the gates, the French officers, who had learned their
+rank, bowed often and low, forbearing, however, to intrude those
+attentions which they saw, with peculiar tact, might not be agreeable.
+As every vehicle and each beast of burden was occupied by the sick and
+wounded, Cora had decided to endure the fatigues of a foot march, rather
+than interfere with their comforts. Indeed, many a maimed and feeble
+soldier was compelled to drag his exhausted limbs in the rear of the
+columns, for the want of the necessary means of conveyance, in that
+wilderness. The whole, however, was in motion; the weak and wounded,
+groaning, and in suffering; their comrades, silent and sullen; and the
+women and children in terror, they knew not of what.
+
+As the confused and timid throng left the protecting mounds of the fort,
+and issued on the open plain, the whole scene was at once presented to
+their eyes. At a little distance on the right, and somewhat in the rear,
+the French army stood to their arms, Montcalm having collected his
+parties, so soon as his guards had possession of the works. They were
+attentive but silent observers of the proceedings of the vanquished,
+failing in none of the stipulated military honors, and offering no taunt
+or insult, in their success, to their less fortunate foes. Living masses
+of the English, to the amount in the whole of near three thousand, were
+moving slowly across the plain, towards the common centre, and gradually
+approached each other, as they converged to the point of their march, a
+vista cut through the lofty trees, where the road to the Hudson entered
+the forest. Along the sweeping borders of the woods, hung a dark cloud
+of savages, eying the passage of their enemies, and hovering, at a
+distance, like vultures, who were only kept from swooping on their prey,
+by the presence and restraint of a superior army. A few had straggled
+among the conquered columns, where they stalked in sullen discontent;
+attentive, though, as yet, passive observers of the moving multitude.
+
+The advance, with Heyward at its head, had already reached the defile,
+and was slowly disappearing, when the attention of Cora was drawn to a
+collection of stragglers, by the sounds of contention. A truant
+provincial was paying the forfeit of his disobedience, by being
+plundered of those very effects which had caused him to desert his place
+in the ranks. The man was of powerful frame, and too avaricious to part
+with his goods without a struggle. Individuals from either party
+interfered; the one side to prevent, and the other to aid in the
+robbery. Voices grew loud and angry, and a hundred savages appeared, as
+it were by magic, where a dozen only had been seen a minute before. It
+was then that Cora saw the form of Magua gliding among his countrymen,
+and speaking with his fatal and artful eloquence. The mass of women and
+children stopped, and hovered together like alarmed and fluttering
+birds. But the cupidity of the Indian was soon gratified, and the
+different bodies again moved slowly onward.
+
+The savages now fell back, and seemed content to let their enemies
+advance without further molestation. But as the female crowd approached
+them, the gaudy colors of a shawl attracted the eyes of a wild and
+untutored Huron. He advanced to seize it, without the least hesitation.
+The woman, more in terror than through love of the ornament, wrapped her
+child in the coveted article, and folded both more closely to her bosom.
+Cora was in the act of speaking, with an intent to advise the woman to
+abandon the trifle, when the savage relinquished his hold of the shawl,
+and tore the screaming infant from her arms. Abandoning everything to
+the greedy grasp of those around her, the mother darted, with
+distraction in her mien, to reclaim her child. The Indian smiled grimly,
+and extended one hand, in sign of a willingness to exchange, while with
+the other, he flourished the babe over his head, holding it by the feet
+as if to enhance the value of the ransom.
+
+"Here--here--there--all--any--everything!" exclaimed the breathless
+woman; tearing the lighter articles of dress from her person, with
+ill-directed and trembling fingers; "take all, but give me my babe!"
+
+The savage spurned the worthless rags, and perceiving that the shawl had
+already become a prize to another, his bantering but sullen smile
+changing to a gleam of ferocity, he dashed the head of the infant
+against a rock, and cast its quivering remains to her very feet. For an
+instant, the mother stood, like a statue of despair, looking wildly down
+at the unseemly object, which had so lately nestled in her bosom and
+smiled in her face; and then she raised her eyes and countenance towards
+heaven, as if calling on God to curse the perpetrator of the foul deed.
+She was spared the sin of such a prayer; for, maddened at his
+disappointment, and excited at the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully
+drove his tomahawk into her own brain. The mother sank under the blow,
+and fell, grasping at her child, in death, with the same engrossing love
+that had caused her to cherish it when living.
+
+At that dangerous moment Magua placed his hands to his mouth, and raised
+the fatal and appalling whoop. The scattered Indians started at the
+well-known cry, as coursers bound at the signal to quit the goal; and,
+directly, there arose such a yell along the plain, and through the
+arches of the wood, as seldom burst from human lips before. They who
+heard it listened with a curdling horror at the heart, little inferior
+to that dread which may be expected to attend the blasts of the final
+summons.
+
+More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the
+signal, and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive
+alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded.
+Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects.
+Resistance only served to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their
+furious blows long after their victims were beyond the power of their
+resentment. The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a
+torrent; and, as the natives became heated and maddened by the sight,
+many among them even kneeled to the earth, and drank freely, exultingly,
+hellishly, of the crimson tide.
+
+The trained bodies of the troops threw themselves quickly into solid
+masses, endeavoring to awe their assailants by the imposing appearance
+of a military front. The experiment in some measure succeeded, though
+far too many suffered their unloaded muskets to be torn from their
+hands, in the vain hope of appeasing the savages.
+
+In such a scene none had leisure to note the fleeting moments. It might
+have been ten minutes (it seemed an age), that the sisters had stood
+riveted to one spot, horror-stricken, and nearly helpless. When the
+first blow was struck, their screaming companions had pressed upon them
+in a body, rendering flight impossible; and now that fear or death had
+scattered most, if not all, from around them, they saw no avenue open,
+but such as conducted to the tomahawks of their foes. On every side
+arose shrieks, groans, exhortations, and curses. At this moment Alice
+caught a glimpse of the vast form of her father, moving rapidly across
+the plain, in the direction of the French army. He was, in truth,
+proceeding to Montcalm, fearless of every danger, to claim the tardy
+escort for which he had before conditioned. Fifty glittering axes and
+barbed spears were offered unheeded at his life, but the savages
+respected his rank and calmness, even in their fury. The dangerous
+weapons were brushed aside by the still nervous arm of the veteran, or
+fell of themselves, after menacing an act that it would seem no one had
+courage to perform. Fortunately, the vindictive Magua was searching for
+his victim in the very band the veteran had just quitted.
+
+"Father--father--we are here!" shrieked Alice, as he passed, at no great
+distance, without appearing to heed them. "Come to us, father, or we
+die!"
+
+The cry was repeated, and in terms and tones that might have melted a
+heart of stone, but it was unanswered. Once, indeed, the old man
+appeared to catch the sounds, for he paused and listened; but Alice had
+dropped senseless on the earth, and Cora had sunk at her side, hovering
+in untiring tenderness over her lifeless form. Munro shook his head in
+disappointment, and proceeded, bent on the high duty of his station.
+
+"Lady," said Gamut, who, helpless and useless as he was, had not yet
+dreamed of deserting his trust, "it is the jubilee of the devils, and
+this is not a meet place for Christians to tarry in. Let us up and fly."
+
+"Go," said Cora, still gazing at her unconscious sister; "save thyself.
+To me thou canst not be of further use."
+
+David comprehended the unyielding character of her resolution, by the
+simple but expressive gesture that accompanied her words. He gazed, for
+a moment, at the dusky forms that were acting their hellish rites on
+every side of him, and his tall person grew more erect, while his chest
+heaved, and every feature swelled, and seemed to speak with the power of
+the feelings by which he was governed.
+
+"If the Jewish boy might tame the evil spirit of Saul by the sound of
+his harp, and the words of sacred song, it may not be amiss," he said,
+"to try the potency of music here."
+
+Then raising his voice to its highest tones, he poured out a strain so
+powerful as to be heard even amid the din of that bloody field. More
+than one savage rushed towards them, thinking to rifle the unprotected
+sisters of their attire, and bear away their scalps; but when they found
+this strange and unmoved figure riveted to his post, they paused to
+listen. Astonishment soon changed to admiration, and they passed on to
+other and less courageous victims, openly expressing their satisfaction
+at the firmness with which the white warrior sang his death song.
+Encouraged and deluded by his success, David exerted all his powers to
+extend what he believed so holy an influence. The unwonted sounds caught
+the ears of a distant savage, who flew raging from group to group, like
+one who, scorning to touch the vulgar herd, hunted for some victim more
+worthy of his renown. It was Magua, who uttered a yell of pleasure when
+he beheld his ancient prisoners again at his mercy.
+
+"Come," he said, laying his soiled hands on the dress of Cora, "the
+wigwam of the Huron is still open. Is it not better than this place?"
+
+"Away!" cried Cora, veiling her eyes from his revolting aspect.
+
+The Indian laughed tauntingly, as he held up his reeking hand, and
+answered,--"It is red, but it comes from white veins!"
+
+"Monster! there is blood, oceans of blood, upon thy soul; thy spirit has
+moved this scene."
+
+"Magua is a great chief!" returned the exulting savage; "will the dark
+hair go to his tribe?"
+
+"Never! strike, if thou wilt, and complete thy revenge."
+
+He hesitated a moment; and then catching the light and senseless form of
+Alice in his arms, the subtle Indian moved swiftly across the plain
+towards the woods.
+
+"Hold!" shrieked Cora, following wildly on his footsteps; "release the
+child! wretch! what is't you do?"
+
+But Magua was deaf to her voice; or rather he knew his power, and was
+determined to maintain it.
+
+"Stay--lady--stay," called Gamut, after the unconscious Cora. "The holy
+charm is beginning to be felt, and soon shalt thou see this horrid
+tumult stilled."
+
+Perceiving that, in his turn, he was unheeded, the faithful David
+followed the distracted sister, raising his voice again in sacred song,
+and sweeping the air to the measure, with his long arm, in diligent
+accompaniment. In this manner they traversed the plain, through the
+flying, the wounded, and the dead. The fierce Huron was, at any time,
+sufficient for himself and the victim that he bore; though Cora would
+have fallen, more than once, under the blows of her savage enemies, but
+for the extraordinary being who stalked in her rear, and who now
+appeared to the astonished natives gifted with the protecting spirit of
+madness.
+
+Magua, who knew how to avoid the more pressing dangers, and also to
+elude pursuit, entered the woods through a low ravine, where he quickly
+found the Narragansetts, which the travellers had abandoned so shortly
+before, awaiting his appearance, in custody of a savage as fierce and as
+malign in his expression as himself. Laying Alice on one of the horses,
+he made a sign to Cora to mount the other.
+
+Notwithstanding the horror excited by the presence of her captor, there
+was a present relief in escaping from the bloody scene enacting on the
+plain, to which Cora could not be altogether insensible. She took her
+seat, and held forth her arms for her sister, with an air of entreaty
+and love that even the Huron could not deny. Placing Alice, then, on the
+same animal with Cora, he seized the bridle, and commenced his route by
+plunging deeper into the forest. David, perceiving that he was left
+alone, utterly disregarded, as a subject too worthless even to destroy,
+threw his long limb across the saddle of the beast they had deserted,
+and made such progress in the pursuit as the difficulties of the path
+permitted.
+
+They soon began to ascend, but as the motion had a tendency to revive
+the dormant faculties of her sister, the attention of Cora was too much
+divided between the tenderest solicitude in her behalf, and in listening
+to the cries which were still too audible on the plain, to note the
+direction in which they journeyed. When, however, they gained the
+flattened surface of the mountain-top, and approached the eastern
+precipice, she recognized the spot to which she had once before been led
+under the more friendly auspices of the scout. Here Magua suffered them
+to dismount; and, notwithstanding their own captivity, the curiosity
+which seems inseparable from horror, induced them to gaze at the
+sickening sight below.
+
+The cruel work was still unchecked. On every side the captured were
+flying before their relentless persecutors, while the armed columns of
+the Christian king stood fast in an apathy which has never been
+explained, and which has left an unmovable blot on the otherwise fair
+escutcheon of their leader. Nor was the sword of death stayed until
+cupidity got the mastery of revenge. Then, indeed, the shrieks of the
+wounded and the yells of their murderers grew less frequent, until,
+finally, the cries of horror were lost to their ear, or were drowned in
+the loud, long, and piercing whoops of the triumphant savages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                "Why, anything:
+  An honorable murderer, if you will;
+  For naught I did in hate, but all in honor."
+
+  _Othello._
+
+
+The bloody and inhuman scene rather incidentally mentioned than
+described in the preceding chapter, is conspicuous in the pages of
+colonial history, by the merited title of "The Massacre of William
+Henry." It so far deepened the stain which a previous and very similar
+event had left upon the reputation of the French commander, that it was
+not entirely erased by his early and glorious death. It is now becoming
+obscured by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm died like a hero
+on the plains of Abraham, have yet to learn how much he was deficient in
+that moral courage without which no man can be truly great. Pages might
+be written to prove, from this illustrious example, the defects of human
+excellence; to show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
+courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence beneath the
+chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
+was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found
+wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior
+to policy. But the task would exceed our prerogatives; and, as history,
+like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of
+imaginary brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint Véran will be
+viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender of his country, while
+his cruel apathy on the shores of the Oswego and of the Horican will be
+forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the part of a sister muse,
+we shall at once retire from her sacred precincts, within the proper
+limits of our own humble vocation.
+
+The third day from the capture of the fort was drawing to a close, but
+the business of the narrative must still detain the reader on the shores
+of the "holy lake." When last seen, the environs of the works were
+filled with violence and uproar. They were now possessed by stillness
+and death. The blood-stained conquerors had departed; and their camp,
+which had so lately rung with the merry rejoicings of a victorious army,
+lay a silent and deserted city of huts. The fortress was a smouldering
+ruin; charred rafters, fragments of exploded artillery, and rent
+mason-work, covering its earthen mounds in confused disorder.
+
+A frightful change had also occurred in the season. The sun had hid its
+warmth behind an impenetrable mass of vapor, and hundreds of human
+forms, which had blackened beneath the fierce heats of August, were
+stiffening in their deformity, before the blasts of a premature
+November. The curling and spotless mists, which had been seen sailing
+above the hills towards the north, were now returning in an interminable
+dusky sheet, that was urged along by the fury of a tempest. The crowded
+mirror of the Horican was gone; and, in its place, the green and angry
+waters lashed the shores, as if indignantly casting back its impurities
+to the polluted strand. Still the clear fountain retained a portion of
+its charmed influence, but it reflected only the sombre gloom that fell
+from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which
+commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its
+asperities, had disappeared, and the northern air poured across the
+waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be
+conjectured by the eye, or fashioned by the fancy.
+
+The fiercer element had cropped the verdure of the plain, which looked
+as though it were scathed by the consuming lightning. But, here and
+there, a dark green tuft rose in the midst of the desolation; the
+earliest fruits of a soil that had been fattened with human blood. The
+whole landscape, which, seen by a favoring light, and in a genial
+temperature, had been found so lovely, appeared now like some pictured
+allegory of life, in which objects were arrayed in their harshest but
+truest colors, and without the relief of any shadowing.
+
+The solitary and arid blades of grass arose from the passing gusts
+fearfully perceptible; the bold and rocky mountains were too distinct in
+their barrenness, and the eye even sought relief, in vain, by attempting
+to pierce the illimitable void of heaven, which was shut to its gaze by
+the dusky sheet of ragged and driving vapor.
+
+The wind blew unequally; sometimes sweeping heavily along the ground,
+seeming to whisper its moanings in the cold ears of the dead, then
+rising in a shrill and mournful whistling, it entered the forest with a
+rush that filled the air with the leaves and branches it scattered in
+its path. Amid the unnatural shower, a few hungry ravens struggled with
+the gale; but no sooner was the green ocean of woods, which stretched
+beneath them, passed, than they gladly stopped, at random, to their
+hideous banquet.
+
+In short, it was the scene of wildness and desolation; and it appeared
+as if all who had profanely entered it had been stricken, at a blow, by
+the relentless arm of death. But the prohibition had ceased; and for the
+first time since the perpetrators of those foul deeds which had assisted
+to disfigure the scene were gone, living human beings had now presumed
+to approach the place.
+
+About an hour before the setting of the sun, on the day already
+mentioned, the forms of five men might have been seen issuing from the
+narrow vista of trees, where the path to the Hudson entered the forest,
+and advancing in the direction of the ruined works. At first their
+progress was slow and guarded, as though they entered with reluctance
+amid the horrors of the spot, or dreaded the renewal of its frightful
+incidents. A light figure preceded the rest of the party, with the
+caution and activity of a native; ascending every hillock to
+reconnoitre, and indicating, by gestures, to his companions, the route
+he deemed it most prudent to pursue. Nor were those in the rear wanting
+in every caution and foresight known to forest warfare. One among them,
+he also was an Indian, moved a little on one flank, and watched the
+margin of the woods, with eyes long accustomed to read the smallest sign
+of danger. The remaining three were white, though clad in vestments
+adapted, both in quality and color, to their present hazardous
+pursuit,--that of hanging on the skirts of a retiring army in the
+wilderness.
+
+The effects produced by the appalling sights that constantly arose in
+their path to the lake shore, were as different as the characters of the
+respective individuals who composed the party. The youth in front threw
+serious but furtive glances at the mangled victims, as he stepped
+lightly across the plain, afraid to exhibit his feelings, and yet too
+inexperienced to quell entirely their sudden and powerful influence. His
+red associate, however, was superior to such a weakness. He passed the
+groups of dead with a steadiness of purpose, and an eye so calm, that
+nothing but long and inveterate practice could enable him to maintain.
+The sensations produced in the minds of even the white men were
+different, though uniformly sorrowful. One, whose gray locks and
+furrowed lineaments, blending with a martial air and tread, betrayed, in
+spite of the disguise of a woodsman's dress, a man long experienced in
+scenes of war, was not ashamed to groan aloud, whenever a spectacle of
+more than usual horror came under his view. The young man at his elbow
+shuddered, but seemed to suppress his feelings in tenderness to his
+companion. Of them all, the straggler who brought up the rear appeared
+alone to betray his real thoughts, without fear of observation or dread
+of consequences. He gazed at the most appalling sight with eyes and
+muscles that knew not how to waver, but with execrations so bitter and
+deep as to denote how much he denounced the crime of his enemies.
+
+The reader will perceive at once, in these respective characters, the
+Mohicans, and their white friend, the scout; together with Munro and
+Heyward. It was, in truth, the father in quest of his children, attended
+by the youth who felt so deep a stake in their happiness, and those
+brave and trusty foresters, who had already proved their skill and
+fidelity through the trying scenes related.
+
+When Uncas, who moved in front, had reached the centre of the plain, he
+raised a cry that drew his companions in a body to the spot. The young
+warrior had halted over a group of females who lay in a cluster, a
+confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding the revolting horror of the
+exhibition, Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap,
+endeavoring, with a love that no unseemliness could extinguish, to
+discover whether any vestiges of those they sought were to be seen among
+the tattered and many-colored garments. The father and lover found
+instant relief in the search; though each was condemned again to
+experience the misery of an uncertainty that was hardly less
+insupportable than the most revolting truth. They were standing, silent
+and thoughtful, around the melancholy pile, when the scout approached.
+Eying the sad spectacle with an angry countenance, the sturdy woodsman,
+for the first time since his entering the plain, spoke intelligibly and
+aloud:--
+
+"I have been on many a shocking field, and have followed a trail of
+blood for many miles," he said, "but never have I found the hand of the
+devil so plain as it is here to be seen! Revenge is an Indian feeling,
+and all who know me know that there is no cross in my veins; but this
+much will I say--here, in the face of heaven, and with the power of the
+Lord so manifest in this howling wilderness,--that should these
+Frenchers ever trust themselves again within the range of a ragged
+bullet, there is one rifle shall play its part, so long as flint will
+fire or powder burn! I leave the tomahawk and knife to such as have a
+natural gift to use them. What say you, Chingachgook," he added in
+Delaware; "shall the Hurons boast of this to their women when the deep
+snows come?"
+
+A gleam of resentment flashed across the dark lineaments of the Mohican
+chief: he loosened his knife in its sheath; and then turning calmly from
+the sight, his countenance settled into a repose as deep as if he never
+knew the instigation of passion.
+
+"Montcalm! Montcalm!" continued the deeply resentful and less
+self-restrained scout; "they say a time must come, when all the deeds
+done in the flesh will be seen at a single look; and that by eyes
+cleared from mortal infirmities. Woe betide the wretch who is born to
+behold this plain, with the judgment hanging about his soul! Ha--as I am
+a man of white blood, yonder lies a redskin, without the hair of his
+head where nature rooted it! Look to him, Delaware; it may be one of
+your missing people; and he should have burial like a stout warrior. I
+see it in your eye, Sagamore: a Huron pays for this, afore the fall
+winds have blown away the scent of the blood!"
+
+Chingachgook approached the mutilated form, and turning it over, he
+found the distinguishing marks of one of those six allied tribes, or
+nations, as they were called, who, while they fought in the English
+ranks, were so deadly hostile to his own people. Spurning the loathsome
+object with his foot, he turned from it with the same indifference he
+would have quitted a brute carcass. The scout comprehended the action,
+and very deliberately pursued his own way, continuing, however, his
+denunciations against the French commander in the same resentful strain.
+
+"Nothing but vast wisdom and unlimited power should dare to sweep off
+men in multitudes," he added; "for it is only the one that can know the
+necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that
+can replace the creatures of the Lord? I hold it a sin to kill the
+second buck afore the first is eaten, unless a march in the front, or an
+ambushment, be contemplated. It is a different matter with a few
+warriors in open and rugged fight, for 'tis their gift to die with the
+rifle or the tomahawk in hand; according as their natures may happen to
+be, white or red. Uncas, come this way, lad, and let the ravens settle
+upon the Mingo. I know, from often seeing it, that they have a craving
+for the flesh of an Oneida; and it is as well to let the bird follow the
+gift of its natural appetite."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the young Mohican, rising on the extremities of his
+feet, and gazing intently in his front, frightening the raven to some
+other prey, by the sound and the action.
+
+"What is it, boy?" whispered the scout, lowering his tall form into a
+crouching attitude, like a panther about to take his leap; "God send it
+be a tardy Frencher, skulking for plunder. I do believe 'Killdeer' would
+take an oncommon range to-day!"
+
+Uncas, without making any reply, bounded away from the spot, and in the
+next instant he was seen tearing from a bush, and waving in triumph a
+fragment of the green riding-veil of Cora. The movement, the exhibition,
+and the cry, which again burst from the lips of the young Mohican,
+instantly drew the whole party about him.
+
+"My child!" said Munro, speaking quick and wildly "give me my child!"
+
+"Uncas will try," was the short and touching answer.
+
+The simple but meaning assurance was lost on the father, who seized the
+piece of gauze, and crushed it in his hand, while his eyes roamed
+fearfully among the bushes, as if he equally dreaded and hoped for the
+secrets they might reveal.
+
+"Here are no dead," said Heyward; "the storm seems not to have passed
+this way."
+
+"That's manifest; and clearer than the heavens above our heads,"
+returned the undisturbed scout; "but either she, or they that have
+robbed her, have passed the bush; for I remember the rag she wore to
+hide a face that all did love to look upon. Uncas, you are right; the
+dark-hair has been here, and she has fled like a frightened fawn, to the
+wood; none who could fly would remain to be murdered. Let us search for
+the marks she left; for to Indian eyes, I sometimes think even a
+humming-bird leaves his trail in the air."
+
+The young Mohican darted away at the suggestion, and the scout had
+hardly done speaking, before the former raised a cry of success from the
+margin of the forest. On reaching the spot, the anxious party perceived
+another portion of the veil fluttering on the lower branch of a beech.
+
+"Softly, softly," said the scout, extending his long rifle in front of
+the eager Heyward; "we now know our work, but the beauty of the trail
+must not be deformed. A step too soon may give us hours of trouble. We
+have them, though; that much is beyond denial."
+
+"Bless ye, bless ye, worthy man!" exclaimed Munro; "whither, then, have
+they fled, and where are my babes?"
+
+"The path they have taken depends on many chances. If they have gone
+alone, they are quite as likely to move in a circle as straight, and
+they may be within a dozen miles of us; but if the Hurons, or any of the
+French Indians, have laid hands on them, 'tis probable they are now near
+the borders of the Canadas. But what matters that?" continued the
+deliberate scout, observing the powerful anxiety and disappointment the
+listeners exhibited; "here are the Mohicans and I on one end of the
+trail, and, rely on it, we find the other, though they should be a
+hundred leagues asunder! Gently, gently, Uncas, you are as impatient as
+a man in the settlements; you forget that light feet leave but faint
+marks!"
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed Chingachgook, who had been occupied in examining an
+opening that had been evidently made through the low underbrush, which
+skirted the forest; and who now stood erect, as he pointed downwards, in
+the attitude and with the air of a man who beheld a disgusting serpent.
+
+"Here is the palpable impression of the footstep of a man," cried
+Heyward, bending over the indicated spot; "he has trod in the margin of
+this pool, and the mark cannot be mistaken. They are captives."
+
+"Better so than left to starve in the wilderness," returned the scout;
+"and they will leave a wider trail. I would wager fifty beaver skins
+against as many flints, that the Mohicans and I enter their wigwams
+within the month! Stoop to it, Uncas, and try what you can make of the
+moccasin; for moccasin it plainly is, and no shoe."
+
+The young Mohican bent over the track, and removing the scattered leaves
+from around the place, he examined it with much of that sort of scrutiny
+that a money-dealer, in these days of pecuniary doubts, would bestow on
+a suspected due-bill. At length he arose from his knees, satisfied with
+the result of the examination.
+
+"Well, boy," demanded the attentive scout, "what does it say? can you
+make anything of the tell-tale?"
+
+"Le Renard Subtil!"
+
+"Ha! that rampaging devil again! there never will be an end of his
+loping, till 'Killdeer' has said a friendly word to him."
+
+Heyward reluctantly admitted the truth of this intelligence, and now
+expressed rather his hopes than his doubts by saying,--
+
+"One moccasin is so much like another, it is probable there is some
+mistake."
+
+"One moccasin like another! you may as well say that one foot is like
+another; though we all know that some are long, and others short; some
+broad, and others narrow; some with high, and some with low insteps;
+some in-toed, and some out. One moccasin is no more like another than
+one book is like another; though they who can read in one are seldom
+able to tell the marks of the other. Which is all ordered for the best,
+giving to every man his natural advantages. Let me get down to it,
+Uncas; neither book nor moccasin is the worse for having two opinions,
+instead of one." The scout stooped to the task, and instantly added,
+"You are right, boy; here is the patch we saw so often in the other
+chase. And the fellow will drink when he can get an opportunity: your
+drinking Indian always learns to walk with a wider toe than the natural
+savage, it being the gift of a drunkard to straddle, whether of white or
+red skin. 'Tis just the length and breadth too! look at it, Sagamore:
+you measured the prints more than once, when we hunted the varmints from
+Glenn's to the health-springs."
+
+Chingachgook complied; and after finishing his short examination, he
+arose, and with a quiet demeanor, he merely pronounced the word--
+
+"Magua!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here then have passed the dark-hair and
+Magua."
+
+"And not Alice?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Of her we have not yet seen the signs," returned the scout, looking
+closely around at the trees, the bushes, and the ground. "What have we
+there? Uncas, bring hither the thing you see dangling from yonder
+thorn-bush."
+
+When the Indian had complied, the scout received the prize, and holding
+it on high, he laughed in his silent but heartfelt manner.
+
+"'Tis the tooting we'pon of the singer! now we shall have a trail a
+priest might travel," he said. "Uncas, look for the marks of a shoe that
+is long enough to uphold six feet two of tottering human flesh. I begin
+to have some hopes of the fellow, since he has given up squalling to
+follow some better trade."
+
+"At least, he has been faithful to his trust," said Heyward; "and Cora
+and Alice are not without a friend."
+
+"Yes," said Hawkeye, dropping his rifle, and leaning on it with an air
+of visible contempt, "he will do their singing. Can he slay a buck for
+their dinner; journey by the moss on the beeches, or cut the throat of a
+Huron? If not, the first catbird[22] he meets is the cleverest of the
+two. Well, boy, any signs of such a foundation?"
+
+"Here is something like the footstep of one who has worn a shoe; can it
+be that of our friend?"
+
+"Touch the leaves lightly, or you'll disconsart the formation. That!
+that is the print of a foot, but 'tis the dark-hair's; and small it is,
+too, for one of such a noble height and grand appearance. The singer
+would cover it with his heel."
+
+"Where! let me look on the footsteps of my child," said Munro, shoving
+the bushes aside, and bending fondly over the nearly obliterated
+impression. Though the tread, which had left the mark, had been light
+and rapid, it was still plainly visible. The aged soldier examined it
+with eyes that grew dim as he gazed; nor did he rise from his stooping
+posture until Heyward saw that he had watered the trace of his
+daughter's passage with a scalding tear. Willing to divert a distress
+which threatened each moment to break through the restraint of
+appearances, by giving the veteran something to do, the young man said
+to the scout,--
+
+"As we now possess these infallible signs, let us commence our march. A
+moment, at such a time, will appear an age to the captives."
+
+"It is not the swiftest leaping deer that gives the longest chase,"
+returned Hawkeye, without moving his eyes from the different marks that
+had come under his view; "we know that the rampaging Huron has
+passed,--and the dark hair,--and the singer,--but where is she of the
+yellow locks and blue eyes? Though little, and far from being as bold as
+her sister, she is fair to the view, and pleasant in discourse. Has she
+no friend, that none care for her?"
+
+"God forbid she should ever want hundreds! Are we not now in her
+pursuit? for one, I will never cease the search till she be found."
+
+"In that case we may have to journey by different paths; for here she
+has not passed, light and little as her footstep would be."
+
+Heyward drew back, all his ardor to proceed seeming to vanish on the
+instant. Without attending to this sudden change in the other's humor,
+the scout, after musing a moment, continued,--
+
+"There is no woman in this wilderness could leave such a print as that,
+but the dark-hair or her sister. We know that the first has been here,
+but where are the signs of the other? Let us push deeper on the trail,
+and if nothing offers, we must go back to the plain and strike another
+scent. Move on, Uncas, and keep your eyes on the dried leaves. I will
+watch the bushes, while your father shall run with a low nose to the
+ground. Move on, friends; the sun is getting behind the hills."
+
+"Is there nothing that I can do?" demanded the anxious Heyward.
+
+"You!" repeated the scout, who, with his red friends, was already
+advancing in the order he had prescribed; "yes, you can keep in our
+rear, and be careful not to cross the trail."
+
+Before they had proceeded many rods, the Indians stopped, and appeared
+to gaze at some signs on the earth, with more than their usual keenness.
+Both father and son spoke quick and loud, now looking at the object of
+their mutual admiration, and now regarding each other with the most
+unequivocal pleasure.
+
+"They have found the little foot!" exclaimed the scout, moving forward,
+without attending further to his own portion of the duty. "What have we
+here? An ambushment has been planted in the spot? No, by the truest
+rifle on the frontiers, here have been them one-sided horses again! Now
+the whole secret is out, and all is plain as the north star at midnight.
+Yes, here they have mounted. There the beasts have been bound to a
+sapling, in waiting; and yonder runs the broad path away to the north,
+in full sweep for the Canadas."
+
+"But still there are no signs of Alice--of the younger Miss
+Munro,"--said Duncan.
+
+"Unless the shining bauble Uncas has just lifted from the ground should
+prove one. Pass it this way, lad, that we may look at it."
+
+Heyward instantly knew it for a trinket that Alice was fond of wearing,
+and which he recollected, with the tenacious memory of a lover, to have
+seen, on the fatal morning of the massacre, dangling from the fair neck
+of his mistress. He seized the highly prized jewel; and as he proclaimed
+the fact, it vanished from the eyes of the wondering scout, who in vain
+looked for it on the ground, long after it was warmly pressed against
+the beating heart of Duncan.
+
+"Pshaw!" said the disappointed Hawkeye, ceasing to rake the leaves with
+the breech of his rifle; "'tis a certain sign of age, when the sight
+begins to weaken. Such a glittering gewgaw, and not to be seen! Well,
+well, I can squint along a clouded barrel yet, and that is enough to
+settle all disputes between me and the Mingos. I should like to find the
+thing too, if it were only to carry it to the right owner, and that
+would be bringing the two ends of what I call a long trail
+together,--for by this time the broad St. Lawrence, or, perhaps, the
+Great Lakes themselves, are atwixt us."
+
+"So much the more reason why we should not delay our march," returned
+Heyward; "let us proceed."
+
+"Young blood and hot blood, they say, are much the same thing. We are
+not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the
+Horican, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a
+wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish
+knowledge would carry you through harmless. An Indian never starts on
+such an expedition without smoking over his council-fire; and though a
+man of white blood, I honor their customs in this particular, seeing
+that they are deliberate and wise. We will, therefore, go back, and
+light our fire to-night in the ruins of the old fort, and in the morning
+we shall be fresh, and ready to undertake our work like men, and not
+like babbling women or eager boys."
+
+Heyward saw, by the manner of the scout, that altercation would be
+useless. Munro had again sunk into that sort of apathy which had beset
+him since his late overwhelming misfortunes, and from which he was
+apparently to be roused only by some new and powerful excitement. Making
+a merit of necessity, the young man took the veteran by the arm, and
+followed in the footsteps of the Indians and the scout, who had already
+begun to retrace the path which conducted them to the plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+  "_Salar._--Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
+    flesh; what's that good for?"
+
+  "_Shy._--To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will
+    feed my revenge."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The shades of evening had come to increase the dreariness of the place,
+when the party entered the ruins of William Henry. The scout and his
+companions immediately made their preparations to pass the night there;
+but with an earnestness and sobriety of demeanor, that betrayed how much
+the unusual horrors they had just witnessed worked on even their
+practised feelings. A few fragments of rafters were reared against a
+blackened wall; and when Uncas had covered them slightly with brush, the
+temporary accommodations were deemed sufficient. The young Indian
+pointed towards his rude hut, when his labor was ended; and Heyward, who
+understood the meaning of the silent gesture, gently urged Munro to
+enter. Leaving the bereaved old man alone with his sorrows, Duncan
+immediately returned to the open air, too much excited himself to seek
+the repose he had recommended to his veteran friend.
+
+While Hawkeye and the Indians lighted their fire, and took their
+evening's repast, a frugal meal of dried bear's meat, the young man paid
+a visit to that curtain of the dilapidated fort which looked out on the
+sheet of the Horican. The wind had fallen, and the waves were already
+rolling on the sandy beach beneath him, in a more regular and tempered
+succession. The clouds, as if tired of their furious chase, were
+breaking asunder; the heavier volumes, gathering in black masses about
+the horizon, while the lighter scud still hurried above the water, or
+eddied among the tops of the mountains, like broken flights of birds,
+hovering around their roosts. Here and there, a red and fiery star
+struggled through the drifting vapor, furnishing a lurid gleam of
+brightness to the dull aspect of the heavens. Within the bosom of the
+encircling hills, an impenetrable darkness had already settled; and the
+plain lay like a vast and deserted charnel-house, without omen or
+whisper to disturb the slumbers of its numerous and hapless tenants.
+
+Of this scene, so chillingly in accordance with the past, Duncan stood
+for many minutes a rapt observer. His eyes wandered from the bosom of
+the mound, where the foresters were seated around their glimmering fire,
+to the fainter light which still lingered in the skies, and then rested
+long and anxiously on the embodied gloom, which lay like a dreary void
+on that side of him where the dead reposed. He soon fancied that
+inexplicable sounds arose from the place, though so indistinct and
+stolen, as to render not only their nature but even their existence
+uncertain. Ashamed of his apprehensions, the young man turned towards
+the water, and strove to divert his attentions to the mimic stars that
+dimly glimmered on its moving surface. Still, his too conscious ears
+performed their ungrateful duty, as if to warn him of some lurking
+danger. At length a swift trampling seemed quite audibly to rush athwart
+the darkness. Unable any longer to quiet his uneasiness, Duncan spoke in
+a low voice to the scout, requesting him to ascend the mound to the
+place where he stood. Hawkeye threw his rifle across an arm, and
+complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm, as to prove how much he
+counted on the security of their position.
+
+"Listen!" said Duncan, when the other placed himself deliberately at his
+elbow: "there are suppressed noises on the plain which may show that
+Montcalm has not yet entirely deserted his conquest."
+
+"Then ears are better than eyes," said the undisturbed scout, who,
+having just deposited a portion of bear between his grinders, spoke
+thick and slow, like one whose mouth was doubly occupied. "I, myself,
+saw him caged in Ty, with all his host; for your Frenchers, when they
+have done a clever thing, like to get back, and have a dance, or a
+merry-making, with the women over their success."
+
+"I know not. An Indian seldom sleeps in war, and plunder may keep a
+Huron here after his tribe has departed. It would be well to extinguish
+the fire, and have a watch--listen! you hear the noise I mean!"
+
+"An Indian more rarely lurks about the graves. Though ready to slay, and
+not over-regardful of the means, he is commonly content with the scalp,
+unless when blood is hot, and temper up; but after the spirit is once
+fairly gone, he forgets his enmity, and is willing to let the dead find
+their natural rest. Speaking of spirits, Major, are you of opinion that
+the heaven of a redskin and of us whites will be one and the same?"
+
+"No doubt--no doubt. I thought I heard it again! or was it the rustling
+of the leaves in the top of the beech?"
+
+"For my own part," continued Hawkeye, turning his face, for a moment, in
+the direction indicated by Heyward, but with a vacant and careless
+manner, "I believe that paradise is ordained for happiness; and that men
+will be indulged in it according to their dispositions and gifts. I
+therefore judge that a redskin is not far from the truth when he
+believes he is to find them glorious hunting-grounds of which his
+traditions tell; nor, for that matter, do I think it would be any
+disparagement to a man without a cross to pass his time--"
+
+"You hear it again?" interrupted Duncan.
+
+"Ay, ay; when food is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows
+bold," said the unmoved scout. "There would be picking, too, among the
+skins of the devils, if there was light and time for the sport. But,
+concerning the life that is to come, major: I have heard preachers say,
+in the settlements, that heaven was a place of rest. Now men's minds
+differ as to their ideas of enjoyment. For myself, and I say it with
+reverence to the ordering of Providence, it would be no great indulgence
+to be kept shut up in those mansions of which they preach, having a
+natural longing for motion and the chase."
+
+Duncan, who was now made to understand the nature of the noises he had
+heard, answered with more attention to the subject which the humor of
+the scout had chosen for discussion, by saying,--
+
+"It is difficult to account for the feelings that may attend the last
+great change."
+
+"It would be a change, indeed, for a man who has passed his days in the
+open air," returned the single-minded scout; "and who has so often
+broken his fast on the head-waters of the Hudson, to sleep within sound
+of the roaring Mohawk. But it is a comfort to know we serve a merciful
+Master, though we do it each after his fashion, and with great tracts of
+wilderness atween us--what goes there?"
+
+"Is it not the rushing of the wolves you have mentioned?"
+
+Hawkeye slowly shook his head, and beckoned for Duncan to follow him to
+a spot, to which the glare from the fire did not extend. When he had
+taken this precaution, the scout placed himself in an attitude of
+intense attention, and listened long and keenly for a repetition of the
+low sound that had so unexpectedly startled him. His vigilance, however,
+seemed exercised in vain; for, after a fruitless pause, he whispered to
+Duncan,--
+
+"We must give a call to Uncas. The boy has Indian senses, and may hear
+what is hid from us; for being a white-skin, I will not deny my nature."
+
+The young Mohican, who was conversing in a low voice with his father,
+started as he heard the moaning of an owl, and springing on his feet he
+looked towards the black mounds, as if seeking the place whence the
+sounds proceeded. The scout repeated the call, and in a few moments,
+Duncan saw the figure of Uncas stealing cautiously along the rampart, to
+the spot where they stood.
+
+Hawkeye explained his wishes in a very few words, which were spoken in
+the Delaware tongue. So soon as Uncas was in possession of the reason
+why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the
+eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at
+the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the
+manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired
+information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and bent over the dark
+object, on which he had kept his eyes riveted. Then it was he discovered
+that the form of Uncas had vanished, and that he beheld only the dark
+outline of an inequality in the embankment.
+
+"What has become of the Mohican?" he demanded of the scout, stepping
+back in amazement; "it was here that I saw him fall, and I could have
+sworn that here he yet remained."
+
+"Hist! speak lower; for we know not what ears are open, and the Mingos
+are a quick-witted breed. As for Uncas, he is out on the plain, and the
+Maquas, if any such are about us, will find their equal."
+
+"You think that Montcalm has not called off all his Indians? Let us give
+the alarm to our companions, that we may stand to our arms. Here are
+five of us, who are not unused to meet an enemy."
+
+"Not a word to either, as you value life. Look at the Sagamore, how like
+a grand Indian chief he sits by the fire. If there are any skulkers out
+in the darkness, they will never discover by his countenance that we
+suspect danger at hand."
+
+"But they may discover him, and it will prove his death. His person can
+be too plainly seen by the light of that fire, and he will become the
+first and most certain victim."
+
+"It is undeniable that now you speak the truth," returned the scout,
+betraying more anxiety than was usual; "yet what can be done? A single
+suspicious look might bring on an attack before we are ready to receive
+it. He knows, by the call I gave to Uncas, that we have struck a scent:
+I will tell him that we are on the trail of the Mingos; his Indian
+nature will teach him how to act."
+
+The scout applied his fingers to his mouth, and raised a low hissing
+sound, that caused Duncan, at first, to start aside, believing that he
+heard a serpent. The head of Chingachgook was resting on a hand, as he
+sat musing by himself; but the moment he heard the warning of the animal
+whose name he bore, it arose to an upright position and his dark eyes
+glanced swiftly and keenly on every side of him. With this sudden and
+perhaps involuntary movement, every appearance of surprise or alarm
+ended. His rifle lay untouched, and apparently unnoticed, within reach
+of his hand. The tomahawk that he had loosened in his belt for the sake
+of ease, was even suffered to fall from its usual situation to the
+ground, and his form seemed to sink, like that of a man whose nerves and
+sinews were suffered to relax for the purpose of rest. Cunningly
+resuming his former position, though with a change of hands, as if the
+movement had been made merely to relieve the limb, the native awaited
+the result with a calmness and fortitude that none but an Indian warrior
+would have known how to exercise.
+
+But Heyward saw that while to a less instructed eye the Mohican chief
+appeared to slumber, his nostrils were expanded, his head was turned a
+little to one side, as if to assist the organs of hearing, and that his
+quick and rapid glances ran incessantly over every object, within the
+power of his vision.
+
+"See the noble fellow!" whispered Hawkeye, pressing the arm of Heyward;
+"he knows that a look or a motion might discansart our schemes, and put
+us at the mercy of them imps--"
+
+He was interrupted by the flash and report of a rifle. The air was
+filled with sparks of fire around that spot where the eyes of Heyward
+were still fastened with admiration and wonder. A second look told him
+that Chingachgook had disappeared in the confusion. In the meantime the
+scout had thrown forward his rifle, like one prepared for service, and
+awaited impatiently the moment when an enemy might rise to view. But
+with the solitary and fruitless attempt made on the life of
+Chingachgook, the attack appeared to have terminated. Once or twice the
+listeners thought they could distinguish the distant rustling of bushes,
+as bodies of some unknown description rushed through them; nor was it
+long before Hawkeye pointed out the "scampering of the wolves," as they
+fled precipitately before the passage of some intruder on their proper
+domains. After an impatient and breathless pause, a plunge was heard in
+the water, and it was immediately followed by the report of another
+rifle.
+
+"There goes Uncas!" said the scout; "the boy bears a smart piece! I know
+its crack, as well as a father knows the language of his child, for I
+carried the gun myself until a better offered."
+
+"What can this mean?" demanded Duncan; "we are watched, and, as it would
+seem, marked for destruction."
+
+"Yonder scattered brand can witness that no good was intended, and this
+Indian will testify that no harm has been done," returned the scout,
+dropping his rifle across his arm again, and following Chingachgook, who
+just then reappeared within the circle of light, into the bosom of the
+works. "How is it, Sagamore? Are the Mingos upon us in earnest, or is it
+only one of those rept_y_les who hang upon the skirts of a war party, to
+scalp the dead, go in, and make their boast among the squaws of the
+valiant deeds done on the pale-faces?"
+
+Chingachgook very quietly resumed his seat; nor did he make any reply,
+until after he had examined the firebrand which had been struck by the
+bullet that had nearly proved fatal to himself. After which, he was
+content to reply, holding a single finger up to view, with the English
+monosyllable,--
+
+"One."
+
+"I thought as much," returned Hawkeye, seating himself; "and as he had
+got the cover of the lake afore Uncas pulled upon him, it is more than
+probable the knave will sing his lies about some great ambushment, in
+which he was outlying on the trail of two Mohicans and a white
+hunter--for the officers can be considered as little better than idlers
+in such a scrimmage. Well, let him--let him. There are always some
+honest men in every nation, though heaven knows, too, that they are
+scarce among the Maquas, to look down an upstart when he brags ag'in
+the face of reason. The varlet sent his lead within whistle of your
+ears, Sagamore."
+
+Chingachgook turned a calm and incurious eye towards the place where the
+ball had struck, and then resumed his former attitude, with a composure
+that could not be disturbed by so trifling an incident. Just then Uncas
+glided into the circle, and seated himself at the fire, with the same
+appearance of indifference as was maintained by his father.
+
+Of these several movements Heyward was a deeply interested and wondering
+observer. It appeared to him as though the foresters had some secret
+means of intelligence, which had escaped the vigilance of his own
+faculties. In place of that eager and garrulous narration with which a
+white youth would have endeavored to communicate, and perhaps
+exaggerate, that which had passed out in the darkness of the plain, the
+young warrior was seemingly content to let his deeds speak for
+themselves. It was, in fact, neither the moment nor the occasion for an
+Indian to boast of his exploits; and it is probable, that had Heyward
+neglected to inquire, not another syllable would, just then, have been
+uttered on the subject.
+
+"What has become of our enemy, Uncas?" demanded Duncan: "we heard your
+rifle, and hoped you had not fired in vain."
+
+The young chief removed a fold of his hunting-shirt, and quietly exposed
+the fatal tuft of hair, which he bore as the symbol of victory.
+Chingachgook laid his hand on the scalp, and considered it for a moment
+with deep attention. Then dropping it, with disgust depicted in his
+strong features, he ejaculated,--
+
+"Oneida!"
+
+"Oneida!" repeated the scout, who was fast losing his interest in the
+scene, in an apathy nearly assimilated to that of his red associates,
+but who now advanced with uncommon earnestness to regard the bloody
+badge. "By the Lord, if the Oneidas are outlying upon the trail, we
+shall be flanked by devils on every side of us! Now, to white eyes there
+is no difference between this bit of skin and that of any other Indian,
+and yet the Sagamore declares it came from the poll of a Mingo; nay, he
+even names the tribe of the poor devil with as much ease as if the scalp
+was the leaf of a book, and each hair a letter. What right have
+Christian whites to boast of their learning, when a savage can read a
+language that would prove too much for the wisest of them all! What say
+_you_, lad; of what people was the knave?"
+
+Uncas raised his eyes to the face of the scout, and answered, in his
+soft voice,--
+
+"Oneida."
+
+"Oneida, again! when one Indian makes a declaration it is commonly true;
+but when he is supported by his people, set it down as gospel!"
+
+"The poor fellow has mistaken us for French," said Heyward; "or he would
+not have attempted the life of a friend."
+
+"He mistake a Mohican in his paint for a Huron! You would be as likely
+to mistake the white-coated grenadiers of Montcalm for the scarlet
+jackets of the 'Royal Americans'," returned the scout. "No, no, the
+sarpent knew his errand; nor was there any great mistake in the matter,
+for there is but little love atween a Delaware and a Mingo, let their
+tribes go out to fight for whom they may, in a white quarrel. For that
+matter, though the Oneidas do serve his sacred majesty, who is my own
+sovereign lord and master, I should not have deliberated long about
+letting off 'Killdeer' at the imp myself, had luck thrown him in my
+way."
+
+"That would have been an abuse of our treaties, and unworthy of your
+character."
+
+"When a man consorts much with a people," continued Hawkeye, "if they
+are honest and he no knave, love will grow up atwixt them. It is true
+that white cunning has managed to throw the tribes into great confusion
+as respects friends and enemies; so that the Hurons and the Oneidas, who
+speak the same tongue, or what may be called the same, take each other's
+scalps, and the Delawares are divided among themselves; a few hanging
+about their great council-fire on their own river, and fighting on the
+same side with the Mingos, while the greater part are in the Canadas,
+out of natural enmity to the Maquas--thus throwing everything into
+disorder, and destroying all the harmony of warfare. Yet a red natur' is
+not likely to alter with every shift of policy; so that the love atwixt
+a Mohican and a Mingo is much like the regard between a white man and a
+sarpent."
+
+"I regret to hear it; for I had believed those natives who dwelt within
+our boundaries had found us too just and liberal, not to identify
+themselves fully with our quarrels."
+
+"Why, I believe it is natur' to give a preference to one's own quarrels
+before those of strangers. Now, for myself, I do love justice; and
+therefore I will not say I hate a Mingo, for that may be unsuitable to
+my color and my religion, though I will just repeat, it may have been
+owing to the night that 'Killdeer' had no hand in the death of this
+skulking Oneida."
+
+Then, as if satisfied with the force of his own reasons, whatever might
+be their effect on the opinions of the other disputant, the honest but
+implacable woodsman turned from the fire, content to let the controversy
+slumber. Heyward withdrew to the rampart, too uneasy and too little
+accustomed to the warfare of the woods to remain at ease under the
+possibility of such insidious attacks. Not so, however, with the scout
+and the Mohicans. Those acute and long practised senses, whose powers so
+often exceed the limits of all ordinary credulity, after having detected
+the danger, had enabled them to ascertain its magnitude and duration.
+Not one of the three appeared in the least to doubt their perfect
+security, as was indicated by the preparations that were soon made to
+sit in council over their future proceedings.
+
+The confusion of nations, and even of tribes, to which Hawkeye alluded,
+existed at that period in the fullest force. The great tie of language,
+and, of course, of a common origin, was severed in many places; and it
+was one of its consequences, that the Delaware and the Mingo (as the
+people of the Six Nations were called) were found fighting in the same
+ranks, while the latter sought the scalp of the Huron, though believed
+to be the root of his own stock. The Delawares were even divided among
+themselves. Though love for the soil which had belonged to his ancestors
+kept the Sagamore of the Mohicans with a small band of followers who
+were serving at Edward, under the banners of the English king, by far
+the largest portion of his nation were known to be in the field as
+allies of Montcalm. The reader probably knows, if enough has not already
+been gleaned from this narrative, that the Delaware, or Lenape, claimed
+to be the progenitors of that numerous people, who once were masters of
+most of the Eastern and Northern States of America, of whom the
+community of the Mohicans was an ancient and highly honored member.
+
+It was, of course, with a perfect understanding of the minute and
+intricate interest which had armed friend against friend, and brought
+natural enemies to combat by each other's side, that the scout and his
+companions now disposed themselves to deliberate on the measures that
+were to govern their future movements, amid so many jarring and savage
+races of men. Duncan knew enough of Indian customs to understand the
+reason that the fire was replenished, and why the warriors, not
+excepting Hawkeye, took their seats within the curl of its smoke with
+so much gravity and decorum. Placing himself at an angle of the works,
+where he might be a spectator of the scene within, while he kept a
+watchful eye against any danger from without, he awaited the result with
+as much patience as he could summon.
+
+After a short and impressive pause, Chingachgook lighted a pipe whose
+bowl was curiously carved in one of the soft stones of the country, and
+whose stem was a tube of wood, and commenced smoking. When he had
+inhaled enough of the fragrance of the soothing weed, he passed the
+instrument into the hands of the scout. In this manner the pipe had made
+its rounds three several times, amid the most profound silence, before
+either of the party opened his lips. Then the Sagamore, as the oldest
+and highest in rank, in a few calm and dignified words, proposed the
+subject for deliberation. He was answered by the scout; and Chingachgook
+rejoined, when the other objected to his opinions. But the youthful
+Uncas continued a silent and respectful listener, until Hawkeye, in
+complaisance, demanded his opinion. Heyward gathered from the manners of
+the different speakers, that the father and son espoused one side of a
+disputed question, while the white man maintained the other. The contest
+gradually grew warmer, until it was quite evident the feelings of the
+speakers began to be somewhat enlisted in the debate.
+
+Notwithstanding the increasing warmth of the amicable contest, the most
+decorous Christian assembly, not even excepting those in which its
+reverend ministers are collected, might have learned a wholesome lesson
+of moderation from the forbearance and courtesy of the disputants. The
+words of Uncas were received with the same deep attention as those which
+fell from the maturer wisdom of his father; and so far from manifesting
+any impatience, neither spoke in reply, until a few moments of silent
+meditation were, seemingly, bestowed in deliberating on what had already
+been said.
+
+The language of the Mohicans was accompanied by gestures so direct and
+natural, that Heyward had but little difficulty in following the thread
+of their argument. On the other hand, the scout was obscure; because,
+from the lingering pride of color, he rather affected the cold and
+artificial manner which characterizes all classes of Anglo-Americans,
+when unexcited. By the frequency with which the Indians described the
+marks of a forest trail, it was evident they urged a pursuit by land,
+while the repeated sweep of Hawkeye's arm towards the Horican denoted
+that he was for a passage across its waters.
+
+The latter was, to every appearance, fast losing ground, and the point
+was about to be decided against him, when he arose to his feet, and
+shaking off his apathy, he suddenly assumed the manner of an Indian, and
+adopted all the arts of native eloquence. Elevating an arm, he pointed
+out the track of the sun, repeating the gesture for every day that was
+necessary to accomplish their object. Then he delineated a long and
+painful path, amid rocks and water-courses. The age and weakness of the
+slumbering and unconscious Munro were indicated by signs too palpable to
+be mistaken. Duncan perceived that even his own powers were spoken
+lightly of, as the scout extended his palm, and mentioned him by
+appellation of the "Open Hand,"--a name his liberality had purchased of
+all the friendly tribes. Then came a representation of the light and
+graceful movements of a canoe, set in forcible contrast to the tottering
+steps of one enfeebled and tired. He concluded by pointing to the scalp
+of the Oneida, and apparently urging the necessity of their departing
+speedily, and in a manner that should leave no trail.
+
+The Mohicans listened gravely, and with countenances that reflected the
+sentiments of the speaker. Conviction gradually wrought its influence,
+and towards the close of Hawkeye's speech, his sentences were
+accompanied by the customary exclamation of commendation. In short,
+Uncas and his father became converts to his way of thinking, abandoning
+their own previously expressed opinions with a liberality and candor
+that, had they been the representatives of some great and civilized
+people, would have infallibly worked their political ruin, by
+destroying, forever, their reputation for consistency.
+
+The instant the matter in discussion was decided, the debate, and
+everything connected with it, except the results, appeared to be
+forgotten. Hawkeye, without looking round to read his triumph in
+applauding eyes, very composedly stretched his tall frame before the
+dying embers, and closed his own organs in sleep.
+
+Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose time had been
+so much devoted to the interests of others, seized the moment to devote
+some attention to themselves. Casting off, at once, the grave and
+austere demeanor of an Indian chief, Chingachgook commenced speaking to
+his son in the soft and playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met
+the familiar air of his father; and before the hard breathing of the
+scout announced that he slept, a complete change was effected in the
+manner of his two associates.
+
+It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while thus
+engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it
+intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The
+compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was
+wonderful,--extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even
+feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and
+ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to
+smile in reply to the other's contagious, but low laughter. While under
+the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity
+was to be seen in the softened features of the Sagamore. His figured
+panoply of death looked more like a disguise assumed in mockery, than a
+fierce annunciation of a desire to carry destruction in his footsteps.
+
+After an hour passed in the indulgence of their better feelings,
+Chingachgook abruptly announced his desire to sleep, by wrapping his
+head in his blanket, and stretching his form on the naked earth. The
+merriment of Uncas instantly ceased; and carefully raking the coals in
+such a manner that they should impart their warmth to his father's feet,
+the youth sought his own pillow among the ruins of the place.
+
+Imbibing renewed confidence from the security of these experienced
+foresters, Heyward soon imitated their example; and long before the
+night had turned, they who lay in the bosom of the ruined work, seemed
+to slumber as heavily as the unconscious multitude whose bones were
+already beginning to bleach on the surrounding plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+  "Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
+  On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!"
+
+  _Childe Harold._
+
+
+The heavens were still studded with stars, when Hawkeye came to arouse
+the sleepers. Casting aside their cloaks Munro and Heyward were on their
+feet while the woodsman was still making his low calls, at the entrance
+of the rude shelter where they had passed the night. When they issued
+from beneath its concealment, they found the scout awaiting their
+appearance nigh by, and the only salutation between them was the
+significant gesture for silence, made by their sagacious leader.
+
+"Think over your prayers," he whispered, as they approached him; "for He
+to whom you make them knows all tongues; that of the heart as well as
+those of the mouth. But speak not a syllable; it is rare for a white
+voice to pitch itself properly in the woods, as we have seen by the
+example of that miserable devil, the singer. Come," he continued,
+turning towards a curtain of the works; "let us get into the ditch on
+this side, and be regardful to step on the stones and fragments of wood
+as you go."
+
+His companions complied, though to two of them the reasons of this
+extraordinary precaution were yet a mystery. When they were in the low
+cavity that surrounded the earthen fort on three sides, they found the
+passage nearly choked by the ruins. With care and patience, however,
+they succeeded in clambering after the scout, until they reached the
+sandy shore of the Horican.
+
+"That's a trail that nothing but a nose can follow," said the satisfied
+scout, looking back along their difficult way; "grass is a treacherous
+carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print
+from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots, there might, indeed,
+have been something to fear; but with the deer-skin suitably prepared, a
+man may trust himself, generally, on rocks with safety. Shove in the
+canoe nigher to the land, Uncas; this sand will take a stamp as easily
+as the butter of the Jarmans on the Mohawk. Softly, lad, softly; it must
+not touch the beach, or the knaves will know by what road we have left
+the place."
+
+The young man observed the precaution; and the scout, laying a board
+from the ruins to the canoe, made a sign for the two officers to enter.
+When this was done, everything was studiously restored to its former
+disorder; and then Hawkeye succeeded in reaching his little birchen
+vessel, without leaving behind him any of those marks which he appeared
+so much to dread. Heyward was silent, until the Indians had cautiously
+paddled the canoe some distance from the fort, and within the broad and
+dark shadow that fell from the eastern mountain on the glassy surface of
+the lake; then he demanded,--
+
+"What need have we for this stolen and hurried departure?"
+
+"If the blood of an Oneida could stain such a sheet of pure water as
+this we float on," returned the scout, "your two eyes would answer your
+own question. Have you forgotten the skulking rept_y_le that Uncas
+slew?"
+
+"By no means. But he was said to be alone, and dead men give no cause
+for fear."
+
+"Ay, he was alone in his deviltry! but an Indian whose tribe counts so
+many warriors, need seldom fear his blood will run, without the
+death-shriek coming speedily from some of his enemies."
+
+"But our presence--the authority of Colonel Munro--would prove a
+sufficient protection against the anger of our allies, especially in a
+case where a wretch so well merited his fate. I trust in Heaven you have
+not deviated a single foot from the direct line of our course, with so
+slight a reason!"
+
+"Do you think the bullet of that varlet's rifle would have turned aside,
+though his majesty the king had stood in its path?" returned the
+stubborn scout. "Why did not the grand Frencher, he who is
+captain-general of the Canadas, bury the tomahawks of the Hurons, if a
+word from a white can work so strongly on the natur' of an Indian?"
+
+The reply of Heyward was interrupted by a groan from Munro; but after he
+had paused a moment, in deference to the sorrow of his aged friend, he
+resumed the subject.
+
+"The Marquis of Montcalm can only settle that error with his God," said
+the young man solemnly.
+
+"Ay, ay; now there is reason in your words, for they are bottomed on
+religion and honesty. There is a vast difference between throwing a
+regiment of white coats atwixt the tribes and the prisoners, and coaxing
+an angry savage to forget he carries a knife and a rifle, with words
+that must begin with calling him your son. No, no," continued the scout,
+looking back at the dim shore of William Henry, which was now fast
+receding, and laughing in his own silent but heartfelt manner; "I have
+put a trail of water atween us; and unless the imps can make friends
+with the fishes, and hear who has paddled across their basin, this fine
+morning, we shall throw the length of the Horican behind us, before they
+have made up their minds which path to take."
+
+"With foes in front, and foes in our rear, our journey is like to be one
+of danger."
+
+"Danger!" repeated Hawkeye, calmly; "no, not absolutely of danger; for,
+with vigilant ears and quick eyes, we can manage to keep a few hours
+ahead of the knaves; or, if we must try the rifle, there are three of us
+who understand its gifts as well as any you can name on the borders. No,
+not of danger; but that we shall have what you may call a brisk push of
+it is probable; and it may happen, a brush, a skrimmage, or some such
+divarsion, but always where covers are good, and ammunition abundant."
+
+It is possible that Heyward's estimate of danger differed in some degree
+from that of the scout, for, instead of replying, he now sat in silence,
+while the canoe glided over several miles of water. Just as the day
+dawned, they entered the narrows of the lake,[23] and stole swiftly and
+cautiously among their numberless little islands. It was by this road
+that Montcalm had retired with his army; and the adventurers knew not
+but he had left some of his Indians in ambush, to protect the rear of
+his forces, and collect the stragglers. They, therefore, approached the
+passage with the customary silence of their guarded habits.
+
+Chingachgook laid aside his paddle; while Uncas and the scout urged the
+light vessel through crooked and intricate channels, where every foot
+that they advanced exposed them to the danger of some sudden rising on
+their progress. The eyes of the Sagamore moved warily from islet to
+islet, and copse to copse, as the canoe proceeded; and when a clearer
+sheet of water permitted, his keen vision was bent along the bald rocks
+and impending forests, that frowned upon the narrow strait.
+
+Heyward, who was a doubly interested spectator, as well from the
+beauties of the place as from the apprehension natural to his situation,
+was just believing that he had permitted the latter to be excited
+without sufficient reason, when the paddle ceased moving, in obedience
+to a signal from Chingachgook.
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed Uncas, nearly at the moment that the light tap his
+father had made on the side of the canoe notified them of the vicinity
+of danger.
+
+"What now?" asked the scout; "the lake is as smooth as if the winds had
+never blown, and I can see along its sheet for miles; there is not so
+much as the black head of a loon dotting the water."
+
+The Indian gravely raised his paddle, and pointed in the direction in
+which his own steady look was riveted. Duncan's eyes followed the
+motion. A few rods in their front lay another of the low wooded islets,
+but it appeared as calm and peaceful as if its solitude had never been
+disturbed by the foot of man.
+
+"I see nothing," he said, "but land and water; and a lovely scene it
+is."
+
+"Hist!" interrupted the scout. "Ay, Sagamore, there is always a reason
+for what you do. 'Tis but a shade, and yet it is not natural. You see
+the mist, major, that is rising above the island; you can't call it a
+fog, for it is more like a streak of thin cloud--"
+
+"It is vapor from the water."
+
+"That a child could tell. But what is the edging of blacker smoke that
+hangs along its lower side, and which you may trace down into the
+thicket of hazel? 'Tis from a fire; but one that, in my judgment, has
+been suffered to burn low."
+
+"Let us then push for the place, and relieve our doubts," said the
+impatient Duncan; "the party must be small that can lie on such a bit of
+land."
+
+"If you judge of Indian cunning by the rules you find in books, or by
+white sagacity, they will lead you astray, if not to your death,"
+returned Hawkeye, examining the signs of the place with that acuteness
+which distinguished him. "If I may be permitted to speak in this matter,
+it will be to say, that we have but two things to choose between: the
+one is, to return, and give up all thoughts of following the Hurons--"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice far too loud for their
+circumstances.
+
+"Well, well," continued Hawkeye, making a hasty sign to repress his
+impatience; "I am much of your mind myself; though I thought it becoming
+my experience to tell the whole. We must then make a push, and if the
+Indians or Frenchers are in the narrows, run the gauntlet through these
+toppling mountains. Is there reason in my words, Sagamore?"
+
+The Indian made no other answer than by dropping his paddle into the
+water, and urging forward the canoe. As he held the office of directing
+its course, his resolution was sufficiently indicated by the movement.
+The whole party now plied their paddles vigorously, and in a very few
+moments they had reached a point whence they might command an entire
+view of the northern shore of the island, the side that had hitherto
+been concealed.
+
+"There they are, by all the truth of signs," whispered the scout; "two
+canoes and a smoke. The knaves haven't yet got their eyes out of the
+mist, or we should hear the accursed whoop. Together, friend! we are
+leaving them, and are already nearly out of whistle of a bullet."
+
+The well known crack of a rifle, whose ball came skipping along the
+placid surface of the strait, and a shrill yell from the island,
+interrupted his speech, and announced that their passage was discovered.
+In another instant several savages were seen rushing into the canoes,
+which were soon dancing over the water, in pursuit. These fearful
+precursors of a coming struggle produced no change in the countenances
+and movements of his three guides, so far as Duncan could discover,
+except that the strokes of their paddles were longer and more in unison,
+and caused the little bark to spring forward like a creature possessing
+life and volition.
+
+"Hold them there, Sagamore," said Hawkeye, looking coolly backward over
+his left shoulder, while he still plied his paddle; "keep them just
+there. Them Hurons have never a piece in their nation that will execute
+at this distance; but 'Killdeer' has a barrel on which a man may
+calculate."
+
+The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle. Three several times he brought
+the piece to his shoulder, and when his companions were expecting its
+report, he as often lowered it to request the Indians would permit their
+enemies to approach a little nigher. At length his accurate and
+fastidious eye seemed satisfied, and throwing out his left arm on the
+barrel, he was slowly elevating the muzzle, when an exclamation from
+Uncas, who sat in the bow, once more caused him to suspend the shot.
+
+"What now, lad?" demanded Hawkeye; "you saved a Huron from the
+death-shriek by that word; have you reason for what you do?"
+
+Uncas pointed towards the rocky shore a little in their front, whence
+another war canoe was darting directly across their course. It was too
+obvious now that their situation was imminently perilous to need the aid
+of language to confirm it. The scout laid aside his rifle, and resumed
+the paddle, while Chingachgook inclined the bows of the canoe a little
+towards the western shore, in order to increase the distance between
+them and this new enemy. In the meantime they were reminded of the
+presence of those who pressed upon their rear, by wild and exulting
+shouts. The stirring scene awakened even Munro from his apathy.
+
+"Let us make for the rocks on the main," he said, with the mien of a
+tired soldier, "and give battle to the savages. God forbid that I, or
+those attached to me and mine, should ever trust again to the faith of
+any servant of the Louis's!"
+
+"He who wishes to prosper in Indian warfare," returned the scout, "must
+not be too proud to learn from the wit of a native. Lay her more along
+the land, Sagamore; we are doubling on the varlets, and perhaps they may
+try to strike our trail on the long calculation."
+
+Hawkeye was not mistaken; for when the Hurons found their course was
+likely to throw them behind their chase, they rendered it less direct,
+until, by gradually bearing more and more obliquely, the two canoes were
+ere long, gliding on parallel lines, within two hundred yards of each
+other. It now became entirely a trial of speed. So rapid was the
+progress of the light vessels, that the lake curled in their front, in
+miniature waves, and their motion became undulating by its own velocity.
+It was, perhaps, owing to this circumstance, in addition to the
+necessity of keeping every hand employed at the paddles, that the
+Hurons had not immediate recourse to their fire-arms. The exertions of
+the fugitives were too severe to continue long, and the pursuers had the
+advantage of numbers. Duncan observed, with uneasiness, that the scout
+began to look anxiously about him, as if searching for some further
+means of assisting their flight.
+
+"Edge her a little more from the sun, Sagamore," said the stubborn
+woodsman; "I see the knaves are sparing a man to the rifle. A single
+broken bone might lose us our scalps. Edge more from the sun and we will
+put the island between us."
+
+The expedient was not without its use. A long, low island lay at a
+little distance before them, and as they closed with it, the chasing
+canoe was compelled to take a side opposite to that on which the pursued
+passed. The scout and his companions did not neglect this advantage, but
+the instant they were hid from observation by the bushes, they redoubled
+efforts that before had seemed prodigious. The two canoes came round the
+last low point, like two coursers at the top of their speed, the
+fugitives taking the lead. This change had brought them nigher to each
+other, however, while it altered their relative positions.
+
+"You showed knowledge in the shaping of birchen bark, Uncas, when you
+chose this from among the Huron canoes," said the scout, smiling,
+apparently more in satisfaction at their superiority in the race, than
+from that prospect of final escape which now began to open a little upon
+them. "The imps have put all their strength again at the paddles, and we
+are to struggle for our scalps with bits of flattened wood, instead of
+clouded barrels and true eyes. A long stroke, and together, friends."
+
+"They are preparing for a shot," said Heyward; "and as we are in a line
+with them, it can scarcely fail."
+
+"Get you then into the bottom of the canoe," returned the scout; "you
+and the colonel; it will be so much taken from the size of the mark."
+
+Heyward smiled, as he answered,--
+
+"It would be but an ill example for the highest in rank to dodge, while
+the warriors were under fire!"
+
+"Lord! Lord! That is now a white man's courage!" exclaimed the scout;
+"and like too many of his notions, not to be maintained by reason. Do
+you think the Sagamore, or Uncas, or even I, who am a man without a
+cross, would deliberate about finding a cover in the skrimmage, when an
+open body would do no good? For what have the Frenchers reared up their
+Quebec, if fighting is always to be done in the clearings?"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE
+
+_The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle_]
+
+"All that you say is very true, my friend," replied Heyward; "still,
+our customs must prevent us from doing as you wish."
+
+A volley from the Hurons interrupted the discourse, and as the bullets
+whistled about them, Duncan saw the head of Uncas turned, looking back
+at himself and Munro. Notwithstanding the nearness of the enemy, and his
+own great personal danger, the countenance of the young warrior
+expressed no other emotion, as the former was compelled to think, than
+amazement at finding men willing to encounter so useless an exposure.
+Chingachgook was probably better acquainted with the notions of white
+men, for he did not even cast a glance aside from the riveted look his
+eye maintained on the object by which he governed their course. A ball
+soon struck the light and polished paddle from the hands of the chief,
+and drove it through the air, far in the advance. A shout arose from the
+Hurons, who seized the opportunity to fire another volley. Uncas
+described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe
+passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it
+on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans, and then lent his
+strength and skill again to the important task.
+
+The clamorous sounds of "Le Gros Serpent!" "La Longue Carabine!" "Le
+Cerf Agile!" burst at once from the canoes behind, and seemed to give
+new zeal to the pursuers. The scout seized "Killdeer" in his left hand,
+and elevating it above his head, he shook it in triumph at his enemies.
+The savages answered the insult with a yell, and immediately another
+volley succeeded. The bullets pattered along the lake, and one even
+pierced the bark of their little vessel. No perceptible emotion could be
+discovered in the Mohicans during this critical moment, their rigid
+features expressing neither hope nor alarm; but the scout again turned
+his head, and laughing in his own silent manner, he said to Heyward,--
+
+"The knaves love to hear the sounds of their pieces; but the eye is not
+to be found among the Mingos that can calculate a true range in a
+dancing canoe! You see the dumb devils have taken off a man to charge,
+and by the smallest measurement that can be allowed, we move three feet
+to their two!"
+
+Duncan, who was not altogether as easy under this nice estimate of
+distances as his companions, was glad to find, however, that owing to
+their superior dexterity, and the diversion among their enemies, they
+were very sensibly obtaining the advantage. The Hurons soon fired again,
+and a bullet struck the blade of Hawkeye's paddle without injury.
+
+"That will do," said the scout, examining the slight indentation with a
+curious eye; "it would not have cut the skin of an infant, much less of
+men, who, like us, have been blown upon by the heavens in their anger.
+Now, major, if you will try to use this piece of flattened wood, I'll
+let 'Killdeer' take a part in the conversation."
+
+Heyward seized the paddle, and applied himself to the work with an
+eagerness that supplied the place of skill, while Hawkeye was engaged in
+inspecting the priming of his rifle. The latter then took a swift aim,
+and fired. The Huron in the bows of the leading canoe had risen with a
+similar object, and he now fell backward, suffering his gun to escape
+from his hands into the water. In an instant, however, he recovered his
+feet, though his gestures were wild and bewildered. At the same moment
+his companions suspended their efforts, and the chasing canoes clustered
+together, and became stationary. Chingachgook and Uncas profited by the
+interval to regain their wind, though Duncan continued to work with the
+most persevering industry. The father and son now cast calm but
+inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any
+injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would,
+in such a moment of necessity, have been permitted to betray the
+accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulder of
+the Sagamore, who, when he perceived that the eyes of Uncas dwelt too
+long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and
+washing off the stain, was content to manifest, in this simple manner,
+the slightness of the injury.
+
+"Softly, softly, major," said the scout, who by this time had reloaded
+his rifle; "we are a little too far already for a rifle to put forth its
+beauties, and you see yonder imps are holding a council. Let them come
+up within striking distance--my eye may well be trusted in such a
+matter--and I will trail the varlets the length of the Horican,
+guaranteeing that not a shot of theirs shall, at the worst, more than
+break the skin, while 'Killdeer' shall touch the life twice in three
+times."
+
+"We forget our errand," returned the diligent Duncan. "For God's sake
+let us profit by this advantage, and increase our distance from the
+enemy."
+
+"Give me my children," said Munro hoarsely; "trifle no longer with a
+father's agony, but restore me my babes."
+
+Long and habitual deference to the mandates of his superiors had taught
+the scout the virtue of obedience. Throwing a last and lingering glance
+at the distant canoes, he laid aside his rifle, and relieving the
+wearied Duncan, resumed the paddle, which he wielded with sinews that
+never tired. His efforts were seconded by those of the Mohicans, and a
+very few minutes served to place such a sheet of water between them and
+their enemies, that Heyward once more breathed freely.
+
+The lake now began to expand, and their route lay along a wide reach,
+that was lined, as before, by high and ragged mountains. But the islands
+were few, and easily avoided. The strokes of the paddles grew more
+measured and regular, while they who plied them continued their labor,
+after the close and deadly chase from which they had just relieved
+themselves, with as much coolness as though their speed had been tried
+in sport, rather than under such pressing, nay, almost desperate
+circumstances.
+
+Instead of following the western shore, whither their errand led them,
+the wary Mohican inclined his course more towards those hills behind
+which Montcalm was known to have led his army into the formidable
+fortress of Ticonderoga. As the Hurons, to every appearance, had
+abandoned the pursuit, there was no apparent reason for this excess of
+caution. It was, however, maintained for hours, until they had reached a
+bay, nigh the northern termination of the lake. Here the canoe was
+driven upon the beach, and the whole party landed. Hawkeye and Heyward
+ascended an adjacent bluff, where the former, after considering the
+expanse of water beneath him, pointed out to the latter a small black
+object, hovering under a headland, at the distance of several miles.
+
+"Do you see it?" demanded the scout. "Now, what would you account that
+spot, were you left alone to white experience to find your way through
+this wilderness?"
+
+"But for its distance and its magnitude, I should suppose it a bird. Can
+it be a living object?"
+
+"'Tis a canoe of good birchen bark, and paddled by fierce and crafty
+Mingos. Though Providence has lent to those who inhabit the woods eyes
+that would be needless to men in the settlements, where there are
+inventions to assist the sight, yet no human organs can see all the
+dangers which at this moment circumvent us. These varlets pretend to be
+bent chiefly on their sun-down meal, but the moment it is dark they will
+be on our trail, as true as hounds on the scent. We must throw them off,
+or our pursuit of Le Renard Subtil may be given up. These lakes are
+useful at times, especially when the game takes the water," continued
+the scout, gazing about him with a countenance of concern; "but they
+give no cover, except it be to the fishes. God knows what the country
+would be, if the settlements should ever spread far from the two rivers.
+Both hunting and war would lose their beauty."
+
+"Let us not delay a moment, without some good and obvious cause."
+
+"I little like that smoke, which you may see worming up along the rock
+above the canoe," interrupted the abstracted scout. "My life on it,
+other eyes than ours see it, and know its meaning. Well, words will not
+mend the matter, and it is time that we were doing."
+
+Hawkeye moved away from the look-out, and descended, musing profoundly,
+to the shore. He communicated the result of his observations to his
+companions, in Delaware, and a short and earnest consultation succeeded.
+When it terminated, the three instantly set about executing their new
+resolutions.
+
+The canoe was lifted from the water, and borne on the shoulders of the
+party. They proceeded into the wood, making as broad and obvious a trail
+as possible. They soon reached a water-course, which they crossed, and
+continued onward, until they came to an extensive and naked rock. At
+this point, where their footsteps might be expected to be no longer
+visible, they retraced their route to the brook, walking backwards, with
+the utmost care. They now followed the bed of the little stream to the
+lake, into which they immediately launched their canoe again. A low
+point concealed them from the headland, and the margin of the lake was
+fringed for some distance with dense and overhanging bushes. Under the
+cover of these natural advantages, they toiled their way, with patient
+industry, until the scout pronounced that he believed it would be safe
+once more to land.
+
+The halt continued until evening rendered objects indistinct and
+uncertain to the eye. Then they resumed their route, and, favored by the
+darkness, pushed silently and vigorously towards the western shore.
+Although the rugged outline of mountain, to which they were steering,
+presented no distinctive marks to the eyes of Duncan, the Mohican
+entered the little haven he had selected with the confidence and
+accuracy of an experienced pilot.
+
+The boat was again lifted and borne into the woods where it was
+carefully concealed under a pile of brush. The adventurers assumed their
+arms and packs, and the scout announced to Munro and Heyward that he and
+the Indians were at last in readiness to proceed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+  "If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death."
+
+  _Merry Wives of Windsor._
+
+
+The party had landed on the border of a region that is, even to this
+day, less known to the inhabitants of the States, than the deserts of
+Arabia, or the steppes of Tartary. It was the sterile and rugged
+district which separates the tributaries of Champlain from those of the
+Hudson, the Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence. Since the period of our tale,
+the active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a belt of rich
+and thriving settlements, though none but the hunter or the savage is
+ever known, even now, to penetrate its wild recesses.
+
+As Hawkeye and the Mohicans had, however, often traversed the mountains
+and valleys of this vast wilderness, they did not hesitate to plunge
+into its depths, with the freedom of men accustomed to its privations
+and difficulties. For many hours the travellers toiled on their
+laborious way, guided by a star, or following the direction of some
+water-course, until the scout called a halt, and holding a short
+consultation with the Indians, they lighted their fire, and made the
+usual preparations to pass the remainder of the night where they then
+were.
+
+Imitating the example, and emulating the confidence, of their more
+experienced associates, Munro and Duncan slept without fear, if not
+without uneasiness. The dews were suffered to exhale, and the sun
+dispersed the mists, and was shedding a strong and clear light in the
+forest, when the travellers resumed their journey.
+
+After proceeding a few miles, the progress of Hawkeye, who led the
+advance, became more deliberate and watchful. He often stopped to
+examine the trees; nor did he cross a rivulet, without attentively
+considering the quantity, the velocity, and the color of its waters.
+Distrusting his own judgment his appeals to the opinion of Chingachgook
+were frequent and earnest. During one of these conferences, Heyward
+observed that Uncas stood a patient and silent, though, as he imagined,
+an interested listener. He was strongly tempted to address the young
+chief, and demand his opinion of their progress; but the calm and
+dignified demeanor of the native induced him to believe that, like
+himself, the other was wholly dependent on the sagacity and intelligence
+of the seniors of the party. At last, the scout spoke in English, and at
+once explained the embarrassment of their situation.
+
+"When I found that the home path of the Hurons run north," he said, "it
+did not need the judgment of many long years to tell that they would
+follow the valleys, and keep atween the waters of the Hudson and the
+Horican, until they might strike the springs of the Canada streams,
+which would lead them into the heart of the country of the Frenchers.
+Yet here are we, within a short range of the Scaroon, and not a sign of
+a trail have we crossed! Human natur' is weak, and it is possible we may
+not have taken the proper scent."
+
+"Heaven protect us from such an error!" exclaimed Duncan. "Let us
+retrace our steps, and examine as we go, with keener eyes. Has Uncas no
+counsel to offer in such a strait?"
+
+The young Mohican cast a glance at his father, but maintaining his quiet
+and reserved mien, he continued silent. Chingachgook had caught the
+look, and motioning with his hand, he bade him speak. The moment this
+permission was accorded, the countenance of Uncas changed from its grave
+composure to a gleam of intelligence and joy. Bounding forward like a
+deer, he sprang up the side of a little acclivity, a few rods in
+advance, and stood exultingly over a spot of fresh earth that looked as
+though it had been recently upturned by the passage of some heavy
+animal. The eyes of the whole party followed the unexpected movement,
+and read their success in the air of triumph that the youth assumed.
+
+"'Tis the trail!" exclaimed the scout, advancing to the spot: "the lad
+is quick of sight and keen of wit for his years."
+
+"'Tis extraordinary that he should have withheld his knowledge so long,"
+muttered Duncan, at his elbow.
+
+"It would have been more wonderful had he spoken without a bidding. No,
+no; your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can
+measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like
+his legs, outruns that of his father; but where experience is the
+master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects
+them accordingly."
+
+"See!" said Uncas, pointing north and south, at the evident marks of
+the broad trail on either side of him: "the dark-hair has gone towards
+the frost."
+
+"Hound never ran on a more beautiful scent," responded the scout,
+dashing forward, at once, on the indicated route; "we are favored,
+greatly favored, and can follow with high noses. Ay, here are both your
+waddling beasts: this Huron travels like a white general. The fellow is
+stricken with a judgment, and is mad! Look sharp for wheels, Sagamore,"
+he continued, looking back, and laughing in his newly awakened
+satisfaction; "we shall soon have the fool journeying in a coach, and
+that with three of the best pair of eyes on the borders, in his rear."
+
+The spirits of the scout, and the astonishing success of the chase, in
+which a circuitous distance of more than forty miles had been passed,
+did not fail to impart a portion of hope to the whole party. Their
+advance was rapid; and made with as much confidence as a traveller would
+proceed along a wide highway. If a rock, or a rivulet, or a bit of earth
+harder than common, severed the links of the clue they followed, the
+true eye of the scout recovered them at a distance, and seldom rendered
+the delay of a single moment necessary. Their progress was much
+facilitated by the certainty that Magua had found it necessary to
+journey through the valleys; a circumstance which rendered the general
+direction of the route sure. Nor had the Huron entirely neglected the
+arts uniformly practised by the natives when retiring in front of any
+enemy. False trails, and sudden turnings, were frequent, wherever a
+brook, or the formation of the ground, rendered them feasible; but his
+pursuers were rarely deceived, and never failed to detect their error,
+before they had lost either time or distance on the deceptive track.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon they had passed the Scaroon, and were
+following the route of the declining sun. After descending an eminence
+to a low bottom, through which a stream glided, they suddenly came to a
+place where the party of Le Renard had made a halt. Extinguished brands
+were lying around a spring, the offals of a deer were scattered about
+the place, and the trees bore evident marks of having been browsed by
+the horses. At a little distance, Heyward discovered, and contemplated
+with tender emotion, the small bower under which he was fain to believe
+that Cora and Alice had reposed. But while the earth was trodden, and
+the footsteps of both men and beasts were so plainly visible around the
+place, the trail appeared to have suddenly ended.
+
+It was easy to follow the track of the Narragansetts, but they seemed
+only to have wandered without guides, or any other object than the
+pursuit of food. At length Uncas, who, with his father, had endeavored
+to trace the route of the horses, came upon a sign of their presence
+that was quite recent. Before following the clue, he communicated his
+success to his companions; and while the latter were consulting on the
+circumstance, the youth reappeared, leading the two fillies, with their
+saddles broken, and the housings soiled, as though they had been
+permitted to run at will for several days.
+
+"What should this mean?" said Duncan, turning pale, and glancing his
+eyes around him, as if he feared the brush and leaves were about to give
+up some horrid secret.
+
+"That our march is come to a quick end, and that we are in an enemy's
+country," returned the scout. "Had the knaves been pressed, and the
+gentle ones wanted horses to keep up with the party, he might have taken
+their scalps; but without an enemy at his heels, and with such rugged
+beasts as these, he would not hurt a hair of their heads. I know your
+thoughts, and shame be it to our color that you have reason for them;
+but he who thinks that even a Mingo would ill-treat a woman, unless it
+be to tomahawk her, knows nothing of Indian natur', or the laws of the
+woods. No, no; I have heard that the French Indians had come into these
+hills, to hunt the moose, and we are getting within scent of their camp.
+Why should they not? the morning and evening guns of Ty may be heard any
+day among these mountains; for the Frenchers are running a new line
+atween the provinces of the king and the Canadas. It is true that the
+horses are here, but the Hurons are gone; let us then hunt for the path
+by which they departed."
+
+Hawkeye and the Mohicans now applied themselves to their task in good
+earnest. A circle of a few hundred feet in circumference was drawn, and
+each of the party took a segment for his portion. The examination,
+however, resulted in no discovery. The impressions of footsteps were
+numerous, but they all appeared like those of men who had wandered about
+the spot, without any design to quit it. Again the scout and his
+companions made the circuit of the halting-place, each slowly following
+the other, until they assembled in the centre once more, no wiser than
+when they started.
+
+"Such cunning is not without its deviltry," exclaimed Hawkeye, when he
+met the disappointed looks of his assistants.
+
+"We must get down to it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring, and going
+over the ground by inches. The Huron shall never brag in his tribe that
+he has a foot which leaves no print."
+
+Setting the example himself, the scout engaged in the scrutiny with
+renewed zeal. Not a leaf was left unturned. The sticks were removed, and
+the stones lifted; for Indian cunning was known frequently to adopt
+these objects as covers, laboring with the utmost patience and industry,
+to conceal each footstep as they proceeded. Still no discovery was made.
+At length Uncas, whose activity had enabled him to achieve his portion
+of the task the soonest, raked the earth across the turbid little rill
+which ran from the spring, and diverted its course into another channel.
+So soon as its narrow bed below the dam was dry, he stooped over it with
+keen and curious eyes. A cry of exultation immediately announced the
+success of the young warrior. The whole party crowded to the spot where
+Uncas pointed out the impression of a moccasin in the moist alluvion.
+
+"The lad will be an honor to his people," said Hawkeye, regarding the
+trail with as much admiration as a naturalist would expend on the tusk
+of a mammoth or the rib of a mastodon; "ay, and a thorn in the sides of
+the Hurons. Yet that is not the footstep of an Indian! the weight is too
+much on the heel, and the toes are squared, as though one of the French
+dancers had been in, pigeon-winging his tribe! Run back, Uncas, and
+bring me the size of the singer's foot. You will find a beautiful print
+of it just opposite yon rock, agin the hillside."
+
+While the youth was engaged in this commission, the scout and
+Chingachgook were attentively considering the impressions. The
+measurements agreed, and the former unhesitatingly pronounced that the
+footstep was that of David, who had once more, been made to exchange his
+shoes for moccasins.
+
+"I can now read the whole of it, as plainly as if I had seen the arts of
+Le Subtil," he added; "the singer, being a man whose gifts lay chiefly
+in his throat and feet, was made to go first, and the others have trod
+in his steps, imitating their formation."
+
+"But," cried Duncan, "I see no signs of--"
+
+"The gentle ones," interrupted the scout; "the varlet has found a way to
+carry them, until he supposed he had thrown any followers off the scent.
+My life on it, we see their pretty little feet again, before many rods
+go by."
+
+The whole party now proceeded, following the course of the rill, keeping
+anxious eyes on the regular impressions. The water soon flowed into its
+bed again, but watching the ground on either side, the foresters pursued
+their way content with knowing that the trail lay beneath. More than
+half a mile was passed, before the rill rippled close around the base of
+an extensive and dry rock. Here they paused to make sure that the Hurons
+had not quitted the water.
+
+It was fortunate they did so. For the quick and active Uncas soon found
+the impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it would seem an
+Indian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the direction given by this
+discovery, he entered the neighboring thicket, and struck the trail, as
+fresh and obvious as it had been before they reached the spring. Another
+shout announced the good fortune of the youth to his companions, and at
+once terminated the search.
+
+"Ay, it has been planned with Indian judgment," said the scout, when the
+party was assembled around the place; "and would have blinded white
+eyes."
+
+"Shall we proceed?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Softly, softly: we know our path; but it is good to examine the
+formation of things. This is my schooling, major; and if one neglects
+the book, there is little chance of learning from the open hand of
+Providence. All is plain but one thing, which is the manner that the
+knave contrived to get the gentle ones along the blind trail. Even a
+Huron would be too proud to let their tender feet touch the water."
+
+"Will this assist in explaining the difficulty?" said Heyward, pointing
+towards the fragments of a sort of handbarrow, that had been rudely
+constructed of boughs, and bound together with withes, and which now
+seemed carelessly cast aside as useless.
+
+"'Tis explained!" cried the delighted Hawkeye. "If them varlets have
+passed a minute, they have spent hours in striving to fabricate a lying
+end to their trail! Well, I've known them to waste a day in the same
+manner, to as little purpose. Here we have three pair of moccasins, and
+two of little feet. It is amazing that any mortal beings can journey on
+limbs so small! Pass me the thong of buckskin, Uncas, and let me take
+the length of this foot. By the Lord, it is no longer than a child's and
+yet the maidens are tall and comely. That Providence is partial in its
+gifts, for its own wise reasons, the best and most contented of us must
+allow."
+
+"The tender limbs of my daughters are unequal to these hardships," said
+Munro, looking at the light footsteps of his children, with a parent's
+love: "we shall find their fainting forms in this desert."
+
+"Of that there is little cause of fear," returned the scout, slowly
+shaking his head; "this is a firm and straight, though a light step, and
+not over long. See, the heel has hardly touched the ground; and there
+the dark-hair has made a little jump, from root to root. No, no; my
+knowledge for it, neither of them was nigh fainting, hereaway. Now, the
+singer was beginning to be foot-sore and leg-weary as is plain by his
+trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has travelled wide, and
+tottered; and there, again, it looks as though he journeyed on
+snow-shoes. Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly
+give his legs a proper training."
+
+From such undeniable testimony did the practised woodsman arrive at the
+truth, with nearly as much certainty and precision as if he had been a
+witness of all those events which his ingenuity so easily elucidated.
+Cheered by these assurances, and satisfied by a reasoning that was so
+obvious, while it was so simple, the party resumed its course, after
+making a short halt to take a hurried repast.
+
+When the meal was ended, the scout cast a glance upwards at the setting
+sun, and pushed forward with a rapidity which compelled Heyward and the
+still vigorous Munro to exert all their muscles to equal. Their route
+now lay along the bottom which had already been mentioned. As the Hurons
+had made no further efforts to conceal their footsteps, the progress of
+the pursuers was no longer delayed by uncertainty. Before an hour had
+elapsed, however, the speed of Hawkeye sensibly abated, and his head,
+instead of maintaining its former direct and forward look, began to turn
+suspiciously from side to side, as if he were conscious of approaching
+danger. He soon stopped again, and waited for the whole party to come
+up.
+
+"I scent the Hurons," he said, speaking to the Mohicans; "yonder is open
+sky, through the tree-tops, and we are getting too nigh their
+encampment. Sagamore, you will take the hillside, to the right; Uncas
+will bend along the brook to the left, while I will try the trail. If
+anything should happen, the call will be three croaks of a crow. I saw
+one of the birds fanning himself in the air, just beyond the dead
+oak--another sign that we are touching an encampment."
+
+The Indians departed their several ways without reply, while Hawkeye
+cautiously proceeded with the two gentlemen. Heyward soon pressed to the
+side of their guide, eager to catch an early glimpse of those enemies he
+had pursued with so much toil and anxiety. His companion told him to
+steal to the edge of the wood, which, as usual, was fringed with a
+thicket, and wait his coming, for he wished to examine certain
+suspicious signs a little on one side. Duncan obeyed, and soon found
+himself in a situation to command a view which he found as extraordinary
+as it was novel.
+
+The trees of many acres had been felled, and the glow of a mild summer's
+evening had fallen on the clearing, in beautiful contrast to the gray
+light of the forest. A short distance from the place where Duncan stood,
+the stream had seemingly expanded into a little lake, covering most of
+the low land, from mountain to mountain. The water fell out of this wide
+basin, in a cataract so regular and gentle, that it appeared rather to
+be the work of human hands, than fashioned by nature. A hundred earthen
+dwellings stood on the margin of the lake, and even in its water, as
+though the latter had overflowed its usual banks. Their rounded roofs,
+admirably moulded for defence against the weather, denoted more of
+industry and foresight than the natives were wont to bestow on their
+regular habitations, much less on those they occupied for the temporary
+purposes of hunting and war. In short, the whole village or town,
+whichever it might be termed, possessed more of method and neatness of
+execution, than the white men had been accustomed to believe belonged,
+ordinarily, to the Indian habits. It appeared, however, to be deserted.
+At least, so thought Duncan for many minutes; but, at length, he fancied
+he discovered several human forms advancing towards him on all fours,
+and apparently dragging in their train some heavy, and as he was quick
+to apprehend, some formidable engine. Just then a few dark looking heads
+gleamed out of the dwellings, and the place seemed suddenly alive with
+beings, which, however, glided from cover to cover so swiftly, as to
+allow no opportunity of examining their humors or pursuits. Alarmed at
+these suspicious and inexplicable movements, he was about to attempt the
+signal of the crows, when the rustling of leaves at hand drew his eyes
+in another direction.
+
+The young man started, and recoiled a few paces instinctively, when he
+found himself within a hundred yards of a stranger Indian. Recovering
+his recollection on the instant, instead of sounding an alarm, which
+might prove fatal to himself, he remained stationary, an attentive
+observer of the other's motions.
+
+An instant of calm observation served to assure Duncan that he was
+undiscovered. The native, like himself, seemed occupied in considering
+the low dwellings of the village, and the stolen movements of its
+inhabitants. It was impossible to discover the expression of his
+features, through the grotesque mask of paint under which they were
+concealed; though Duncan fancied it was rather melancholy than savage.
+His head was shaved, as usual, with the exception of the crown, from
+whose tuft three or four faded feathers from a hawk's wing were loosely
+dangling. A ragged calico mantle half-encircled his body, while his
+nether garment was composed of an ordinary shirt, the sleeves of which
+were made to perform the office that is usually executed by a much more
+commodious arrangement. His legs were bare, and sadly cut and torn by
+briers. The feet were, however, covered with a pair of good deer-skin
+moccasins. Altogether, the appearance of the individual was forlorn and
+miserable.
+
+Duncan was still curiously observing the person of his neighbor, when
+the scout stole silently and cautiously to his side.
+
+"You see we have reached their settlement or encampment," whispered the
+young man; "and here is one of the savages himself, in a very
+embarrassing position for our further movements."
+
+Hawkeye started, and dropped his rifle, directed by the finger of his
+companion, the stranger came under his view. Then lowering the dangerous
+muzzle, he stretched forward his long neck, as if to assist a scrutiny
+that was already intensely keen.
+
+"The imp is not a Huron," he said, "nor of any of the Canada tribes; and
+yet you see, by his clothes, the knave has been plundering a white. Ay,
+Montcalm has raked the woods for his inroad, and a whooping, murdering
+set of varlets has he gathered together. Can you see where he has put
+his rifle or his bow?"
+
+"He appears to have no arms; nor does he seem to be viciously inclined.
+Unless he communicate the alarm to his fellows, who as you see are
+dodging about the water, we have but little to fear from him."
+
+The scout turned to Heyward, and regarded him a moment with unconcealed
+amazement. Then opening wide his mouth, he indulged in unrestrained and
+heartfelt laughter, though in that silent and peculiar manner which
+danger had so long taught him to practise.
+
+Repeating the words, "fellows who are dodging about the water!" he
+added, "so much for schooling and passing a boyhood in the settlements!
+The knave has long legs, though, and shall not be trusted. Do you keep
+him under your rifle while I creep in behind, through the bush, and take
+him alive. Fire on no account."
+
+Heyward had already permitted his companion to bury part of his person
+in the thicket, when, stretching forth an arm, he arrested him, in order
+to ask,--
+
+"If I see you in danger, may I not risk a shot?"
+
+Hawkeye regarded him a moment, like one who knew not how to take the
+question; then nodding his head, he answered, still laughing, though
+inaudibly,--
+
+"Fire a whole platoon, major."
+
+In the next moment he was concealed by the leaves. Duncan waited several
+minutes in feverish impatience, before he caught another glimpse of the
+scout. Then he reappeared, creeping along the earth, from which his
+dress was hardly distinguishable, directly in the rear of his intended
+captive. Having reached within a few yards of the latter, he arose to
+his feet, silently and slowly. At that instant, several loud blows were
+struck on the water, and Duncan turned his eyes just in time to perceive
+that a hundred dark forms were plunging, in a body, into the troubled
+little sheet. Grasping his rifle, his looks were again bent on the
+Indian near him. Instead of taking the alarm, the unconscious savage
+stretched forward his neck, as if he also watched the movements about
+the gloomy lake, with a sort of silly curiosity. In the meantime, the
+uplifted hand of Hawkeye was above him. But, without any apparent
+reason, it was withdrawn, and its owner indulged in another long, though
+still silent, fit of merriment. When the peculiar and hearty laughter of
+Hawkeye was ended, instead of grasping his victim by the throat, he
+tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and exclaimed aloud,--
+
+"How now, friend! have you a mind to teach the beavers to sing?"
+
+"Even so," was the ready answer. "It would seem that the Being that gave
+them power to improve his gifts so well, would not deny them voices to
+proclaim his praise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+  _"Bot._--Are we all met?"
+
+  _"Qui._--Pat--pat; and here's a marvellous
+  Convenient place for our rehearsal."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The reader may better imagine, than we describe, the surprise of
+Heyward. His lurking Indians were suddenly converted into four-footed
+beasts; his lake into a beaver pond; his cataract into a dam,
+constructed by those industrious and ingenious quadrupeds; and a
+suspected enemy into his tried friend, David Gamut, the master of
+psalmody. The presence of the latter created so many unexpected hopes
+relative to the sisters that, without a moment's hesitation, the young
+man broke out of his ambush, and sprang forward to join the two
+principal actors in the scene.
+
+The merriment of Hawkeye was not easily appeased. Without ceremony, and
+with a rough hand, he twirled the supple Gamut around on his heel, and
+more than once affirmed that the Hurons had done themselves great credit
+in the fashion of his costume. Then seizing the hand of the other, he
+squeezed it with a gripe that brought the tears into the eyes of the
+placid David, and wished him joy of his new condition.
+
+"You were about opening your throat-practysings among the beavers, were
+ye?" he said. "The cunning devils know half the trade already, for they
+beat the time with their tails, as you heard just now; and in good time
+it was too, or 'Killdeer' might have sounded the first note among them.
+I have known greater fools, who could read and write, than an
+experienced old beaver; but as for squalling, the animals are born dumb!
+What think you of such a song as this?"
+
+David shut his sensitive ears, and even Heyward, apprised as he was of
+the nature of the cry, looked upwards in quest of the bird, as the
+cawing of a crow rang in the air about them.
+
+"See!" continued the laughing scout, as he pointed towards the remainder
+of the party, who, in obedience to the signal, were already
+approaching: "this is music which has its natural virtues; it brings two
+good rifles to my elbow, to say nothing of the knives and tomahawks. But
+we see that you are safe; now tell us what has become of the maidens."
+
+"They are captives to the heathen," said David; "and though greatly
+troubled in spirit, enjoying comfort and safety in the body."
+
+"Both?" demanded the breathless Heyward.
+
+"Even so. Though our wayfaring has been sore and our sustenance scanty,
+we have had little other cause for complaint, except the violence done
+our feelings, by being thus led in captivity into a far land."
+
+"Bless ye for these very words!" exclaimed the trembling Munro; "I shall
+then receive my babes spotless and angel-like, as I lost them!"
+
+"I know not that their delivery is at hand," returned the doubting
+David; "the leader of these savages is possessed of an evil spirit that
+no power short of Omnipotence can tame. I have tried him sleeping and
+waking, but neither sounds nor language seem to touch his soul."
+
+"Where is the knave?" bluntly interrupted the scout.
+
+"He hunts the moose to-day, with his young men; and to-morrow, as I
+hear, they pass farther into these forests, and nigher to the borders of
+Canada. The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighboring people, whose
+lodges are situate beyond yonder black pinnacle of rock; while the
+younger is detained among the women of the Hurons, whose dwellings are
+but two short miles hence, on a table-land, where the fire has done the
+office of the axe, and prepared the place for their reception."
+
+"Alice, my gentle Alice!" murmured Heyward; "she has lost the
+consolation of her sister's presence!"
+
+"Even so. But so far as praise and thanksgiving in psalmody can temper
+the spirit in affliction, she has not suffered."
+
+"Has she then a heart for music?"
+
+"Of the graver and more solemn character; though it must be acknowledged
+that, in spite of all my endeavors, the maiden weeps oftener than she
+smiles. At such moments I forbear to press the holy songs; but there are
+many sweet and comfortable periods of satisfactory communication, when
+the ears of the savages are astounded with the upliftings of our
+voices."
+
+"And why are you permitted to go at large, unwatched?"
+
+David composed his features into what he intended should express an air
+of modest humility, before he meekly replied--
+
+"Little be the praise to such a worm as I. But, though the power of
+psalmody was suspended in the terrible business of that field of blood
+through which we passed, it has recovered its influence even over the
+souls of the heathen, and I am suffered to go and come at will."
+
+The scout laughed, and tapping his own forehead significantly, he
+perhaps explained the singular indulgence more satisfactorily when he
+said--
+
+"The Indians never harm a non-composser. But why, when the path lay open
+before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not
+so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings
+to Edward?"
+
+The scout, remembering only his own sturdy and iron nature, had probably
+exacted a task that David, under no circumstances, could have performed.
+But, without entirely losing the meekness of his air, the latter was
+content to answer--
+
+"Though my soul would rejoice to visit the habitations of Christendom
+once more, my feet would rather follow the tender spirits intrusted to
+my keeping, even into the idolatrous province of the Jesuits, than take
+one step backward, while they pined in captivity and sorrow."
+
+Though the figurative language of David was not very intelligible, the
+sincere and steady expression of his eye, and the glow on his honest
+countenance, were not easily mistaken. Uncas pressed closer to his side,
+and regarded the speaker with a look of commendation, while his father
+expressed his satisfaction by the ordinary pithy exclamation of
+approbation. The scout shook his head as he rejoined--
+
+"The Lord never intended that the man should place all his endeavors in
+his throat, to the neglect of other and better gifts! But he has fallen
+into the hands of some silly woman, when he should have been gathering
+his education under a blue sky, among the beauties of the forest. Here,
+friend; I did intend to kindle a fire with this tooting whistle of
+thine; but as you value the thing, take it, and blow your best on it!"
+
+Gamut received his pitch-pipe with as strong an expression of pleasure
+as he believed compatible with the grave functions he exercised. After
+essaying its virtues repeatedly, in contrast with his own voice, and
+satisfying himself that none of its melody was lost, he made a very
+serious demonstration towards achieving a few stanzas of one of the
+longest effusions in the little volume so often mentioned.
+
+Heyward, however, hastily interrupted his pious purpose, by continuing
+questions concerning the past and present condition of his
+fellow-captives, and in a manner more methodical than had been permitted
+by his feelings in the opening of their interview. David, though he
+regarded his treasure with longing eyes, was constrained to answer:
+especially as the venerable father took a part in the interrogatories,
+with an interest too imposing to be denied. Nor did the scout fail to
+throw in a pertinent inquiry, whenever a fitting occasion presented. In
+this manner, though with frequent interruptions, which were filled with
+certain threatening sounds from the recovered instrument, the pursuers
+were put in possession of such leading circumstances as were likely to
+prove useful in accomplishing their great and engrossing object--the
+recovery of the sisters. The narrative of David was simple, and the
+facts but few.
+
+Magua had waited on the mountain until a safe moment to retire presented
+itself, when he had descended, and taken the route along the western
+side of the Horican, in the direction of the Canadas. As the subtle
+Huron was familiar with the paths, and well knew there was no immediate
+danger of pursuit, their progress had been moderate, and far from
+fatiguing. It appeared from the unembellished statement of David, that
+his own presence had been rather endured than desired; though even Magua
+had not been entirely exempt from that veneration with which the Indians
+regard those whom the Great Spirit has visited in their intellects. At
+night, the utmost care had been taken of the captives, both to prevent
+injury from the damps of the woods, and to guard against an escape. At
+the spring, the horses were turned loose, as has been seen; and
+notwithstanding the remoteness and length of their trail, the artifices
+already named were resorted to, in order to cut off every clue to their
+place of retreat. On their arrival at the encampment of his people,
+Magua, in obedience to a policy seldom departed from, separated his
+prisoners. Cora had been sent to a tribe that temporarily occupied an
+adjacent valley, though David was too ignorant of the customs and
+history of the natives to be able to declare anything satisfactory
+concerning their name or character. He only knew that they had not
+engaged in the late expedition against William Henry; that, like the
+Hurons themselves, they were allies of Montcalm; and that they
+maintained an amicable, though a watchful intercourse with the warlike
+and savage people, whom chance had, for a time, brought in such close
+and disagreeable contact with themselves.
+
+The Mohicans and the scout listened to his interrupted and imperfect
+narrative, with an interest that obviously increased as he proceeded;
+and it was while attempting to explain the pursuits of the community in
+which Cora was detained, that the latter abruptly demanded--
+
+"Did you see the fashion of their knives? Were they of English or French
+formation?"
+
+"My thoughts were bent on no such vanities, but rather mingled in
+consolation with those of the maidens."
+
+"The time may come when you will not consider the knife of a savage such
+a despisable vanity," returned the scout, with a strong expression of
+contempt for the other's dulness. "Had they held their corn-feast--or
+can you say anything of the totems of the tribe?"
+
+"Of corn, we had many and plentiful feasts; for the grain, being in the
+milk, is both sweet to the mouth and comfortable to the stomach. Of
+totem, I know not the meaning; but if it appertaineth in any wise to the
+art of Indian music, it need not be inquired after at their hands. They
+never join their voices in praise, and it would seem that they are among
+the profanest of the idolatrous."
+
+"Therein you belie the nature of an Indian. Even the Mingo adores but
+the true and living God. 'Tis a wicked fabrication of the whites, and I
+say it to the shame of my color, that would make the warrior bow down
+before images of his own creation. It is true, they endeavor to make
+truces with the wicked one--as who would not with an enemy he cannot
+conquer!--but they look up for favor and assistance to the Great and
+Good Spirit only."
+
+"It may be so," said David; "but I have seen strange and fantastic
+images drawn in their paint, of which their admiration and care savored
+of spiritual pride; especially one, and that, too, a foul and loathsome
+object."
+
+"Was it a sarpent?" quickly demanded the scout.
+
+"Much the same. It was in the likeness of an abject and creeping
+tortoise."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed both the attentive Mohicans in a breath; while the
+scout shook his head with an air of one who had made an important, but
+by no means a pleasing discovery. Then the father spoke, in the language
+of the Delawares, and with a calmness and dignity that instantly
+arrested the attention even of those to whom his words were
+unintelligible. His gestures were impressive, and at times energetic.
+Once he lifted his arm on high; and as it descended, the action threw
+aside the folds of his light mantle, a finger resting on his breast, as
+if he would enforce his meaning by the attitude. Duncan's eyes followed
+the movement, and he perceived that the animal just mentioned was
+beautifully, though faintly, worked in a blue tint, on the swarthy
+breast of the chief. All that he had ever heard of the violent
+separation of the vast tribes of the Delawares rushed across his mind,
+and he awaited the proper moment to speak, with a suspense that was
+rendered nearly intolerable, by his interest in the stake. His wish,
+however, was anticipated by the scout, who turned from his red friend,
+saying--
+
+"We have found that which may be good or evil to us, as Heaven disposes.
+The Sagamore is of the high blood of the Delawares, and is the great
+chief of their Tortoises! That some of this stock are among the people
+of whom the singer tells us, is plain, by his words; and had he but
+spent half the breath in prudent questions, that he has blown away in
+making a trumpet of his throat, we might have known how many warriors
+they numbered. It is, altogether, a dangerous path we move in; for a
+friend whose face is turned from you often bears a bloodier mind than
+the enemy who seeks your scalp."
+
+"Explain," said Duncan.
+
+"'Tis a long and melancholy tradition, and one I little like to think
+of; for it is not to be denied, that the evil has been mainly done by
+men with white skins. But it has ended in turning the tomahawk of
+brother against brother, and brought the Mingo and the Delaware to
+travel in the same path."
+
+"You then suspect it is a portion of that people among whom Cora
+resides?"
+
+The scout nodded his head in assent, though he seemed anxious to waive
+the further discussion of a subject that appeared painful. The impatient
+Duncan now made several hasty and desperate propositions to attempt the
+release of the sisters. Munro seemed to shake off his apathy, and
+listened to the wild schemes of the young man with a deference that his
+gray hairs and reverend years should have denied. But the scout, after
+suffering the ardor of the lover to expend itself a little, found means
+to convince him of the folly of precipitation, in a matter that would
+require their coolest judgment and utmost fortitude.
+
+"It would be well," he added, "to let this man go in again, as usual,
+and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle ones of
+our approach, until we call him out, by signal, to consult. You know the
+cry of a crow, friend, from the whistle of the whippoorwill?"
+
+"'Tis a pleasing bird," returned David, "and has a soft and melancholy
+note! though the time is rather quick and ill-measured."
+
+"He speaks of the wish-ton-wish," said the scout; "well, since you like
+his whistle, it shall be your signal. Remember, then, when you hear the
+whippoorwill's call three times repeated, you are to come into the
+bushes where the bird might be supposed----"
+
+"Stop," interrupted Heyward; "I will accompany him."
+
+"You!" exclaimed the astonished Hawkeye; "are you tired of seeing the
+sun rise and set?"
+
+"David is a living proof that the Hurons can be merciful."
+
+"Ay, but David can use his throat, as no man in his senses would pervert
+the gift."
+
+"I, too, can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or
+everything to rescue her I love. Name your objections no longer; I am
+resolved."
+
+Hawkeye regarded the young man a moment in speechless amazement. But
+Duncan, who, in deference to the other's skill and services, had
+hitherto submitted somewhat implicitly to his dictation, now assumed the
+superior, with a manner that was not easily resisted. He waved his hand,
+in sign of his dislike to all remonstrance, and then, in more tempered
+language, he continued--
+
+"You have the means of disguise; change me; paint me, too, if you will;
+in short, alter me to anything--a fool."
+
+"It is not for one like me to say that he who is already formed by so
+powerful a hand as Providence, stands in need of a change," muttered the
+discontented scout. "When you send your parties abroad in war, you find
+it prudent, at least, to arrange the marks and places of encampment, in
+order that they who fight on your side may know when and where to expect
+a friend."
+
+"Listen," interrupted Duncan; "you have heard from this faithful
+follower of the captives, that the Indians are of two tribes, if not of
+different nations. With one, whom you think to be a branch of the
+Delawares, is she you call the 'dark-hair'; the other, and younger of
+the ladies, is undeniably with our declared enemies, the Hurons. It
+becomes my youth and rank to attempt the latter adventure. While you,
+therefore, are negotiating with your friends for the release of one of
+the sisters, I will effect that of the other, or die."
+
+The awakened spirit of the young soldier gleamed in his eyes, and his
+form became imposing under its influence. Hawkeye, though too much
+accustomed to Indian artifices not to foresee the danger of the
+experiment, knew not well how to combat this sudden resolution.
+
+Perhaps there was something in the proposal that suited his own hardy
+nature, and that secret love of desperate adventure, which had increased
+with his experience, until hazard and danger had become, in some
+measure, necessary to the enjoyment of his existence. Instead of
+continuing to oppose the scheme of Duncan, his humor suddenly altered,
+and he lent himself to its execution.
+
+"Come," he said, with a good-humored smile; "the buck that will take to
+the water must be headed, and not followed. Chingachgook has as many
+different paints as the engineer officer's wife, who takes down natur'
+on scraps of paper, making the mountains look like cocks of rusty hay,
+and placing the blue sky in reach of your hand. The Sagamore can use
+them, too. Seat yourself on the log; and my life on it, he can soon make
+a natural fool of you, and that well to your liking."
+
+Duncan complied; and the Mohican, who had been an attentive listener to
+the discourse, readily undertook the office. Long practised in all the
+subtle arts of his race, he drew, with great dexterity and quickness,
+the fantastic shadow that the natives were accustomed to consider as the
+evidence of a friendly and jocular disposition. Every line that could
+possibly be interpreted into a secret inclination for war, was carefully
+avoided; while, on the other hand, he studied those conceits that might
+be construed into amity.
+
+In short, he entirely sacrificed every appearance of the warrior to the
+masquerade of a buffoon. Such exhibitions were not uncommon among the
+Indians; and as Duncan was already sufficiently disguised in his dress,
+there certainly did exist some reason for believing that, with his
+knowledge of French, he might pass for a juggler from Ticonderoga,
+straggling among the allied and friendly tribes.
+
+When he was thought to be sufficiently painted, the scout gave him much
+friendly advice; concerted signals, and appointed the place where they
+should meet, in the event of mutual success. The parting between Munro
+and his young friend was more melancholy; still, the former submitted to
+the separation with an indifference that his warm and honest nature
+would never have permitted in a more healthful state of mind. The scout
+led Heyward aside, and acquainted him with his intention to leave the
+veteran in some safe encampment, in charge of Chingachgook, while he and
+Uncas pursued their inquiries among the people they had reason to
+believe were Delawares. Then renewing his cautions and advice, he
+concluded by saying, with a solemnity and warmth of feeling, with which
+Duncan was deeply touched:
+
+"And now God bless you! You have shown a spirit that I like; for it is
+the gift of youth, more especially one of warm blood and a stout heart.
+But believe the warning of a man who has reason to know all he says to
+be true. You will have occasion for your best manhood, and for a sharper
+wit than what is to be gathered in books, afore you outdo the cunning,
+or get the better of the courage of a Mingo. God bless you! if the
+Hurons master your scalp, rely on the promise of one who has two stout
+warriors to back him. They shall pay for their victory, with a life for
+every hair it holds. I say, young gentleman, may Providence bless your
+undertaking, which is altogether for good; and remember, that to outwit
+the knaves it is lawful to practise things that may not be naturally the
+gift of a white skin."
+
+Duncan shook his worthy and reluctant associate warmly by the hand, once
+more recommended his aged friend to his care, and returning his good
+wishes, he motioned to David to proceed. Hawkeye gazed after the
+high-spirited and adventurous young man for several moments, in open
+admiration; then shaking his head doubtingly, he turned, and led his own
+division of the party into the concealment of the forest.
+
+The route taken by Duncan and David lay directly across the clearing of
+the beavers, and along the margin of their pond.
+
+When the former found himself alone with one so simple, and so little
+qualified to render any assistance in desperate emergencies, he first
+began to be sensible of the difficulties of the task he had undertaken.
+The fading light increased the gloominess of the bleak and savage
+wilderness that stretched so far on every side of him; and there was
+even a fearful character in the stillness of those little huts, that he
+knew were so abundantly peopled. It struck him, as he gazed at the
+admirable structures and the wonderful precautions of their sagacious
+inmates, that even the brutes of these vast wilds were possessed of an
+instinct nearly commensurate with his own reason; and he could not
+reflect, without anxiety, on the unequal contest that he had so rashly
+courted. Then came the glowing image of Alice; her distress; her actual
+danger; and all the peril of his situation was forgotten. Cheering
+David, he moved on with the light and vigorous step of youth and
+enterprise.
+
+After making nearly a semicircle around the pond, they diverged from the
+water-course, and began to ascend to the level of a slight elevation in
+that bottom land, over which they journeyed. Within half an hour they
+gained the margin of another opening that bore all the signs of having
+been also made by the beavers, and which those sagacious animals had
+probably been induced, by some accident, to abandon, for the more
+eligible position they now occupied. A very natural sensation caused
+Duncan to hesitate a moment, unwilling to leave the cover of their bushy
+path, as a man pauses to collect his energies before he essays any
+hazardous experiment, in which he is secretly conscious they will all be
+needed. He profited by the halt, to gather such information as might be
+obtained from his short and hasty glances.
+
+On the opposite side of the clearing, and near the point where the brook
+tumbled over some rocks, from a still higher level, some fifty or sixty
+lodges, rudely fabricated of logs, brush, and earth intermingled, were
+to be discovered. They were arranged without any order, and seemed to be
+constructed with very little attention to neatness or beauty. Indeed, so
+very inferior were they in the two latter particulars to the village
+Duncan had just seen, that he began to expect a second surprise, no less
+astonishing than the former. This expectation was in no degree
+diminished, when, by the doubtful twilight, he beheld twenty or thirty
+forms rising alternately from the cover of the tall, coarse grass, in
+front of the lodges, and then sinking again from the sight, as it were
+to burrow in the earth. By the sudden and hasty glimpses that he caught
+of these figures, they seemed more like dark glancing spectres, or some
+other unearthly beings, than creatures fashioned with the ordinary and
+vulgar materials of flesh and blood. A gaunt, naked form was seen, for a
+single instant, tossing its arms wildly in the air, and then the spot it
+had filled was vacant; the figure appearing suddenly in some other and
+distant place, or being succeeded by another, possessing the same
+mysterious character. David, observing that his companion lingered,
+pursued the direction of his gaze, and in some measure recalled the
+recollection of Heyward, by speaking.
+
+"There is much fruitful soil uncultivated here," he said; "and I may
+add, without the sinful leaven of self-commendation, that since my short
+sojourn in these heathenish abodes, much good seed has been scattered by
+the wayside."
+
+"The tribes are fonder of the chase than of the arts of men of labor,"
+returned the unconscious Duncan, still gazing at the objects of his
+wonder.
+
+"It is rather joy than labor to the spirit, to lift up the voice in
+praise; but sadly do these boys abuse their gifts. Rarely have I found
+any of their age, on whom nature has so freely bestowed the elements of
+psalmody; and surely, surely, there are none who neglect them more.
+Three nights have I now tarried here, and three several times have I
+assembled the urchins to join in sacred song; and as often have they
+responded to my efforts with whoopings and howlings that have chilled my
+soul!"
+
+"Of whom speak you?"
+
+"Of those children of the devil, who waste the precious moments in
+yonder idle antics. Ah! the wholesome restraint of discipline is but
+little known among this self-abandoned people. In a country of birches,
+a rod is never seen; and it ought not to appear a marvel in my eyes,
+that the choicest blessings of Providence are wasted in such cries as
+these."
+
+David closed his ears against the juvenile pack, whose yell just then
+rang shrilly through the forest; and Duncan, suffering his lip to curl,
+as in mockery of his own superstition, said firmly:
+
+"We will proceed."
+
+Without removing the safeguards from his ears, the master of song
+complied, and together they pursued their way towards what David was
+sometimes wont to call "the tents of the Philistines."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+  "But though the beast of game
+  The privilege of chase may claim;
+  Though space and law the stag we lend
+  Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend;
+  Who ever recked, where, how, or when
+  The prowling fox was trapped or slain?"
+
+  _Lady of the Lake._
+
+
+It is unusual to find an encampment of the natives, like those of the
+more instructed whites, guarded by the presence of armed men. Well
+informed of the approach of every danger, while it is yet at a distance,
+the Indian generally rests secure under his knowledge of the signs of
+the forest, and the long and difficult paths that separate him from
+those he has most reason to dread. But the enemy who, by any lucky
+concurrence of accidents, has found means to elude the vigilance of the
+scouts, will seldom meet with sentinels nearer home to sound the alarm.
+In addition to this general usage, the tribes friendly to the French
+knew too well the weight of the blow that had just been struck, to
+apprehend any immediate danger from the hostile nations that were
+tributary to the crown of Britain.
+
+When Duncan and David, therefore, found themselves in the centre of the
+children, who played the antics already mentioned, it was with the least
+previous intimation of their approach. But so soon as they were
+observed, the whole of the juvenile pack raised, by common consent, a
+shrill and warning whoop; and then sank, as it were, by magic, from
+before the sight of their visitors. The naked, tawny bodies of the
+crouching urchins blended so nicely, at that hour, with the withered
+herbage, that at first it seemed as if the earth had, in truth,
+swallowed up their forms; though when surprise permitted Duncan to bend
+his look more curiously about the spot, he found it everywhere met by
+dark, quick, and rolling eyeballs.
+
+Gathering no encouragement from this startling presage of the nature of
+the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of
+the men, there was an instant when the young soldier would have
+retreated. It was, however, too late to appear to hesitate. The cry of
+the children had drawn a dozen warriors to the door of the nearest
+lodge, where they stood clustered in a dark and savage group, gravely
+awaiting the nearer approach of those who had unexpectedly come among
+them.
+
+David, in some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way with a
+steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert, into this
+very building. It was the principal edifice of the village, though
+roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees; being the lodge
+in which the tribe held its councils and public meetings during their
+temporary residence on the borders of the English province. Duncan found
+it difficult to assume the necessary appearance of unconcern, as he
+brushed the dark and powerful frames of the savages who thronged its
+threshold; but, conscious that his existence depended on his presence of
+mind, he trusted to the discretion of his companion, whose footsteps he
+closely followed, endeavoring, as he proceeded, to rally his thoughts
+for the occasion. His blood curdled when he found himself in absolute
+contact with such fierce and implacable enemies; but he so far mastered
+his feelings as to pursue his way into the centre of the lodge, with an
+exterior that did not betray the weakness. Imitating the example of the
+deliberate Gamut, he drew a bundle of fragrant brush from beneath a pile
+that filled a corner of the hut, and seated himself in silence.
+
+So soon as their visitor had passed, the observant warriors fell back
+from the entrance, and arranging themselves about him, they seemed
+patiently to await the moment when it might comport with the dignity of
+the stranger to speak. By far the greater number stood leaning, in lazy,
+lounging attitudes, against the upright posts that supported the crazy
+building, while three or four of the oldest and most distinguished of
+the chiefs placed themselves on the earth a little more in advance.
+
+A flaring torch was burning in the place, and sent its red glare from
+face to face and figure to figure, as it waved in the currents of air.
+Duncan profited by its light to read the probable character of his
+reception, in the countenances of his hosts. But his ingenuity availed
+him little, against the cold artifices of the people he had encountered.
+The chiefs in front scarce cast a glance at his person, keeping their
+eyes on the ground, with an air that might have been intended for
+respect, but which it was quite easy to construe into distrust. The men
+in shadow were less reserved. Duncan soon detected their searching, but
+stolen looks, which, in truth, scanned his person and attire inch by
+inch; leaving no emotion of the countenance, no gesture, no line of the
+paint, nor even the fashion of a garment, unheeded, and without comment.
+
+At length one whose hair was beginning to be sprinkled with gray, but
+whose sinewy limbs and firm tread announced that he was still equal to
+the duties of manhood, advanced out of the gloom of a corner, whither he
+had probably posted himself to make his observations unseen, and spoke.
+He used the language of the Wyandots, or Hurons; his words were,
+consequently, unintelligible to Heyward, though they seemed, by the
+gestures that accompanied them, to be uttered more in courtesy than
+anger. The latter shook his head, and made a gesture indicative of his
+inability to reply.
+
+"Do none of my brothers speak the French or the English?" he said, in
+the former language, looking about him from countenance to countenance,
+in hopes of finding a nod of assent.
+
+Though more than one had turned, as if to catch the meaning of his
+words, they remained unanswered.
+
+"I should be grieved to think," continued Duncan, speaking slowly, and
+using the simplest French of which he was the master, "to believe, that
+none of this wise and brave nation understand the language that the
+'Grand Monarque' uses when he talks to his children. His heart would be
+heavy did he believe his red warriors paid him so little respect!"
+
+A long and grave pause succeeded, during which no movement of a limb,
+nor any expression of an eye, betrayed the impression produced by his
+remark. Duncan, who knew that silence was a virtue among his hosts,
+gladly had recourse to the custom, in order to arrange his ideas. At
+length the same warrior who had before addressed him replied, by dryly
+demanding, in the language of the Canadas--
+
+"When our Great Father speaks to his people, is it with the tongue of a
+Huron?"
+
+"He knows no difference in his children, whether the color of the skin
+be red, or black, or white," returned Duncan, evasively; "though chiefly
+is he satisfied with the brave Hurons."
+
+"In what manner will he speak," demanded the wary chief, "when the
+runners count to him the scalps which five nights ago grew on the heads
+of the Yengeese?"
+
+"They were his enemies," said Duncan, shuddering involuntarily; "and,
+doubtless, he will say, It is good; my Hurons are very gallant."
+
+"Our Canada father does not think it. Instead of looking forward to
+reward his Indians, his eyes are turned backward. He sees the dead
+Yengeese, but no Huron. What can this mean?"
+
+"A great chief, like him, has more thoughts than tongues. He looks to
+see that no enemies are on his trail."
+
+"The canoe of a dead warrior will not float on the Horican," returned
+the savage, gloomily. "His ears are open to the Delawares, who are not
+our friends, and they fill them with lies."
+
+"It cannot be. See; he has bid me, who am a man that knows the art of
+healing, to go to his children, the red Hurons of the great lakes, and
+ask if any are sick!"
+
+Another silence succeeded this annunciation of the character Duncan had
+assumed. Every eye was simultaneously bent on his person, as if to
+inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declaration, with an
+intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of their scrutiny to
+tremble for the result. He was, however, relieved again by the former
+speaker.
+
+"Do the cunning men of the Canadas paint their skins?" the Huron coldly
+continued; "we have heard them boast that their faces were pale."
+
+"When an Indian chief comes among his white fathers," returned Duncan,
+with great steadiness, "he lays aside his buffalo robe, to carry the
+shirt that is offered him. My brothers have given me paint, and I wear
+it."
+
+A low murmur of applause announced that the compliment to the tribe was
+favorably received. The elderly chief made a gesture of commendation,
+which was answered by most of his companions, who each threw forth a
+hand, and uttered a brief exclamation of pleasure. Duncan began to
+breathe more freely, believing that the weight of his examination was
+past; and as he had already prepared a simple and probable tale to
+support his pretended occupation, his hopes of ultimate success grew
+brighter.
+
+After a silence of a few moments, as if adjusting his thoughts, in order
+to make a suitable answer to the declaration their guest had just given,
+another warrior arose, and placed himself in an attitude to speak. While
+his lips were yet in the act of parting, a low but fearful sound arose
+from the forest, and was immediately succeeded by a high, shrill yell,
+that was drawn out, until it equalled the longest and most plaintive
+howl of the wolf. The sudden and terrible interruption caused Duncan to
+start from his seat, unconscious of everything but the effect produced
+by so frightful a cry. At the same moment, the warriors glided in a body
+from the lodge, and the outer air was filled with loud shouts, that
+nearly drowned those awful sounds, which were still ringing beneath the
+arches of the woods. Unable to command himself any longer, the youth
+broke from the place, and presently stood in the centre of a disorderly
+throng, that included nearly everything having life, within the limits
+of the encampment. Men, women, and children; the aged, the infirm, the
+active, and the strong, were alike abroad; some exclaiming aloud, others
+clapping their hands with a joy that seemed frantic, and all expressing
+their savage pleasure in some unexpected event. Though astounded, at
+first, by the uproar, Heyward was soon enabled to find its solution by
+the scene that followed.
+
+There yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit those
+bright openings among the tree-tops, where different paths left the
+clearing to enter the depths of the wilderness. Beneath one of them, a
+line of warriors issued from the woods, and advanced slowly towards the
+dwellings. One in front bore a short pole, on which, as it afterwards
+appeared, were suspended several human scalps. The startling sounds that
+Duncan had heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called
+the "death-halloo;" and each repetition of the cry was intended to
+announce to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of
+Heyward assisted him in the explanation; and as he now knew that the
+interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return of a successful
+war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted in inward
+congratulation, for the opportune relief and insignificance it conferred
+on himself.
+
+When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges, the newly
+arrived warriors halted. Their plaintive and terrific cry, which was
+intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead and the triumph
+of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their number now called
+aloud, in words that were far from appalling, though not more
+intelligible to those for whose ears they were intended, than their
+expressive yells. It would be difficult to convey a suitable idea of the
+savage ecstasy with which the news thus imparted was received. The whole
+encampment, in a moment, became a scene of the most violent bustle and
+commotion. The warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they
+arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended from the
+war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes, or whatever
+weapon of offence first offered itself to their hands, and rushed
+eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was at hand. Even the
+children would not be excluded; but boys, little able to wield the
+instruments, tore the tomahawks from the belts of their fathers, and
+stole into the ranks, apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited by
+their parents.
+
+Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and a wary and
+aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might serve to light the
+coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its power exceeded that of the
+parting day, and assisted to render objects at the same time more
+distinct and more hideous. The whole scene formed a striking picture,
+whose frame was composed of the dark and tall border of pines. The
+warriors just arrived were the most distant figures. A little in advance
+stood two men, who were apparently selected from the rest, as the
+principal actors in what was to follow. The light was not strong enough
+to render their features distinct, though it was quite evident that they
+were governed by very different emotions. While one stood erect and
+firm, prepared to meet his fate like a hero, the other bowed his head,
+as if palsied by terror or stricken with shame. The high-spirited Duncan
+felt a powerful impulse of admiration and pity towards the former,
+though no opportunity could offer to exhibit his generous emotions. He
+watched his slightest movement, however, with eager eyes; and as he
+traced the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and active frame,
+he endeavored to persuade himself, that if the powers of man, seconded
+by such noble resolution, could bear one harmless through so severe a
+trial, the youthful captive before him might hope for success in the
+hazardous race he was about to run. Insensibly the young man drew nigher
+to the swarthy lines of the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense
+became his interest in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was
+given, and the momentary quiet which had preceded it was broken by a
+burst of cries, that far exceeded any before heard. The most abject of
+the two victims continued motionless; but the other bounded from the
+place at the cry, with the activity and swiftness of a deer. Instead of
+rushing through the hostile lines, as had been expected, he just
+entered the dangerous defile, and before time was given for a single
+blow, turned short, and leaping the heads of a row of children, he
+gained at once the exterior and safer side of the formidable array. The
+artifice was answered by a hundred voices raised in imprecations; and
+the whole of the excited multitude broke from their order, and spread
+themselves about the place in wild confusion.
+
+A dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the place,
+which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena, in which
+malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody and lawless rites.
+The forms in the background looked like unearthly beings, gliding before
+the eye, and cleaving the air with frantic and unmeaning gestures; while
+the savage passions of such as passed the flames, were rendered
+fearfully distinct by the gleams that shot athwart their inflamed
+visages.
+
+It will easily be understood, that amid such a concourse of vindictive
+enemies, no breathing time was allowed the fugitive. There was a single
+moment when it seemed as if he would have reached the forest, but the
+whole body of his captors threw themselves before him, and drove him
+back into the centre of his relentless persecutors. Turning like a
+headed deer, he shot, with the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar
+of forked flame, and passing the whole multitude harmless, he appeared
+on the opposite side of the clearing. Here too he was met and turned by
+a few of the older and more subtle of the Hurons. Once more he tried the
+throng, as if seeking safety in its blindness, and then several moments
+succeeded, during which Duncan believed the active and courageous young
+stranger was lost.
+
+Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed and
+involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and
+formidable clubs, appeared above them, but the blows were evidently
+given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks
+of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan
+caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate
+bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained
+the command of his astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly the
+multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where he himself
+stood. The heavy body in the rear pressed upon the women and children in
+front, and bore them to the earth. The stranger reappeared in the
+confusion. Human power could not, however, much longer endure so severe
+a trial. Of this the captive seemed conscious. Profiting by the
+momentary opening, he darted from among the warriors, and made a
+desperate, and, what seemed to Duncan, a final effort to gain the wood.
+As if aware that no danger was to be apprehended from the young soldier,
+the fugitive nearly brushed his person in his flight. A tall and
+powerful Huron, who had husbanded his forces, pressed close upon his
+heels, and with an uplifted arm menaced a fatal blow. Duncan thrust
+forth a foot, and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many
+feet in advance of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker
+than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage; he
+turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and at
+the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed
+around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against a
+small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal lodge.
+
+Apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might prove fatal
+to himself, Duncan left the place without delay. He followed the crowd,
+which drew nigh the lodges, gloomy and sullen, like any other multitude
+that had been disappointed in an execution. Curiosity, or perhaps a
+better feeling, induced him to approach the stranger. He found him,
+standing with one arm cast about the protecting post, and breathing
+thick and hard, after his exertions, but disdaining to permit a single
+sign of suffering to escape. His person was now protected by immemorial
+and sacred usage, until the tribe in council had deliberated and
+determined on his fate. It was not difficult, however, to foretell the
+result, if any presage could be drawn from the feelings of those who
+crowded the place.
+
+There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary that the
+disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the successful stranger.
+They flouted at his efforts, and told him, with bitter scoffs, that his
+feet were better than his hands; and that he merited wings, while he
+knew not the use of an arrow or a knife. To all this the captive made no
+reply; but was content to preserve an attitude in which dignity was
+singularly blended with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure as
+by his good-fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were
+succeeded by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who had
+taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her way through
+the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive. The
+squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained for her
+the character of possessing more than human cunning. Throwing back her
+light vestment, she stretched forth her long skinny arm, in derision,
+and using the language of the Lenape, as more intelligible to the
+subject of her gibes, she commenced aloud--
+
+"Look you, Delaware!" she said, snapping her fingers in his face; "your
+nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your hands
+than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear, or a
+wild cat, or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The Huron
+girls shall make you petticoats, and we will find you a husband."
+
+A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which the soft
+and musical merriment of the younger females strangely chimed with the
+cracked voice of their older and more malignant companion. But the
+stranger was superior to all their efforts. His head was immovable; nor
+did he betray the slightest consciousness that any were present, except
+when his haughty eye rolled towards the dusky forms of the warriors, who
+stalked in the background, silent and sullen observers of the scene.
+
+Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman placed her arms
+akimbo; and throwing herself into a posture of defiance, she broke out
+anew, in a torrent of words that no art of ours could commit
+successfully to paper. Her breath was, however, expended in vain; for,
+although distinguished in her own nation as a proficient in the art of
+abuse, she was permitted to work herself into such a fury as actually to
+foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless
+figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend
+itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting
+the condition of a boy, to enter the state of manhood, attempted to
+assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim,
+and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the woman. Then, indeed,
+the captive turned his face towards the light, and looked down on the
+stripling with an expression that was superior to contempt. At the next
+moment he resumed his quiet and reclining attitude against the post. But
+the change of posture had permitted Duncan to exchange glances with the
+firm and piercing eyes of Uncas.
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE TERMAGANT
+
+_Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth her long skinny
+arm, in derision_]
+
+Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed with the critical
+situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled before the look, trembling
+lest its meaning might, in some unknown manner, hasten the prisoner's
+fate. There was not, however, any instant cause for such an
+apprehension. Just then a warrior forced his way into the exasperated
+crowd. Motioning the women and children aside with a stern gesture, he
+took Uncas by the arm, and led him towards the door of the council
+lodge. Thither all the chiefs, and most of the distinguished warriors,
+followed; among whom the anxious Heyward found means to enter without
+attracting any dangerous attention to himself.
+
+A few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present in a manner
+suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe. An order very similar
+to that adopted in the preceding interview was observed; the aged and
+superior chiefs occupying the area of the spacious apartment, within the
+powerful light of a glaring torch, while their juniors and inferiors
+were arranged in the background, presenting a dark outline of swarthy
+and marked visages. In the very centre of the lodge, immediately under
+an opening that admitted the twinkling light of one or two stars, stood
+Uncas, calm, elevated, and collected. His high and haughty carriage was
+not lost on his captors, who often bent their looks on his person, with
+eyes which, while they lost none of their inflexibility of purpose,
+plainly betrayed their admiration of the stranger's daring.
+
+The case was different with the individual whom Duncan had observed to
+stand forth with his friend, previously to the desperate trial of speed;
+and who, instead of joining in the chase, had remained, throughout its
+turbulent uproar, like a cringing statue, expressive of shame and
+disgrace. Though not a hand had been extended to greet him, nor yet an
+eye had condescended to watch his movements, he had also entered the
+lodge, as though impelled by a fate to whose decrees he submitted,
+seemingly, without a struggle. Heyward profited by the first opportunity
+to gaze in his face, secretly apprehensive he might find the features of
+another acquaintance; but they proved to be those of a stranger, and,
+what was still more inexplicable, of one who bore all the distinctive
+marks of a Huron warrior. Instead of mingling with his tribe, however,
+he sat apart, a solitary being in a multitude, his form shrinking into a
+crouching and abject attitude, as if anxious to fill as little space as
+possible. When each individual had taken his proper station, and silence
+reigned in the place, the gray-haired chief already introduced to the
+reader, spoke aloud, in the language of the Lenni Lenape.
+
+"Delaware," he said, "though one of a nation of women, you have proved
+yourself a man. I would give you food; but he who eats with a Huron
+should become his friend. Rest in peace till the morning sun, when our
+last words shall be spoken."
+
+"Seven nights, and as many summer days, have I fasted on the trail of
+the Hurons," Uncas coldly replied; "the children of the Lenape know how
+to travel the path of the just without lingering to eat."
+
+"Two of my young men are in pursuit of your companion," resumed the
+other, without appearing to regard the boast of his captive; "when they
+get back, then will our wise men say to you 'live' or 'die.'"
+
+"Has a Huron no ears?" scornfully exclaimed Uncas; "twice, since he has
+been your prisoner, has the Delaware heard a gun that he knows. Your
+young men will never come back!"
+
+A short and sullen pause succeeded this bold assertion. Duncan, who
+understood the Mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of the scout, bent
+forward in earnest observation of the effect it might produce on the
+conquerors; but the chief was content with simply retorting,--
+
+"If the Lenape are so skilful, why is one of their bravest warriors
+here?"
+
+"He followed in the steps of a flying coward, and fell into a snare. The
+cunning beaver may be caught."
+
+As Uncas thus replied, he pointed with his finger toward the solitary
+Huron, but without deigning to bestow any other notice on so unworthy an
+object. The words of the answer and the air of the speaker produced a
+strong sensation among his auditors. Every eye rolled sullenly towards
+the individual indicated by the simple gesture, and a low, threatening
+murmur passed through the crowd. The ominous sounds reached the outer
+door, and the women and children pressing into the throng, no gap had
+been left, between shoulder and shoulder, that was not now filled with
+the dark lineaments of some eager and curious human countenance.
+
+In the meantime, the more aged chiefs, in the centre, communed with each
+other in short and broken sentences. Not a word was uttered that did not
+convey the meaning of the speaker, in the simplest and most energetic
+form. Again, a long and deeply solemn pause took place. It was known,
+by all present, to be the grave precursor of a weighty and important
+judgment. They who composed the outer circle of faces were on tiptoe to
+gaze; and even the culprit for an instant forgot his shame in a deeper
+emotion, and exposed his abject features, in order to cast an anxious
+and troubled glance at the dark assemblage of chiefs. The silence was
+finally broken by the aged warrior so often named. He arose from the
+earth, and moving past the immovable form of Uncas, placed himself in a
+dignified attitude before the offender. At that moment, the withered
+squaw already mentioned moved into the circle, in a slow, sideling sort
+of a dance, holding the torch, and muttering the indistinct words of
+what might have been a species of incantation. Though her presence was
+altogether an intrusion, it was unheeded.
+
+Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in such a manner as to
+cast its red glare on his person, and to expose the slightest emotion of
+his countenance. The Mohican maintained his firm and haughty attitude;
+and his eye, so far from deigning to meet her inquisitive look, dwelt
+steadily on the distance, as though it penetrated the obstacles which
+impeded the view, and looked into futurity. Satisfied with her
+examination, she left him, with a slight expression of pleasure, and
+proceeded to practise the same trying experiment on her delinquent
+countryman.
+
+The young Huron was in his war paint, and very little of a finely
+moulded form was concealed by his attire. The light rendered every limb
+and joint discernible, and Duncan turned away in horror when he saw they
+were writhing in irrepressible agony. The woman was commencing a low and
+plaintive howl at the sad and shameful spectacle, when the chief put
+forth his hand and gently pushed her aside.
+
+"Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by name, and in
+his proper language, "though the Great Spirit has made you pleasant to
+the eyes, it would have been better that you had not been born. Your
+tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my
+young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post--none of them so
+lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they
+have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on
+you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never
+be mentioned again in your tribe--it is already forgotten."
+
+As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between
+each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's
+rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments.
+His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the
+persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for
+an instant predominated. He arose to his feet, and baring his bosom,
+looked steadily on the keen, glittering knife, that was already upheld
+by his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart he
+even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he
+had anticipated, and fell heavily on his face, at the feet of the rigid
+and unyielding form of Uncas.
+
+The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to the earth,
+and buried everything in darkness. The whole shuddering group of
+spectators glided from the lodge, like troubled sprites; and Duncan
+thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an Indian
+judgment had now become its only tenants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+  "Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
+  Dissolve the council, and their chief obey."
+
+  POPE'S _Iliad._
+
+
+A single moment served to convince the youth that he was mistaken. A
+hand was laid, with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and the low voice
+of Uncas muttered in his ears,--
+
+"The Hurons are dogs. The sight of a coward's blood can never make a
+warrior tremble. The 'Gray Head' and the Sagamore are safe, and the
+rifle of Hawkeye is not asleep. Go,--Uncas and the 'Open Hand' are now
+strangers. It is enough."
+
+Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a gentle push from his friend
+urged him towards the door, and admonished him of the danger that might
+attend the discovery of their intercourse. Slowly and reluctantly
+yielding to the necessity, he quitted the place, and mingled with the
+throng that hovered nigh. The dying fires in the clearing cast a dim and
+uncertain light on the dusky figures that were silently stalking to and
+fro; and occasionally a brighter gleam than common glanced into the
+lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas still maintaining its upright
+attitude near the dead body of the Huron.
+
+A knot of warriors soon entered the place again, and reissuing, they
+bore the senseless remains into the adjacent woods. After this
+termination of the scene, Duncan wandered among the lodges, unquestioned
+and unnoticed, endeavoring to find some trace of her in whose behalf he
+incurred the risk he ran. In the present temper of the tribe, it would
+have been easy to have fled and rejoined his companions, had such a wish
+crossed his mind. But, in addition to the never-ceasing anxiety on
+account of Alice, a fresher, though feebler interest in the fate of
+Uncas assisted to chain him to the spot. He continued, therefore, to
+stray from hut to hut, looking into each only to encounter additional
+disappointment, until he had made the entire circuit of the village.
+Abandoning a species of inquiry that proved so fruitless, he retraced
+his steps to the council lodge, resolved to seek and question David, in
+order to put an end to his doubts.
+
+On reaching the building which had proved alike the seat of judgment
+and the place of execution, the young man found that the excitement had
+already subsided. The warriors had reassembled, and were now calmly
+smoking, while they conversed gravely on the chief incidents of their
+recent expedition to the head of the Horican. Though the return of
+Duncan was likely to remind them of his character, and the suspicious
+circumstances of his visit, it produced no visible sensation. So far,
+the terrible scene that had just occurred proved favorable to his views,
+and he required no other prompter than his own feelings to convince him
+of the expediency of profiting by so unexpected an advantage.
+
+Without seeming to hesitate, he walked into the lodge, and took his seat
+with a gravity that accorded admirably with the deportment of his hosts.
+A hasty but searching glance sufficed to tell him that, though Uncas
+still remained where he had left him, David had not reappeared. No other
+restraint was imposed on the former than the watchful looks of a young
+Huron, who had placed himself at hand; though an armed warrior leaned
+against the post that formed one side of the narrow door-way. In every
+other respect, the captive seemed at liberty; still he was excluded from
+all participation in the discourse, and possessed much more of the air
+of some finely moulded statue than a man having life and volition.
+
+Heyward had too recently witnessed a frightful instance of the prompt
+punishments of the people into whose hands he had fallen, to hazard an
+exposure by any officious boldness. He would greatly have preferred
+silence and meditation to speech, when a discovery of his real condition
+might prove so instantly fatal. Unfortunately for this prudent
+resolution, his entertainers appeared otherwise disposed. He had not
+long occupied the seat wisely taken a little in the shade, when another
+of the elder warriors, who spoke the French language, addressed him:--
+
+"My Canada father does not forget his children," said the chief; "I
+thank him. An evil spirit lives in the wife of one of my young men. Can
+the cunning stranger frighten him away?"
+
+Heyward possessed some knowledge of the mummery practised among the
+Indians, in the cases of such supposed visitations. He saw, at a glance,
+that the circumstance might possibly be improved to further his own end.
+It would, therefore, have been difficult, just then, to have uttered a
+proposal that would have given him more satisfaction. Aware of the
+necessity of preserving the dignity of his imaginary character, however,
+he repressed his feelings, and answered with suitable mystery,--
+
+"Spirits differ; some yield to the power of wisdom, while others are too
+strong."
+
+"My brother is a great medicine," said the cunning savage; "he will
+try?"
+
+A gesture of assent was the answer. The Huron was content with the
+assurance, and resuming his pipe, he awaited the proper moment to move.
+The impatient Heyward, inwardly execrating the cold customs of the
+savages, which required such sacrifices to appearance, was fain to
+assume an air of indifference, equal to that maintained by the chief,
+who was, in truth, a near relative of the afflicted woman. The minutes
+lingered, and the delay had seemed an hour to the adventurer in
+empiricism, when the Huron laid aside his pipe, and drew his robe across
+his breast, as if about to lead the way to the lodge of the invalid.
+Just then, a warrior of powerful frame darkened the door, and stalking
+silently among the attentive group, he seated himself on one end of the
+low pile of brush which sustained Duncan. The latter cast an impatient
+look at his neighbor, and felt his flesh creep with uncontrollable
+horror when he found himself in actual contact with Magua.
+
+The sudden return of this artful and dreaded chief caused a delay in the
+departure of the Huron. Several pipes, that had been extinguished, were
+lighted again; while the newcomer, without speaking a word, drew his
+tomahawk from his girdle, and filling the bowl on its head, began to
+inhale the vapors of the weed through the hollow handle, with as much
+indifference as if he had not been absent two weary days on a long and
+toilsome hunt. Ten minutes, which appeared so many ages to Duncan, might
+have passed in this manner; and the warriors were fairly enveloped in a
+cloud of white smoke before any of them spoke.
+
+"Welcome!" one at length uttered; "has my friend found the moose?"
+
+"The young men stagger under their burdens," returned Magua. "Let
+'Reed-that-bends' go on the hunting-path; he will meet them."
+
+A deep and awful silence succeeded the utterance of the forbidden name.
+Each pipe dropped from the lips of its owner as though all had inhaled
+an impurity at the same instant. The smoke wreathed above their heads in
+little eddies, and curling in a spiral form, it ascended swiftly
+through the opening in the roof of the lodge, leaving the place beneath
+clear of its fumes, and each dark visage distinctly visible. The looks
+of most of the warriors were riveted on the earth; though a few of the
+younger and less gifted of the party suffered their wild and glaring
+eyeballs to roll in the direction of a white-headed savage, who sat
+between two of the most venerated chiefs of the tribe. There was nothing
+in the air or attire of this Indian that would seem to entitle him to
+such a distinction. The former was rather depressed, than remarkable for
+the bearing of the natives; and the latter was such as was commonly worn
+by the ordinary men of the nation. Like most around him, for more than a
+minute his look too was on the ground; but, trusting his eyes at length
+to steal a glance aside, he perceived that he was becoming an object of
+general attention. Then he arose and lifted his voice in the general
+silence.
+
+"It was a lie," he said; "I had no son. He who was called by that name
+is forgotten; his blood was pale; and it came not from the veins of a
+Huron; the wicked Chippewas cheated my squaw. The Great Spirit has said,
+that the family of Wiss-entush should end; he is happy who knows that
+the evil of his race dies with himself. I have done."
+
+The speaker, who was the father of the recreant young Indian, looked
+round and about him, as if seeking commendation of his stoicism in the
+eyes of his auditors. But the stern customs of his people had made too
+severe an exaction of the feeble old man. The expression of his eye
+contradicted his figurative and boastful language, while every muscle in
+his wrinkled visage was working with anguish. Standing a single minute
+to enjoy his bitter triumph, he turned away, as if sickening at the gaze
+of men, and veiling his face in his blanket, he walked from the lodge
+with the noiseless step of an Indian, seeking, in the privacy of his own
+abode, the sympathy of one like himself, aged, forlorn, and childless.
+
+The Indians, who believe in the hereditary transmission of virtues and
+defects in character, suffered him to depart in silence. Then, with an
+elevation of breeding that many in a more cultivated state of society
+might profitably emulate, one of the chiefs drew the attention of the
+young men from the weakness they had just witnessed, by saying, in a
+cheerful voice, addressing himself in courtesy to Magua, as the newest
+comer,--
+
+"The Delawares have been like bears after the honey-pots, prowling
+around my village. But who has ever found a Huron asleep?"
+
+The darkness of the impending cloud which precedes a burst of thunder
+was not blacker than the brow of Magua as he exclaimed,--
+
+"The Delawares of the Lakes!"
+
+"Not so. They who wear the petticoats of squaws, on their own river. One
+of them has been passing the tribe."
+
+"Did my young men take his scalp?"
+
+"His legs were good, though his arm is better for the hoe than the
+tomahawk," returned the other, pointing to the immovable form of Uncas.
+
+Instead of manifesting any womanish curiosity to feast his eyes with the
+sight of a captive from a people he was known to have so much reason to
+hate, Magua continued to smoke, with the meditative air that he usually
+maintained, when there was no immediate call on his cunning or his
+eloquence. Although secretly amazed at the facts communicated by the
+speech of the aged father, he permitted himself to ask no questions,
+reserving his inquiries for a more suitable moment. It was only after a
+sufficient interval that he shook the ashes from his pipe, replaced the
+tomahawk, tightened his girdle, and arose, casting for the first time a
+glance in the direction of the prisoner, who stood a little behind him.
+The wary, though seemingly abstracted Uncas, caught a glimpse of the
+movement, and turning suddenly to the light, their looks met. Near a
+minute these two bold and untamed spirits stood regarding one another
+steadily in the eye, neither quailing in the least before the fierce
+gaze he encountered. The form of Uncas dilated, and his nostrils opened
+like those of a tiger at bay; but so rigid and unyielding was his
+posture, that he might easily have been converted by the imagination
+into an exquisite and faultless representation of the warlike deity of
+his tribe. The lineaments of the quivering features of Magua proved more
+ductile; his countenance gradually lost its character of defiance in an
+expression of ferocious joy, and heaving a breath from the very bottom
+of his chest, he pronounced aloud the very formidable name of--
+
+"Le Cerf Agile!"
+
+Each warrior sprang upon his feet at the utterance of the well known
+appellation, and there was a short period during which the stoical
+constancy of the natives was completely conquered by surprise. The
+hated and yet respected name was repeated as by one voice, carrying the
+sound even beyond the limits of the lodge. The women and children, who
+lingered around the entrance, took up the words in an echo, which was
+succeeded by another shrill and plaintive howl. The latter was not yet
+ended, when the sensation among the men had entirely abated. Each one in
+presence seated himself, as though ashamed of his precipitation; but it
+was many minutes before their meaning eyes ceased to roll towards their
+captive, in curious examination of a warrior who had so often proved his
+prowess on the best and proudest of their nation. Uncas enjoyed his
+victory, but was content with merely exhibiting his triumph by a quiet
+smile--an emblem of scorn which belongs to all time and every nation.
+
+Magua caught the expression, and raising his arm, he shook it at the
+captive, the light silver ornaments attached to his bracelet rattling
+with the trembling agitation of the limb, as, in a tone of vengeance, he
+exclaimed, in English,--
+
+"Mohican, you die!"
+
+"The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life," returned
+Uncas, in the music of the Delawares; "the tumbling river washes their
+bones; their men are squaws; their women owls. Go! call together the
+Huron dogs, that they may look upon a warrior. My nostrils are offended;
+they scent the blood of a coward."
+
+The latter allusion struck deep, and the injury rankled. Many of the
+Hurons understood the strange tongue in which the captive spoke, among
+which number was Magua. This cunning savage beheld, and instantly
+profited by his advantage. Dropping the light robe of skin from his
+shoulder, he stretched forth his arm, and commenced a burst of his
+dangerous and artful eloquence. However much his influence among his
+people had been impaired by his occasional and besetting weakness, as
+well as by his desertion of the tribe, his courage and his fame as an
+orator were undeniable. He never spoke without auditors, and rarely
+without making converts to his opinions. On the present occasion, his
+native powers were stimulated by the thirst of revenge.
+
+He again recounted the events of the attack on the island at Glenn's,
+the death of his associates, and the escape of their most formidable
+enemies. Then he described the nature and position of the mount whither
+he had led such captives as had fallen into their hands. Of his own
+bloody intentions towards the maidens, and of his baffled malice he made
+no mention, but passed rapidly on to the surprise of the party by La
+Longue Carabine, and its fatal termination. Here he paused, and looked
+about him, in affected veneration for the departed, but, in truth, to
+note the effect of his opening narrative. As usual, every eye was
+riveted on his face. Each dusky figure seemed a breathing statue, so
+motionless was the posture, so intense the attention of the individual.
+
+Then Magua dropped his voice, which had hitherto been clear, strong, and
+elevated, and touched upon the merits of the dead. No quality that was
+likely to command the sympathy of an Indian escaped his notice. One had
+never been known to follow the chase in vain; another had been
+indefatigable on the trail of their enemies. This was brave, that
+generous. In short, he so managed his allusions, that in a nation, which
+was composed of so few families, he contrived to strike every chord that
+might find, in its turn, some breast in which to vibrate.
+
+"Are the bones of my young men," he concluded, "in the burial-place of
+the Hurons? You know they are not. Their spirits are gone towards the
+setting sun, and are already crossing the great waters, to the happy
+hunting-grounds. But they departed without food, without guns or knives,
+without moccasins, naked and poor as they were born. Shall this be? Are
+their souls to enter the land of the just like hungry Iroquois or
+unmanly Delawares; or shall they meet their friends with arms in their
+hands and robes on their backs? What will our fathers think the tribes
+of the Wyandots have become? They will look on their children with a
+dark eye, and say, Go! a Chippewa has come hither with the name of a
+Huron. Brothers, we must not forget the dead; a redskin never ceases to
+remember. We will load the back of this Mohican until he staggers under
+our bounty, and despatch him after my young men. They call to us for
+aid, though our ears are not open; they say, Forget us not. When they
+see the spirit of this Mohican toiling after them with his burden, they
+will know we are of that mind. Then will they go on happy; and our
+children will say, 'So did our fathers to their friends, so must we do
+to them.' What is a Yengee? we have slain many, but the earth is still
+pale. A stain on the name of a Huron can only be hid by blood that comes
+from the veins of an Indian. Let this Delaware die."
+
+The effect of such an harangue, delivered in the nervous language and
+with the emphatic manner of a Huron orator, could scarcely be mistaken.
+Magua had so artfully blended the natural sympathies with the religious
+superstition of his auditors, that their minds, already prepared by
+custom to sacrifice a victim to the _manes_ of their countrymen, lost
+every vestige of humanity in a wish for revenge. One warrior in
+particular, a man of wild and ferocious mien, had been conspicuous for
+the attention he had given to the words of the speaker. His countenance
+had changed with each passing emotion, until it settled into a look of
+deadly malice. As Magua ended he arose, and uttering the yell of a
+demon, his polished little axe was seen glancing in the torch-light as
+he whirled it above his head. The motion and the cry were too sudden for
+words to interrupt his bloody intention. It appeared as if a bright
+gleam shot from his hand, which was crossed at the same moment by a dark
+and powerful line. The former was the tomahawk in its passage; the
+latter the arm that Magua darted forward to divert its aim. The quick
+and ready motion of the chief was not entirely too late. The keen weapon
+cut the war-plume from the scalping-tuft of Uncas, and passed through
+the frail wall of the lodge, as though it were hurled from some
+formidable engine.
+
+Duncan had seen the threatening action, and sprang upon his feet, with a
+heart which while it leaped into his throat, swelled with the most
+generous resolution in behalf of his friend. A glance told him that the
+blow had failed, and terror changed to admiration. Uncas stood still,
+looking his enemy in the eye with features that seemed superior to
+emotion. Marble could not be colder, calmer, or steadier than the
+countenance he put upon this sudden and vindictive attack. Then, as if
+pitying a want of skill which had proved so fortunate to himself, he
+smiled, and muttered a few words of contempt in his own tongue.
+
+"No!" said Magua, after satisfying himself of the safety of the captive;
+"the sun must shine on his shame; the squaws must see his flesh tremble,
+or our revenge will be like the play of boys. Go! take him where there
+is silence; let us see if a Delaware can sleep at night, and in the
+morning die."
+
+The young men whose duty it was to guard the prisoner instantly passed
+their ligaments of bark across his arms, and led him from the lodge,
+amid a profound and ominous silence. It was only as the figure of Uncas
+stood in the opening of the door that his firm step hesitated. There he
+turned, and, in the sweeping and haughty glance that he threw around the
+circle of his enemies, Duncan caught a look which he was glad to
+construe into an expression that he was not entirely deserted by hope.
+
+Magua was content with his success, or too much occupied with his secret
+purposes to push his inquiries any further. Shaking his mantle, and
+folding it on his bosom, he also quitted the place, without pursuing a
+subject which might have proved so fatal to the individual at his elbow.
+Notwithstanding his rising resentment, his natural firmness, and his
+anxiety in behalf of Uncas, Heyward felt sensibly relieved by the
+absence of so dangerous and so subtle a foe. The excitement produced by
+the speech gradually subsided. The warriors resumed their seats, and
+clouds of smoke once more filled the lodge. For near half an hour, not a
+syllable was uttered, or scarcely a look cast aside; a grave and
+meditative silence being the ordinary succession to every scene of
+violence and commotion among those beings, who were alike so impetuous
+and yet so self-restrained.
+
+When the chief who had solicited the aid of Duncan finished his pipe, he
+made a final and successful movement towards departing. A motion of a
+finger was the intimation he gave the supposed physician to follow; and
+passing through the clouds of smoke, Duncan was glad, on more accounts
+than one, to be able, at last, to breathe the pure air of a cool and
+refreshing summer evening.
+
+Instead of pursuing his way among those lodges where Heyward had already
+made his unsuccessful search, his companion turned aside, and proceeded
+directly towards the base of an adjacent mountain, which overhung the
+temporary village. A thicket of brush skirted its foot, and it became
+necessary to proceed through a crooked and narrow path. The boys had
+resumed their sports in the clearing, and were enacting a mimic chase to
+the post among themselves. In order to render their games as like the
+reality as possible, one of the boldest of their number had conveyed a
+few brands into some piles of tree-tops that had hitherto escaped the
+burning. The blaze of one of these fires lighted the way of the chief
+and Duncan, and gave a character of additional wildness to the rude
+scenery. At a little distance from a bald rock, and directly in its
+front, they entered a grassy opening, which they prepared to cross. Just
+then fresh fuel was added to the fire, and a powerful light penetrated
+even to that distant spot. It fell upon the white surface of the
+mountain, and was reflected downwards upon a dark and mysterious-looking
+being that arose, unexpectedly, in their path.
+
+The Indian paused, as if doubtful whether to proceed, and permitted his
+companion to approach his side. A large black ball, which at first
+seemed stationary, now began to move in a manner that to the latter was
+inexplicable. Again the fire brightened, and its glare fell more
+distinctly on the object. Then even Duncan knew it, by its restless and
+sideling attitudes, which kept the upper part of its form in constant
+motion, while the animal itself appeared seated, to be a bear. Though it
+growled loudly and fiercely, and there were instants when its glistening
+eyeballs might be seen, it gave no other indications of hostility. The
+Huron, at least, seemed assured that the intentions of this singular
+intruder were peaceable, for after giving it an attentive examination,
+he quietly pursued his course.
+
+Duncan, who knew that the animal was often domesticated among the
+Indians, followed the example of his companion, believing that some
+favorite of the tribe had found its way into the thicket, in search of
+food. They passed it unmolested. Though obliged to come nearly in
+contact with the monster, the Huron, who had at first so warily
+determined the character of his strange visitor, was now content with
+proceeding without wasting a moment in further examination; but Heyward
+was unable to prevent his eyes from looking backward, in salutary
+watchfulness against attacks in the rear. His uneasiness was in no
+degree diminished when he perceived the beast rolling along their path,
+and following their footsteps. He would have spoken, but the Indian at
+that moment shoved aside a door of bark, and entered a cavern in the
+bosom of the mountain.
+
+Profiting by so easy a method of retreat, Duncan stepped after him, and
+was gladly closing the slight cover to the opening, when he felt it
+drawn from his hand by the beast, whose shaggy form immediately darkened
+the passage. They were now in a straight and long gallery, in a chasm of
+the rocks, where retreat without encountering the animal was impossible.
+Making the best of the circumstances, the young man pressed forward,
+keeping as close as possible to his conductor. The bear growled
+frequently at his heels, and once or twice its enormous paws were laid
+on his person, as if disposed to prevent his further passage into the
+den.
+
+How long the nerves of Heyward would have sustained him in this
+extraordinary situation, it might be difficult to decide; for, happily,
+he soon found relief. A glimmer of light had constantly been in their
+front, and they now arrived at the place whence it proceeded.
+
+A large cavity in the rock had been rudely fitted to answer the purposes
+of many apartments. The subdivisions were simple but ingenious, being
+composed of stone, sticks, and bark, intermingled. Openings above
+admitted the light by day, and at night fires and torches supplied the
+place of the sun. Hither the Hurons had brought most of their valuables,
+especially those which more particularly pertained to the nation; and
+hither, as it now appeared, the sick woman, who was believed to be the
+victim of supernatural power, had been transported also, under an
+impression that her tormentor would find more difficulty in making his
+assaults through walls of stone than through the leafy coverings of the
+lodges. The apartment into which Duncan and his guide first entered, had
+been exclusively devoted to her accommodation. The latter approached her
+bedside, which was surrounded by females, in the centre of whom Heyward
+was surprised to find his missing friend David.
+
+A single look was sufficient to apprise the pretended leech that the
+invalid was far beyond his powers of healing. She lay in a sort of
+paralysis, indifferent to the objects which crowded before her sight,
+and happily unconscious of suffering. Heyward was far from regretting
+that his mummeries were to be performed on one who was much too ill to
+take an interest in their failure or success. The slight qualm of
+conscience which had been excited by the intended deception was
+instantly appeased, and he began to collect his thoughts, in order to
+enact his part with suitable spirit, when he found he was about to be
+anticipated in his skill by an attempt to prove the power of music.
+
+Gamut, who had stood prepared to pour forth his spirit in song when the
+visitors entered, after delaying a moment, drew a strain from his pipe,
+and commenced a hymn that might have worked a miracle, had faith in its
+efficacy been of much avail. He was allowed to proceed to the close, the
+Indians respecting his imaginary infirmity, and Duncan too glad of the
+delay to hazard the slightest interruption. As the dying cadence of his
+strains was falling on the ears of the latter, he started aside at
+hearing them repeated behind him in a voice half human, half
+sepulchral. Looking around, he beheld the shaggy monster seated on end
+in a shadow of the cavern, where, while his restless body swung in the
+uneasy manner of the animal, it repeated, in a sort of low growl, sound,
+if not words, which bore some slight resemblance to the melody of the
+singer.
+
+The effect of so strange an echo on David may better be imagined than
+described. His eyes opened as if he doubted their truth; and his voice
+became instantly mute in excess of wonder. A deep-laid scheme, of
+communicating some important intelligence to Heyward, was driven from
+his recollection by an emotion which very nearly resembled fear, but
+which he was fain to believe was admiration. Under its influence, he
+exclaimed aloud--"She expects you, and is at hand;" and precipitately
+left the cavern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+  _"Snug._--Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give
+    it me, for I am slow of study."
+
+  _"Quince_.--You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+There was a strange blending of the ridiculous with that which was
+solemn in this scene. The beast still continued its rolling, and
+apparently untiring movements, though its ludicrous attempt to imitate
+the melody of David ceased the instant the latter abandoned the field.
+The words of Gamut were, as has been seen, in his native tongue; and to
+Duncan they seemed pregnant with some hidden meaning, though nothing
+present assisted him in discovering the object of their illusion. A
+speedy end was, however, put to every conjecture on the subject, by the
+manner of the chief, who advanced to the bedside of the invalid, and
+beckoned away the whole group of female attendants that had clustered
+there to witness the skill of the stranger. He was implicitly, though
+reluctantly, obeyed; and when the low echo which rang along the hollow
+natural gallery from the distant closing door had ceased, pointing
+towards his insensible daughter, he said,--
+
+"Now let my brother show his power."
+
+Thus unequivocally called on to exercise the functions of his assumed
+character, Heyward was apprehensive that the smallest delay might prove
+dangerous. Endeavoring then to collect his ideas, he prepared to perform
+that species of incantation, and those uncouth rites, under which the
+Indian conjurers are accustomed to conceal their ignorance and
+impotency. It is more than probable that, in the disordered state of his
+thoughts, he would soon have fallen into some suspicious, if not fatal
+error, had not his incipient attempts been interrupted by a fierce growl
+from the quadruped. Three several times did he renew his efforts to
+proceed, and as often was he met by the same unaccountable opposition,
+each interruption seeming more savage and threatening than the
+preceding.
+
+"The cunning ones are jealous," said the Huron; "I go. Brother, the
+woman is the wife of one of my bravest young men; deal justly by her.
+Peace!" he added, beckoning to the discontented beast to be quiet; "I
+go."
+
+The chief was as good as his word, and Duncan now found himself alone in
+that wild and desolate abode, with the helpless invalid, and the fierce
+and dangerous brute. The latter listened to the movements of the Indian
+with that air of sagacity that a bear is known to possess, until another
+echo announced that he had also left the cavern, when it turned and came
+waddling up to Duncan, before whom it seated itself, in its natural
+attitude, erect like a man. The youth looked anxiously about him for
+some weapon, with which he might make a resistance against the attack he
+now seriously expected.
+
+It seemed, however, as if the humor of the animal had suddenly changed.
+Instead of continuing its discontented growls, or manifesting any
+further signs of anger, the whole of its shaggy body shook violently, as
+if agitated by some strange internal convulsion. The huge and unwieldy
+talons pawed stupidly about the grinning muzzle, and while Heyward kept
+his eyes riveted on its movements with jealous watchfulness, the grim
+head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the honest, sturdy
+countenance of the scout, who was indulging from the bottom of his soul,
+in his own peculiar expression of merriment.
+
+"Hist!" said the wary woodsman, interrupting Heyward's exclamation of
+surprise; "the varlets are about the place, and any sounds that are not
+natural to witchcraft would bring them back upon us in a body."
+
+"Tell me the meaning of this masquerade; and why you have attempted so
+desperate an adventure."
+
+"Ah! reason and calculation are often outdone by accident," returned the
+scout. "But as a story should always commence at the beginning, I will
+tell you the whole in order. After we parted I placed the commandant and
+the Sagamore in an old beaver lodge, where they are safer from the
+Hurons than they would be in the garrison of Edward, for your high
+northwest Indians, not having as yet got the traders among them,
+continue to venerate the beaver. After which Uncas and I pushed for the
+other encampment, as was agreed; have you seen the lad?"
+
+"To my great grief! he is captive, and condemned to die at the rising of
+the sun."
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE MASQUERADER
+
+_The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the honest,
+sturdy countenance of the scout_]
+
+"I had misgivings that such would be his fate," resumed the scout, in a
+less confident and joyous tone. But soon regaining his naturally firm
+voice, he continued: "His bad fortune is the true reason of my being
+here, for it would never do to abandon such a boy to the Hurons. A rare
+time the knaves would have of it, could they tie The Bounding Elk and
+The Long Carabine, as they call me, to the same stake! Though why they
+have given me such a name I never knew, there being as little likeness
+between the gifts of 'Killdeer,' and the performance of one of your real
+Canada carabynes, as there is between the natur' of a pipe-stone and a
+flint!"
+
+"Keep to your tale," said the impatient Heyward; "we know not at what
+moment the Hurons may return."
+
+"No fear of them. A conjurer must have his time, like a straggling
+priest in the settlements. We are as safe from interruption as a
+missionary would be at the beginning of a two hours' discourse. Well,
+Uncas and I fell in with a return party of the varlets; the lad was much
+too forward for a scout; nay, for that matter, being of hot blood, he
+was not so much to blame; and, after all, one of the Hurons proved a
+coward, and in fleeing led him into an ambushment."
+
+"And dearly has he paid for the weakness!"
+
+The scout significantly passed his hand across his own throat, and
+nodded, as if he said, "I comprehend your meaning." After which he
+continued, in a more audible though scarcely more intelligible
+language,--
+
+"After the loss of the boy I turned upon the Hurons, as you may judge.
+There have been scrimmages atween one or two of their outlyers and
+myself; but that is neither here nor there. So, after I had shot the
+imps, I got in pretty nigh to the lodges without further commotion. Then
+what should luck do in my favor, but lead me to the very spot where one
+of the most famous conjurers of the tribe was dressing himself, as I
+well knew, for some great battle with Satan--though why should I call
+that luck, which it now seems was an especial ordering of Providence! So
+a judgmatical rap over the head stiffened the lying impostor for a time,
+and leaving him a bit of walnut for his supper, to prevent an uproar,
+and stringing him up atween two sapplings, I made free with his finery,
+and took the part of the bear on myself, in order that the operations
+might proceed."
+
+"And admirably did you enact the character; the animal itself might have
+been shamed by the representation."
+
+"Lord, major," returned the flattered woodsman, "I should be but a poor
+scholar for one who has studied so long in the wilderness, did I not
+know how to set forth the movements and natur' of such a beast. Had it
+been now a catamount, or even a full-sized panther, I would have
+embellished a performance for you worth regarding. But it is no such
+marvellous feat to exhibit the feats of so dull a beast; though, for
+that matter too, a bear may be overacted. Yes, yes; it is not every
+imitator that knows natur' may be outdone easier than she is equalled.
+But all our work is yet before us: where is the gentle one?"
+
+"Heaven knows; I have examined every lodge in the village, without
+discovering the slightest trace of her presence in the tribe."
+
+"You heard what the singer said, as he left us,--'She is at hand, and
+expects you'?"
+
+"I have been compelled to believe he alluded to this unhappy woman."
+
+"The simpleton was frightened, and blundered through his message; but he
+had a deeper meaning. Here are walls enough to separate the whole
+settlement. A bear ought to climb; therefore will I take a look above
+them. There may be honey-pots hid in these rocks, and I am a beast you
+know, that has a hankering for the sweets."
+
+The scout looked behind him, laughing at his own conceit, while he
+clambered up the partition, imitating, as he went, the clumsy motions of
+the beast he represented; but the instant the summit was gained he made
+a gesture for silence, and slid down with the utmost precipitation.
+
+"She is here," he whispered, "and by that door you will find her. I
+would have spoken a word of comfort to the afflicted soul; but the sight
+of such a monster might upset her reason. Though for that matter, major,
+you are none of the most inviting yourself in your paint."
+
+Duncan, who had already sprung eagerly forward, drew instantly back on
+hearing these discouraging words.
+
+"Am I, then, so very revolting?" he demanded, with an air of chagrin.
+
+"You might not startle a wolf, or turn the Royal Americans from a
+charge; but I have seen the time when you had a better-favored look;
+your streaked countenances are not ill-judged of by the squaws, but
+young women of white blood give the preference to their own color. See,"
+he added, pointing to a place where the water trickled from a rock,
+forming a little crystal spring before it found an issue through the
+adjacent crevices; "you may easily get rid of the Sagamore's daub, and
+when you come back I will try my hand at a new embellishment. It's as
+common for a conjurer to alter his paint as for a buck in the
+settlements to change his finery."
+
+The deliberate woodsman had little occasion to hunt for arguments to
+enforce his advice. He was yet speaking when Duncan availed himself of
+the water. In a moment every frightful or offensive mark was
+obliterated, and the youth appeared again in the lineaments with which
+he had been gifted by nature. Thus prepared for an interview with his
+mistress, he took a hasty leave of his companion, and disappeared
+through the indicated passage. The scout witnessed his departure with
+complacency, nodding his head after him, and muttering his good wishes;
+after which he very coolly set about an examination of the state of the
+larder, among the Hurons--the cavern, among other purposes, being used
+as a receptacle for the fruits of their hunts.
+
+Duncan had no other guide than a distant glimmering light, which served,
+however, the office of a polar star to the lover. By its aid he was
+enabled to enter the haven of his hopes, which was merely another
+apartment of the cavern, that had been solely appropriated to the
+safe-keeping of so important a prisoner as a daughter of the commandant
+of William Henry. It was profusely strewed with the plunder of that
+unlucky fortress. In the midst of this confusion he found her he sought,
+pale, anxious, and terrified, but lovely. David had prepared her for
+such a visit.
+
+"Duncan!" she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to tremble at the sounds
+created by itself.
+
+"Alice" he answered, leaping carelessly among trunks, boxes, arms, and
+furniture, until he stood at her side.
+
+"I knew that you would never desert me," she said, looking up with a
+momentary glow on her otherwise dejected countenance. "But you are
+alone! grateful as it is to be thus remembered, I could wish to think
+you are not entirely alone."
+
+Duncan, observing that she trembled in a manner which betrayed her
+inability to stand, gently induced her to be seated, while he recounted
+those leading incidents which it has been our task to record. Alice
+listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched
+lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father, taking care, however, not
+to wound the self-love of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the
+cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing
+tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her
+emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided attention,
+if not with composure.
+
+"And now, Alice," he added, "you will see how much is still expected of
+you. By the assistance of our experienced and invaluable friend, the
+scout, we may find our way from this savage people, but you will have to
+exert your utmost fortitude. Remember that you fly to the arms of your
+venerable parent, and how much his happiness, as well as your own,
+depends on those exertions."
+
+"Can I do otherwise for a father who has done so much for me?"
+
+"And for me too," continued the youth, gently pressing the hand he held
+in both his own.
+
+The look of innocence and surprise which he received in return convinced
+Duncan of the necessity of being more explicit.
+
+"This is neither the place nor the occasion to detain you with selfish
+wishes," he added; "but what heart loaded like mine would not wish to
+cast its burden? They say misery is the closest of all ties; our common
+suffering in your behalf left but little to be explained between your
+father and myself."
+
+"And dearest Cora, Duncan; surely Cora was not forgotten?"
+
+"Not forgotten! no; regretted, as woman was seldom mourned before. Your
+venerable father knew no difference between his children; but I--Alice,
+you will not be offended when I say, that to me her worth was in a
+degree obscured--"
+
+"Then you knew not the merit of my sister," said Alice, withdrawing her
+hand; "of you she ever speaks as of one who is her nearest friend."
+
+"I would gladly believe her such," returned Duncan, hastily; "I could
+wish her to be even more; but with you, Alice, I have the permission of
+your father to aspire to a still nearer and dearer tie."
+
+Alice trembled violently, and there was an instant during which she bent
+her face aside, yielding to the emotions common to her sex; but they
+quickly passed away, leaving her mistress of her deportment, if not of
+her affections.
+
+"Heyward," she said, looking him full in the face with a touching
+expression of innocence and dependency, "give me the sacred presence
+and the holy sanction of that parent before you urge me further."
+
+"Though more I should not, less I could not say," the youth was about to
+answer, when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder. Starting
+to his feet, he turned, and, confronting the intruder, his looks fell on
+the dark form and malignant visage of Magua. The deep guttural laugh of
+the savage sounded, at such a moment, to Duncan like the hellish taunt
+of a demon. Had he pursued the sudden and fierce impulse of the instant,
+he would have cast himself on the Huron, and committed their fortunes to
+the issue of a deadly struggle. But, without arms of any description,
+ignorant of what succor his subtle enemy could command, and charged with
+the safety of one who was just then dearer than ever to his heart, he no
+sooner entertained than he abandoned the desperate intention.
+
+"What is your purpose?" said Alice, meekly folding her arms on her
+bosom, and struggling to conceal an agony of apprehension in behalf of
+Heyward, in the usual cold and distant manner with which she received
+the visits of her captor.
+
+The exulting Indian had resumed his austere countenance, though he drew
+warily back before the menacing glance of the young man's fiery eye. He
+regarded both his captives for a moment with a steady look, and then
+stepping aside, he dropped a log of wood across a door different from
+that by which Duncan had entered. The latter now comprehended the manner
+of his surprise, and believing himself irretrievably lost, he drew Alice
+to his bosom, and stood prepared to meet a fate which he hardly
+regretted, since it was to be suffered in such company. But Magua
+meditated no immediate violence. His first measures were very evidently
+taken to secure his new captive; nor did he even bestow a second glance
+at the motionless forms in the centre of the cavern, until he had
+completely cut off every hope of retreat through the private outlet he
+had himself used. He was watched in all his movements by Heyward, who,
+however, remained firm, still folding the fragile form of Alice to his
+heart, at once too proud and too hopeless to ask favor of an enemy so
+often foiled. When Magua had effected his object he approached his
+prisoners, and said in English,--
+
+"The pale-faces trap the cunning beavers; but the redskins know how to
+take the Yengeese."
+
+"Huron, do your worst!" exclaimed the excited Heyward, forgetful that a
+double stake was involved in his life; "you and your vengeance are alike
+despised."
+
+"Will the white man speak these words at the stake?" asked Magua;
+manifesting, at the same time, how little faith he had in the other's
+resolution by the sneer that accompanied his words.
+
+"Here; singly to your face, or in the presence of your nation."
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief!" returned the Indian; "he will go
+and bring his young men to see how bravely a pale-face can laugh at the
+tortures."
+
+He turned away while speaking, and was about to leave the place through
+the avenue by which Duncan had approached, when a growl caught his ear,
+and caused him to hesitate. The figure of the bear appeared in the door,
+where it sat, rolling from side to side in its customary restlessness.
+Magua, like the father of the sick woman, eyed it keenly for a moment,
+as if to ascertain its character. He was far above the more vulgar
+superstitions of his tribe, and so soon as he recognized the well-known
+attire of the conjurer, he prepared to pass it in cool contempt. But a
+louder and more threatening growl caused him again to pause. Then he
+seemed as if suddenly resolved to trifle no longer, and moved resolutely
+forward. The mimic animal, which had advanced a little, retired slowly
+in his front, until it arrived again at the pass, when rearing on its
+hinder legs it beat the air with its paws, in the manner practised by
+its brutal prototype.
+
+"Fool!" exclaimed the chief, in Huron, "go play with the children and
+squaws; leave men to their wisdom."
+
+He once more endeavored to pass the supposed empiric, scorning even the
+parade of threatening to use the knife, or tomahawk, that was pendent
+from his belt. Suddenly the beast extended its arms, or rather legs, and
+inclosed him in a grasp that might have vied with the far-famed power of
+the "bear's hug" itself. Heyward had watched the whole procedure, on the
+part of Hawkeye, with breathless interest. At first he relinquished his
+hold of Alice; then he caught up a thong of buckskin, which had been
+used around some bundle, and when he beheld his enemy with his two arms
+pinned to his side by the iron muscles of the scout, he rushed upon him,
+and effectually secured them there. Arms, legs, and feet were encircled
+in twenty folds of the thong, in less time than we have taken to record
+the circumstance. When the formidable Huron was completely pinioned, the
+scout released his hold, and Duncan laid his enemy on his back, utterly
+helpless.
+
+Throughout the whole of this sudden and extraordinary operation, Magua,
+though he had struggled violently, until assured he was in the hands of
+one whose nerves were far better strung than his own, had not uttered
+the slightest exclamation. But when Hawkeye, by way of making a summary
+explanation of his conduct, removed the shaggy jaws of the beast, and
+exposed his own rugged and earnest countenance to the gaze of the Huron,
+the philosophy of the latter was so far mastered as to permit him to
+utter the never-failing,--
+
+"Hugh!"
+
+"Ay! you've found your tongue," said his undisturbed conqueror; "now, in
+order that you shall not use it to our ruin, I must make free to stop
+your mouth."
+
+As there was no time to be lost, the scout immediately set about
+effecting so necessary a precaution; and when he had gagged the Indian,
+his enemy might safely have been considered as _hors de combat_.
+
+"By what place did the imp enter?" asked the industrious scout, when his
+work was ended. "Not a soul has passed my way since you left me."
+
+Duncan pointed out the door by which Magua had come, and which now
+presented too many obstacles to a quick retreat.
+
+"Bring on the gentle one, then," continued his friend; "we must make a
+push for the woods by the other outlet."
+
+"'Tis impossible!" said Duncan; "fear has overcome her, and she is
+helpless. Alice! my sweet, my own Alice, arouse yourself; now is the
+moment to fly. 'Tis in vain! she hears, but is unable to follow. Go,
+noble and worthy friend; save yourself, and leave me to my fate!"
+
+"Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!"
+returned the scout. "There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all
+of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it
+will betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow.
+Leave the rest to me."
+
+Duncan, as may be gathered from the words of his companion, was eagerly
+obeying; and as the other finished speaking, he took the light person of
+Alice in his arms, and followed on the footsteps of the scout. They
+found the sick woman as they had left her, still alone, and passed
+swiftly on, by the natural gallery, to the place of entrance. As they
+approached the little door of bark, a murmur of voices without announced
+that the friends and relatives of the invalid were gathered about the
+place, patiently awaiting a summons to re-enter.
+
+"If I open my lips to speak," Hawkeye whispered, "my English, which is
+the genuine tongue of a white-skin, will tell the varlets that an enemy
+is among them. You must give 'em your jargon, major; and say that we
+have shut the evil spirit in the cave, and are taking the woman to the
+woods in order to find strengthening roots. Practyse all your cunning,
+for it is a lawful undertaking."
+
+The door opened a little, as if one without was listening to the
+proceedings within, and compelled the scout to cease his directions. A
+fierce growl repelled the eavesdropper, and then the scout boldly threw
+open the covering of bark, and left the place, enacting the character of
+the bear as he proceeded. Duncan kept close at his heels, and so found
+himself in the centre of a cluster of twenty anxious relatives and
+friends.
+
+The crowd fell back a little, and permitted the father, and one who
+appeared to be the husband of the woman, to approach.
+
+"Has my brother driven away the evil spirit?" demanded the former. "What
+has he in his arms?"
+
+"Thy child," returned Duncan, gravely; "the disease has gone out of her;
+it is shut up in the rocks. I take the woman to a distance, where I will
+strengthen her against any further attacks. She shall be in the wigwam
+of the young man when the sun comes again."
+
+When the father had translated the meaning of the stranger's words into
+the Huron language, a suppressed murmur announced the satisfaction with
+which the intelligence was received. The chief himself waved his hand
+for Duncan to proceed, saying aloud, in a firm voice, and with a lofty
+manner,--
+
+"Go; I am a man, and I will enter the rock and fight the wicked one."
+
+Heyward had gladly obeyed, and was already past the little group, when
+these startling words arrested him.
+
+"Is my brother mad?" he exclaimed; "is he cruel! He will meet the
+disease, and it will enter him; or he will drive out the disease, and it
+will chase his daughter into the woods. No; let my children wait
+without, and if the spirit appears beat him down with clubs. He is
+cunning, and will bury himself in the mountain, when he sees how many
+are ready to fight him."
+
+This singular warning had the desired effect. Instead of entering the
+cavern, the father and husband drew their tomahawks, and posted
+themselves in readiness to deal their vengeance on the imaginary
+tormentor of their sick relative, while the women and children broke
+branches from the bushes, or seized fragments of the rock, with a
+similar intention. At this favorable moment the counterfeit conjurers
+disappeared.
+
+Hawkeye, at the same time that he had presumed so far on the nature of
+the Indian superstitions, was not ignorant that they were rather
+tolerated than relied on by the wisest of the chiefs. He well knew the
+value of time in the present emergency. Whatever might be the extent of
+the self-delusion of his enemies, and however it had tended to assist
+his schemes, the slightest cause of suspicion, acting on the subtle
+nature of an Indian, would be likely to prove fatal. Taking the path,
+therefore, that was most likely to avoid observation, he rather skirted
+than entered the village. The warriors were still to be seen in the
+distance, by the fading light of the fires, stalking from lodge to
+lodge. But the children had abandoned their sports for their beds of
+skins, and the quiet of night was already beginning to prevail over the
+turbulence and excitement of so busy and important an evening.
+
+Alice revived under the renovating influence of the open air, and as her
+physical rather than her mental powers had been the subject of weakness,
+she stood in no need of any explanation of that which had occurred.
+
+"Now let me make an effort to walk," she said, when they had entered the
+forest, blushing, though unseen, that she had not been sooner able to
+quit the arms of Duncan; "I am indeed restored."
+
+"Nay, Alice, you are yet too weak."
+
+The maiden struggled gently to release herself, and Heyward was
+compelled to part with his precious burden. The representative of the
+bear had certainly been an entire stranger to the delicious emotions of
+the lover while his arms encircled his mistress; and he was, perhaps, a
+stranger also to the nature of that feeling of ingenuous shame that
+oppressed the trembling Alice. But when he found himself at a suitable
+distance from the lodges he made a halt, and spoke on a subject of which
+he was thoroughly the master.
+
+"This path will lead you to the brook," he said; "follow its northern
+bank until you come to a fall; and mount the hill on your right, and you
+will see the fires of the other people. There you must go and demand
+protection; if they are true Delawares, you will be safe. A distant
+flight with that gentle one, just now, is impossible. The Hurons would
+follow up our trail, and master our scalps, before we had got a dozen
+miles. Go, and Providence be with you."
+
+"And you!" demanded Heyward, in surprise; "surely we part not here?"
+
+"The Hurons hold the pride of the Delawares; the last of the high blood
+of the Mohicans is in their power," returned the scout; "I go to see
+what can be done in his favor. Had they mastered your scalp, major, a
+knave should have fallen for every hair it held, as I promised; but if
+the young Sagamore is to be led to the stake, the Indians shall see also
+how a man without a cross can die."
+
+Not in the least offended with the decided preference that the sturdy
+woodsman gave to one who might, in some degree, be called the child of
+his adoption, Duncan still continued to urge such reasons against so
+desperate an effort as presented themselves. He was aided by Alice, who
+mingled her entreaties with those of Heyward that he would abandon a
+resolution that promised so much danger, with so little hope of success.
+Their eloquence and ingenuity were expended in vain. The scout heard
+them attentively, but impatiently, and finally closed the discussion, by
+answering, in a tone that instantly silenced Alice, while it told
+Heyward how fruitless any further remonstrances would be,--
+
+"I have heard," he said, "that there is a feeling in youth which binds
+man to woman closer than the father is tied to the son. It may be so. I
+have seldom been where women of my color dwell; but such may be the
+gifts of nature in the settlements. You have risked life, and all that
+is dear to you, to bring off this gentle one, and I suppose that some
+such disposition is at the bottom of it all. As for me, I taught the lad
+the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have
+fou't at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could
+hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the
+other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and
+days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish,
+one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that
+Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand--There is but a single
+Ruler of us all, whatever may be the color of the skin; and Him I call
+to witness, that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a
+friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth, and 'Killdeer' become as
+harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE LOVERS
+
+_Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the distant village
+of the Delawares_]
+
+Duncan released his hold on the arm of the scout, who turned, and
+steadily retraced his steps towards the lodges. After pausing a moment
+to gaze at his retiring form, the successful and yet sorrowful Heyward,
+and Alice, took their way together towards the distant village of the
+Delawares.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+  "_Bot._--Let me play the lion too."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+Notwithstanding the high resolution of Hawkeye, he fully comprehended
+all the difficulties and dangers he was about to incur. In his return to
+the camp, his acute and practised intellects were intently engaged in
+devising means to counteract a watchfulness and suspicion on the part of
+his enemies, that he knew were, in no degree, inferior to his own.
+Nothing but the color of his skin had saved the lives of Magua and the
+conjurer, who would have been the first victims sacrificed to his own
+security, had not the scout believed such an act, however congenial it
+might be to the nature of an Indian, utterly unworthy of one who boasted
+a descent from men that knew no cross of blood. Accordingly, he trusted
+to the withes and ligaments with which he had bound his captives, and
+pursued his way directly towards the centre of the lodges.
+
+As he approached the buildings, his steps became more deliberate, and
+his vigilant eye suffered no sign, whether friendly or hostile, to
+escape him. A neglected hut was a little in advance of the others, and
+appeared as if it had been deserted when half completed--most probably
+on account of failing in some of the more important requisites; such as
+food or water. A faint light glimmered through its cracks, however, and
+announced that, notwithstanding its imperfect structure, it was not
+without a tenant. Thither, then, the scout proceeded, like a prudent
+general, who was about to feel the advanced positions of his enemy,
+before he hazarded the main attack.
+
+Throwing himself into a suitable posture for the beast he represented,
+Hawkeye crawled to a little opening, where he might command a view of
+the interior. It proved to be the abiding-place of David Gamut. Hither
+the faithful singing-master had now brought himself, together with all
+his sorrows, his apprehensions, and his meek dependence on the
+protection of Providence. At the precise moment when his ungainly person
+came under the observation of the scout, in the manner just mentioned,
+the woodsman himself, though in his assumed character, was the subject
+of the solitary being's profoundest reflections.
+
+However implicit the faith of David was in the performance of ancient
+miracles, he eschewed the belief of any direct supernatural agency in
+the management of modern morality. In other words, while he had implicit
+faith in the ability of Balsam's ass to speak, he was somewhat skeptical
+on the subject of a bear's singing; and yet he had been assured of the
+latter, on the testimony of his own exquisite organs. There was
+something in his air and manner that betrayed to the scout the utter
+confusion of the state of his mind. He was seated on a pile of brush, a
+few twigs from which occasionally fed his low fire, with his head
+leaning on his arm, in a posture of melancholy musing. The costume of
+the votary of music had undergone no other alteration from that so
+lately described, except that he had covered his bald head with the
+triangular beaver, which had not proved sufficiently alluring to excite
+the cupidity of any of his captors.
+
+The ingenious Hawkeye, who recalled the hasty manner in which the other
+had abandoned his post at the bedside of the sick woman, was not without
+his suspicions concerning the subject of so much solemn deliberation.
+First making the circuit of the hut, and ascertaining that it stood
+quite alone, and that the character of its inmate was likely to protect
+it from visitors, he ventured through its low door, into the very
+presence of Gamut. The position of the latter brought the fire between
+them; and when Hawkeye had seated himself on end, near a minute elapsed,
+during which the two remained regarding each other without speaking. The
+suddenness and the nature of the surprise had nearly proved too much
+for--we will not say the philosophy--but for the faith and resolution of
+David. He fumbled for his pitch-pipe, and arose with a confused
+intention of attempting a musical exorcism.
+
+"Dark and mysterious monster!" he exclaimed, while with trembling hands
+he disposed of his auxiliary eyes, and sought his never-failing resource
+in trouble, the gifted version of the Psalms: "I know not your nature
+nor intents; but if aught you meditate against the person and rights of
+one of the humblest servants of the temple, listen to the inspired
+language of the youth of Israel, and repent."
+
+The bear shook his shaggy sides, and then a well-known voice replied,--
+
+"Put up the tooting we'pon, and teach your throat modesty. Five words of
+plain and comprehensible English are worth, just now, an hour of
+squalling."
+
+"What art thou!" demanded David, utterly disqualified to pursue his
+original intention, and nearly gasping for breath.
+
+"A man like yourself; and one whose blood is as little tainted by the
+cross of a bear, or an Indian, as your own. Have you so soon forgotten
+from whom you received the foolish instrument you hold in your hand?"
+
+"Can these things be?" returned David, breathing more freely, as the
+truth began to dawn upon him. "I have found many marvels during my
+sojourn with the heathen, but surely nothing to excel this!"
+
+"Come, come," returned Hawkeye, uncasing his honest countenance, the
+better to assure the wavering confidence of his companion; "you may see
+a skin, which, if it be not as white as one of the gentle ones, has no
+tinge of red to it that the winds of heaven and the sun have not
+bestowed. Now let us to business."
+
+"First tell me of the maiden, and of the youth who so bravely sought
+her," interrupted David.
+
+"Ay, they are happily freed from the tomahawks of these varlets. But can
+you put me on the scent of Uncas?"
+
+"The young man is in bondage, and much I fear his death is decreed. I
+greatly mourn that one so well disposed should die in his ignorance, and
+I have sought a goodly hymn--"
+
+"Can you lead me to him?"
+
+"The task will not be difficult," returned David, hesitating; "though I
+greatly fear your presence would rather increase than mitigate his
+unhappy fortunes."
+
+"No more words, but lead on," returned Hawkeye, concealing his face
+again, and setting the example in his own person, by instantly quitting
+the lodge.
+
+As they proceeded, the scout ascertained that his companion found access
+to Uncas, under privilege of his imaginary infirmity, aided by the favor
+he had acquired with one of the guards, who, in consequence of speaking
+a little English, had been selected by David as the subject of a
+religious conversation. How far the Huron comprehended the intentions of
+his new friend, may well be doubted; but as exclusive attention is as
+flattering to a savage as to a more civilized individual, it had
+produced the effect we have mentioned. It is unnecessary to repeat the
+shrewd manner with which the scout extracted these particulars from the
+simple David; neither shall we dwell in this place on the nature of the
+instructions he delivered, when completely master of all the necessary
+facts; as the whole will be sufficiently explained to the reader in the
+course of the narrative.
+
+The lodge in which Uncas was confined was in the very centre of the
+village, and in a situation, perhaps, more difficult than any other to
+approach, or leave, without observation. But it was not the policy of
+Hawkeye to affect the least concealment. Presuming on his disguise, and
+his ability to sustain the character he had assumed, he took the most
+plain and direct route to the place. The hour, however, afforded him
+some little of that protection which he appeared so much to despise. The
+boys were already buried in sleep, and all the women, and most of the
+warriors, had retired to their lodges for the night. Four or five of the
+latter only lingered about the door of the prison of Uncas, wary but
+close observers of the manner of their captive.
+
+At the sight of Gamut, accompanied by one in the well known masquerade
+of their most distinguished conjurer, they readily made way for them
+both. Still they betrayed no intention to depart. On the other hand,
+they were evidently disposed to remain bound to the place by an
+additional interest in the mysterious mummeries that they of course
+expected from such a visit.
+
+From the total inability of the scout to address the Hurons in their own
+language, he was compelled to trust the conversation entirely to David.
+Notwithstanding the simplicity of the latter, he did ample justice to
+the instructions he had received, more than fulfilling the strongest
+hopes of his teacher.
+
+"The Delawares are women!" he exclaimed, addressing himself to the
+savage who had a slight understanding of the language in which he spoke;
+"the Yengeese, my foolish countrymen, have told them to take up the
+tomahawk, and strike their fathers in the Canadas, and they have
+forgotten their sex. Does my brother wish to hear Le Cerf Agile ask for
+his petticoats, and see him weep before the Hurons, at the stake?"
+
+The exclamation "Hugh!" delivered in a strong tone of assent, announced
+the gratification the savage would receive in witnessing such an
+exhibition of weakness in an enemy so long hated and so much feared.
+
+"Then let him step aside, and the cunning man will blow upon the dog!
+Tell it to my brothers."
+
+The Huron explained the meaning of David to his fellows, who, in their
+turn, listened to the project with that sort of satisfaction that their
+untamed spirits might be expected to find in such a refinement in
+cruelty. They drew back a little from the entrance, and motioned to the
+supposed conjurer to enter. But the bear, instead of obeying, maintained
+the seat it had taken, and growled.
+
+"The cunning man is afraid that his breath will blow upon his brothers,
+and take away their courage too," continued David, improving the hint he
+received; "they must stand farther off."
+
+The Hurons, who would have deemed such a misfortune the heaviest
+calamity that could befall them, fell back in a body, taking a position
+where they were out of ear-shot, though at the same time they could
+command a view of the entrance to the lodge. Then, as if satisfied of
+their safety, the scout left his position, and slowly entered the place.
+It was silent and gloomy, being tenanted solely by the captive, and
+lighted by the dying embers of a fire, which had been used for the
+purposes of cookery.
+
+Uncas occupied a distant corner, in a reclining attitude, being rigidly
+bound, both hands and feet, by strong and painful withes. When the
+frightful object first presented itself to the young Mohican, he did not
+deign to bestow a single glance on the animal. The scout, who had left
+David at the door, to ascertain they were not observed, thought it
+prudent to preserve his disguise until assured of their privacy. Instead
+of speaking, therefore, he exerted himself to enact one of the antics of
+the animal he represented. The young Mohican, who at first believed his
+enemies had sent in a real beast to torment him, and try his nerves,
+detected, in those performances that to Heyward had appeared so
+accurate, certain blemishes, that at once betrayed the counterfeit. Had
+Hawkeye been aware of the low estimation in which the more skilful Uncas
+held his representations, he would probably have prolonged the
+entertainment a little in pique. But the scornful expression of the
+young man's eye admitted of so many constructions, that the worthy scout
+was spared the mortification of such a discovery. As soon, therefore, as
+David gave the pre-concerted signal, a low hissing sound was heard in
+the lodge, in place of the fierce growlings of the bear.
+
+Uncas had cast his body back against the wall of the hut, and closed
+his eyes, as if willing to exclude so contemptible and disagreeable an
+object from his sight. But the moment the noise of the serpent was
+heard, he arose, and cast his looks on each side of him, bending his
+head low, and turning it inquiringly in every direction, until his keen
+eye rested on the shaggy monster, where it remained riveted, as though
+fixed by the power of a charm. Again the same sounds were repeated,
+evidently proceeding from the mouth of the beast. Once more the eyes of
+the youth roamed over the interior of the lodge, and returning to their
+former resting place, he uttered, in a deep, suppressed voice,--
+
+"Hawkeye!"
+
+"Cut his bands," said Hawkeye to David, who just then approached them.
+
+The singer did as he was ordered, and Uncas found his limbs released. At
+the same moment the dried skin of the animal rattled, and presently the
+scout arose to his feet, in proper person. The Mohican appeared to
+comprehend the nature of the attempt his friend had made, intuitively;
+neither tongue nor feature betraying another symptom of surprise. When
+Hawkeye had cast his shaggy vestment, which was done by simply loosing
+certain thongs of skin, he drew a long glittering knife, and put it in
+the hands of Uncas.
+
+"The red Hurons are without," he said; "let us be ready."
+
+At the same time he laid his finger significantly on another similar
+weapon, both being the fruits of his prowess among their enemies during
+the evening.
+
+"We will go," said Uncas.
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To the Tortoises; they are the children of my grandfathers."
+
+"Ay, lad," said the scout in English--a language he was apt to use when
+a little abstracted in mind; "the same blood runs in your veins, I
+believe; but time and distance have a little changed its color. What
+shall we do with the Mingos at the door? They count six, and this singer
+is as good as nothing."
+
+"The Hurons are boasters," said Uncas scornfully; "their 'totem' is a
+moose, and they run like snails. The Delawares are children of the
+tortoise, and they outstrip the deer."
+
+"Ay, lad, there is truth in what you say; and I doubt not, on a rush,
+you would pass the whole nation; and, in a straight race of two miles,
+would be in, and get your breath again, afore a knave of them all was
+within hearing of the other village. But the gift of a white man lies
+more in his arms than in his legs. As for myself, I can brain a Huron as
+well as a better man; but when it comes to a race, the knaves would
+prove too much for me."
+
+Uncas, who had already approached the door, in readiness to lead the
+way, now recoiled; and placed himself, once more, in the bottom of the
+lodge. But Hawkeye, who was too much occupied with his own thoughts to
+note the movement, continued speaking more to himself than to his
+companion.
+
+"After all," he said, "it is unreasonable to keep one man in bondage to
+the gifts of another. So, Uncas, you had better take the leap, while I
+put on the skin again, and trust to cunning for want of speed."
+
+The young Mohican made no reply, but quietly folded his arms, and leaned
+his body against one of the upright posts that supported the wall of the
+hut.
+
+"Well," said the scout, looking up at him, "why do you tarry? There will
+be time enough for me, as the knaves will give chase to you at first."
+
+"Uncas will stay," was the calm reply.
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To fight with his father's brother, and die with the friend of the
+Delawares."
+
+"Ay, lad," returned Hawkeye, squeezing the hand of Uncas between his own
+iron fingers; "'twould have been more like a Mingo than a Mohican had
+you left me. But I thought I would make the offer, seeing that youth
+commonly loves life. Well, what can't be done by main courage, in war,
+must be done by circumvention. Put on the skin; I doubt not you can play
+the bear nearly as well as myself."
+
+Whatever might have been the private opinion of Uncas of their
+respective abilities in this particular, his grave countenance
+manifested no opinion of his own superiority. He silently and
+expeditiously encased himself in the covering of the beast, and then
+awaited such other movements as his more aged companion saw fit to
+dictate.
+
+"Now, friend," said Hawkeye, addressing David, "an exchange of garments
+will be a great convenience to you, inasmuch as you are but little
+accustomed to the make-shifts of the wilderness. Here, take my hunting
+shirt and cap, and give me your blanket and hat. You must trust me with
+the book and spectacles, as well as the tooter, too; if we ever meet
+again, in better times, you shall have all back again, with many thanks
+into the bargain."
+
+David parted with the several articles named with a readiness that would
+have done great credit to his liberality, had he not certainly profited,
+in many particulars, by the exchange. Hawkeye was not long in assuming
+his borrowed garments; and when his restless eyes were hid behind the
+glasses, and his head was surmounted by the triangular beaver, as their
+statures were not dissimilar, he might readily have passed for the
+singer by star-light. As soon as these dispositions were made, the scout
+turned to David, and gave him his parting instructions.
+
+"Are you much given to cowardice?" he bluntly asked, by way of obtaining
+a suitable understanding of the whole case before he ventured a
+prescription.
+
+"My pursuits are peaceful, and my temper, I humbly trust, is greatly
+given to mercy and love," returned David, a little nettled at so direct
+an attack on his manhood; "but there are none who can say that I have
+ever forgotten my faith in the Lord, even in the greatest straits."
+
+"Your chiefest danger will be at the moment when the savages find out
+that they have been deceived. If you are not then knocked in the head,
+your being a non-composser will protect you; and you'll then have good
+reason to expect to die in your bed. If you stay, it must be to sit down
+here in the shadow, and take the part of Uncas, until such times as the
+cunning of the Indians discover the cheat, when, as I have already said,
+your time of trial will come. So choose for yourself,--to make a rush or
+tarry here."
+
+"Even so," said David, firmly; "I will abide in the place of the
+Delaware. Bravely and generously has he battled in my behalf; and this,
+and more, will I dare in his service."
+
+"You have spoken as a man, and like one who, under wiser schooling,
+would have been brought to better things. Hold your head down, and draw
+in your legs; their formation might tell the truth too early. Keep
+silent as long as may be; and it would be wise, when you do speak, to
+break out suddenly in one of your shoutings, which will serve to remind
+the Indians that you are not altogether as responsible as men should be.
+If, however, they take your scalp, as I trust and believe they will not,
+depend on it, Uncas and I will not forget the deed, but revenge it as
+becomes true warriors and trusty friends."
+
+"Hold!" said David, perceiving that with this assurance they were about
+to leave him; "I am an unworthy and humble follower of One who taught
+not the damnable principle of revenge. Should I fall, therefore, seek no
+victims to my manes, but rather forgive my destroyers; and if you
+remember them at all, let it be in prayers for the enlightening of their
+minds, and for their eternal welfare."
+
+The scout hesitated, and appeared to muse.
+
+"There is a principle in that," he said, "different from the law of the
+woods; and yet it is fair and noble to reflect upon." Then, heaving a
+heavy sigh, probably among the last he ever drew in pining for a
+condition he had so long abandoned, he added, "It is what I would wish
+to practise, myself, as one without a cross of blood, though it is not
+always easy to deal with an Indian as you would with a fellow Christian.
+God bless you, friend; I do believe your scent is not greatly wrong,
+when the matter is duly considered, and keeping eternity before the
+eyes, though much depends on the natural gifts, and the force of
+temptation."
+
+So saying, the scout returned and shook David cordially by the hand;
+after which act of friendship he immediately left the lodge, attended by
+the new representative of the beast.
+
+The instant Hawkeye found himself under the observation of the Hurons,
+he drew up his tall form in the rigid manner of David, threw out his arm
+in the act of keeping time, and commenced what he intended for an
+imitation of his psalmody. Happily for the success of this delicate
+adventure, he had to deal with ears but little practised in the concord
+of sweet sounds, or the miserable effort would infallibly have been
+detected. It was necessary to pass within a dangerous proximity of the
+dark group of the savages, and the voice of the scout grew louder as
+they drew nigher. When at the nearest point, the Huron who spoke the
+English thrust out an arm, and stopped the supposed singing-master.
+
+"The Delaware dog!" he said, leaning forward, and peering through the
+dim light to catch the expression of the other's features; "is he
+afraid? will the Hurons hear his groans?"
+
+A growl so exceedingly fierce and natural proceeded from the beast, that
+the young Indian released his hold and started aside, as if to assure
+himself that it was not a veritable bear, and no counterfeit, that was
+rolling before him. Hawkeye, who feared his voice would betray him to
+his subtle enemies, gladly profited by the interruption, to break out
+anew in such a burst of musical expression as would, probably, in a
+more refined state of society have been termed "a grand crash." Among
+his actual auditors, however, it merely gave him an additional claim to
+that respect which they never withhold from such as are believed to be
+the subjects of mental alienation. The little knot of Indians drew back
+in a body, and suffered, as they thought, the conjurer and his inspired
+assistant to proceed.
+
+It required no common exercise of fortitude in Uncas and the scout, to
+continue the dignified and deliberate pace they had assumed in passing
+the lodges; especially as they immediately perceived that curiosity had
+so far mastered fear, as to induce the watchers to approach the hut, in
+order to witness the effect of the incantations. The least injudicious
+or impatient movement on the part of David might betray them, and time
+was absolutely necessary to insure the safety of the scout. The loud
+noise the latter conceived it politic to continue, drew many curious
+gazers to the doors of the different huts as they passed; and once or
+twice a dark-looking warrior stepped across their path, led to the act
+by superstition or watchfulness. They were not, however, interrupted;
+the darkness of the hour, and the coldness of the attempt, proving their
+principal friends.
+
+The adventurers had got clear of the village, and were now swiftly
+approaching the shelter of the woods, when a loud and long cry arose
+from the lodge where Uncas had been confined. The Mohican started on his
+feet, and shook his shaggy covering, as though the animal he
+counterfeited was about to make some desperate effort.
+
+"Hold!" said the scout, grasping his friend by the shoulder, "let them
+yell again! 'Twas nothing but wonderment."
+
+He had no occasion to delay, for the next instant a burst of cries
+filled the outer air, and ran along the whole extent of the village.
+Uncas cast his skin, and stepped forth in his own beautiful proportions.
+Hawkeye tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and glided ahead.
+
+"Now let the devils strike our scent!" said the scout, tearing two
+rifles, with all their attendant accoutrements, from beneath a bush, and
+flourishing "Killdeer" as he handed Uncas his weapon; "two, at least,
+will find it to their deaths."
+
+Then throwing their pieces to a low trail, like sportsmen in readiness
+for their game, they dashed forward, and were soon buried in the sombre
+darkness of the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+  "_Ant._ I shall remember:
+  When Caesar says _Do this_, it is performed."
+
+  _Julius Caesar._
+
+
+The impatience of the savages who lingered about the prison of Uncas, as
+has been seen, had overcome their dread of the conjurer's breath. They
+stole cautiously, and with beating hearts, to a crevice, through which
+the faint light of the fire was glimmering. For several minutes they
+mistook the form of David for that of their prisoner; but the very
+accident which Hawkeye had foreseen occurred. Tired of keeping the
+extremities of his long person so near together, the singer gradually
+suffered the lower limbs to extend themselves, until one of his
+misshapen feet actually came in contact with and shoved aside the embers
+of the fire. At first the Hurons believed the Delaware had been thus
+deformed by witchcraft. But when David, unconscious of being observed,
+turned his head, and exposed his simple, mild countenance, in place of
+the haughty lineaments of their prisoner, it would have exceeded the
+credulity of even a native to have doubted any longer. They rushed
+together into the lodge, and laying their hands, with but little
+ceremony, on their captive, immediately detected the imposition. Then
+arose the cry first heard by the fugitives. It was succeeded by the most
+frantic and angry demonstrations of vengeance. David, however firm in
+his determination to cover the retreat of his friends, was compelled to
+believe that his own final hour had come. Deprived of his book and his
+pipe, he was fain to trust to a memory that rarely failed him on such
+subjects; and breaking forth in a loud and impassioned strain, he
+endeavored to soothe his passage into the other world, by singing the
+opening verse of a funeral anthem. The Indians were seasonably reminded
+of his infirmity, and rushing into the open air, they aroused the
+village in the manner described.
+
+A native warrior fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything
+defensive. The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered,
+before two hundred men were afoot, and ready for the battle or the
+chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known; and the
+whole tribe crowded, in a body, around the council-lodge, impatiently
+awaiting the instruction of their chiefs. In such a sudden demand on
+their wisdom, the presence of the cunning Magua could scarcely fail of
+being needed. His name was mentioned, and all looked round in wonder
+that he did not appear. Messengers were then despatched to his lodge,
+requiring his presence.
+
+In the meantime, some of the swiftest and most discreet of the young men
+were ordered to make the circuit of the clearing, under cover of the
+woods, in order to ascertain that their suspected neighbors, the
+Delawares, designed no mischief. Women and children ran to and fro; and
+in short, the whole encampment exhibited another scene of wild and
+savage confusion. Gradually, however, these symptoms of disorder
+diminished; and in a few minutes the oldest and most distinguished
+chiefs were assembled in the lodge, in grave consultation.
+
+The clamor of many voices soon announced that a party approached, who
+might be expected to communicate some intelligence that would explain
+the mystery of the novel surprise. The crowd without gave way, and
+several warriors entered the place, bringing with them the hapless
+conjurer, who had been left so long by the scout in duress.
+
+Notwithstanding this man was held in very unequal estimation among the
+Hurons, some believing implicitly in his power, and others deeming him
+an impostor, he was now listened to by all with the deepest attention.
+When his brief story was ended, the father of the sick woman stepped
+forth, and, in a few pithy expressions, related, in his turn, what he
+knew. These two narratives gave a proper direction to the subsequent
+inquiries, which were now made with the characteristic cunning of
+savages.
+
+Instead of rushing in a confused and disorderly throng to the cavern,
+ten of the wisest and firmest among the chiefs were selected to
+prosecute the investigation. As no time was to be lost, the instant the
+choice was made the individuals appointed rose in a body, and left the
+place without speaking. On reaching the entrance, the younger men in
+advance made way for their seniors; and the whole proceeded along the
+low, dark gallery, with the firmness of warriors ready to devote
+themselves to the public good, though, at the same time, secretly
+doubting the nature of the power with which they were about to contend.
+
+The outer apartment of the cavern was silent and gloomy. The woman lay
+in her usual place and posture, though there were those present who
+affirmed they had seen her borne to the woods, by the supposed "medicine
+of the white men." Such a direct and palpable contradiction of the tale
+related by the father, caused all eyes to be turned on him. Chafed by
+the silent imputation, and inwardly troubled by so unaccountable a
+circumstance, the chief advanced to the side of the bed, and stooping,
+cast an incredulous look at the features, as if distrusting their
+reality. His daughter was dead.
+
+The unerring feeling of nature, for a moment prevailed, and the old
+warrior hid his eyes in sorrow. Then recovering his self-possession, he
+faced his companions, and pointing towards the corpse, he said, in the
+language of his people,--
+
+"The wife of my young man has left us! the Great Spirit is angry with
+his children."
+
+The mournful intelligence was received in solemn silence. After a short
+pause, one of the elder Indians was about to speak, when a dark-looking
+object was seen rolling out of an adjoining apartment, into the very
+centre of the room where they stood. Ignorant of the nature of the
+beings they had to deal with, the whole party drew back a little, and
+gazed in admiration, until the object fronted the light, and rising on
+end, exhibited the distorted, but still fierce and sullen features of
+Magua. The discovery was succeeded by a general exclamation of
+amazement.
+
+As soon, however, as the true situation of the chief was understood,
+several ready knives appeared, and his limbs and tongue were quickly
+released. The Huron arose, and shook himself like a lion quitting his
+lair. Not a word escaped him, though his hand played convulsively with
+the handle of his knife, while his lowering eyes scanned the whole
+party, as if they sought an object suited to the first burst of his
+vengeance.
+
+It was happy for Uncas and the scout, and even David, that they were all
+beyond the reach of his arm at such a moment; for, assuredly, no
+refinement in cruelty would then have deferred their deaths, in
+opposition to the promptings of the fierce temper that nearly choked
+him. Meeting everywhere faces that he knew as friends, the savage grated
+his teeth together like rasps of iron, and swallowed his passion for
+want of a victim on whom to vent it. This exhibition of anger was noted
+by all present; and, from an apprehension of exasperating a temper that
+was already chafed nearly to madness, several minutes were suffered to
+pass before another word was uttered. When, however, suitable time had
+elapsed, the oldest of the party spoke.
+
+"My friend has found an enemy," he said. "Is he nigh, that the Hurons
+may take revenge?"
+
+"Let the Delaware die!" exclaimed Magua, in a voice of thunder.
+
+Another long and expressive silence was observed, and was broken, as
+before, with due precaution, by the same individual.
+
+"The Mohican is swift of foot, and leaps far," he said; "but my young
+men are on his trail."
+
+"Is he gone?" demanded Magua, in tones so deep and guttural, that they
+seemed to proceed from his inmost chest.
+
+"An evil spirit has been among us, and the Delaware has blinded our
+eyes."
+
+"An evil spirit!" repeated the other, mockingly; "'tis the spirit that
+has taken the lives of so many Hurons; the spirit that slew my young men
+at 'the tumbling river'; that took their scalps at the 'healing spring';
+and who has now bound the arms of Le Renard Subtil!"
+
+"Of whom does my friend speak?"
+
+"Of the dog who carries the heart and cunning of a Huron under a pale
+skin--La Longue Carabine."
+
+The pronunciation of so terrible a name produced the usual effect among
+his auditors. But when time was given for reflection, and the warriors
+remembered that their formidable and daring enemy had even been in the
+bosom of their encampment, working injury, fearful rage took the place
+of wonder, and all those fierce passions with which the bosom of Magua
+had just been struggling were suddenly transferred to his companions.
+Some among them gnashed their teeth in anger, others vented their
+feelings in yells, and some, again beat the air as frantically as if the
+object of their resentment were suffering under their blows. But this
+sudden outbreaking of temper as quickly subsided in the still and sullen
+restraint they most affected, in their moments of inaction.
+
+Magua who had in his turn found leisure for reflection, now changed his
+manner, and assumed the air of one who knew how to think and act with a
+dignity worthy of so grave a subject.
+
+"Let us go to my people," he said; "they wait for us."
+
+His companions consented in silence, and the whole of the savage party
+left the cavern and returned to the council-lodge. When they were
+seated, all eyes turned on Magua, who understood, from such an
+indication, that, by common consent, they had devolved the duty of
+relating what had passed on him. He arose, and told his tale without
+duplicity or reservation. The whole deception practised by both Duncan
+and Hawkeye was, of course, laid naked; and no room was found, even for
+the most superstitious of the tribe, any longer to affix a doubt on the
+character of the occurrences. It was but too apparent that they had been
+insultingly, shamefully, disgracefully deceived. When he had ended, and
+resumed his seat, the collected tribe--for his auditors, in substance,
+included all the fighting men of the party--sat regarding each other
+like men astonished equally at the audacity and the success of their
+enemies. The next consideration, however, was the means and
+opportunities for revenge.
+
+Additional pursuers were sent on the trail of the fugitives; and then
+the chiefs applied themselves, in earnest, to the business of
+consultation. Many different expedients were proposed by the elder
+warriors, in succession, to all of which Magua was a silent and
+respectful listener. That subtle savage had recovered his artifice and
+self-command, and now proceeded towards his object with his customary
+caution and skill. It was only when each one disposed to speak had
+uttered his sentiments, that he prepared to advance his own opinions.
+They were given with additional weight from the circumstance that some
+of the runners had already returned, and reported that their enemies had
+been traced so far as to leave no doubt of their having sought safety in
+the neighboring camp of their suspected allies, the Delawares. With the
+advantage of possessing this important intelligence, the chief warily
+laid his plans before his fellows, and, as might have been anticipated
+from his eloquence and cunning, they were adopted without a dissenting
+voice. They were, briefly, as follows, both in opinions and in motives.
+
+It has been already stated that, in obedience to a policy rarely
+departed from, the sisters were separated so soon as they reached the
+Huron village. Magua had early discovered that in retaining the person
+of Alice, he possessed the most effectual check on Cora. When they
+parted, therefore, he kept the former within reach of his hand,
+consigning the one he most valued to the keeping of their allies. The
+arrangement was understood to be merely temporary, and was made as much
+with a view to flatter his neighbors as in obedience to the invariable
+rule of Indian policy.
+
+While goaded incessantly by those revengeful impulses that in a savage
+seldom slumber, the chief was still attentive to his more permanent
+personal interests. The follies and disloyalty committed in his youth
+were to be expiated by a long and painful penance, ere he could be
+restored to the full enjoyment of the confidence of his ancient people;
+and without confidence, there could be no authority in an Indian tribe.
+In this delicate and arduous situation, the crafty native had neglected
+no means of increasing his influence; and one of the happiest of his
+expedients had been the success with which he had cultivated the favor
+of their powerful and dangerous neighbors. The result of his experiment
+had answered all the expectations of his policy; for the Hurons were in
+no degree exempt from that governing principle of nature, which induces
+man to value his gifts precisely in the degree that they are appreciated
+by others.
+
+But, while he was making this ostensible sacrifice to general
+considerations, Magua never lost sight of his individual motives. The
+latter had been frustrated by the unlooked-for events which had placed
+all his prisoners beyond his control; and he now found himself reduced
+to the necessity of suing for favors to those whom it had so lately been
+his policy to oblige.
+
+Several of the chiefs had proposed deep and treacherous schemes to
+surprise the Delawares, and, by gaining possession of their camp, to
+recover their prisoners by the same blow; for all agreed that their
+honor, their interests, and the peace and happiness of their dead
+countrymen, imperiously required them speedily to immolate some victims
+to their revenge. But plans so dangerous to attempt, and of such
+doubtful issue, Magua found little difficulty in defeating. He exposed
+their risk and fallacy with his usual skill; and it was only after he
+had removed every impediment, in the shape of opposing advice, that he
+ventured to propose his own projects.
+
+He commenced by flattering the self-love of his auditors; a
+never-failing method of commanding attention. When he had enumerated the
+many different occasions on which the Hurons had exhibited their courage
+and prowess, in the punishment of insults, he digressed in a high
+encomium on the virtue of wisdom. He painted the quality, as forming the
+great point of difference between the beaver and other brutes; between
+brutes and men; and, finally, between the Hurons, in particular, and
+the rest of the human race. After he had sufficiently extolled the
+property of discretion, he undertook to exhibit in what manner its use
+was applicable to the present situation of their tribe. On the one hand,
+he said, was their great pale father, the governor of the Canadas, who
+had looked upon his children with a hard eye since their tomahawks had
+been so red; on the other, a people as numerous as themselves, who spoke
+a different language, possessed different interests, and loved them not,
+and who would be glad of any pretence to bring them in disgrace with the
+great white chief. Then he spoke of their necessities; of the gifts they
+had a right to expect for their past services; of their distance from
+their proper hunting-grounds and native villages; and of the necessity
+of consulting prudence more, and inclination less, in so critical
+circumstances. When he perceived that, while the old men applauded his
+moderation, many of the fiercest and most distinguished of the warriors
+listened to these politic plans with lowering looks, he cunningly led
+them back to the subject which they most loved. He spoke openly of the
+fruits of their wisdom, which he boldly pronounced would be a complete
+and final triumph over their enemies. He even darkly hinted that their
+success might be extended, with proper caution, in such a manner as to
+include the destruction of all whom they had reason to hate. In short,
+he so blended the warlike with the artful, the obvious with the obscure,
+as to flatter the propensities of both parties, and to leave to each
+subject of hope, while neither could say it clearly comprehended his
+intentions.
+
+The orator, or the politician, who can produce such a state of things,
+is commonly popular with his contemporaries, however he may be treated
+by posterity. All perceived that more was meant than was uttered, and
+each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own
+faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to
+anticipate.
+
+In this happy state of things, it is not surprising that the management
+of Magua prevailed. The tribe consented to act with deliberation, and
+with one voice they committed the direction of the whole affair to the
+government of the chief who had suggested such wise and intelligible
+expedients.
+
+Magua had now attained one great object of all his cunning and
+enterprise. The ground he had lost in the favor of his people was
+completely regained, and he found himself even placed at the head of
+affairs. He was, in truth, their ruler; and, so long as he could
+maintain his popularity, no monarch could be more despotic, especially
+while the tribe continued in a hostile country. Throwing off, therefore,
+the appearance of consultation, he assumed the grave air of authority
+necessary to support the dignity of his office.
+
+Runners were despatched for intelligence in different directions; spies
+were ordered to approach and feel the encampment of the Delawares; the
+warriors were dismissed to their lodges, with an intimation that their
+services would soon be needed; and the women and children were ordered
+to retire, with a warning that it was their province to be silent. When
+these several arrangements were made, Magua passed through the village,
+stopping here and there to pay a visit where he thought his presence
+might be flattering to the individual. He confirmed his friends in their
+confidence, fixed the wavering, and gratified all. Then he sought his
+own lodge. The wife the Huron chief had abandoned, when he was chased
+from among his people, was dead. Children he had none; and he now
+occupied a hut, without companion of any sort. It was, in fact, the
+dilapidated and solitary structure in which David had been discovered,
+and whom he had tolerated in his presence, on those few occasions when
+they met, with the contemptuous indifference of a haughty superiority.
+
+Hither, then, Magua retired, when his labors of policy were ended. While
+others slept, however, he neither knew nor sought repose. Had there been
+one sufficiently curious to have watched the movements of the newly
+elected chief, he would have seen him seated in a corner of his lodge,
+musing on the subject of his future plans, from the hour of his
+retirement to the time he had appointed for the warriors to assemble
+again. Occasionally the air breathed through the crevices of the hut,
+and the low flames that fluttered about the embers of the fire threw
+their wavering light on the person of the sullen recluse. At such
+moments it would not have been difficult to have fancied the dusky
+savage the Prince of Darkness, brooding on his own fancied wrongs, and
+plotting evil.
+
+Long before the day dawned, however, warrior after warrior entered the
+solitary hut of Magua, until they had collected to the number of twenty.
+Each bore his rifle, and all the other accoutrements of war, though the
+paint was uniformly peaceful. The entrance of these fierce-looking
+beings was unnoticed; some seating themselves in the shadows of the
+place, and others standing like motionless statues, until the whole of
+the designated band was collected.
+
+Then Magua arose and gave the signal to proceed, marching himself in
+advance. They followed their leader singly, and in that well-known order
+which has obtained the distinguishing appellation of "Indian file."
+Unlike other men engaged in the spirit-stirring business of war, they
+stole from their camp unostentatiously and unobserved, resembling a band
+of gliding spectres, more than warriors seeking the bubble reputation by
+deeds of desperate daring.
+
+Instead of taking the path which led directly towards the camp of the
+Delawares, Magua led his party for some distance down the windings of
+the stream, and along the little artificial lake of the beavers. The day
+began to dawn as they entered the clearing which had been formed by
+those sagacious and industrious animals. Though Magua, who had resumed
+his ancient garb, bore the outline of a fox on the dressed skin which
+formed his robe, there was one chief of his party who carried the beaver
+as his peculiar symbol, or "totem." There would have been a species of
+profanity in the omission, had this man passed so powerful a community
+of his fancied kindred, without bestowing some evidence of his regard.
+Accordingly, he paused, and spoke in words as kind and friendly as if he
+were addressing more intelligent beings. He called the animals his
+cousins, and reminded them that his protecting influence was the reason
+they remained unharmed, while so many avaricious traders were prompting
+the Indians to take their lives. He promised a continuance of his
+favors, and admonished them to be grateful. After which, he spoke of the
+expedition in which he was himself engaged, and intimated, though with
+sufficient delicacy and circumlocution, the expediency of bestowing on
+their relative a portion of that wisdom for which they were so
+renowned.[24]
+
+During the utterance of this extraordinary address, the companions of
+the speaker were as grave and as attentive to his language as though
+they were all equally impressed with its propriety. Once or twice black
+objects were seen rising to the surface of the water, and the Huron
+expressed pleasure, conceiving that his words were not bestowed in
+vain. Just as he had ended his address, the head of a large beaver was
+thrust from the door of a lodge, whose earthen walls had been much
+injured, and which the party had believed, from its situation, to be
+uninhabited. Such an extraordinary sign of confidence was received by
+the orator as a highly favorable omen; and though the animal retreated a
+little precipitately, he was lavish of his thanks and commendations.
+
+When Magua thought sufficient time had been lost in gratifying the
+family affection of the warrior, he again made the signal to proceed. As
+the Indians moved away in a body, and with a step that would have been
+inaudible to the ears of any common man, the same venerable-looking
+beaver once more ventured his head from its cover. Had any of the Hurons
+turned to look behind them, they would have seen the animal watching
+their movements with an interest and sagacity that might easily have
+been mistaken for reason. Indeed, so very distinct and intelligible were
+the devices of the quadruped, that even the most experienced observer
+would have been at a loss to account for its actions, until the moment
+when the party entered the forest, when the whole would have been
+explained, by seeing the entire animal issue from the lodge, uncasing,
+by the act, the grave features of Chingachgook from his mask of fur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+  "Brief, I pray you; for you see, 'tis a busy time with me."
+
+  _Much Ado About Nothing._
+
+
+The tribe, or rather half tribe, of Delawares, which has been so often
+mentioned, and whose present place of encampment was so nigh the
+temporary village of the Hurons, could assemble about an equal number of
+warriors with the latter people. Like their neighbors, they had followed
+Montcalm into the territories of the English crown, and were making
+heavy and serious inroads on the hunting-grounds of the Mohawks; though
+they had seen fit, with the mysterious reserve so common among the
+natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most
+required. The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the
+part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion,
+however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient
+treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Six Nations for
+military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their
+former masters. As for the tribe itself, it had been content to announce
+to Montcalm, through his emissaries, with Indian brevity, that their
+hatchets were dull, and time was necessary to sharpen them. The politic
+captain of the Canadas had deemed it wiser to submit to entertain a
+passive friend, than by any acts of ill-judged severity to convert him
+into an open enemy.
+
+On that morning when Magua led his silent party from the settlement of
+the beavers into the forest, in the manner described, the sun rose upon
+the Delaware encampment as if it had suddenly burst upon a busy people,
+actively employed in all the customary avocations of high noon. The
+women ran from lodge to lodge, some engaged in preparing their morning's
+meal, a few earnestly bent on seeking the comforts necessary to their
+habits, but more pausing to exchange hasty and whispered sentences with
+their friends. The warriors were lounging in groups, musing more than
+they conversed; and when a few words were uttered, speaking like men who
+deeply weighed their opinions. The instruments of the chase were to be
+seen in abundance among the lodges; but none departed. Here and there a
+warrior was examining his arms, with an attention that is rarely
+bestowed on the implements, when no other enemy than the beasts of the
+forest is expected to be encountered. And, occasionally, the eyes of a
+whole group were turned simultaneously towards a large and silent lodge
+in the centre of the village, as if it contained the subject of their
+common thoughts.
+
+During the existence of this scene, a man suddenly appeared at the
+farthest extremity of a platform of rock which formed the level of the
+village. He was without arms, and his paint tended rather to soften than
+increase the natural sternness of his austere countenance. When in full
+view of the Delawares he stopped, and made a gesture of amity, by
+throwing his arm upward towards heaven, and then letting it fall
+impressively on his breast. The inhabitants of the village answered his
+salute by a low murmur of welcome, and encouraged him to advance by
+similar indications of friendship. Fortified by these assurances, the
+dark figure left the brow of the natural rocky terrace, where it had
+stood a moment, drawn in a strong outline against the blushing morning
+sky, and moved with dignity into the very centre of the huts. As he
+approached, nothing was audible but the rattling of the light silver
+ornaments that loaded his arms and neck, and the tinkling of the little
+bells that fringed his deer-skin moccasins. He made, as he advanced,
+many courteous signs of greeting to the men he passed, neglecting to
+notice the women, however, like one who deemed their favor, in the
+present enterprise, of no importance. When he had reached the group in
+which it was evident, by the haughtiness of their common mien, that the
+principal chiefs were collected, the stranger paused, and then the
+Delawares saw that the active and erect form that stood before them was
+that of the well-known Huron chief, Le Renard Subtil.
+
+His reception was grave, silent, and wary. The warriors in front stepped
+aside, opening the way to their most approved orator by the action; one
+who spoke all those languages that were cultivated among the northern
+aborigines.
+
+"The wise Huron is welcome," said the Delaware, in the language of the
+Maquas; "he is come to eat his 'succotash,'[25] with his brothers of the
+lakes."
+
+"He is come," repeated Magua, bending his head with the dignity of an
+Eastern prince.
+
+The chief extended his arm, and taking the other by the wrist, they once
+more exchanged friendly salutations. Then the Delaware invited his guest
+to enter his own lodge, and share his morning meal. The invitation was
+accepted; and the two warriors, attended by three or four of the old
+men, walked calmly away, leaving the rest of the tribe devoured by a
+desire to understand the reasons of so unusual a visit, and yet not
+betraying the least impatience by sign or word.
+
+During the short and frugal repast that followed, the conversation was
+extremely circumspect, and related entirely to the events of the hunt in
+which Magua had so lately been engaged. It would have been impossible
+for the most finished breeding to wear more of the appearance of
+considering the visit as a matter of course, than did his hosts,
+notwithstanding every individual present was perfectly aware that it
+must be connected with some secret object, and that probably of
+importance to themselves. When the appetites of the whole were appeased,
+the squaws removed the trenchers and gourd, and the two parties began to
+prepare themselves for a subtle trial of their wits.
+
+"Is the face of my great Canada father turned again towards his Huron
+children?" demanded the orator of the Delawares.
+
+"When was it ever otherwise?" returned Magua. "He calls my people 'most
+beloved.'"
+
+The Delaware gravely bowed his acquiescence to what he knew to be false,
+and continued,--
+
+"The tomahawks of your young men have been very red."
+
+"It is so; but they are now bright and dull; for the Yengeese are dead,
+and the Delawares are our neighbors."
+
+The other acknowledged the pacific compliment by a gesture of the hand,
+and remained silent. Then Magua, as if recalled to such a recollection,
+by the allusion to the massacre, demanded,--
+
+"Does my prisoner give trouble to my brothers?"
+
+"She is welcome."
+
+"The path between the Hurons and the Delawares is short, and it is open;
+let her be sent to my squaws, if she gives trouble to my brother."
+
+"She is welcome," returned the chief of the latter nation, still more
+emphatically.
+
+The baffled Magua continued silent several minutes, apparently
+indifferent, however, to the repulse he had received in this his open
+effort to gain possession of Cora.
+
+"Do my young men leave the Delawares room on the mountains for their
+hunts?" he at length continued.
+
+"The Lenape are rulers of their own hills," returned the other, a little
+haughtily.
+
+"It is well. Justice is the master of a redskin! Why should they
+brighten their tomahawks, and sharpen their knives against each other?
+Are not the pale-faces thicker than the swallows in the season of
+flowers?"
+
+"Good!" exclaimed two or three of his auditors at the same time.
+
+Magua waited a little, to permit his words to soften the feelings of the
+Delawares, before he added,--
+
+"Have there not been strange moccasins in the woods? Have not my
+brothers scented the feet of white men?"
+
+"Let my Canada father come," returned the other evasively; "his children
+are ready to see him."
+
+"When the great chief comes, it is to smoke with the Indians in their
+wigwams. The Hurons say, too, he is welcome. But the Yengeese have long
+arms, and legs that never tire! My young men dreamed they had seen the
+trail of the Yengeese nigh the village of the Delawares?"
+
+"They will not find the Lenape asleep."
+
+"It is well. The warrior whose eye is open can see his enemy," said
+Magua, once more shifting his ground, when he found himself unable to
+penetrate the caution of his companion. "I have brought gifts to my
+brother. His nation would not go on the war-path because they did not
+think it well; but their friends have remembered where they lived."
+
+When he had thus announced his liberal intention, the crafty chief
+arose, and gravely spread his presents before the dazzled eyes of his
+hosts. They consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered
+from the slaughtered females of William Henry. In the division of the
+baubles the cunning Huron discovered no less art than in their
+selection. While he bestowed those of greater value on the two most
+distinguished warriors, one of whom was his host, he seasoned his
+offerings to their inferiors with such well-timed and apposite
+compliments, as left them no grounds of complaint. In short, the whole
+ceremony contained such a happy blending of the profitable with the
+flattering, that it was not difficult for the donor immediately to read
+the effect of a generosity so aptly mingled with praise, in the eyes of
+those he addressed.
+
+This well-judged and politic stroke on the part of Magua was not without
+instantaneous results. The Delawares lost their gravity in a much more
+cordial expression; and the host, in particular, after contemplating his
+own liberal share of the spoil for some moments with peculiar
+gratification, repeated with strong emphasis, the words,--
+
+"My brother is a wise chief. He is welcome!"
+
+"The Hurons love their friends the Delawares," returned Magua. "Why
+should they not? they are colored by the same sun, and their just men
+will hunt in the same grounds after death. The redskins should be
+friends, and look with open eyes on the white men. Has not my brother
+scented spies in the woods?"
+
+The Delaware, whose name in English signified "Hard Heart," an
+appellation that the French had translated into "Le Coeur-dur," forgot
+the obduracy of purpose, which had probably obtained him so significant
+a title. His countenance grew very sensibly less stern, and now deigned
+to answer more directly.
+
+"There have been strange moccasins about my camp. They have been tracked
+into my lodges."
+
+"Did my brother beat out the dogs?" asked Magua, without adverting in
+any manner to the former equivocation of the chief.
+
+"It would not do. The stranger is always welcome to the children of the
+Lenape."
+
+"The stranger, but not the spy."
+
+"Would the Yengeese send their women as spies? Did not the Huron chief
+say he took women in the battle?"
+
+"He told no lie. The Yengeese have sent out their scouts. They have been
+in my wigwams, but they found there no one to say welcome. Then they
+fled to the Delawares--for, say they, the Delawares are our friends;
+their minds are turned from their Canada father!"
+
+This insinuation was a home thrust, and one that in a more advanced
+state of society, would have entitled Magua to the reputation of a
+skilful diplomatist. The recent defection of the tribe had, as they well
+knew themselves, subjected the Delawares to much reproach among their
+French allies; and they were now made to feel that their future actions
+were to be regarded with jealousy and distrust. There was no deep
+insight into causes and effects necessary to foresee that such a
+situation of things was likely to prove highly prejudicial to their
+future movements. Their distant villages, their hunting-grounds, and
+hundreds of their women and children, together with a material part of
+their physical force, were actually within the limits of the French
+territory. Accordingly, this alarming annunciation was received, as
+Magua intended, with manifest disapprobation, if not with alarm.
+
+"Let my father look in my face," said Le Coeur-dur; "he will see no
+change. It is true, my young men did not go out on the war-path; they
+had dreams for not doing so. But they love and venerate the great white
+chief."
+
+"Will he think so when he hears that his greatest enemy is fed in the
+camp of his children? When he is told a bloody Yengee smokes at your
+fire? That the pale-face who has slain so many of his friends goes in
+and out among the Delawares? Go! my great Canada father is not a fool!"
+
+"Where is the Yengee that the Delawares fear?" returned the other; "who
+has slain my young men? who is the mortal enemy of my Great Father!"
+
+"La Longue Carabine."
+
+The Delaware warriors started at the well-known name, betraying, by
+their amazement, that they now learnt, for the first time, one so famous
+among the Indian allies of France was within their power.
+
+"What does my brother mean?" demanded Le Coeur-dur, in a tone that, by
+its wonder, far exceeded the usual apathy of his race.
+
+"A Huron never lies!" returned Magua coldly, leaning his head against
+the side of the lodge, and drawing his slight robe across his tawny
+breast. "Let the Delawares count their prisoners; they will find one
+whose skin is neither red nor pale."
+
+A long and musing pause succeeded. The chief consulted apart with his
+companions, and messengers were despatched to collect certain others of
+the most distinguished men of the tribe.
+
+As warrior after warrior dropped in, they were each made acquainted, in
+turn, with the important intelligence that Magua had just communicated.
+The air of surprise, and the usual low, deep, guttural exclamation, were
+common to them all. The news spread from mouth to mouth, until the whole
+encampment became powerfully agitated. The women suspended their
+labors, to catch such syllables as unguardedly fell from the lips of the
+consulting warriors. The boys deserted their sports, and walking
+fearlessly among their fathers, looked up in curious admiration, as they
+heard the brief exclamations of wonder they so freely expressed at the
+temerity of their hated foe. In short, every occupation was abandoned
+for the time, and all other pursuits seemed discarded, in order that the
+tribe might freely indulge, after their own peculiar manner, in an open
+expression of feeling.
+
+When the excitement had a little abated, the old men disposed themselves
+seriously to consider that which it became the honor and safety of their
+tribe to perform, under circumstances of so much delicacy and
+embarrassment. During all these movements, and in the midst of the
+general commotion, Magua had not only maintained his seat, but the very
+attitude he had originally taken, against the side of the lodge, where
+he continued as immovable, and, apparently, as unconcerned, as if he had
+no interest in the result. Not a single indication of the future
+intentions of his hosts, however, escaped his vigilant eyes. With his
+consummate knowledge of the nature of the people with whom he had to
+deal, he anticipated every measure on which they decided; and it might
+almost be said, that, in many instances, he knew their intentions, even
+before they became known to themselves.
+
+The council of the Delawares was short. When it was ended, a general
+bustle announced that it was to be immediately succeeded by a solemn and
+formal assemblage of the nation. As such meetings were rare, and only
+called on occasions of the last importance, the subtle Huron, who still
+sat apart, a wily and dark observer of the proceedings, now knew that
+all his projects must be brought to their final issue. He therefore left
+the lodge, and walked silently forth to the place in front of the
+encampment whither the warriors were already beginning to collect.
+
+It might have been half an hour before each individual, including even
+the women and children, was in his place. The delay had been created by
+the grave preparations that were deemed necessary to so solemn and
+unusual a conference. But when the sun was seen climbing above the tops
+of that mountain against whose bosom the Delawares had constructed their
+encampment, most were seated; and as his bright rays darted from behind
+the outline of trees that fringed the eminence, they fell upon as grave,
+as attentive, and as deeply interested a multitude, as was probably
+ever before lighted by his morning beams. Its number somewhat exceeded a
+thousand souls.
+
+In a collection of such serious savages, there is never to be found any
+impatient aspirant after premature distinction, standing ready to move
+his auditors to some hasty, and, perhaps, injudicious discussion, in
+order that his own reputation may be the gainer. An act of so much
+precipitancy and presumption would seal the downfall of precocious
+intellect forever. It rested solely with the oldest and most experienced
+of the men to lay the subject of the conference before the people. Until
+such a one chose to make some movement, no deeds in arms, no natural
+gifts, nor any renown as an orator, would have justified the slightest
+interruption. On the present occasion, the aged warrior whose privilege
+it was to speak, was silent, seemingly oppressed with the magnitude of
+his subject. The delay had already continued long beyond the usual
+deliberative pause that always precedes a conference; but no sign of
+impatience or surprise escaped even the youngest boy. Occasionally, an
+eye was raised from the earth, where the looks of most were riveted, and
+strayed towards a particular lodge, that was, however, in no manner
+distinguished from those around it, except in the peculiar care that had
+been taken to protect it against the assaults of the weather.
+
+At length, one of those low murmurs that are so apt to disturb a
+multitude, was heard, and the whole nation arose to their feet by a
+common impulse. At that the door of the lodge in question opened, and
+three men, issuing from it, slowly approached the place of consultation.
+They were all aged, even beyond that period to which the oldest present
+had reached; but one in the centre, who leaned on his companions for
+support, had numbered an amount of years to which the human race is
+seldom permitted to attain. His frame, which had once been tall and
+erect, like the cedar, was now bending under the pressure of more than a
+century. The elastic, light step of an Indian was gone, and in its place
+he was compelled to toil his tardy way over the ground, inch by inch.
+His dark, wrinkled countenance was in singular and wild contrast with
+the long white locks which floated on his shoulders in such thickness as
+to announce that generations had probably passed away since they had
+last been shorn.
+
+The dress of this patriarch--for such, considering his vast age, in
+conjunction with his affinity and influence with his people, he might
+very properly be termed--was rich and imposing, though strictly after
+the simple fashions of the tribe. His robe was of the finest skins,
+which had been deprived of their fur, in order to admit of a
+hieroglyphical representation of various deeds in arms, done in former
+ages. His bosom was loaded with medals, some in massive silver, and one
+or two even in gold, the gifts of various Christian potentates during
+the long period of his life. He also wore armlets, and cinctures above
+the ankles, of the latter precious metal. His head, on the whole of
+which the hair had been permitted to grow, the pursuits of war having so
+long been abandoned, was encircled by a sort of plated diadem, which, in
+its turn, bore lesser and more glittering ornaments, that sparkled amid
+the glossy hues of three drooping ostrich feathers, dyed a deep black,
+in touching contrast to the color of his snow-white locks. His tomahawk
+was nearly hid in silver, and the handle of his knife shone like a horn
+of solid gold.
+
+So soon as the first hum of emotion and pleasure, which the sudden
+appearance of this venerated individual created, had a little subsided,
+the name of "Tamenund" was whispered from mouth to mouth. Magua had
+often heard the fame of this wise and just Delaware; a reputation that
+even proceeded so far as to bestow on him the rare gift of holding
+secret communion with the Great Spirit, and which has since transmitted
+his name, with some slight alteration, to the white usurpers of his
+ancient territory, as the imaginary tutelar saint of a vast empire. The
+Huron chief, therefore, stepped eagerly out a little from the throng, to
+a spot whence he might catch a nearer glimpse of the features of the
+man, whose decision was likely to produce so deep an influence on his
+own fortunes.
+
+The eyes of the old man were closed, as though the organs were wearied
+with having so long witnessed the selfish workings of the human
+passions. The color of his skin differed from that of most around him,
+being richer and darker, the latter hue having been produced by certain
+delicate and mazy lines of complicated and yet beautiful figures, which
+had been traced over most of his person by the operation of tattooing.
+Notwithstanding the position of the Huron, he passed the observant and
+silent Magua without notice, and leaning on his two venerable supporters
+proceeded to the high place of the multitude, where he seated himself in
+the centre of his nation, with the dignity of a monarch and the air of a
+father.
+
+Nothing could surpass the reverence and affection with which this
+unexpected visit from one who belonged rather to another world than to
+this, was received by his people. After a suitable and decent pause, the
+principal chiefs arose; and approaching the patriarch, they placed his
+hands reverently on their heads, seeming to entreat a blessing. The
+younger men were content with touching his robe, or even drawing nigh
+his person, in order to breathe in the atmosphere of one so aged, so
+just, and so valiant. None but the most distinguished among the youthful
+warriors even presumed so far as to perform the latter ceremony; the
+great mass of the multitude deeming it a sufficient happiness to look
+upon a form so deeply venerated, and so well beloved. When these acts of
+affection and respect were performed, the chiefs drew back again to
+their several places, and silence reigned in the whole encampment.
+
+After a short delay, a few of the young men, to whom instructions had
+been whispered by one of the aged attendants of Tamenund, arose, left
+the crowd, and entered the lodge which has already been noted as the
+object of so much attention throughout that morning. In a few minutes
+they reappeared, escorting the individuals who had caused all these
+solemn preparations towards the seat of judgment. The crowd opened in a
+lane; and when the party had re-entered, it closed in again, forming a
+large and dense belt of human bodies, arranged in an open circle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+  "The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,
+  Achilles thus the king of men addressed."
+
+  POPE'S _Iliad._
+
+
+Cora stood foremost among the prisoners, entwining her arms in those of
+Alice, in the tenderness of sisterly love. Notwithstanding the fearful
+and menacing array of savages on every side of her, no apprehension on
+her own account could prevent the noble-minded maiden from keeping her
+eyes fastened on the pale and anxious features of the trembling Alice.
+Close at their side stood Heyward, with an interest in both, that, at
+such a moment of intense uncertainty, scarcely knew a preponderance in
+favor of her whom he most loved. Hawkeye had placed himself a little in
+the rear, with a deference to the superior rank of his companions, that
+no similarity in the state of their present fortunes could induce him to
+forget. Uncas was not there.
+
+When perfect silence was again restored, and after the usual long,
+impressive pause, one of the two aged chiefs who sat at the side of the
+patriarch arose, and demanded aloud, in very intelligible English,--
+
+"Which of my prisoners is La Longue Carabine?"
+
+Neither Duncan nor the scout answered. The former, however, glanced his
+eyes around the dark and silent assembly, and recoiled a pace, when they
+fell on the malignant visage of Magua. He saw, at once, that this wily
+savage had some secret agency in their present arraignment before the
+nation, and determined to throw every possible impediment in the way of
+the execution of his sinister plans. He had witnessed one instance of
+the summary punishments of the Indians, and now dreaded that his
+companion was to be selected for a second. In this dilemma, with little
+or no time for reflection, he suddenly determined to cloak his
+invaluable friend, at any or every hazard to himself. Before he had
+time, however, to speak, the question was repeated in a louder voice,
+and with a clearer utterance.
+
+"Give us arms," the young man haughtily replied, "and place us in
+yonder woods. Our deeds shall speak for us!"
+
+"This is the warrior whose name has filled our ears!" returned the
+chief, regarding Heyward with that sort of curious interest which seems
+inseparable from man, when first beholding one of his fellows to whom
+merit or accident, virtue or crime, has given notoriety. "What has
+brought the white man into the camp of the Delawares?"
+
+"My necessities. I come for food, shelter and friends."
+
+"It cannot be. The woods are full of game. The head of a warrior needs
+no other shelter than a sky without clouds; and the Delawares are the
+enemies, and not the friends, of the Yengeese. Go! the mouth has spoken,
+while the heart said nothing."
+
+Duncan, a little at a loss in what manner to proceed, remained silent;
+but the scout, who had listened attentively to all that passed, now
+advanced steadily to the front.
+
+"That I did not answer to the call for La Longue Carabine, was not owing
+either to shame or fear," he said; "for neither one nor the other is the
+gift of an honest man. But I do not admit the right of the Mingos to
+bestow a name on one whose friends have been mindful of his gifts, in
+this particular; especially as their title is a lie, 'Killdeer' being a
+grooved barrel and no carabyne. I am the man, however, that got the name
+of Nathaniel from my kin; the compliment of Hawkeye from the Delawares,
+who live on their own river; and whom the Iroquois have presumed to
+style the 'Long Rifle,' without any warranty from him who is most
+concerned in the matter."
+
+The eyes of all present, which had hitherto been gravely scanning the
+person of Duncan, were now turned, on the instant, towards the upright
+iron frame of this new pretender to the distinguished appellation. It
+was in no degree remarkable that there should be found two who were
+willing to claim so great an honor, for impostors, though rare, were not
+unknown amongst the natives; but it was altogether material to the just
+and severe intentions of the Delawares, that there should be no mistake
+in the matter. Some of their old men consulted together in private, and
+then, as it would seem, they determined to interrogate their visitor on
+the subject.
+
+"My brother has said that a snake crept into my camp," said the chief to
+Magua; "which is he?"
+
+The Huron pointed to the scout.
+
+"Will a wise Delaware believe the barking of a wolf?" exclaimed Duncan,
+still more confirmed in the evil intentions of his ancient enemy: "a dog
+never lies, but when was a wolf known to speak the truth?"
+
+The eyes of Magua flashed fire; but, suddenly recollecting the necessity
+of maintaining his presence of mind, he turned away in silent disdain,
+well assured that the sagacity of the Indians would not fail to extract
+the real merits of the point in controversy. He was not deceived; for,
+after another short consultation, the wary Delaware turned to him again,
+and expressed the determination of the chiefs, though in the most
+considerate language.
+
+"My brother has been called a liar," he said, "and his friends are
+angry. They will show that he has spoken the truth. Give my prisoners
+guns, and let them prove which is the man."
+
+Magua affected to consider the expedient, which he well knew proceeded
+from distrust of himself, as a compliment, and made a gesture of
+acquiescence, well content that his veracity should be supported by so
+skilful a marksman as the scout. The weapons were instantly placed in
+the hands of the friendly opponents, and they were bid to fire over the
+heads of the seated multitude at an earthen vessel, which lay, by
+accident, on a stump some fifty yards from the place where they stood.
+
+Heyward smiled to himself at the idea of a competition with the scout,
+though he determined to persevere in the deception, until apprised of
+the real designs of Magua. Raising his rifle with the utmost care, and
+renewing his aim three several times, he fired. The bullet cut the wood
+within a few inches of the vessel; and a general exclamation of
+satisfaction announced that the shot was considered a proof of great
+skill in the use of the weapon. Even Hawkeye nodded his head, as if he
+would say, it was better than he had expected. But, instead of
+manifesting an intention to contend with the successful marksman, he
+stood leaning on his rifle for more than a minute, like a man who was
+completely buried in thought. From this reverie he was, however,
+awakened by one of the young Indians who had furnished the arms, and who
+now touched his shoulder, saying, in exceedingly broken English,--
+
+"Can the pale-face beat it?"
+
+"Yes, Huron!" exclaimed the scout, raising the short rifle in his right
+hand, and shaking it at Magua, with as much apparent ease as if it were
+a reed; "yes, Huron, I could strike you now, and no power of earth could
+prevent the deed! The soaring hawk is not more certain of the dove than
+I am this moment of you, did I choose to send a bullet to your heart!
+Why should I not? Why!--because the gifts of my color forbid it, and I
+might draw down evil on tender and innocent heads. If you know such a
+being as God, thank Him, therefore, in your inward soul; for you have
+reason."
+
+The flushed countenance, angry eye, and swelling figure of the scout,
+produced a sensation of secret awe in all that heard him. The Delawares
+held their breath in expectation; but Magua himself, even while he
+distrusted the forbearance of his enemy, remained immovable and calm,
+where he stood wedged in by the crowd, as one who grew to the spot.
+
+"Beat it," replied the young Delaware at the elbow of the scout.
+
+"Beat what, fool!--what!" exclaimed Hawkeye, still flourishing the
+weapon angrily above his head, though his eye no longer sought the
+person of Magua.
+
+"If the white man is the warrior he pretends," said the aged chief, "let
+him strike nigher to the mark."
+
+The scout laughed aloud--a noise that produced the startling effect of
+an unnatural sound on Heyward; then dropping the piece heavily into his
+extended left hand, it was discharged, apparently by the shock, driving
+the fragments of the vessel into the air, and scattering them on every
+side. Almost at the same instant, the rattling sound of the rifle was
+heard, as he suffered it to fall, contemptuously, to the earth.
+
+The first impression of so strange a scene was engrossing admiration.
+Then a low, but increasing murmur, ran through the multitude, and
+finally swelled into sounds that denoted a lively opposition in the
+sentiments of the spectators. While some openly testified their
+satisfaction at so unexampled dexterity, by far the larger portion of
+the tribe were inclined to believe the success of the shot was the
+result of accident. Heyward was not slow to confirm an opinion that was
+so favorable to his own pretentions.
+
+"It was chance!" he exclaimed; "none can shoot without an aim!"
+
+"Chance!" echoed the excited woodsman, who was now stubbornly bent on
+maintaining his identity at every hazard, and on whom the secret hints
+of Heyward to acquiesce in the deception were entirely lost. "Does
+yonder lying Huron, too, think it chance? Give him another gun, and
+place us face to face, without cover or dodge, and let Providence, and
+our own eyes, decide the matter atween us! I do not make the offer to
+you, major; for our blood is of a color, and we serve the same master."
+
+"That the Huron is a liar, is very evident," returned Heyward, coolly;
+"you have yourself heard him assert you to be La Longue Carabine."
+
+It were impossible to say what violent assertion the stubborn Hawkeye
+would have next made, in his headlong wish to vindicate his identity,
+had not the aged Delaware once more interposed.
+
+"The hawk which comes from the clouds can return when he will," he said;
+"give them the guns."
+
+This time the scout seized the rifle with avidity; nor had Magua, though
+he watched the movement of the marksman with jealous eyes, any further
+cause for apprehension.
+
+"Now let it be proved, in the face of this tribe of Delawares, which is
+the better man," cried the scout, tapping the butt of his piece with
+that finger which had pulled so many fatal triggers. "You see the gourd
+hanging against yonder tree, major; if you are a marksman fit for the
+borders, let me see you break its shell!"
+
+Duncan noted the object, and prepared himself to renew the trial. The
+gourd was one of the usual little vessels used by the Indians, and it
+was suspended from a dead branch of a small pine, by a thong of
+deer-skin, at the full distance of a hundred yards. So strangely
+compounded is the feeling of self-love, that the young soldier, while he
+knew the utter worthlessness of the suffrages of his savage umpires,
+forgot the sudden motives of the contest in a wish to excel. It has been
+seen, already, that his skill was far from being contemptible, and he
+now resolved to put forth its nicest qualities. Had his life depended on
+the issue, the aim of Duncan could not have been more deliberate or
+guarded. He fired; and three or four young Indians, who sprang forward
+at the report, announced with a shout, that the ball was in the tree, a
+very little on one side of the proper object. The warriors uttered a
+common ejaculation of pleasure, and then turned their eyes inquiringly
+on the movements of his rival.
+
+"It may do for the Royal Americans!" said Hawkeye, laughing once more
+in his own silent, heartfelt manner; "but had my gun often turned so
+much from the true line, many a marten, whose skin is now in a lady's
+muff, would still be in the woods; ay, and many a bloody Mingo, who has
+departed to his final account, would be acting his deviltries at this
+very day, atween the provinces. I hope the squaw who owns the gourd has
+more of them in her wigwam, for this will never hold water again!"
+
+The scout had shook his priming, and cocked his piece, while speaking;
+and, as he ended, he threw back a foot, and slowly raised the muzzle
+from the earth: the motion was steady, uniform, and in one direction.
+When on a perfect level, it remained for a single moment, without tremor
+or variation, as though both man and rifle were carved in stone. During
+that stationary instant, it poured forth its contents, in a bright,
+glancing sheet of flame. Again the young Indians bounded forward; but
+their hurried search and disappointed looks announced that no traces of
+the bullet were to be seen.
+
+"Go!" said the old chief to the scout, in a tone of strong disgust;
+"thou art a wolf in the skin of a dog. I will talk to the 'Long Rifle'
+of the Yengeese."
+
+"Ah! had I that piece which furnished the name you use, I would obligate
+myself to cut the thong, and drop the gourd without breaking it!"
+returned Hawkeye, perfectly undisturbed by the other's manner, "Fools,
+if you would find the bullet of a sharpshooter of these woods, you must
+look in the object and not around it!"
+
+The Indian youths instantly comprehended his meaning--for this time he
+spoke in the Delaware tongue--and tearing the gourd from the tree, they
+held it on high with an exulting shout, displaying a hole in its bottom,
+which had been cut by the bullet, after passing through the usual
+orifice in the centre of its upper side. At this unexpected exhibition,
+a loud and vehement expression of pleasure burst from the mouth of every
+warrior present. It decided the question, and effectually established
+Hawkeye in the possession of his dangerous reputation. Those curious and
+admiring eyes which had been turned again on Heyward, were finally
+directed to the weather-beaten form of the scout, who immediately became
+the principal object of attention to the simple and unsophisticated
+beings by whom he was surrounded. When the sudden and noisy commotion
+had a little subsided, the aged chief resumed his examination.
+
+"Why did you wish to stop my ears?" he said, addressing Duncan; "are
+the Delawares fools, that they could not know the young panther from the
+cat?"
+
+"They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird," said Duncan, endeavoring
+to adopt the figurative language of the natives.
+
+"It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother," added
+the chief, turning his eyes on Magua, "the Delawares listen."
+
+Thus singled, and directly called on to declare his object, the Huron
+arose; and advancing with great deliberation and dignity into the very
+centre of the circle, where he stood confronted to the prisoners, he
+placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth,
+however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of
+earnest faces as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his
+audience. On Hawkeye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan, a
+look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice he
+scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm,
+commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with
+an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled
+with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a
+tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.
+
+"The Spirit that made men colored them differently," commenced the
+subtle Huron. "Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These He said
+would be slaves; and He ordered them to work forever, like the beaver.
+You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the
+lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt lake, where the big
+canoes come and go with them in droves. Some He made with faces paler
+than the ermine of the forests: and these He ordered to be traders; dogs
+to their women, and wolves to their slaves. He gave this people the
+nature of the pigeon: wings that never tire; young, more plentiful than
+the leaves on the trees, and appetites to devour the earth. He gave them
+tongues like the false call of the wild-cat; hearts like rabbits; the
+cunning of the hog (but none of the fox), and arms longer than the legs
+of the moose. With his tongue, he stops the ears of the Indians; his
+heart teaches him to pay warriors to fight his battles; his cunning
+tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms
+inclose the land from the shores of the salt-water to the islands of the
+great lake. His gluttony makes him sick. God gave him enough, and yet
+he wants all. Such are the pale-faces.
+
+"Some the Great Spirit made with skins brighter and redder than yonder
+sun," continued Magua, pointing impressively upwards to the lurid
+luminary, which was struggling through the misty atmosphere of the
+horizon; "and these did He fashion to His own mind. He gave them this
+island as He had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game. The
+wind made their clearings; the sun and rains ripened their fruits; and
+the snows came to tell them to be thankful. What need had they of roads
+to journey by! They saw through the hills. When the beavers worked, they
+lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in
+winter, skins kept them warm. If they fought among themselves, it was to
+prove that they were men. They were brave; they were just; they were
+happy."
+
+Here the speaker paused, and again looked around him, to discover if his
+legend had touched the sympathies of his listeners. He met everywhere
+with eyes riveted on his own, heads erect, and nostrils expanded, as if
+each individual present felt himself able and willing, singly, to
+redress the wrongs of his race.
+
+"If the Great Spirit gave different tongues to his red children," he
+continued, in a low, still, melancholy voice, "it was that all animals
+might understand them. Some He placed among the snows, with their cousin
+the bear. Some he placed near the setting sun, on the road to the happy
+hunting-grounds. Some on the lands around the great fresh waters; but to
+his greatest, and most beloved, He gave the sands of the salt lake. Do
+my brothers know the name of this favored people?"
+
+"It was the Lenape!" exclaimed twenty eager voices, in a breath.
+
+"It was the Lenni Lenape," returned Magua, affecting to bend his head in
+reverence to their former greatness. "It was the tribes of the Lenape!
+The sun rose from water that was salt, and set in water that was sweet,
+and never hid himself from their eyes. But why should I, a Huron of the
+woods, tell a wise people their own traditions? Why remind them of their
+injuries; their ancient greatness; their deeds; their glory; their
+happiness,--their losses; their defeats; their misery? Is there not one
+among them who has seen it all, and who knows it to be true? I have
+done. My tongue is still, for my heart is of lead. I listen."
+
+As the voice of the speaker suddenly ceased, every face and all eyes
+turned, by a common movement, towards the venerable Tamenund. From the
+moment that he took his seat, until the present instant, the lips of the
+patriarch had not severed, and scarcely a sign of life had escaped him.
+He sat bent in feebleness, and apparently unconscious of the presence he
+was in, during the whole of that opening scene, in which the skill of
+the scout had been so clearly established. At the nicely graduated sound
+of Magua's voice, however, he betrayed some evidence of consciousness,
+and once or twice he even raised his head, as if to listen. But when the
+crafty Huron spoke of his nation by name, the eyelids of the old man
+raised themselves, and he looked out upon the multitude with that sort
+of dull unmeaning expression which might be supposed to belong to the
+countenance of a spectre. Then he made an effort to rise, and being
+upheld by his supporters, he gained his feet, in a posture commanding by
+its dignity, while he tottered with weakness.
+
+"Who calls upon the children of the Lenape!" he said, in a deep,
+guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless
+silence of the multitude: "who speaks of things gone! Does not the egg
+become a worm--the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of
+good that is past? Better thank the Manitou for that which remains."
+
+"It is a Wyandot," said Magua, stepping nigher to the rude platform on
+which the other stood; "a friend of Tamenund."
+
+"A friend!" repeated the sage, on whose brow a dark frown settled,
+imparting a portion of that severity which had rendered his eye so
+terrible in middle age. "Are the Mingos rulers of the earth? What brings
+a Huron here?"
+
+"Justice. His prisoners are with his brothers, and he comes for his
+own."
+
+Tamenund turned his head towards one of his supporters, and listened to
+the short explanation the man gave. Then facing the applicant, he
+regarded him a moment with deep attention; after which he said, in a low
+and reluctant voice,--
+
+"Justice is the law of the great Manitou. My children, give the stranger
+food. Then, Huron, take thine own and depart."
+
+On the delivery of this solemn judgment, the patriarch seated himself,
+and closed his eyes again, as if better pleased with the images of his
+own ripened experience than with the visible objects of the world.
+Against such a decree there was no Delaware sufficiently hardy to
+murmur, much less oppose himself. The words were barely uttered when
+four or five of the younger warriors, stepping behind Heyward and the
+scout, passed thongs so dexterously and rapidly around their arms, as to
+hold them both in instant bondage. The former was too much engrossed
+with his precious and nearly insensible burden, to be aware of their
+intentions before they were executed; and the latter, who considered
+even the hostile tribes of the Delawares a superior race of beings,
+submitted without resistance. Perhaps, however, the manner of the scout
+would not have been so passive, had he fully comprehended the language
+in which the preceding dialogue had been conducted.
+
+Magua cast a look of triumph around the whole assembly before he
+proceeded to the execution of his purpose. Perceiving that the men were
+unable to offer any resistance, he turned his looks on her he valued
+most. Cora met his gaze with an eye so calm and firm, that his
+resolution wavered. Then recollecting his former artifice, he raised
+Alice from the arms of the warrior against whom she leaned, and
+beckoning Heyward to follow, he motioned for the encircling crowd to
+open. But Cora, instead of obeying the impulse he had expected, rushed
+to the feet of the patriarch, and raising her voice, exclaimed aloud,--
+
+"Just and venerable Delaware, on thy wisdom and power we lean for mercy!
+Be deaf to yonder artful and remorseless monster, who poisons thy ears
+with falsehoods to feed his thirst for blood. Thou that hast lived long,
+and that hast seen the evil of the world, should know how to temper its
+calamities to the miserable."
+
+The eyes of the old man opened heavily, and he once more looked upwards
+at the multitude. As the piercing tones of the supplicant swelled on his
+ears, they moved slowly in the direction of her person, and finally
+settled there in a steady gaze. Cora had cast herself to her knees; and,
+with hands clenched in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she
+remained like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in
+his faded, but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence.
+Gradually the expression of Tamenund's features changed, and losing
+their vacancy in admiration, they lighted with a portion of that
+intelligence which a century before had been wont to communicate his
+youthful fire to the extensive bands of the Delawares. Rising without
+assistance, and seemingly without an effort, he demanded, in a voice
+that startled its auditors by its firmness,--
+
+"What art thou?"
+
+"A woman. One of a hated race, if thou wilt--a Yengee. But one who has
+never harmed thee, and who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who
+asks for succor."
+
+"Tell me, my children," continued the patriarch, hoarsely, motioning to
+those around him, though his eyes still dwelt upon the kneeling form of
+Cora, "where have the Delawares camped?"
+
+"In the mountains of the Iroquois, beyond the clear springs of the
+Horican."
+
+"Many parching summers are come and gone," continued the sage, "since I
+drank of the water of my own rivers. The children of Minquon[26] are the
+justest white men; but they were thirsty, and they took it to
+themselves. Do they follow us so far?"
+
+"We follow none; we covet nothing," answered Cora. "Captives against our
+wills, have we been brought among you; and we ask but permission to
+depart to our own in peace. Art thou not Tamenund--the father, the
+judge, I had almost said, the prophet--of this people?"
+
+"I am Tamenund of many days."
+
+"'Tis now some seven years that one of thy people was at the mercy of a
+white chief on the borders of this province. He claimed to be of the
+blood of the good and just Tamenund. 'Go,' said the white man, 'for thy
+parent's sake thou art free.' Dost thou remember the name of that
+English warrior?"
+
+"I remember, that when a laughing boy," returned the patriarch, with the
+peculiar recollection of vast age, "I stood upon the sands of the
+sea-shore, and saw a big canoe, with wings whiter than the swan's, and
+wider than many eagles, come from the rising sun."
+
+"Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant, but of favor shown to
+thy kindred by one of mine, within the memory of thy youngest warrior."
+
+"Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchmanne fought for the
+hunting-grounds of the Delawares? Then Tamenund was a chief, and first
+laid aside the bow for the lightning of the pale faces--"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE SUPPLICANT
+
+_Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched in each
+other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a beauteous and
+breathing model of her sex_]
+
+"Nor yet then," interrupted Cora, "by many ages; I speak of a thing of
+yesterday. Surely, surely, you forget it not."
+
+"It was but yesterday," rejoined the aged man, with touching pathos,
+"that the children of the Lenape were masters of the world. The fishes
+of the salt lake, the birds, the beasts, and the Mengwe of the woods,
+owned them for sagamores."
+
+Cora bowed her head in disappointment, and, for a bitter moment,
+struggled with her chagrin. Then elevating her rich features and beaming
+eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
+unearthly voice of the patriarch himself,--
+
+"Tell me, is Tamenund a father?"
+
+The old man looked down upon her from his elevated stand, with a
+benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes
+slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered,--
+
+"Of a nation."
+
+"For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief," she
+continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering
+her head to droop until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the
+maze of dark glossy tresses that fell in disorder upon her shoulders,
+"the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child. But yonder
+is one who has never known the weight of Heaven's displeasure until now.
+She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their
+close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she
+is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain."
+
+"I know that the pale-faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that
+they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their
+color is better than the sachems of the redman. The dogs and crows of
+their tribes," continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the
+wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the
+earth in shame, as he proceeded, "would bark and caw before they would
+take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow.
+But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They
+entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun. I
+have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the
+season of blossoms has always come again."
+
+"It is so," said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a
+trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with a
+kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness of her
+countenance; "but why--it is not permitted us to inquire. There is yet
+one of thine own people who has not been brought before thee; before
+thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak."
+
+Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly, one of his companions
+said,--
+
+"It is a snake--a redskin in the pay of the Yengeese. We keep him for
+the torture."
+
+"Let him come," returned the sage.
+
+Then Tamenund once more sank into his seat, and a silence so deep
+prevailed, while the young men prepared to obey his simple mandate, that
+the leaves, which fluttered in the draught of the light morning air,
+were distinctly heard rustling in the surrounding forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+  "If you deny me, fie upon your law!
+  There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
+  I stand for judgment; answer, shall I have it?"
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes.
+Then the waving multitude opened and shut again, and Uncas stood in the
+living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the
+lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned
+on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect,
+agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in
+which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted,
+in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He
+cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting the
+settled expression of hostility that lowered in the visages of the
+chiefs, with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive
+children. But when, last in his haughty scrutiny, the person of Tamenund
+came under his glance, his eye became fixed, as though all other objects
+were already forgotten. Then advancing with a slow and noiseless step up
+the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the
+sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one
+of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.
+
+"With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou?" demanded the
+patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.
+
+"Like his fathers," Uncas replied; "with the tongue of a Delaware."
+
+At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran
+through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl
+of the lion, as his choler is first awakened--a fearful omen of the
+weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage,
+though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to
+exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he
+repeated, in his low, guttural tones, the words he had just heard.
+
+"A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from
+their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the
+hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strange people
+sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven had spared! The
+beasts that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the
+trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I
+found a Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the
+camps of his nation."
+
+"The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the
+softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has heard their
+song."
+
+The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting
+sounds of some passing melody.
+
+"Does Tamenund dream!" he exclaimed. "What voice is at his ear! Have the
+winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the
+Lenape!"
+
+A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from the
+lips of the Delaware prophet. His people steadily construed his
+unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was
+believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence, and they
+awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause,
+however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the
+recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of
+the presence of the prisoner.
+
+"The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,"
+he said. "'Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail."
+
+"And ye," returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, "are dogs that
+whine, when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!"
+
+Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their
+feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one
+of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored
+the appearance of quiet. The task might probably have been more
+difficult, had not a movement made by Tamenund indicated that he was
+again about to speak.
+
+"Delaware!" resumed the sage, "little art thou worthy of thy name. My
+people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who
+deserts his tribe when hid in clouds is doubly a traitor. The law of
+the Manitou is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains
+stand, while the blossoms come and go on the trees, it must be so. He is
+thine, my children; deal justly by him."
+
+Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than
+common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the
+lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be,
+from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their ruthless
+intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief
+proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure
+the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and
+screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of preparation.
+Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawkeye
+began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness;
+and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a
+suppliant for mercy.
+
+Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved
+his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when
+the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright
+attitude. One among them, if possible, more fierce and savage than his
+fellows, seized the hunting-shirt of the young warrior, and at a single
+effort tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure, he
+leaped towards his unresisting victim, and prepared to lead him to the
+stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the
+feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly
+as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The
+eyeballs of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth
+opened, and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement.
+Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a
+finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him in
+wonder, and every eye was, like his own, fastened intently on the figure
+of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner,
+in a bright blue tint.
+
+For a single instant Uncas enjoyed his triumph, smiling calmly on the
+scene. Then motioning the crowd away with a high and haughty sweep of
+his arm, he advanced in front of the nation with the air of a king, and
+spoke in a voice louder than the murmur of admiration that ran through
+the multitude.
+
+"Men of the Lenni Lenape!" he said, "my race upholds the earth! Your
+feeble tribe stands on my shell![27] What fire that a Delaware can light
+would burn the child of my fathers," he added, pointing proudly to the
+simple blazonry on his skin; "the blood that came from such a stock
+would smother your flames! My race is the grandfather of nations!"
+
+"Who art thou?" demanded Tamenund, rising at the startling tones he
+heard, more than at any meaning conveyed by the language of the
+prisoner.
+
+"Uncas, the son of Chingachgook," answered the captive modestly, turning
+from the nation, and bending his head in reverence to the other's
+character and years; "a son of the great Unamis."
+
+"The hour of Tamenund is nigh!" exclaimed the sage; "the day is come, at
+last, to the night! I thank the Manitou, that one is here to fill my
+place at the council-fire. Uncas, the child of Uncas, is found! Let the
+eyes of a dying eagle gaze on the rising sun."
+
+The youth stepped lightly, but proudly, on the platform, where he became
+visible to the whole agitated and wondering multitude. Tamenund held him
+long at the length of his arm, and read every turn in the fine
+lineaments of his countenance, with the untiring gaze of one who
+recalled days of happiness.
+
+"Is Tamenund a boy?" at length the bewildered prophet exclaimed. "Have I
+dreamt of so many snows--that my people were scattered like floating
+sands--of Yengeese, more plenty than the leaves on the trees! The arrow
+of Tamenund would not frighten the fawn; his arm is withered like the
+branch of a dead oak; the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is
+Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale-faces! Uncas,
+the panther of his tribe, the eldest son of the Lenape, the wisest
+Sagamore of the Mohicans! Tell me, ye Delawares, has Tamenund been a
+sleeper for a hundred winters?"
+
+The calm and deep silence which succeeded these words, sufficiently
+announced the awful reverence with which his people received the
+communication of the patriarch. None dared to answer, though all
+listened in breathless expectation of what might follow. Uncas, however,
+looking in his face with the fondness and veneration of a favored child,
+presumed on his own high and acknowledged rank, to reply.
+
+"Four warriors of his race have lived, and died," he said, "since the
+friend of Tamenund led his people in battle. The blood of the turtle has
+been in many chiefs, but all have gone back into the earth from whence
+they came except Chingachgook and his son."
+
+"It is true--it is true," returned the sage; a flash of recollection
+destroying all his pleasing fancies, and restoring him at once to a
+consciousness of the true history of his nation. "Our wise men have
+often said that two warriors of the unchanged race were in the hills of
+the Yengeese; why have their seats at the council-fires of the Delawares
+been so long empty?"
+
+At these words the young man raised his head, which he had still kept
+bowed a little, in reverence; and lifting his voice so as to be heard by
+the multitude, as if to explain at once and forever the policy of his
+family, he said aloud,--
+
+"Once we slept where we could hear the salt lake speak in its anger.
+Then we were rulers and sagamores over the land. But when a pale-face
+was seen on every brook, we followed the deer back to the river of our
+nation. The Delawares were gone. Few warriors of them all stayed to
+drink of the stream they loved. Then said my fathers, 'Here will we
+hunt. The waters of the river go into the salt lake. If we go towards
+the setting sun, we shall find streams that run into the great lakes of
+sweet water; there would a Mohican die, like fishes of the sea, in the
+clear springs. When the Manitou is ready, and shall say "Come," we will
+follow the river to the sea, and take our own again.' Such, Delawares,
+is the belief of the children of the Turtle. Our eyes are on the rising,
+and not towards the setting sun. We know whence he comes, but we know
+not whither he goes. It is enough."
+
+The men of the Lenape listened to his words with all the respect that
+superstition could lend, finding a secret charm even in the figurative
+language with which the young Sagamore imparted his ideas. Uncas himself
+watched the effect of his brief explanation with intelligent eyes, and
+gradually dropped the air of authority he had assumed, as he perceived
+that his auditors were content. Then permitting his looks to wander over
+the silent throng that crowded around the elevated seat of Tamenund, he
+first perceived Hawkeye in his bonds. Stepping eagerly from his stand,
+he made way for himself to the side of his friend; and cutting his
+thongs with a quick and angry stroke of his own knife, he motioned to
+the crowd to divide. The Indians silently obeyed, and once more they
+stood ranged in their circle, as before his appearance among them. Uncas
+took the scout by the hand, and led him to the feet of the patriarch.
+
+"Father," he said, "look at this pale-face; a just man, and the friend
+of the Delawares."
+
+"Is he a son of Minquon?"
+
+"Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and feared by the Maquas."
+
+"What name has he gained by his deeds?"
+
+"We call him Hawkeye," Uncas replied, using the Delaware phrase; "for
+his sight never fails. The Mingos know him better by the death he gives
+their warriors; with them he is 'The Long Rifle.'"
+
+"La Longue Carabine!" exclaimed Tamenund, opening his eyes, and
+regarding the scout sternly. "My son has not done well to call him
+friend."
+
+"I call him so who proves himself such," returned the young chief, with
+great calmness, but with a steady mien. "If Uncas is welcome among the
+Delawares, then is Hawkeye with his friends."
+
+"The pale-face has slain my young men; his name is great for the blows
+he has struck the Lenape."
+
+"If a Mingo has whispered that much in the ear of the Delaware, he has
+only shown that he is a singing-bird," said the scout, who now believed
+that it was time to vindicate himself from such offensive charges, and
+who spoke in the tongue of the man he addressed, modifying his Indian
+figures, however, with his own peculiar notions. "That I have slain the
+Maquas I am not the man to deny, even at their own council-fires; but
+that, knowingly, my hand has ever harmed a Delaware, is opposed to the
+reason of my gifts, which is friendly to them, and all that belongs to
+their nation."
+
+A low exclamation of applause passed among the warriors, who exchanged
+looks with each other like men that first began to perceive their error.
+
+"Where is the Huron?" demanded Tamenund. "Has he stopped my ears?"
+
+Magua, whose feelings during that scene in which Uncas had triumphed may
+be much better imagined than described, answered to the call by stepping
+boldly in front of the patriarch.
+
+"The just Tamenund," he said, "will not keep what a Huron has lent."
+
+"Tell me, son of my brother," returned the sage, avoiding the dark
+countenance of Le Subtil, and turning gladly to the more ingenuous
+features of Uncas, "has the stranger a conqueror's right over you?"
+
+"He has none. The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he
+is strong, and knows how to leap through them."
+
+"La Longue Carabine?"
+
+"Laughs at the Mingoes. Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear."
+
+"The stranger and the white maiden that came into my camp together?"
+
+"Should journey on an open path."
+
+"And the woman that Huron left with my warriors?"
+
+Uncas made no reply.
+
+"And the woman that the Mingo has brought into my camp," repeated
+Tamenund, gravely.
+
+"She is mine," cried Magua, shaking his hand in triumph at Uncas.
+"Mohican, you know that she is mine."
+
+"My son is silent," said Tamenund, endeavoring to read the expression of
+the face that the youth turned from him in sorrow.
+
+"It is so," was the low answer.
+
+A short and impressive pause succeeded, during which it was very
+apparent with what reluctance the multitude admitted the justice of the
+Mingo's claim. At length the sage, in whom alone the decision depended,
+said, in a firm voice,--
+
+"Huron, depart."
+
+"As he came, just Tamenund," demanded the wily Magua; "or with hands
+filled with the faith of the Delawares? The wigwam of Le Renard Subtil
+is empty. Make him strong with his own."
+
+The aged man mused with himself for a time; and then bending his head
+towards one of his venerable companions, he asked,--
+
+"Are my ears open?"
+
+"It is true."
+
+"Is this Mingo a chief?"
+
+"The first in his nation."
+
+"Girl, what wouldst thou? A great warrior takes thee to wife. Go! thy
+race will not end."
+
+"Better, a thousand times, it should," exclaimed the horror-struck
+Cora, "than meet with such a degradation!"
+
+"Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers. An unwilling maiden
+makes an unhappy wigwam."
+
+"She speaks with the tongue of her people," returned Magua, regarding
+his victim with a look of bitter irony. "She is of a race of traders,
+and will bargain for a bright look. Let Tamenund speak the words."
+
+"Take you the wampum, and our love."
+
+"Nothing hence but what Magua brought hither."
+
+"Then depart with thine own. The great Manitou forbids that a Delaware
+should be unjust."
+
+Magua advanced, and seized his captive strongly by the arm; the
+Delawares fell back, in silence; and Cora, as if conscious that
+remonstrance would be useless, prepared to submit to her fate without
+resistance.
+
+"Hold, hold!" cried Duncan, springing forward; "Huron, have mercy! her
+ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known
+to be."
+
+"Magua is a redskin; he wants not the beads of the pale-faces."
+
+"Gold, silver, powder, lead--all that a warrior needs shall be in thy
+wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief."
+
+"Le Subtil is very strong," cried Magua, violently shaking the hand
+which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; "he has his revenge!"
+
+"Mighty ruler of providence!" exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands
+together in agony, "can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I
+appeal for mercy."
+
+"The words of the Delaware are said," returned the sage, closing his
+eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and
+his bodily exertion. "Men speak not twice."
+
+"That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what had once
+been spoken, is wise and reasonable," said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan
+to be silent; "but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well
+before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I
+love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor
+at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end,
+many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your
+judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that
+into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would
+greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands."
+
+"Will 'The Long Rifle' give his life for the woman?" demanded Magua,
+hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion towards quitting the
+place with his victim.
+
+"No, no; I have not said so much as that," returned Hawkeye, drawing
+back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which
+Magua listened to his proposal. "It would be an unequal exchange, to
+give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best
+woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter-quarters,
+now--at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn--on condition you
+will release the maiden."
+
+Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.
+
+"Well, then," added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not
+half made up his mind, "I will throw 'Killdeer' into the bargain. Take
+the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween
+the provinces."
+
+Magua still disdained to reply, continuing his efforts to disperse the
+crowd.
+
+"Perhaps," added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness, exactly in
+proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, "if
+I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the
+we'pon, it would smooth the little differences in our judgments."
+
+Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an
+impenetrable belt around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable
+proposal, to open his path, threatening, by the glance of his eye,
+another appeal to the infallible justice of their "prophet."
+
+"What is ordered must sooner or later arrive," continued Hawkeye,
+turning with a sad and humbled look to Uncas. "The varlet knows his
+advantage, and will keep it! God bless you, boy; you have found friends
+among your natural kin and I hope they will prove as true as some you
+have met who had no Indian cross. As for me, sooner or later, I must
+die; it is therefore fortunate there are but few to make my death-howl.
+After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp,
+so a day or two will make no great difference in the everlasting
+reckoning of time. God bless you," added the rugged woodsman, bending
+his head aside, and then instantly changing its direction again, with a
+wistful look towards the youth; "I loved both you and your father,
+Uncas, though our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are
+somewhat different. Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my
+greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky
+trail; and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there
+is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together
+again. You'll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep
+it for my sake; and harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don't deny you
+the use of vengeance, use it a little freely on the Mingos; it may
+unburden grief at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept your
+offer; release the woman. I am your prisoner!"
+
+A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation, ran through the
+crowd at this generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware
+warriors manifesting pleasure at the manliness of the intended
+sacrifice. Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he
+doubted; then casting his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which
+ferocity and admiration were strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed
+forever.
+
+He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his
+head, and said, in a steady and settled voice,--
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind. Come," he
+added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive to
+urge her onward; "a Huron is no tattler; we will go."
+
+The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled,
+while the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into
+her very temples, at the indignity.
+
+"I am your prisoner, and at a fitting time shall be ready to follow,
+even to my death. But violence is unnecessary," she coldly said; and
+immediately turning to Hawkeye, added, "Generous hunter! from my soul I
+thank you. Your offer is in vain, neither could it be accepted; but
+still you may serve me, even more than in your own noble intention. Look
+at that drooping, humbled child! Abandon her not until you leave her in
+the habitation of civilized men. I will not say," wringing the hard hand
+of the scout, "that her father will reward you--for such as you are
+above the rewards of men--but he will thank you, and bless you. And,
+believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight
+of Heaven. Would to God, I could hear one from his lips at this awful
+moment!" Her voice became choked, and, for an instant, she was silent;
+then advancing a step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her
+unconscious sister, she continued, in more subdued tones, but in which
+feeling and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle,--"I
+need not tell you to cherish the treasure you will possess. You love
+her, Heyward; that would conceal a thousand faults, though she had them.
+She is kind, gentle, sweet, good, as mortal may be. There is not a
+blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken.
+She is fair--O! how surpassingly fair!" laying her own beautiful, but
+less brilliant hand, in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead
+of Alice, and parting the golden hair which clustered about her brows;
+"and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin! I could say
+much--more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will spare
+you and myself"--Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over
+the form of her sister. After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and
+with features of the hue of death, but without even a tear in her
+feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage, with all her
+former elevation of manner,--"Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will
+follow."
+
+"Ay, go," cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl;
+"go, Magua, go. These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to
+detain you; but I--I have no such obligation. Go, malignant monster--why
+do you delay?"
+
+It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua
+listened to this threat to follow. There was at first a fierce and
+manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly subdued in a look of
+cunning coldness.
+
+"The woods are open," he was content with answering. "'The Open Hand'
+can come."
+
+"Hold," cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by
+violence; "you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an
+ambushment, and your death--"
+
+"Huron," interrupted Uncas, who, submissive to the stern customs of his
+people, had been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed;
+"Huron, the justice of the Delawares comes from the Manitou. Look at the
+sun. He is now in the upper branches of the hemlock. Your path is short
+and open. When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your
+trail."
+
+"I hear a crow!" exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh. "Go!" he added,
+shaking his hand at the crowd, which had slowly opened to admit his
+passage,--"Where are the petticoats of the Delawares! Let them send
+their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to
+eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves--I spit on you!"
+
+His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with
+these biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested
+into the forest, followed by his passive captive, and protected by the
+inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_"Flue._--Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
+  law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be
+  offered in the world."
+
+  _King Henry V._
+
+
+So long as their enemy and his victim continued in sight, the multitude
+remained motionless as beings charmed to the place by some power that
+was friendly to the Huron; but the instant he disappeared, it became
+tossed and agitated by fierce and powerful passion. Uncas maintained his
+elevated stand, keeping his eyes on the form of Cora, until the colors
+of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest; when he
+descended, and moving silently through the throng, he disappeared in
+that lodge from which he had so recently issued. A few of the graver and
+more attentive warriors, who caught the gleams of anger that shot from
+the eyes of the young chief in passing, followed him to the place he had
+selected for his meditations. After which, Tamenund and Alice were
+removed, and the women and children were ordered to disperse. During the
+momentous hour that succeeded, the encampment resembled a hive of
+troubled bees, who only awaited the appearance and example of their
+leader to take some distant and momentous flight.
+
+A young warrior at length issued from the lodge of Uncas; and moving
+deliberately, with a sort of grave march, towards a dwarf pine that grew
+in the crevices of the rocky terrace, he tore the bark from its body,
+and then returned whence he came without speaking. He was soon followed
+by another, who stripped the sapling of its branches, leaving it a naked
+and blazed[28] trunk. A third colored the posts with stripes of a dark
+red paint; all which indications of a hostile design in the leaders of
+the nation were received by the men without in a gloomy and ominous
+silence. Finally, the Mohican himself reappeared, divested of all his
+attire except his girdle and leggings, and with one-half of his fine
+features hid under a cloud of threatening black.
+
+Uncas moved with a slow and dignified tread towards the post, which he
+immediately commenced encircling with a measured step, not unlike an
+ancient dance, raising his voice, at the same time, in the wild and
+irregular chant of his war-song. The notes were in the extremes of human
+sounds; being sometimes melancholy and exquisitely plaintive, even
+rivalling the melody of birds--and then, by sudden and startling
+transitions, causing the auditors to tremble by their depth and energy.
+The words were few and often repeated, proceeding gradually from a sort
+of invocation, or hymn to the Deity, to an intimation of the warrior's
+object, and terminating as they commenced with an acknowledgment of his
+own dependence on the Great Spirit. If it were possible to translate the
+comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might
+read something like the following:
+
+  "Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise:
+  Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art just.
+
+  "In the heavens, in the clouds, O, I see
+  Many spots--many dark, many red:
+  In the heavens, O, I see
+  Many clouds.
+
+  "In the woods, in the air, O, I hear
+  The whoop, the long yell, and the cry:
+  In the woods, O, I hear
+  The loud whoop!
+
+  "Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art weak--thou art strong; I am slow:
+  Manitou! Manitou!
+  Give me aid."
+
+At the end of what might be called each verse he made a pause, by
+raising a note louder and longer than common, that was peculiarly suited
+to the sentiment just expressed. The first close was solemn, and
+intended to convey the idea of veneration; the second descriptive,
+bordering on the alarming; and the third was the well known and terrific
+war-whoop, which burst from the lips of the young warrior, like a
+combination of all the frightful sounds of battle. The last was like the
+first, humble and imploring. Three times did he repeat this song, and as
+often did he encircle the post in his dance.
+
+At the close of the first turn, a grave and highly esteemed chief of
+the Lenape followed his example, singing words of his own, however, to
+music of a similar character. Warrior after warrior enlisted in the
+dance, until all of any renown and authority were numbered in its mazes.
+The spectacle now became wildly terrific; the fierce-looking and
+menacing visages of the chiefs receiving additional power from the
+appalling strains in which they mingled their guttural tones. Just then
+Uncas struck his tomahawk deep into the post, and raised his voice in a
+shout, which might be termed his own battle-cry. The act announced that
+he had assumed the chief authority in the intended expedition.
+
+It was a signal that awakened all the slumbering passions of a nation. A
+hundred youths, who had hitherto been restrained by the diffidence of
+their years, rushed in a frantic body on the fancied emblem of their
+enemy, and severed it asunder, splinter by splinter, until nothing
+remained of the trunk but its roots in the earth. During this moment of
+tumult, the most ruthless deeds of war were performed on the fragments
+of the tree, with as much apparent ferocity as if they were the living
+victims of their cruelty. Some were scalped; some received the keen and
+trembling axe; and others suffered by thrusts from the fatal knife. In
+short, the manifestations of zeal and fierce delight were so great and
+unequivocal, that the expedition was declared to be a war of the nation.
+
+The instant Uncas had struck the blow, he moved out of the circle, and
+cast his eyes up to the sun, which was just gaining the point, when the
+truce with Magua was to end. The fact was soon announced by a
+significant gesture, accompanied by a corresponding cry; and the whole
+of the excited multitude abandoned their mimic warfare, with shrill
+yells of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment of the
+reality.
+
+The whole face of the encampment was instantly changed. The warriors,
+who were already armed and painted, became as still as if they were
+incapable of any uncommon burst of emotion. On the other hand, the women
+broke out of the lodges, with the songs of joy and those of lamentation,
+so strangely mingled, that it might have been difficult to have said
+which passion preponderated. None, however, were idle. Some bore their
+choicest articles, others their young, and some their aged and infirm,
+into the forest, which spread itself like a verdant carpet of bright
+green against the side of the mountain. Thither Tamenund also retired,
+with calm composure, after a short and touching interview with Uncas;
+from whom the sage separated with the reluctance that a parent would
+quit a long lost and just recovered child. In the meantime, Duncan saw
+Alice to a place of safety, and then sought the scout, with a
+countenance that denoted how eagerly he also panted for the approaching
+contest.
+
+But Hawkeye was too much accustomed to the war-song and the enlistments
+of the natives, to betray any interest in the passing scene. He merely
+cast an occasional look at the number and quality of the warriors, who,
+from time to time, signified their readiness to accompany Uncas to the
+field. In this particular he was soon satisfied; for, as has been
+already seen, the power of the young chief quickly embraced every
+fighting man in the nation. After this material point was so
+satisfactorily decided, he despatched an Indian boy in quest of
+"Killdeer" and the rifle of Uncas, to the place where they had deposited
+the weapons on approaching the camp of the Delawares; a measure of
+double policy, inasmuch as it protected the arms from their own fate, if
+detained as prisoners, and gave them the advantage of appearing among
+the strangers rather as sufferers than as men provided with the means of
+defence and subsistence. In selecting another to perform the office of
+reclaiming his highly prized rifle, the scout had lost sight of none of
+his habitual caution. He knew that Magua had not come unattended, and he
+also knew that Huron spies watched the movements of their new enemies,
+along the whole boundary of the woods. It would, therefore, have been
+fatal to himself to have attempted the experiment; a warrior would have
+fared no better; but the danger of a boy would not be likely to commence
+until after his object was discovered. When Heyward joined him, the
+scout was coolly awaiting the result of this experiment.
+
+The boy, who had been well instructed, and was sufficiently crafty,
+proceeded, with a bosom that was swelling with the pride of such a
+confidence, and all the hopes of young ambition, carelessly across the
+clearing to the wood, which he entered at a point at some little
+distance from the place where the guns were secreted. The instant,
+however, he was concealed by the foliage of the bushes, his dusky form
+was to be seen gliding, like that of a serpent, towards the desired
+treasure. He was successful; and in another moment he appeared flying
+across the narrow opening that skirted the base of the terrace on which
+the village stood, with the velocity of an arrow, and bearing a prize
+in each hand. He had actually gained the crags, and was leaping up their
+sides with incredible activity, when a shot from the woods showed how
+accurate had been the judgment of the scout. The boy answered it with a
+feeble but contemptuous shout; and immediately a second bullet was sent
+after him from another part of the cover. At the next instant he
+appeared on the level above, elevating his guns in triumph, while he
+moved with the air of a conqueror towards the renowned hunter who had
+honored him by so glorious a commission.
+
+Notwithstanding the lively interest Hawkeye had taken in the fate of his
+messenger, he received "Killdeer" with a satisfaction that, momentarily,
+drove all other recollections from his mind. After examining the piece
+with an intelligent eye, and opening and shutting the pan some ten or
+fifteen times, and trying sundry other equally important experiments on
+the lock, he turned to the boy, and demanded with great manifestations
+of kindness, if he was hurt. The urchin looked proudly up in his face,
+but made no reply.
+
+"Ah! I see, lad, the knaves have barked your arm!" added the scout,
+taking up the limb of the patient sufferer, across which a deep flesh
+wound had been made by one of the bullets; "but a little bruised alder
+will act like a charm. In the meantime I will wrap it in a badge of
+wampum! You have commenced the business of a warrior early, my brave
+boy, and are likely to bear a plenty of honorable scars to your grave. I
+know many young men that have taken scalps who cannot show such a mark
+as this. Go!" having bound up the arm; "you will be a chief!"
+
+The lad departed, prouder of his flowing blood than the vainest courtier
+could be of his blushing ribbon; and stalked among the fellows of his
+age, an object of general admiration and envy.
+
+But in a moment of so many serious and important duties, this single act
+of juvenile fortitude did not attract the general notice and
+commendation it would have received under milder auspices. It had,
+however, served to apprise the Delawares of the position and the
+intentions of their enemies. Accordingly a party of adventurers, better
+suited to the task than the weak though spirited boy, was ordered to
+dislodge the skulkers. The duty was soon performed; for most of the
+Hurons retired of themselves when they found they had been discovered.
+The Delawares followed to a sufficient distance from their own
+encampment, and then halted for orders, apprehensive of being led into
+an ambush. As both parties secreted themselves, the woods were again as
+still and quiet as a mild summer morning and deep solitude could render
+them.
+
+The calm but still impatient Uncas now collected his chiefs, and divided
+his power. He presented Hawkeye as a warrior, often tried, and always
+found deserving of confidence. When he found his friend met with a
+favorable reception, he bestowed on him the command of twenty men, like
+himself, active, skilful, and resolute. He gave the Delawares to
+understand the rank of Heyward among the troops of the Yengeese, and
+then tendered to him a trust of equal authority. But Duncan declined the
+charge, professing his readiness to serve as a volunteer by the side of
+the scout. After this disposition, the young Mohican appointed various
+native chiefs to fill the different situations of responsibility, and
+the time pressing, he gave forth the word to march. He was cheerfully,
+but silently, obeyed by more than two hundred men.
+
+Their entrance into the forest was perfectly unmolested; nor did they
+encounter any living objects, that could either give the alarm, or
+furnish the intelligence they needed, until they came upon the lairs of
+their own scouts. Here a halt was ordered, and the chiefs were assembled
+to hold a "whispering council."
+
+At this meeting divers plans of operation were suggested, though none of
+a character to meet the wishes of their ardent leader. Had Uncas
+followed the promptings of his own inclinations, he would have led his
+followers to the charge without a moment's delay, and put the conflict
+to the hazard of an instant issue; but such a course would have been in
+opposition to all the received practices and opinions of his countrymen.
+He was, therefore, fain to adopt a caution that in the present temper of
+his mind he execrated, and to listen to advice at which his fiery spirit
+chafed, under the vivid recollection of Cora's danger and Magua's
+insolence.
+
+After an unsatisfactory conference of many minutes, a solitary
+individual was seen advancing from the side of the enemy, with such
+apparent haste, as to induce the belief he might be a messenger charged
+with pacific overtures. When within a hundred yards, however, of the
+cover behind which the Delaware council had assembled, the stranger
+hesitated, appeared uncertain what course to take, and finally halted.
+All eyes were now turned on Uncas, as if seeking directions how to
+proceed.
+
+"Hawkeye," said the young chief, in a low voice, "he must never speak to
+the Hurons again."
+
+"His time has come," said the laconic scout, thrusting the long barrel
+of his rifle through the leaves, and taking his deliberate and fatal
+aim. But, instead of pulling the trigger he lowered the muzzle again,
+and indulged himself in a fit of his peculiar mirth. "I took the imp for
+a Mingo, as I'm a miserable sinner!" he said; "but when my eye ranged
+along his ribs for a place to get the bullet in--would you think it,
+Uncas--I saw the musicianer's blower; and so, after all, it is the man
+they call Gamut, whose death can profit no one, and whose life, if his
+tongue can do anything but sing, may be made serviceable to our own
+ends. If sounds have not lost their virtue, I'll soon have a discourse
+with the honest fellow, and that in a voice he'll find more agreeable
+than the speech of 'Killdeer.'"
+
+So saying, Hawkeye laid aside his rifle; and crawling through the bushes
+until within hearing of David, he attempted to repeat the musical
+effort, which had conducted himself, with so much safety and _éclat_,
+through the Huron encampment. The exquisite organs of Gamut could not
+readily be deceived (and, to say the truth, it would have been difficult
+for any other than Hawkeye to produce a similar noise), and
+consequently, having once before heard the sounds, he now knew whence
+they proceeded. The poor fellow appeared relieved from a state of great
+embarrassment; for pursuing the direction of the voice--a task that to
+him was not much less arduous than it would have been to have gone up in
+the face of a battery--he soon discovered the hidden songster.
+
+"I wonder what the Hurons will think of that!" said the scout, laughing,
+as he took his companion by the arm, and urged him towards the rear. "If
+the knaves lie within ear-shot, they will say there are two
+non-compossers instead of one! But here we are safe," he added, pointing
+to Uncas and his associates. "Now give us the history of the Mingo
+inventions in natural English, and without any ups and downs of voice."
+
+David gazed about him, at the fierce and wild-looking chiefs, in mute
+wonder; but assured by the presence of faces that he knew, he soon
+rallied his faculties so far as to make an intelligent reply.
+
+"The heathen are abroad in goodly numbers," said David, "and, I fear,
+with evil intent. There has been much howling and ungodly revelry,
+together with such sounds as it is profanity to utter, in their
+habitations within the past hour; so much so, in truth, that I have fled
+to the Delawares in search of peace."
+
+"Your ears might not have profited much by the exchange, had you been
+quicker of foot," returned the scout, a little dryly. "But let that be
+as it may; where are the Hurons?"
+
+"They lie hid in the forest, between this spot and their village, in
+such force, that prudence would teach you instantly to return."
+
+Uncas cast a glance along the range of trees which concealed his own
+band and mentioned the name of--
+
+"Magua?"
+
+"Is among them. He brought in the maiden that had sojourned with the
+Delawares, and leaving her in the cave, has put himself, like a raging
+wolf, at the head of his savages. I know not what has troubled his
+spirit so greatly!"
+
+"He has left her, you say, in the cave!" interrupted Heyward; "'tis well
+that we know its situation! May not something be done for her instant
+relief?"
+
+Uncas looked earnestly at the scout, before he asked,--
+
+"What says Hawkeye?"
+
+"Give me twenty rifles, and I will turn to the right, along the stream;
+and passing by the huts of the beaver, will join the Sagamore and the
+colonel. You shall then hear the whoop from that quarter; with this wind
+one may easily send it a mile. Then, Uncas, do you drive in their front;
+when they come within range of our pieces, we will give them a blow
+that, I pledge the good name of an old frontiersman, shall make their
+line bend like an ashen bow. After which, we will carry their village,
+and take the woman from the cave; when the affair may be finished with
+the tribe, according to a white man's battle, by a blow and a victory;
+or, in the Indian fashion, with dodge and cover. There may be no great
+learning, major, in this plan, but with courage and patience it can all
+be done."
+
+"I like it much," cried Duncan, who saw the release of Cora was the
+primary object in the mind of the scout; "I like it much. Let it be
+instantly attempted."
+
+After a short conference, the plan was matured, and rendered more
+intelligible to the several parties; the different signals were
+appointed, and the chiefs separated, each to his allotted station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+  "But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
+  Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
+  To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid."
+
+  POPE.
+
+
+During the time Uncas was making this disposition of his forces, the
+woods were still, and, with the exception of those who had met in
+council, apparently as much untenanted, as when they came fresh from the
+hands of their Almighty Creator. The eye could range, in every
+direction, through the long and shadowed vistas of the trees; but
+nowhere was any object to be seen that did not properly belong to the
+peaceful and slumbering scenery. Here and there a bird was heard
+fluttering among the branches of the beeches, and occasionally a
+squirrel dropped a nut, drawing the startled looks of the party, for a
+moment, to the place; but the instant the casual interruption ceased,
+the passing air was heard murmuring above their heads, along that
+verdant and undulating surface of forest, which spread itself unbroken,
+unless by stream or lake, over such a vast region of country. Across the
+tract of wilderness, which lay between the Delawares and the village of
+their enemies, it seemed as if the foot of man had never trodden, so
+breathing and deep was the silence in which it lay. But Hawkeye, whose
+duty led him foremost in the adventure, knew the character of those with
+whom he was about to contend too well to trust the treacherous quiet.
+
+When he saw his little band collected, the scout threw "Killdeer" into
+the hollow of his arm, and making a silent signal that he would be
+followed, he led them many rods towards the rear, into the bed of a
+little brook which they had crossed in advancing. Here he halted; and
+after waiting for the whole of his grave and attentive warriors to close
+about him, he spoke in Delaware, demanding--
+
+"Do any of my young men know whither this run will lead us?"
+
+A Delaware stretched forth a hand, with the two fingers separated, and
+indicating the manner in which they were joined at the root, he
+answered,--
+
+"Before the sun could go his own length, the little water will be in
+the big." Then he added, pointing in the direction of the place he
+mentioned, "the two make enough for the beavers."
+
+"I thought as much," returned the scout, glancing his eye upwards at the
+opening in the tree-tops, "from the course it takes, and the bearings of
+the mountains. Men, we will keep within the cover of its banks till we
+scent the Hurons."
+
+His companions gave the usual brief exclamation of assent, but
+perceiving that their leader was about to lead the way in person, one or
+two made signs that all was not as it should be. Hawkeye, who
+comprehended their meaning glances, turned, and perceived that his party
+had been followed thus far by the singing-master.
+
+"Do you know, friend," asked the scout gravely, and perhaps with a
+little of the pride of conscious deserving in his manner, "that this is
+a band of rangers chosen for the most desperate service, and put under
+the command of one who, though another might say it with a better face,
+will not be apt to leave them idle. It may not be five, it cannot be
+thirty minutes before we tread on the body of a Huron, living or dead."
+
+"Though not admonished of your intentions in words," returned David,
+whose face was a little flushed, and whose ordinarily quiet and
+unmeaning eyes glimmered with an expression of unusual fire, "your men
+have reminded me of the children of Jacob going out to battle against
+the Shechemites, for wickedly aspiring to wedlock with a woman of a race
+that was favored of the Lord. Now, I have journeyed far, and sojourned
+much in good and evil with the maiden ye seek; and though not a man of
+war, with my loins girded and my sword sharpened, yet would I gladly
+strike a blow in her behalf."
+
+The scout hesitated, as if weighing the chances of such a strange
+enlistment in his mind before he answered,--
+
+"You know not the use of any we'pon. You carry no rifle; and believe me,
+what the Mingos take they will freely give again."
+
+"Though not a vaunting and bloodily disposed Goliath," returned David,
+drawing a sling from beneath his parti-colored and uncouth attire, "I
+have not forgotten the example of the Jewish boy. With this ancient
+instrument of war have I practised much in my youth, and peradventure
+the skill has not entirely departed from me."
+
+"Ay!" said Hawkeye, considering the deer-skin thong and apron, with a
+cold and discouraging eye; "the thing might do its work among arrows, or
+even knives; but these Mengwe have been furnished by the Frenchers with
+a good grooved barrel a man. However, it seems to be your gift to go
+unharmed amid fire; and as you have hitherto been favored--major, you
+have left your rifle at a cock; a single shot before the time would be
+just twenty scalps lost to no purpose--singer, you can follow; we may
+find use for you in the shoutings."
+
+"I thank you, friend," returned David, supplying himself, like his royal
+namesake, from among the pebbles of the brook; "though not given to the
+desire to kill, had you sent me away my spirit would have been
+troubled."
+
+"Remember," added the scout, tapping his own head significantly on that
+spot where Gamut was yet sore, "we come to fight, and not to musickate.
+Until the general whoop is given, nothing speaks but the rifle."
+
+David nodded, as much as to signify his acquiescence with the terms; and
+then Hawkeye, casting another observant glance over his followers, made
+the signal to proceed.
+
+Their route lay, for the distance of a mile, along the bed of the
+water-course. Though protected from any great danger of observation by
+the precipitous banks, and the thick shrubbery which skirted the stream,
+no precaution known to an Indian attack was neglected. A warrior rather
+crawled than walked on each flank, so as to catch occasional glimpses
+into the forest; and every few minutes the band came to a halt, and
+listened for hostile sounds, with an acuteness of organs that would be
+scarcely conceivable to a man in a less natural state. Their march was,
+however, unmolested, and they reached the point where the lesser stream
+was lost in the greater, without the smallest evidence that their
+progress had been noted. Here the scout again halted, to consult the
+signs of the forest.
+
+"We are likely to have a good day for a fight," he said, in English,
+addressing Heyward, and glancing his eye upwards at the clouds, which
+began to move in broad sheets across the firmament; "a bright sun and a
+glittering barrel are no friends to true sight. Everything is favorable;
+they have the wind, which will bring down their noises and their smoke
+too, no little matter in itself; whereas, with us it will be first a
+shot, and then a clear view. But here is an end of our cover; the
+beavers have had the range of this stream for hundreds of years, and
+what atween their food and their dams, there is, as you see, many a
+girdled stub, but few living trees."
+
+Hawkeye had, in truth, in these few words, given no bad description of
+the prospect that now lay in their front. The brook was irregular in its
+width, sometimes shooting through narrow fissures in the rocks, and at
+others spreading over acres of bottom land, forming little areas that
+might be termed ponds. Everywhere along its banks were the mouldering
+relics of dead trees, in all the stages of decay, from those that
+groaned on their tottering trunks to such as had recently been robbed of
+those rugged coats that so mysteriously contain their principle of life.
+A few long, low, and moss-covered piles were scattered among them, like
+the memorials of a former and long-departed generation.
+
+All these minute particulars were noted by the scout, with a gravity and
+interest that they probably had never before attracted. He knew that the
+Huron encampment lay a short half mile up the brook; and, with the
+characteristic anxiety of one who dreaded a hidden danger, he was
+greatly troubled at not finding the smallest trace of the presence of
+his enemy. Once or twice he felt induced to give the order for a rush,
+and to attempt the village by surprise; but his experience quickly
+admonished him of the danger of so useless an experiment. Then he
+listened intently, and with painful uncertainty, for the sounds of
+hostility in the quarter where Uncas was left; but nothing was audible
+except the sighing of the wind, that began to sweep over the bosom of
+the forest in gusts which threatened a tempest. At length, yielding
+rather to his unusual impatience than taking counsel from his knowledge,
+he determined to bring matters to an issue, by unmasking his force, and
+proceeding cautiously, but steadily, up the stream.
+
+The scout had stood, while making his observations, sheltered by a
+brake, and his companions still lay in the bed of the ravine, through
+which the smaller stream debouched; but on hearing his low, though
+intelligible signal, the whole party stole up the bank, like so many
+dark spectres, and silently arranged themselves around him. Pointing in
+the direction he wished to proceed, Hawkeye advanced, the band breaking
+off in single files, and following so accurately in his footsteps, as if
+to leave it, if we except Heyward and David, the trail of but a single
+man.
+
+The party was, however, scarcely uncovered before a volley from a dozen
+rifles was heard in their rear; and a Delaware leaping high into the
+air, like a wounded deer, fell at his whole length, perfectly dead.
+
+"Ah! I feared some deviltry like this!" exclaimed the scout, in English;
+adding, with the quickness of thought, in his adopted tongue, "To cover,
+men, and charge!"
+
+The band dispersed at the word, and before Heyward had well recovered
+from his surprise, he found himself standing alone with David. Luckily,
+the Hurons had already fallen back, and he was safe from their fire. But
+this state of things was evidently to be of short continuance; for the
+scout set the example of pressing on their retreat, by discharging his
+rifle, and darting from tree to tree, as his enemy slowly yielded
+ground.
+
+It would seem that the assault had been made by a very small party of
+the Hurons, which, however, continued to increase in numbers, as it
+retired on its friends, until the return fire was very nearly, if not
+quite, equal to that maintained by the advancing Delawares. Heyward
+threw himself among the combatants, and imitating the necessary caution
+of his companions, he made quick discharges with his own rifle. The
+contest now grew warm and stationary. Few were injured, as both parties
+kept their bodies as much protected as possible by the trees; never,
+indeed, exposing any part of their persons except in the act of taking
+aim. But the chances were gradually growing unfavorable to Hawkeye and
+his band. The quick-sighted scout perceived his danger, without knowing
+how to remedy it. He saw it was more dangerous to retreat than to
+maintain his ground; while he found his enemy throwing out men on his
+flank, which rendered the task of keeping themselves covered so very
+difficult to the Delawares, as nearly to silence their fire. At this
+embarrassing moment, when they began to think the whole of the hostile
+tribe was gradually encircling them, they heard the yell of combatants,
+and the rattling of arms, echoing under the arches of the wood, at the
+place where Uncas was posted; a bottom which, in a manner, lay beneath
+the ground on which Hawkeye and his party were contending.
+
+The effects of this attack were instantaneous, and to the scout and his
+friends greatly relieving. It would seem that, while his own surprise
+had been anticipated, and had consequently failed, the enemy, in their
+turn, having been deceived in its object and in his numbers, had left
+too small a force to resist the impetuous onset of the young Mohican.
+This fact was doubly apparent, by the rapid manner in which the battle
+in the forest rolled upwards towards the village, and by an instant
+falling off in the number of their assailants, who rushed to assist in
+maintaining the front, and, as it now proved to be, the principal point
+of defence.
+
+Animating his followers by his voice, and his own example, Hawkeye then
+gave the word to bear down upon their foes. The charge, in that rude
+species of warfare, consisted merely in pushing from cover to cover,
+nigher to the enemy; and in this manoeuvre he was instantly and
+successfully obeyed. The Hurons were compelled to withdraw, and the
+scene of the contest rapidly changed from the more open ground on which
+it had commenced, to a spot where the assailed found a thicket to rest
+upon. Here the struggle was protracted, arduous, and seemingly of
+doubtful issue; the Delawares, though none of them fell, beginning to
+bleed freely, in consequence of the disadvantage at which they were
+held.
+
+In this crisis, Hawkeye found means to get behind the same tree as that
+which served for a cover to Heyward; most of his own combatants being
+within call, a little on his right, where they maintained rapid, though
+fruitless, discharges on their sheltered enemies.
+
+"You are a young man, major," said the scout, dropping the butt of
+"Killdeer" to the earth, and leaning on the barrel, a little fatigued
+with his previous industry; "and it may be your gift to lead armies at
+some future day ag'in these imps the Mingos, You may here see the
+philosophy of an Indian fight. It consists mainly in a ready hand, a
+quick eye, and a good cover. Now, if you had a company of the Royal
+Americans here, in what manner would you set them to work in this
+business?"
+
+"The bayonet would make a road."
+
+"Ay, there is white reason in what you say; but a man must ask himself,
+in this wilderness, how many lives he can spare. No--horse,"[29]
+continued the scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; "horse, I am
+ashamed to say, must, sooner or later, decide these scrimmages. The
+brutes are better than men, and to horse must we come at last. Put a
+shodden hoof on the moccasin of a redskin; and if his rifle be once
+emptied, he will never stop to load it again."
+
+"This is a subject that might better be discussed at another time,"
+returned Heyward; "shall we charge?"
+
+"I see no contradiction to the gifts of any man, in passing his
+breathing spells in useful reflections," the scout replied. "As to a
+rush, I little relish such a measure; for a scalp or two must be thrown
+away in the attempt. And yet," he added, bending his head aside, to
+catch the sounds of the distant combat, "if we are to be of use to
+Uncas, these knaves in our front must be got rid of!"
+
+Then turning, with a prompt and decided air, he called aloud to his
+Indians, in their own language. His words were answered by a shout; and,
+at a given signal, each warrior made a swift movement around his
+particular tree. The sight of so many dark bodies, glancing before their
+eyes at the same instant, drew a hasty, and consequently an ineffectual
+fire from the Hurons. Without stopping to breathe, the Delawares leaped,
+in long bounds, towards the wood, like so many panthers springing upon
+their prey. Hawkeye was in front, brandishing his terrible rifle, and
+animating his followers by his example. A few of the older and more
+cunning Hurons, who had not been deceived by the artifice which had been
+practised to draw their fire, now made a close and deadly discharge of
+their pieces, and justified the apprehensions of the scout, by felling
+three of his foremost warriors. But the shock was insufficient to repel
+the impetus of the charge. The Delawares broke into the cover with the
+ferocity of their natures, and swept away every trace of resistance by
+the fury of the onset.
+
+The combat endured only for an instant, hand to hand, and then the
+assailed yielded ground rapidly, until they reached the opposite margin
+of the thicket, where they clung to the cover, with the sort of
+obstinacy that is so often witnessed in hunted brutes. At this critical
+moment, when the success of the struggle was again becoming doubtful,
+the crack of the rifle was heard behind the Hurons, and a bullet came
+whizzing from among some beaver lodges, which were situated in the
+clearing, in their rear, and was followed by the fierce and appalling
+yell of the war-whoop.
+
+"There speaks the Sagamore!" shouted Hawkeye, answering the cry with
+his own stentorian voice; "we have them now in face and back!"
+
+The effect on the Hurons was instantaneous. Discouraged by an assault
+from a quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, their warriors
+uttered a common yell of disappointment, and breaking off in a body,
+they spread themselves across the opening, heedless of every
+consideration but flight. Many fell, in making the experiment, under the
+bullets and the blows of the pursuing Delawares.
+
+We shall not pause to detail the meeting between the scout and
+Chingachgook, or the more touching interview that Duncan held with
+Munro. A few brief and hurried words served to explain the state of
+things to both parties; and then Hawkeye pointing out the Sagamore to
+his band, resigned the chief authority into the hands of the Mohican
+chief. Chingachgook assumed the station to which his birth and
+experience gave him so distinguished a claim, with the grave dignity
+that always gives force to the mandates of a native warrior. Following
+the footsteps of the scout, he led the party back through the thicket,
+his men scalping the fallen Hurons, and secreting the bodies of their
+own dead as they proceeded, until they gained a point where the former
+was content to make a halt.
+
+The warriors, who had breathed themselves freely in the preceding
+struggle, were now posted on a bit of level ground, sprinkled with trees
+in sufficient numbers to conceal them. The land fell away rather
+precipitately in front, and beneath their eyes stretched, for several
+miles, a narrow, dark, and wooded vale. It was through this dense and
+dark forest that Uncas was still contending with the main body of the
+Hurons.
+
+The Mohican and his friends advanced to the brow of the hill, and
+listened, with practised ears, to the sounds of the combat. A few birds
+hovered over the leafy bosom of the valley, frightened from their
+secluded nests; and here and there a light vapory cloud, which seemed
+already blending with the atmosphere, arose above the trees, and
+indicated some spot where the struggle had been fierce and stationary.
+
+"The fight is coming up the ascent," said Duncan, pointing in the
+direction of a new explosion of fire-arms; "we are too much in the
+centre of their line to be effective."
+
+"They will incline into the hollow, where the cover is thicker," said
+the scout, "and that will leave us well on their flank. Go, Sagamore;
+you will hardly be in time to give the whoop, and lead on the young men.
+I will fight this scrimmage with warriors of my own color. You know me,
+Mohican; not a Huron of them all shall cross the swell, into your rear,
+without the notice of 'Killdeer.'"
+
+The Indian chief paused another moment to consider the signs of the
+contest, which was now rolling rapidly up the ascent, a certain evidence
+that the Delawares triumphed; nor did he actually quit the place until
+admonished of the proximity of his friends, as well as enemies, by the
+bullets of the former, which began to patter among the dried leaves on
+the ground, like the bits of falling hail which precede the bursting of
+the tempest. Hawkeye and his three companions withdrew a few paces to a
+shelter, and awaited the issue with calmness, that nothing but great
+practice could impart in such a scene.
+
+It was not long before the reports of the rifles began to lose the
+echoes of the woods, and to sound like weapons discharged in the open
+air. Then a warrior appeared, here and there, driven to the skirts of
+the forest, and rallying as he entered the clearing, as at the place
+where the final stand was to be made. These were soon joined by the
+others, until a long line of swarthy figures was to be seen clinging to
+the cover with the obstinacy of desperation. Heyward began to grow
+impatient, and turned his eyes anxiously in the direction of
+Chingachgook. The chief was seated on a rock, with nothing visible but
+his calm visage, considering the spectacle with an eye as deliberate as
+if he were posted there merely to view the struggle.
+
+"The time is come for the Delawares to strike!" said Duncan.
+
+"Not so, not so," returned the scout; "when he scents his friends, he
+will let them know that he is here. See, see; the knaves are getting in
+that clump of pines, like bees settling after their flight. By the Lord,
+a squaw might put a bullet into the centre of such a knot of dark
+skins!"
+
+At that instant the whoop was given, and a dozen Hurons fell by a
+discharge from Chingachgook and his band. The shout that followed was
+answered by a single war-cry from the forest, and a yell passed through
+the air that sounded as if a thousand throats were united in a common
+effort. The Hurons staggered, deserting the centre of their line, and
+Uncas issued from the forest through the opening they left, at the head
+of a hundred warriors.
+
+Waving his hands right and left, the young chief pointed out the enemy
+to his followers, who separated in pursuit. The war now divided, both
+wings of the broken Hurons seeking protection in the woods again, hotly
+pressed by the victorious warriors of the Lenape. A minute might have
+passed, but the sounds were already receding in different directions,
+and gradually losing their distinctness beneath the echoing arches of
+the woods. One little knot of Hurons, however, had disdained to seek a
+cover, and were retiring, like lions at bay, slowly and sullenly up the
+acclivity which Chingachgook and his band had just deserted, to mingle
+more closely in the fray. Magua was conspicuous in this party, both by
+his fierce and savage mien, and by the air of haughty authority he yet
+maintained.
+
+In his eagerness to expedite the pursuit, Uncas had left himself nearly
+alone; but the moment his eyes caught the figure of Le Subtil, every
+other consideration was forgotten. Raising his cry of battle, which
+recalled some six or seven warriors, and reckless of the disparity of
+their numbers, he rushed upon his enemy. Le Renard, who watched the
+movement, paused to receive him with secret joy. But at the moment when
+he thought the rashness of his impetuous young assailant had left him at
+his mercy, another shout was given, and La Longue Carabine was seen
+rushing to the rescue, attended by all his white associates. The Huron
+instantly turned, and commenced a rapid retreat up the ascent.
+
+There was no time for greetings or congratulations; for Uncas, though
+unconscious of the presence of his friends, continued the pursuit with
+the velocity of the wind. In vain Hawkeye called to him to respect the
+covers; the young Mohican braved the dangerous fire of his enemies, and
+soon compelled them to a flight as swift as his own headlong speed. It
+was fortunate that the race was of short continuance, and that the white
+men were much favored by their position, or the Delaware would soon have
+outstripped all his companions, and fallen a victim to his own temerity.
+But ere such a calamity could happen, the pursuers and pursued entered
+the Wyandot village, within striking distance of each other.
+
+Excited by the presence of their dwellings, and tired of the chase, the
+Hurons now made a stand, and fought around their council-lodge with the
+fury of despair. The onset and the issue were like the passage and
+destruction of a whirlwind. The tomahawk of Uncas, the blows of
+Hawkeye, and even the still nervous arm of Munro, were all busy for that
+passing moment, and the ground was quickly strewed with their enemies.
+Still Magua, though daring and much exposed, escaped from every effort
+against his life, with that sort of fabled protection that was made to
+overlook the fortunes of favored heroes in the legends of ancient
+poetry. Raising a yell that spoke volumes of anger and disappointment,
+the subtle chief, when he saw his comrades fallen, darted away from the
+place, attended by his two only surviving friends, leaving the Delawares
+engaged in stripping the dead of the bloody trophies of their victory.
+
+But Uncas, who had vainly sought him in the _mélée_ bounded forward in
+pursuit; Hawkeye, Heyward, and David still pressing on his footsteps.
+The utmost that the scout could effect, was to keep the muzzle of his
+rifle a little in advance of his friend, to whom, however, it answered
+every purpose of a charmed shield. Once Magua appeared disposed to make
+another and a final effort to revenge his losses; but, abandoning his
+intention as soon as demonstrated, he leaped into a thicket of bushes,
+through which he was followed by his enemies, and suddenly entered the
+mouth of the cave already known to the reader. Hawkeye, who had only
+forborne to fire in tenderness to Uncas, raised a shout of success, and
+proclaimed aloud, that now they were certain of their game. The pursuers
+dashed into the long and narrow entrance, in time to catch a glimpse of
+the retreating forms of the Hurons. Their passage through the natural
+galleries and subterraneous apartments of the cavern was preceded by the
+shrieks and cries of hundreds of women and children. The place, seen by
+its dim and uncertain light, appeared like the shades of the infernal
+regions, across which unhappy ghosts and savage demons were flitting in
+multitudes.
+
+Still Uncas kept his eye on Magua, as if life to him possessed but a
+single object. Heyward and the scout still pressed on his rear,
+actuated, though possibly in a less degree, by a common feeling. But
+their way was becoming intricate, in those dark and gloomy passages, and
+the glimpses of the retiring warriors less distinct and frequent; and
+for a moment the trace was believed to be lost, when a white robe was
+seen fluttering in the farther extremity of a passage that seemed to
+lead up the mountain.
+
+"'Tis Cora!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice in which horror and delight
+were wildly mingled.
+
+"Cora! Cora!" echoed Uncas, bending forward like a deer.
+
+"'Tis the maiden!" shouted the scout, "Courage, lady; we come!--we
+come!"
+
+The chase was renewed with a diligence rendered tenfold encouraging by
+this glimpse of the captive. But the way was rugged, broken, and in
+spots nearly impassable. Uncas abandoned his rifle, and leaped forward
+with headlong precipitation. Heyward rashly imitated his example, though
+both were, a moment afterwards, admonished of its madness, by hearing
+the bellowing of a piece, that the Hurons found time to discharge down
+the passage in the rocks, the bullet from which even gave the young
+Mohican a slight wound.
+
+"We must close!" said the scout, passing his friends by a desperate
+leap; "the knaves will pick us all off at this distance; and see, they
+hold the maiden so as to shield themselves!"
+
+Though his words were unheeded, or rather unheard, his example was
+followed by his companions, who, by incredible exertions, got near
+enough to the fugitives to perceive that Cora was borne along between
+the two warriors, while Magua prescribed the direction and manner of
+their flight. At this moment the forms of all four were strongly drawn
+against an opening in the sky, and they disappeared. Nearly frantic with
+disappointment, Uncas and Heyward increased efforts that already seemed
+super-human, and they issued from the cavern on the side of the
+mountain, in time to note the route of the pursued. The course lay up
+the ascent, and still continued hazardous and laborious.
+
+Encumbered by his rifle, and, perhaps, not sustained by so deep an
+interest in the captive as his companions, the scout suffered the latter
+to precede him a little, Uncas, in his turn, taking the lead of Heyward.
+In this manner, rocks, precipices, and difficulties were surmounted in
+an incredibly short space, that at another time, and under other
+circumstances, would have been deemed almost insuperable. But the
+impetuous young men were rewarded, by finding that, encumbered with
+Cora, the Hurons were losing ground in the race.
+
+"Stay, dog of the Wyandots!" exclaimed Uncas, shaking his bright
+tomahawk at Magua; "a Delaware girl calls stay!"
+
+"I will go no farther," cried Cora, stepping unexpectedly on a ledge of
+rocks, that overhung a deep precipice, at no great distance from the
+summit of the mountain. "Kill me if thou wilt, detestable Huron; I will
+go no farther."
+
+The supporters of the maiden raised their ready tomahawks with the
+impious joy that fiends are thought to take in mischief, but Magua
+stayed the uplifted arms. The Huron chief, after casting the weapons he
+had wrested from his companions over the rock, drew his knife, and
+turned to his captive, with a look in which conflicting passions
+fiercely contended.
+
+"Woman," he said, "choose; the wigwam or the knife of Le Subtil!"
+
+Cora regarded him not, but dropping on her knees, she raised her eyes
+and stretched her arms towards heaven, saying, in a meek and yet
+confiding voice,--
+
+"I am thine! do with me as thou seest best!"
+
+"Woman," repeated Magua, hoarsely, and endeavoring in vain to catch a
+glance from her serene and beaming eye, "choose!"
+
+But Cora neither heard nor heeded his demand. The form of the Huron
+trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on high, but dropped it
+again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted. Once more he
+struggled with himself and lifted the keen weapon again; but just then a
+piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping
+frantically, from a fearful height, upon the ledge. Magua recoiled a
+step; and one of his assistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his
+own knife in the bosom of Cora.
+
+The Huron sprang like a tiger on his offending and already retreating
+countryman, but the falling form of Uncas separated the unnatural
+combatants. Diverted from his object by this interruption, and maddened
+by the murder he had just witnessed, Magua buried his weapon in the back
+of the prostrate Delaware, uttering an unearthly shout as he committed
+the dastardly deed. But Uncas arose from the blow, as the wounded
+panther turns upon his foe, and struck the murderer of Cora to his feet,
+by an effort in which the last of his failing strength was expended.
+Then, with a stern and steady look, he turned to Le Subtil, and
+indicated by the expression of his eye, all that he would do, had not
+the power deserted him. The latter seized the nerveless arm of the
+unresisting Delaware, and passed his knife into his bosom three several
+times, before his victim, still keeping his gaze riveted on his enemy
+with a look of inextinguishable scorn, fell dead at his feet.
+
+"Mercy! mercy! Huron," cried Heyward, from above, in tones nearly
+choked by horror; "give mercy, and thou shalt receive it!"
+
+Whirling the bloody knife up at the imploring youth, the victorious
+Magua uttered a cry so fierce, so wild, and yet so joyous, that it
+conveyed the sounds of savage triumph to the ears of those who fought in
+the valley, a thousand feet below. He was answered by a burst from the
+lips of the scout, whose tall person was just then seen moving swiftly
+towards him, along those dangerous crags, with steps as bold and
+reckless as if he possessed the power to move in air. But when the
+hunter reached the scene of the ruthless massacre, the ledge was
+tenanted only by the dead.
+
+His keen eye took a single look at the victims, and then shot its
+glances over the difficulties of the ascent in his front. A form stood
+at the brow of the mountain, on the very edge of the giddy height, with
+uplifted arms, in an awful attitude of menace. Without stopping to
+consider his person, the rifle of Hawkeye was raised; but a rock, which
+fell on the head of one of the fugitives below exposed the indignant and
+glowing countenance of the honest Gamut. Then Magua issued from a
+crevice, and stepping with calm indifference over the body of the last
+of his associates, he leaped a wide fissure, and ascended the rocks at a
+point where the arm of David could not reach him. A single bound would
+carry him to the brow of the precipice, and assure his safety. Before
+taking the leap, however, the Huron paused, and shaking his hand at the
+scout, he shouted,--
+
+"The pale-faces are dogs! the Delawares women! Magua leaves them on the
+rocks, for the crows!"
+
+Laughing hoarsely, he made a desperate leap, and fell short of his mark;
+though his hand grasped a shrub on the verge of the height. The form of
+Hawkeye had crouched like a beast about to take its spring, and his
+frame trembled so violently with eagerness, that the muzzle of the
+half-raised rifle played like a leaf fluttering in the wind. Without
+exhausting himself with fruitless efforts, the cunning Magua suffered
+his body to drop to the length of his arms, and found a fragment for his
+feet to rest on. Then summoning all his powers, he renewed the attempt,
+and so far succeeded, as to draw his knees on the edge of the mountain.
+It was now, when the body of his enemy was most collected together, that
+the agitated weapon of the scout was drawn to his shoulder. The
+surrounding rocks themselves were not steadier than the piece became,
+for the single instant that it poured out its contents. The arms of the
+Huron relaxed, and his body fell back a little, while his knees still
+kept their position. Turning a relentless look on his enemy, he shook a
+hand in grim defiance. But his hold loosened, and his dark person was
+seen cutting the air with its head downwards, for a fleeting instant,
+until it glided past the fringe of shrubbery which clung to the
+mountain, in its rapid flight to destruction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+  "They fought, like brave men, long and well,
+    They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
+  They conquered--but Bozzaris fell,
+    Bleeding at every vein.
+  His few surviving comrades saw
+  His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
+    And the red field was won;
+  Then saw in death his eyelids close
+  Calmly, as to a night's repose,
+  Like flowers at set of sun."
+
+  HALLECK.
+
+
+The sun found the Lenape, on the succeeding day, a nation of mourners.
+The sounds of the battle were over, and they had fed fat their ancient
+grudge, and had avenged their recent quarrel with the Mengwe, by the
+destruction of a whole community. The black and murky atmosphere that
+floated around the spot where the Hurons had encamped, sufficiently
+announced, of itself, the fate of that wandering tribe; while hundreds
+of ravens, that struggled above the bleak summits of the mountains, or
+swept, in noisy flocks, across the wide ranges of the woods, furnished a
+frightful direction to the scene of the combat. In short, any eye, at
+all practised in the signs of a frontier warfare, might easily have
+traced all those unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attend
+an Indian vengeance.
+
+Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners. No shouts of
+success, no songs of triumph, were heard, in rejoicings for their
+victory. The latest straggler had returned from his fell employment,
+only to strip himself of the terrific emblems of his bloody calling, and
+to join in the lamentations of his countrymen, as a stricken people.
+Pride and exultation were supplanted by humility, and the fiercest of
+human passions was already succeeded by the most profound and
+unequivocal demonstrations of grief.
+
+The lodges were deserted; but a broad belt of earnest faces encircled a
+spot in their vicinity, whither everything possessing life had repaired,
+and where all were now collected, in deep and awful silence. Though
+beings of every rank and age, of both sexes, and of all pursuits, had
+united to form this breathing wall of bodies, they were influenced by a
+single emotion. Each eye was riveted on the centre of that ring, which
+contained the objects of so much, and of so common, an interest.
+
+Six Delaware girls, with their long, dark, flowing tresses falling
+loosely across their bosoms, stood apart, and only gave proofs of their
+existence as they occasionally strewed sweet-scented herbs and forest
+flowers on a litter of fragrant plants, that, under a pall of Indian
+robes, supported all that now remained of the ardent, high-souled, and
+generous Cora. Her form was concealed in many wrappers of the same
+simple manufacture, and her face was shut forever from the gaze of men.
+At her feet was seated the desolate Munro. His aged head was bowed
+nearly to the earth, in compelled submission to the stroke of
+Providence; but a hidden anguish struggled about his furrowed brow, that
+was only partially concealed by the careless locks of gray that had
+fallen, neglected, on his temples. Gamut stood at his side, his meek
+head bared to the rays of the sun, while his eyes, wandering and
+concerned, seemed to be equally divided between that little volume,
+which contained so many quaint but holy maxims, and the being in whose
+behalf his soul yearned to administer consolation. Heyward was also
+nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavoring to keep down
+those sudden risings of sorrow that it required his utmost manhood to
+subdue.
+
+But sad and melancholy as this group may easily be imagined, it was far
+less touching than another, that occupied the opposite space of the same
+area. Seated, as in life, with his form and limbs arranged in grave and
+decent composure, Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments
+that the wealth of the tribe could furnish. Rich plumes nodded above his
+head; wampum, gorgets, bracelets, and medals, adorned his person in
+profusion; though his dull eye and vacant lineaments too strongly
+contradicted the idle tale of pride they would convey.
+
+Directly in front of the corpse Chingachgook was placed, without arms,
+paint, or adornment of any sort, except the bright blue blazonry of his
+race, that was indelibly impressed on his naked bosom. During the long
+period that the tribe had been thus collected, the Mohican warrior had
+kept a steady, anxious look on the cold and senseless countenance of his
+son. So riveted and intense had been that gaze, and so changeless his
+attitude, that a stranger might not have told the living from the dead,
+but for the occasional gleamings of a troubled spirit that shot athwart
+the dark visage of one, and the death-like calm that had forever settled
+on the lineaments of the other.
+
+The scout was hard by, leaning in a pensive posture on his own fatal and
+avenging weapon; while Tamenund, supported by the elders of his nation,
+occupied a high place at hand, whence he might look down on the mute and
+sorrowful assemblage of his people.
+
+Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the
+military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his war-horse,
+in the centre of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in
+readiness to undertake some distant journey. The vestments of the
+stranger announced him to be one who held a responsible situation near
+the person of the captain of the Canadas; and who, as it would now seem,
+finding his errand of peace frustrated by the fierce impetuosity of his
+allies, was content to become a silent and sad spectator of the fruits
+of a contest that he had arrived too late to anticipate.
+
+The day was drawing to the close of its first quarter, and yet had the
+multitude maintained its breathing stillness since its dawn. No sound
+louder than a stifled sob had been heard among them, nor had even a limb
+been moved throughout that long and painful period, except to perform
+the simple and touching offerings that were made, from time to time, in
+commemoration of the dead. The patience and forbearance of Indian
+fortitude could alone support such an appearance of abstraction, as
+seemed now to have turned each dark and motionless figure into stone.
+
+At length, the sage of the Delawares stretched forth an arm, and leaning
+on the shoulders of his attendants, he arose with an air as feeble as if
+another age had already intervened between the man who had met his
+nation the preceding day, and him who now tottered on his elevated
+stand.
+
+"Men of the Lenape!" he said, in hollow tones that sounded like a voice
+charged with some prophetic mission; "the face of the Manitou is behind
+a cloud! His eye is turned from you; His ears are shut; His tongue gives
+no answer. You see Him not; yet His judgments are before you. Let your
+hearts be open and your spirits tell no lie. Men of the Lenape! the face
+of the Manitou is behind a cloud."
+
+As this simple and yet terrible annunciation stole on the ears of the
+multitude, a stillness as deep and awful succeeded as if the venerated
+spirit they worshipped had uttered the words without the aid of human
+organs; and even the inanimate Uncas appeared a being of life, compared
+with the humbled and submissive throng by whom he was surrounded. As the
+immediate effect, however, gradually passed away, a low murmur of voices
+commenced a sort of chant in honor of the dead. The sounds were those of
+females, and were thrillingly soft and wailing. The words were connected
+by no regular continuation, but as one ceased another took up the
+eulogy, or lamentation, whichever it might be called, and gave vent to
+her emotions in such language as was suggested by her feelings and the
+occasion. At intervals the speaker was interrupted by general and loud
+bursts of sorrow, during which the girls around the bier of Cora plucked
+the plants and flowers blindly from her body, as if bewildered with
+grief. But, in the milder moments of their plaint, these emblems of
+purity and sweetness were cast back to their places, with every sign of
+tenderness and regret. Though rendered less connected by many and
+general interruptions and outbreakings, a translation of their language
+would have contained a regular descant, which, in substance, might have
+proved to possess a train of consecutive ideas.
+
+A girl, selected for the task by her rank and qualifications, commenced
+by modest allusions to the qualities of the deceased warrior,
+embellishing her expressions with those oriental images that the Indians
+have probably brought with them from the extremes of the other
+continent, and which form of themselves a link to connect the ancient
+histories of the two worlds. She called him the "panther of his tribe";
+and described him as one whose moccasin left no trail on the dews; whose
+bound was like the leap of the young fawn; whose eye was brighter than a
+star in the dark night; and whose voice, in battle, was loud as the
+thunder of the Manitou. She reminded him of the mother who bore him, and
+dwelt forcibly on the happiness she must feel in possessing such a son.
+She bade him tell her, when they met in the world of spirits, that the
+Delaware girls had shed tears above the grave of her child, and had
+called her blessed.
+
+Then, they who succeeded, changing their tones to a milder and still
+more tender strain, alluded, with the delicacy and sensitiveness of
+woman, to the stranger maiden, who had left the upper earth at a time so
+near his own departure, as to render the will of the Great Spirit too
+manifest to be disregarded. They admonished him to be kind to her, and
+to have consideration for her ignorance of those arts which were so
+necessary to the comfort of a warrior like himself. They dwelt upon her
+matchless beauty, and on her noble resolution, without the taint of
+envy, and as angels may be thought to delight in a superior excellence;
+adding, that these endowments should prove more than equivalent for any
+little imperfections in her education.
+
+After which, others again, in due succession, spoke to the maiden
+herself, in the low, soft language of tenderness and love. They exhorted
+her to be of cheerful mind, and to fear nothing for future welfare. A
+hunter would be her companion, who knew how to provide for her smallest
+wants; and a warrior was at her side who was able to protect her against
+every danger. They promised that her path should be pleasant, and her
+burden light. They cautioned her against unavailing regrets for the
+friends of her youth, and the scenes where her fathers had dwelt;
+assuring her that the "blessed hunting-grounds of the Lenape" contained
+vales as pleasant, streams as pure, and flowers as sweet, as the "heaven
+of the pale-faces." They advised her to be attentive to the wants of her
+companion, and never to forget the distinction which the Manitou had so
+wisely established between them. Then, in a wild burst of their chant,
+they sang with united voices the temper of the Mohican's mind. They
+pronounced him noble, manly and generous; all that became a warrior, and
+all that a maid might love. Clothing their ideas in the most remote and
+subtle images, they betrayed, that, in the short period of their
+intercourse, they had discovered, with the intuitive perception of their
+sex, the truant disposition of his inclinations. The Delaware girls had
+found no favor in his eyes! He was of a race that had once been lords on
+the shores of the salt lake, and his wishes had led him back to a people
+who dwelt about the graves of his fathers. Why should not such a
+predilection be encouraged! That she was of a blood purer and richer
+than the rest of her nation, any eye might have seen; that she was equal
+to the dangers and daring of a life in the woods, her conduct had
+proved; and now, they added, the "wise one of the earth" had
+transplanted her to a place where she would find congenial spirits, and
+might be forever happy.
+
+Then, with another transition in voice and subject, allusions were made
+to the virgin who wept in the adjacent lodge. They compared her to
+flakes of snow; as pure, as white, as brilliant, and as liable to melt
+in the fierce heats of summer, or congeal in the frosts of winter. They
+doubted not that she was lovely in the eyes of the young chief, whose
+skin and whose sorrow seemed so like her own; but, though far from
+expressing such a preference, it was evident they deemed her less
+excellent than the maid they mourned. Still they denied her no meed her
+rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the
+exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of the
+heavens, and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun,
+was admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.
+
+During these and similar songs nothing was audible but the murmurs of
+the music; relieved, as it was, or rather rendered terrible, by those
+occasional bursts of grief which might be called its choruses. The
+Delawares themselves listened like charmed men; and it was very
+apparent, by the variations of their speaking countenances, how deep and
+true was their sympathy. Even David was not reluctant to lend his ears
+to tones of voices so sweet; and long ere the chant was ended, his gaze
+announced that his soul was enthralled.
+
+The scout, to whom alone, of all the white men, the words were
+intelligible, suffered himself to be a little aroused from his
+meditative posture, and bent his face aside, to catch their meaning, as
+the girls proceeded. But when they spoke of the future prospects of Cora
+and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their
+simple creed, and resuming his reclining attitude, he maintained it
+until the ceremony--if that might be called a ceremony, in which feeling
+was so deeply imbued--was finished. Happily for the self-command of both
+Heyward and Munro, they knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they
+heard.
+
+Chingachgook was a solitary exception to the interest manifested by the
+native part of the audience. His look never changed throughout the whole
+of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at
+the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and
+senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but
+that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their
+final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now
+about to be closed forever from his view.
+
+In this stage of the funeral obsequies, a warrior much renowned for
+deeds in arms, and more especially for services in the recent combat, a
+man of stern and grave demeanor, advanced slowly from the crowd, and
+placed himself nigh the person of the dead.
+
+"Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?" he said, addressing
+himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
+faculties of the animated man; "thy time has been like that of the sun
+when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
+art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
+briers from thy path to the world of spirits. Who that saw thee in
+battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
+shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
+eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and thy
+voice like the Manitou when he speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
+Uttawa is weak," he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
+"and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
+left us?"
+
+He was succeeded by others, in due order, until most of the high and
+gifted men of the nation had sung or spoken their tribute of praise over
+the _manes_ of the deceased chief. When each had ended, another deep and
+breathing silence reigned in all the place.
+
+Then a low, deep sound was heard, like the suppressed accompaniment of
+distant music, rising just high enough on the air to be audible, and yet
+so indistinctly, as to leave its character, and the place whence it
+proceeded, alike matters of conjecture. It was, however, succeeded by
+another and another strain, each in a higher key, until they grew on the
+ear, first in long drawn and often repeated interjections, and finally
+in words. The lips of Chingachgook had so far parted, as to announce
+that it was the monody of the father. Though not an eye was turned
+towards him, nor the smallest sign of impatience exhibited, it was
+apparent, by the manner in which the multitude elevated their heads to
+listen, that they drank in the sounds with an intenseness of attention,
+that none but Tamenund himself had ever before commanded. But they
+listened in vain. The strains rose just so loud as to become
+intelligible, and then grew fainter and more trembling, until they
+finally sank on the ear, as if borne away by a passing breath of wind.
+The lips of the Sagamore closed, and he remained silent in his seat,
+looking, with his riveted eye and motionless form, like some creature
+that had been turned from the Almighty hand with the form but without
+the spirit of a man. The Delawares, who knew by these symptoms that the
+mind of their friend was not prepared for so mighty an effort of
+fortitude, relaxed in their attention; and, with an innate delicacy,
+seemed to bestow all their thoughts on the obsequies of the stranger
+maiden.
+
+A signal was given, by one of the elder chiefs, to the women who crowded
+that part of the circle near which the body of Cora lay. Obedient to the
+sign, the girls raised the bier to the elevation of their heads, and
+advanced with slow and regulated steps, chanting, as they proceeded,
+another wailing song in praise of the deceased. Gamut, who had been a
+close observer of rites he deemed so heathenish, now bent his head over
+the shoulder of the unconscious father, whispering,--
+
+"They move with the remains of thy child; shall we not follow, and see
+them interred with Christian burial?"
+
+Munro started, as if the last trumpet had sounded in his ear, and
+bestowing one anxious and hurried glance around him, he arose and
+followed in the simple train, with the mien of a soldier, but bearing
+the full burden of a parent's suffering. His friends pressed around him
+with a sorrow that was too strong to be termed sympathy--even the young
+Frenchman joining in the procession, with the air of a man who was
+sensibly touched at the early and melancholy fate of one so lovely. But
+when the last and humblest female of the tribe had joined in the wild,
+and yet ordered array, the men of the Lenape contracted their circle,
+and formed again around the person of Uncas, as silent, as grave, and as
+motionless as before.
+
+The place which had been chosen for the grave of Cora was a little
+knoll, where a cluster of young and healthful pines had taken root,
+forming of themselves a melancholy and appropriate shade over the spot.
+On reaching it the girls deposited their burden, and continued for many
+minutes waiting, with characteristic patience, and native timidity, for
+some evidence that they whose feelings were most concerned were content
+with the arrangement. At length the scout, who alone understood their
+habits, said, in their own language,--
+
+"My daughters have done well; the white men thank them."
+
+Satisfied with this testimony in their favor, the girls proceeded to
+deposit the body in a shell, ingeniously, and not inelegantly,
+fabricated of the bark of the birch; after which they lowered it into
+its dark and final abode. The ceremony of covering the remains, and
+concealing the marks of the fresh earth, by leaves and other natural
+and customary objects, was conducted with the same simple and silent
+forms. But when the labors of the kind beings who had performed these
+sad and friendly offices were so far completed, they hesitated, in a way
+to show that they knew not how much further they might proceed. It was
+in this stage of the rites that the scout again addressed them:--
+
+"My young women have done enough," he said; "the spirit of a pale-face
+has no need of food or raiment, their gifts being according to the
+heaven of their color. I see," he added, glancing an eye at David, who
+was preparing his book in a manner that indicated an intention to lead
+the way in sacred song, "that one who better knows the Christian
+fashions is about to speak."
+
+The females stood modestly aside, and, from having been the principal
+actors in the scene, they now became the meek and attentive observers of
+that which followed. During the time David was occupied in pouring out
+the pious feelings of his spirit in this manner, not a sign of surprise,
+nor a look of impatience, escaped them. They listened like those who
+knew the meaning of the strange words, and appeared as if they felt the
+mingled emotions of sorrow, hope, and resignation, they were intended to
+convey.
+
+Excited by the scene he had just witnessed, and perhaps influenced by
+his own secret emotions, the master of song exceeded his usual efforts.
+His full, rich voice was not found to suffer by a comparison with the
+soft tones of the girls; and his more modulated strains possessed, at
+least for the ears of those to whom they were peculiarly addressed, the
+additional power of intelligence. He ended the anthem, as he had
+commenced it, in the midst of a grave and solemn stillness.
+
+When, however, the closing cadence had fallen on the ears of his
+auditors, the secret, timorous glances of the eyes, and the general, and
+yet subdued movement of the assemblage, betrayed that something was
+expected from the father of the deceased. Munro seemed sensible that the
+time was come for him to exert what is, perhaps, the greatest effort of
+which human nature is capable. He bared his gray locks, and looked
+around the timid and quiet throng by which he was encircled with a firm
+and collected countenance. Then motioning with his hand for the scout to
+listen, he said,--
+
+"Say to these kind and gentle females, that a heartbroken and failing
+man returns them his thanks. Tell them, that the Being we all worship,
+under different names, will be mindful of their charity; and that the
+time shall not be distant when we may assemble around his throne without
+distinction of sex, or rank, or color."
+
+The scout listened to the tremulous voice in which the veteran delivered
+these words, and shook his head slowly when they were ended, as one who
+doubted their efficacy.
+
+"To tell them this," he said, "would be to tell them that the snows come
+not in the winter, or that the sun shines fiercest when the trees are
+stripped of their leaves."
+
+Then turning to the women, he made such a communication of the other's
+gratitude as he deemed most suited to the capacities of his listeners.
+The head of Munro had already sunk upon his chest, and he was again fast
+relapsing into melancholy, when the young Frenchman before named
+ventured to touch him lightly on the elbow. As soon as he had gained the
+attention of the mourning old man, he pointed towards a group of young
+Indians, who approached with a light but closely covered litter, and
+then pointed upward towards the sun.
+
+"I understand you, sir," returned Munro, with a voice of forced
+firmness; "I understand you. It is the will of Heaven, and I submit.
+Cora, my child! if the prayers of a heartbroken father could avail thee
+now, how blessed shouldst thou be! Come, gentlemen," he added, looking
+about him with an air of lofty composure, though the anguish that
+quivered in his faded countenance was far too powerful to be concealed,
+"our duty here is ended; let us depart."
+
+Heyward gladly obeyed a summons that took them from a spot where, each
+instant, he felt his self-control was about to desert him. While his
+companions were mounting, however, he found time to press the hand of
+the scout, and to repeat the terms of an engagement they had made, to
+meet again within the posts of the British army. Then gladly throwing
+himself into the saddle, he spurred his charger to the side of the
+litter, whence low and stifled sobs alone announced the presence of
+Alice. In this manner, the head of Munro again dropping on his bosom,
+with Heyward and David following in sorrowing silence, and attended by
+the aide of Montcalm with his guard, all the white men, with the
+exception of Hawkeye, passed from before the eyes of the Delawares, and
+were soon buried in the vast forests of that region.
+
+But the tie which, through their common calamity, had united the
+feelings of these simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who
+had thus transiently visited them, was not so easily broken. Years
+passed away before the traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the
+young warrior of the Mohicans, ceased to beguile the long nights and
+tedious marches, or to animate their youthful and brave with a desire
+for vengeance. Neither were the secondary actors in these momentous
+incidents forgotten. Through the medium of the scout, who served for
+years afterwards as a link between them and civilized life, they
+learned, in answer to their inquiries, that the "Gray Head" was speedily
+gathered to his fathers--borne down, as was erroneously believed, by his
+military misfortunes; and that the "Open Hand" had conveyed his
+surviving daughter far into the settlements of the "pale-faces," where
+her tears had at last ceased to flow, and had been succeeded by the
+bright smiles which were better suited to her joyous nature.
+
+But these were events of a time later than that which concerns our tale.
+Deserted by all of his color, Hawkeye returned to the spot where his own
+sympathies led him, with a force that no ideal bond of union could
+bestow. He was just in time to catch a parting look of the features of
+Uncas, whom the Delawares were already inclosing in his last vestments
+of skins. They paused to permit the longing and lingering gaze of the
+sturdy woodsman, and when it was ended, the body was enveloped, never to
+be unclosed again. Then came a procession like the other, and the whole
+nation was collected about the temporary grave of the chief--temporary,
+because it was proper that, at some future day, his bones should rest
+among those of his own people.
+
+The movement, like the feeling, had been simultaneous and general. The
+same grave expression of grief, the same rigid silence, and the same
+deference to the principal mourner, were observed around the place of
+interment as have been already described. The body was deposited in an
+attitude of repose, facing the rising sun, with the implements of war
+and of the chase at hand, in readiness for the final journey. An opening
+was left in the shell, by which it was protected from the soil, for the
+spirit to communicate with its earthly tenement, when necessary; and the
+whole was concealed from the instinct, and protected from the ravages of
+the beasts of prey, with an ingenuity peculiar to the natives. The
+manual rites then ceased, and all present reverted to the more spiritual
+part of the ceremonies.
+
+Chingachgook became once more the object of the common attention. He
+had not yet spoken, and something consolatory and instructive was
+expected from so renowned a chief on an occasion of such interest.
+Conscious of the wishes of the people, the stern and self-restrained
+warrior raised his face, which had latterly been buried in his robe, and
+looked about him with a steady eye. His firmly compressed and expressive
+lips then severed, and for the first time during the long ceremonies his
+voice was distinctly audible.
+
+"Why do my brothers mourn!" he said, regarding the dark race of dejected
+warriors by whom he was environed; "why do my daughters weep! that a
+young man has gone to the happy hunting-grounds; that a chief has filled
+his time with honor! He was good; he was dutiful; he was brave. Who can
+deny it? The Manitou had need of such a warrior, and He has called him
+away. As for me, the son and the father of Uncas, I am a blazed pine, in
+a clearing of the pale-faces. My race has gone from the shores of the
+salt lake, and the hills of the Delawares. But who can say that the
+Serpent of his tribe has forgotten his wisdom? I am alone--"
+
+"No, no," cried Hawkeye, who had been gazing with a yearning look at the
+rigid features of his friend, with something like his own self-command,
+but whose philosophy could endure no longer; "no, Sagamore, not alone.
+The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to
+journey in the same path. I have no kin, and I may also say, like you,
+no people. He was your son, and a redskin by nature; and it may be that
+your blood was nearer--but if ever I forget the lad who has so often
+fou't at my side in war, and slept at my side in peace, may He who made
+us all, whatever may be our color or our gifts, forget me! The boy has
+left us for a time; but, Sagamore, you are not alone."
+
+Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout
+had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship
+these two sturdy and intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while
+scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like
+drops of falling rain.
+
+In the midst of the awful stillness with which such a burst of feeling,
+coming, as it did, from the two most renowned warriors of that region,
+was received, Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the multitude.
+
+"It is enough," he said. "Go, children of the Lenape, the anger of the
+Manitou is not done. Why should Tamenund stay? The pale-faces are
+masters of the earth, and the time of the redmen has not yet come again.
+My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy
+and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the
+last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] As each nation of the Indians had either its language or its
+dialect, they usually gave different names to the same places, though
+nearly all of their appellations were descriptive of the object. Thus, a
+literal translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of water, used
+by the tribe that dwelt on its banks would be "The Tail of the Lake."
+Lake George, as it is vulgarly, and now indeed legally called, forms a
+sort of tail to Lake Champlain, when viewed on the map. Hence the name.
+
+[2] Washington: who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of
+the danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of
+the British army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The
+reputation earned by Washington in this battle was the principal cause
+of his being selected to command the American armies at a later day. It
+is a circumstance worthy of observation, that, while all America rang
+with his well-merited reputation, his name does not occur in any
+European account of the battle; at least, the author has searched for it
+without success. In this manner does the mother country absorb even the
+fame, under that system of rule.
+
+[3] There existed for a long time a confederation among the Indian
+tribes which occupied the northwestern part of the colony of New York,
+which was at first known as the "Five Nations." At a later day it
+admitted another tribe, when the appellation was changed to that of the
+"Six Nations." The original confederation consisted of the Mohawks, the
+Oneidas, the Senecas, the Cayugas, and the Onondagas. The sixth tribe
+was the Tuscaroras. There are remnants of all these people still living
+on lands secured to them by the State; but they are daily disappearing,
+either by deaths or by removals to scenes more congenial to their
+habits. In a short time there will be no remains of these extraordinary
+people, in those regions in which they dwelt for centuries, but their
+names. The State of New York has counties named after all of them but
+the Mohawks and the Tuscaroras. The second river of that State is called
+the Mohawk.
+
+[4] In the State of Rhode Island there is a bay called Narragansett, so
+named after a powerful tribe of Indians, which formerly dwelt on its
+banks. Accident, or one of those unaccountable freaks which nature
+sometimes plays in the animal world, gave rise to a breed of horses
+which were once well known in America by the name of the Narragansetts.
+They were small, commonly of the color called sorrel in America, and
+distinguished by their habit of pacing. Horses of this race were, and
+are still, in much request as saddle-horses, on account of their
+hardiness and the ease of their movements. As they were also sure of
+foot, the Narragansetts were greatly sought for by females who were
+obliged to travel over the roots and holes in the "new countries."
+
+[5] The North American warrior caused the hair to be plucked from his
+whole body; a small tuft, only, was left on the crown of his head in
+order that his enemy might avail himself of it, in wrenching off the
+scalp in the event of his fall. The scalp was the only admissible trophy
+of victory. Thus, it was deemed more important to obtain the scalp than
+to kill the man. Some tribes lay great stress on the honor of striking a
+dead body. These practices have nearly disappeared among the Indians of
+the Atlantic States.
+
+[6] The hunting-shirt is a picturesque smock frock, being shorter, and
+ornamented with fringes and tassels. The colors are intended to imitate
+the hues of the wood with a view to concealment. Many corps of American
+riflemen have been thus attired; and the dress is one of the most
+striking of modern times. The hunting-shirt is frequently white.
+
+[7] The rifle of the army is short; that of the hunter is always long.
+
+[8] The Mississippi. The scout alludes to a tradition which is very
+popular among the tribes of the Atlantic States. Evidence of their
+Asiatic origin is deduced from the circumstances, though great
+uncertainty hangs over the whole history of the Indians.
+
+[9] The scene of this tale was in the 42d degree of latitude, where the
+twilight is never of long continuance.
+
+[10] The reader will remember that New York was originally a colony of
+the Dutch.
+
+[11] The principal villages of the Indians are still called "castles" by
+the whites of New York. "Oneida castle" is no more than a scattered
+hamlet; but the name is in general use.
+
+[12] In vulgar parlance the condiments of a repast are called by the
+American "a relish," substituting the thing for its effect. These
+provincial terms are frequently put in the mouths of the speakers,
+according to their several conditions in life. Most of them are of local
+use, and others quite peculiar to the particular class of men to which
+the character belongs. In the present instance, the scout uses the word
+with immediate reference to the salt, with which his own party was so
+fortunate as to be provided.
+
+[13] Glenn's Falls are on the Hudson, some forty or fifty miles above
+the head of tide, or the place where that river becomes navigable for
+sloops. The description of this picturesque and remarkable little
+cataract, as given by the scout, is sufficiently correct, though the
+application of the water to the uses of civilized life has materially
+injured its beauties. The rocky island and the two caverns are well
+known to every traveller, since the former sustains a pier of a bridge,
+which is now thrown across the river, immediately above the fall. In
+explanation of the taste of Hawkeye, it should be remembered that men
+always prize that most which is least enjoyed. Thus, in a new country,
+the woods and other objects, which in an old country would be maintained
+at great cost, are got rid of, simply with a view of "improving," as it
+is called.
+
+[14] The meaning of Indian words is much governed by the emphasis and
+tones.
+
+[15] Mingo was the Delaware term for the Five Nations. Maquas was the
+name given them by the Dutch. The French, from their first intercourse
+with them, called them Iroquois.
+
+[16] It has long been a practice with the whites to conciliate the
+important men of the Indians, by presenting medals, which are worn in
+the place of their own rude ornaments. Those given by the English
+generally bear the impression of the reigning king, and those given by
+the Americans that of the president.
+
+[17] Many of the animals of the American forests resort to those spots
+where salt springs are found. These are called "licks" or "salt licks,"
+in the language of the country, from the circumstance that the quadruped
+is often obliged to lick the earth, in order to obtain the saline
+particles. These licks are great places of resort with the hunters, who
+waylay their game near the paths that lead to them.
+
+[18] The scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where the
+village of Ballston now stands; one of the two principal watering-places
+of America.
+
+[19] Some years since, the writer was shooting in the vicinity of the
+ruins of Fort Oswego, which stands on the shores of Lake Ontario. His
+game was deer, and his chase a forest that stretched with little
+interruption, fifty miles inland. Unexpectedly he came upon six or eight
+ladders lying in the woods within a short distance of each other. They
+were rudely made, and much decayed. Wondering what could have assembled
+so many of these instruments in such a place, he sought an old man who
+resided near for the explanation.
+
+During the war of 1776 Fort Oswego was held by the British. An
+expedition had been sent two hundred miles through the wilderness to
+surprise the fort. It appears that the Americans, on reaching the spot
+named, which was within a mile or two of the fort, first learned that
+they were expected, and in great danger of being cut off. They threw
+away their scaling-ladders, and made a rapid retreat. These ladders had
+lain unmolested thirty years, in the spot where they had thus been cast.
+
+[20] Baron Dieskau, a German, in the service of France. A few years
+previous to the period of the tale, this officer was defeated by Sir
+William Johnson of Johnstown, New York, on the shores of Lake George.
+See Appendix, Note H.
+
+[21] Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of New York
+in 1828.
+
+[22] The powers of the American mocking-bird are generally known. But
+the true mocking-bird is not found so far north as the State of New
+York, where it has, however, two substitutes of inferior excellence; the
+catbird, so often named by the scout, and the bird vulgarly called
+ground-thresher. Either of these two last birds is superior to the
+nightingale, or the lark, though, in general, the American birds are
+less musical than those of Europe.
+
+[23] The beauties of Lake George are well known to every American
+tourist. In the height of the mountains which surround it, and in
+artificial accessories, it is inferior to the finest of the Swiss and
+Italian lakes, while in outline and purity of water it is fully their
+equal; and in the number and disposition of its isles and islets much
+superior to them all together. There are said to be some hundreds of
+islands in a sheet of water less than thirty miles long. The narrows
+which connect what may be called, in truth, two lakes, are crowded with
+islands to such a degree as to leave passages between them frequently of
+only a few feet in width. The lake itself varies in breadth from one to
+three miles.
+
+The State of New York is remarkable for the number and beauty of its
+lakes. One of its frontiers lies on the vast sheet of Ontario, while
+Champlain stretches nearly a hundred miles along another. Oneida,
+Cayuga, Canandaigua, Seneca, and George, are all lakes of thirty miles
+in length, while those of a size smaller are without number. On most of
+these lakes there are now beautiful villages, and on many of them
+steamboats.
+
+[24] These harangues of the beasts are frequent among the Indians. They
+often address their victims in this way, reproaching them for cowardice,
+or commending their resolution, as they may happen to exhibit fortitude,
+or the reverse in suffering.
+
+[25] A dish composed of cracked corn and beans. It is much used also by
+the whites. By corn is meant maize.
+
+[26] William Penn was termed Minquon by the Delawares, and, as he never
+used violence or injustice in his dealings with them, his reputation for
+probity passed into a proverb. The American is justly proud of the
+origin of his nation, which is perhaps unequalled in the history of the
+world; but the Pennsylvanian and Jerseyman have more reason to value
+themselves in their ancestors than the natives of any other State, since
+no wrong was done the original owners of the soil.
+
+[27] Turtle.
+
+[28] A tree which has been partially or entirely stripped of its bark is
+said, in the language of the country, to be "blazed." The term is
+strictly English; for a horse is said to be blazed when it has a white
+mark.
+
+[29] The American forest admits of the passage of horse, there being
+little underbush, and few tangled brakes. The plan of Hawkeye is the one
+which has always proved the most successful in the battles between the
+whites and the Indians. Wayne, in his celebrated campaign on the Miami,
+received the fire of his enemies in line; and then causing his dragoons
+to wheel round his flanks, the Indians were driven from their covers
+before they had time to load. One of the most conspicuous of the chiefs
+who fought in the battle of Miami assured the writer, that the redmen
+could not fight the warriors with "long knives and leather-stockings";
+meaning the dragoons with their sabres and boots.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Last of the Mohicans
+       A Narrative of 1757
+
+Author: James Fenimore Cooper
+
+Illustrator: N. C. Wyeth
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2009 [EBook #27681]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Greg Bergquist and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tn">
+
+<p class="center"><big><b>Transcriber&#8217;s Note</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="noin">The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious
+typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="675" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr  />
+<h1><i>The</i> LAST <i>of the</i> MOHICANS</h1>
+
+<p class="t1">A NARRATIVE OF 1757</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="400" height="270" alt="Title Page Illustration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="t1"><i>by</i> JAMES FENIMORE COOPER</p>
+
+<p class="t2"><i>Illustrated by</i> N.C. Wyeth</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">"<i>Mislike me not for my complexion,<br />
+The shadowed livery of the burnished sun.</i>"</p>
+
+
+<p class="t3">NEW YORK<br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p>
+
+<p class="t4">1933</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons</i>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr>
+ <td align='right' colspan='2'><small>FACING PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#UNCAS_SLAYS_A_DEER">Uncas Slays a Deer</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to
+                 his side, and passed his knife across the throat</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_BATTLE_AT_GLENS_FALLS">The Battle at Glens Falls</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>66</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class='td1'>Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that effort,
+                and the result was, that both tottered on the brink of the
+                precipice</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FIGHT_IN_THE_FOREST">The Fight in the Forest</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>114</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception
+                 of the protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le
+                 Gros Serpent</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MEETING_OF_THE_GENERALS">The Meeting of the Generals</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>166</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm moved
+                 towards them with a quick but graceful step, baring his head
+                 to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly to the
+                 earth in courtesy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FLIGHT_ACROSS_THE_LAKE">The Flight Across the Lake</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>214</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were
+                 sufficient of themselves to maintain the requisite distance,
+                 deliberately laid aside his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_TERMAGANT">The Termagant</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>250</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth her
+                 long skinny arm, in derision</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MASQUERADER">The Masquerader</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>268</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the
+                 honest, sturdy countenance of the scout</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_LOVERS">The Lovers</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>278</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the
+                 distant village of the Delawares</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class='tr1'>
+ <td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SUPPLICANT">The Supplicant</a></span></td>
+ <td align='right'>320</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class='td1'>Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched
+                 in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a
+                 beauteous and breathing model of her sex</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_LAST_OF_THE_MOHICANS" id="THE_LAST_OF_THE_MOHICANS"></a>THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:<br />
+The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:<br />
+Say, is my kingdom lost?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that
+the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before
+the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious
+boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
+France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who
+fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the
+rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
+mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
+martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the
+practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
+and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so
+dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from
+the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their
+vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant
+monarchs of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate
+frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness
+of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies
+between the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.</p>
+
+<p>The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the
+combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the
+Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the
+borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural
+passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to
+master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,
+it received the contributions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> of another lake, whose waters were so
+limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries
+to perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the
+title of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought
+they conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they
+bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of
+Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded
+scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of
+"Horican."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the
+"holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With
+the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of
+the water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the
+adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual
+obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the
+language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.</p>
+
+<p>While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
+enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges
+of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial
+acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we
+have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which
+most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.
+Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities
+of the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory
+alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from
+the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient
+settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the
+sceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these
+forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
+haggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were
+unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its
+shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes
+of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of
+many a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the
+noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
+attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which
+England and France last waged for the possession of a country that
+neither was destined to retain.</p>
+
+<p>The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of
+energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
+Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed, by the
+talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer
+dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of
+self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though
+innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her
+blunders, were but the natural participators.</p>
+
+<p>They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which,
+reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible&mdash;an army
+led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors,
+for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of
+French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and
+spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself,
+with the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of
+Christendom.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected
+disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand
+fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the
+yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
+from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of
+their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of
+warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their
+recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
+have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of
+midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal
+and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveller related the
+hazardous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled
+with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children
+which slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the
+magnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of
+reason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood,
+the slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the
+stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming
+doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who
+thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America
+subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
+relentless allies.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered
+the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the
+lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army
+"numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more
+of the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior
+should feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had
+been brought, towards the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian
+runner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of a
+work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful
+reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between
+these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which
+originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the
+passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the
+son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
+of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting
+of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to
+one of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the
+other that of Fort Edward; calling each after a favorite prince of the
+reigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a
+regiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far too
+small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was
+leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay
+General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern
+provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the
+several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
+nearly double that number of combatants against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> enterprising
+Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army
+but little superior in numbers.</p>
+
+<p>But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and
+men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable
+antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their
+march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du
+Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance.</p>
+
+<p>After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a
+rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the
+margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the
+fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to
+depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern
+extremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor, soon
+became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the
+commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
+service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the
+intention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps
+and anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from
+point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his
+violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practised veteran
+made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance
+of haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently
+betrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the as yet
+untried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in
+a flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew
+its veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished;
+the last light finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer;
+the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling
+stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which
+reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.</p>
+
+<p>According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the
+army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling
+echoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista
+of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall
+pines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and cloudless
+eastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest
+soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his
+comrades,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The
+simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
+and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right
+of the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position
+on its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The
+scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering
+vehicles that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning
+was mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants
+wheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high
+military bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of
+many a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While
+in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered
+array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter in
+distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass
+which had slowly entered its bosom.</p>
+
+<p>The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be
+borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had
+already disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of
+another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and
+accommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,
+who were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot
+were gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which
+showed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females,
+of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the
+country. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff;
+while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling
+mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the
+reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the
+pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this
+unusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some
+admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and
+others gazing at the preparations, with dull wonder of vulgar curiosity.
+There was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions, formed
+a marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,
+being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without
+being in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints
+of other men, without any of their proportions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> Erect, his stature
+surpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the
+ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed
+to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders
+narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not
+delicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of
+extraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered
+tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on
+which this false superstructure of the blended human orders was so
+profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the
+individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A
+sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long
+thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of
+the evil disposed. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely
+fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of
+white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and
+shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the
+costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of
+which was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,
+through the vanity or simplicity of its owner. From beneath the flap of
+an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk, heavily ornamented
+with tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which, from being
+seen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for some
+mischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon
+engine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp,
+though several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only
+without fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked
+hat, like those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years,
+surmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat
+vacant countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to
+support the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.</p>
+
+<p>While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb,
+the figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics,
+freely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the
+horses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
+from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> over the
+blue water?" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and
+sweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: "I
+may speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at
+both havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named
+after the capital of Old England, and that which is called 'Haven,' with
+the addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the snows and brigantines
+collecting their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward
+bound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in
+four-footed animals; but never before have I beheld a beast which
+verified the true Scripture war-horse like this: 'He paweth in the
+valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed
+men. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle
+afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.' It would seem
+that the stock of the horse of Israel has descended to our own time;
+would it not, friend?"</p>
+
+<p>Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it
+was delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some
+sort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book
+turned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed
+himself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in the
+object that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still, upright,
+and rigid form of the "Indian runner," who had borne to the camp the
+unwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a state of
+perfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with characteristic
+stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a sullen
+fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to
+arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now
+scanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk
+and knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that
+of a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his
+person, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent
+exertion, which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The colors of
+the war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce
+countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and
+repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus
+produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star
+amid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness.
+For a single instant, his searching and yet wary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> glance met the
+wondering look of the other, and then changing its direction, partly in
+cunning, and partly in disdain, it remained fixed, as if penetrating the
+distant air.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
+communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from
+the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other
+objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of
+gentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was
+wanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the
+war-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that
+was unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by; where,
+leaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology for a
+saddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was quietly
+making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same animal.</p>
+
+<p>A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two
+females, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to
+encounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the
+most juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted
+glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue
+eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow
+aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. The flush
+which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more
+bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day
+more cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth,
+as he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share
+equally in the attentions of the young officer, concealed her charms
+from the gaze of the soldiery, with a care that seemed better fitted to
+the experience of four or five additional years. It could be seen,
+however, that her person, though moulded with the same exquisite
+proportions, of which none of the graces were lost by the travelling
+dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than that of her
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly
+into the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb,
+who, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin,
+and turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble,
+followed by their train, towards the northern entrance of the
+encampment. As they traversed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> short distance, not a voice was
+heard amongst them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger
+of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and
+led the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and
+startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in
+the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed
+an indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye
+followed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were
+shining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not
+brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,
+that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither
+coarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely
+regular and dignified, and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in
+pity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of
+teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil,
+she bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were
+abstracted from the scene around her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">While</span> one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the
+reader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the
+alarm which induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness,
+she inquired of the youth who rode by her side,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an
+especial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must
+close our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to
+draw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even
+before we are made to encounter the redoubtable Montcalm."</p>
+
+<p>"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his
+people, he may be accounted a hero," returned the officer. "He has
+volunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known, sooner
+than if we followed the tardy movements of the column: and, by
+consequence, more agreeably."</p>
+
+<p>"I like him not," said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more
+in real terror. "You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself
+so freely to his keeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he
+would not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He is
+said to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the
+Mohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> He was
+brought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which
+your father was interested,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> and in which the savage was rigidly dealt
+by&mdash;but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the
+now really anxious girl. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that
+I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me
+avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.
+Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be
+ignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak
+it, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he
+stops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot
+where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the
+military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little
+inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, then, lies our way," said the young man, in a low voice.
+"Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to
+apprehend."</p>
+
+<p>"Cora, what think you?" asked the reluctant fair one. "If we journey
+with the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not
+feel better assurance of our safety?"</p>
+
+<p>"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you
+mistake the place of real danger," said Heyward. "If enemies have
+reached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts
+are abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps
+abound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours,
+having been determined within the hour, must still be secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and
+that his skin is dark?" coldly asked Cora.</p>
+
+<p>Alice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> smart cut
+of the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the
+bushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The
+young man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even
+permitted her fairer though certainly not more beautiful companion to
+proceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the
+passage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the
+domestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating
+the thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which
+Heyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in
+order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian
+savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many
+minutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue;
+after which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew
+along the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark
+arches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted, and the
+instant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds,
+he moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which
+kept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode, at a fast yet easy
+amble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the
+distant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken
+way in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions
+drew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in
+order to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, among the
+straight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the
+ungainly man described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as
+much rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without
+coming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the
+observation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any
+wandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his
+equestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention.
+Notwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the
+flanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was
+a Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward
+assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a
+loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces
+to the other created an optical illusion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> which might thus magnify the
+powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a
+true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost
+ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his
+sinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.</p>
+
+<p>The industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than
+those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the
+former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this
+manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and
+diminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be
+made as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in
+consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the
+mare appeared to journey faster than the other; and that the aggrieved
+flank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail,
+we finish the picture of both horse and man.</p>
+
+<p>The frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow
+of Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile,
+as he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to
+control her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted
+with a humor that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of
+its mistress repressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Seek you any here?" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived
+sufficiently nigh to abate his speed; "I trust you are no messenger of
+evil tidings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular
+castor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and
+leaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he
+responded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his
+breath, he continued, "I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am
+journeying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem
+consistent to the wishes of both parties."</p>
+
+<p>"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote," returned
+Heyward; "we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once
+sure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next
+is, to act up to the decision. I have endeavored to do both, and here I
+am."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p><p>"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route," said
+Heyward, haughtily; "the highway thither is at least half a mile behind
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold
+reception; "I have tarried at 'Edward' a week, and I should be dumb not
+to have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be
+an end to my calling." After simpering in a small way, like one whose
+modesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a
+witticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he
+continued: "It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too
+familiar with those he is to instruct; for which reason I follow not the
+line of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your
+character has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have
+therefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made
+agreeable, and partake of social communion."</p>
+
+<p>"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!" exclaimed Heyward,
+undecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the
+other's face. "But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are
+you an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science
+of defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and
+angles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?"</p>
+
+<p>The stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then,
+losing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn
+humility, he answered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make
+none&mdash;by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last
+entreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about
+lines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called
+and set apart for that holy office. I lay claim to no higher gift than a
+small insight into the glorious art of petitioning and thanksgiving, as
+practised in psalmody."</p>
+
+<p>"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo," cried the amused
+Alice, "and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw
+aside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to
+journey in our train. Besides," she added, in a low and hurried voice,
+casting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps
+of their silent but sullen guide, "it may be a friend added to our
+strength, in time of need."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p><p>"Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path,
+did I imagine such need could happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, I think not of it now; but this strange man amuses me; and if
+he 'hath music in his soul,' let us not churlishly reject his company."
+She pointed persuasively along the path with her riding-whip, while
+their eyes met in a look which the young man lingered a moment to
+prolong; then yielding to her gentle influence, he clapped his spurs
+into his charger, and in a few bounds was again at the side of Cora.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to encounter thee, friend," continued the maiden, waving her
+hand to the stranger to proceed, as she urged her Narragansett to renew
+its amble. "Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not
+entirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by
+indulging in our favorite pursuit. It might be of signal advantage to
+one, ignorant as I, to hear the opinions and experience of a master in
+the art."</p>
+
+<p>"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in
+psalmody, in befitting seasons," returned the master of song,
+unhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow; "and nothing
+would relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four
+parts are altogether necessary to the perfection of melody. You have all
+the manifestations of a soft and rich treble; I can, by especial aid,
+carry a full tenor to the highest letter; but we lack counter and bass!
+Yon officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might
+fill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in
+common dialogue."</p>
+
+<p>"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances," said the
+lady, smiling; "though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on
+occasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow
+tenor than the bass you heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?" demanded her
+simple companion.</p>
+
+<p>Alice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her
+merriment, ere she answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of
+a soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more
+sober inclinations."</p>
+
+<p>"Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and
+not to be abused. None can say they have ever known me neglect my gifts!
+I am thankful that, though my boyhood may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> be said to have been set
+apart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no
+syllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the
+psalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the
+land, surpass all vain poetry. Happily, I may say that I utter nothing
+but the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for
+though the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version
+which we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other
+versions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual
+simplicity, it approacheth, as near as may be, to the great work of the
+inspired writer. I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without
+an example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition,
+promulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, <i>The Psalms,
+Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully
+translated into English Metre, for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of
+the Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England</i>."</p>
+
+<p>During this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the
+stranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of
+iron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and
+veneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution
+or apology, first pronouncing the word "Standish," and placing the
+unknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a
+high, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own
+voice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and
+melodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy
+motion of his ill-trained beast at defiance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"How good it is, O see,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And how it pleaseth well,</span><br />
+Together, e'en in unity,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For brethren so to dwell.</span><br />
+It's like the choice ointment,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the head to the beard did go:</span><br />
+Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His garment's skirts unto."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the
+stranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> which
+terminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on
+the leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish
+of the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate. It
+would seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment
+necessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had
+selected for the close of his verse, had been duly delivered like a word
+of two syllables.</p>
+
+<p>Such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not
+fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in
+advance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,
+who, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for
+the time, closing his musical efforts.</p>
+
+<p>"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey
+through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will,
+then, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting
+this gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl, "for never did
+I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that
+to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry
+into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you
+broke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not what you call my bass," said Heyward, piqued at her remark,
+"but I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than
+could be any orchestra of Handel's music." He paused and turned his head
+quickly towards a thicket, and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their
+guide, who continued his steady pace, in undisturbed gravity. The young
+man smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining
+berry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage, and
+he rode forward, continuing the conversation which had been interrupted
+by the passing thought.</p>
+
+<p>Major Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous
+pride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long
+passed, before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were
+cautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage
+art and unbridled passions could make it, peered out on the retiring
+footsteps of the travellers. A gleam of exultation shot across the
+darkly painted lineaments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced
+the route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward; the
+light and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the
+curvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of
+Heyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing-master was
+concealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark
+lines, in the intermediate space.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Before these fields were shorn and tilled,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Full to the brim our rivers flowed;</span><br />
+The melody of waters filled<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The fresh and boundless wood;</span><br />
+And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And fountains spouted in the shade."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Bryant.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Leaving</span> the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to
+penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous
+inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few
+miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.</p>
+
+<p>On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid
+stream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those
+who awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some
+expected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of
+the river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a
+deeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and
+the intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the
+springs and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the
+atmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy
+sultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,
+interrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy
+tap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling
+on the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.</p>
+
+<p>These feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the
+foresters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of
+their dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and
+wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,
+through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,
+though sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent
+from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy
+log, in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his
+earnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian
+engaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a
+terrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and
+black. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well
+known and chivalrous scalping tuft<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> was preserved, was without
+ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,
+that crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk
+and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a
+short military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites
+armed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy
+knee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of
+this warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days,
+though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood.</p>
+
+<p>The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed
+by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and
+exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was
+rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung
+and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt
+of forest green, fringed with faded yellow<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>, and a summer cap of skins
+which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of
+wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but
+no tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the
+natives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the
+hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides,
+and which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A
+pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of
+great length<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had
+taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a
+neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might
+be, was small,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on
+every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden
+approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual
+suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment
+at which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy
+honesty.</p>
+
+<p>"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook," he said,
+speaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly
+inhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac, and of which
+we shall give a free translation for the benefit of the reader;
+endeavoring, at the same time, to preserve some of the peculiarities,
+both of the individual and of the language. "Your fathers came from the
+setting sun, crossed the big river,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> fought the people of the country,
+and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over
+the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been
+set them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends
+spare their words!"</p>
+
+<p>"My fathers fought with the naked redmen!" returned the Indian sternly,
+in the same language. "Is there no difference, Hawkeye, between the
+stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you
+kill?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red
+skin!" said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an
+appeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to
+be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again,
+he answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his
+limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who
+knows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel
+hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their
+grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head
+might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the story told by your fathers," returned the other, coldly
+waving his hand. "What say your old men? do they tell the young
+warriors, that the pale-faces met the redmen, painted for war and armed
+with the stone hatchet and wooden gun?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural
+privileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an
+Iroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white," the scout replied,
+surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and
+sinewy hand; "and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of
+which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to
+write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in
+their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly
+boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for
+the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man who is
+too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the
+names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor
+feel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the
+Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must
+have been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy
+commandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I
+should be loth to answer for other people in such a matter. But every
+story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed,
+according to the traditions of the redmen, when our fathers first met?"</p>
+
+<p>A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then,
+full of the dignity of his office, he commenced his brief tale, with a
+solemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers
+have said, and what the Mohicans have done." He hesitated a single
+instant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he
+continued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and
+assertion, "Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer,
+until its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?"</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these
+matters," said the white man; "for I have been there, and have seen
+them; though, why water, which is so sweet in the shade, should become
+bitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to
+account."</p>
+
+<p>"And the current!" demanded the Indian, who expected his reply with that
+sort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at
+which he marvels even while he respects it; "the fathers of Chingachgook
+have not lied!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p><p>"The Holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in
+nature. They call this up-stream current the tide, which is a thing soon
+explained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours
+they run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the
+sea than in the river, they run in, until the river gets to be highest,
+and then it runs out again."</p>
+
+<p>"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until
+they lie like my hand," said the Indian, stretching the limb
+horizontally before him, "and then they run no more."</p>
+
+<p>"No honest man will deny it," said the scout, a little nettled at the
+implied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; "and I
+grant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level.
+But everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the
+small scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In
+this manner, pools and ponds, and even the great fresh-water lake, may
+be stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when
+you come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the
+earth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well
+expect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile
+above us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at
+this very moment!"</p>
+
+<p>If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far
+too dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was
+convinced, and resumed his narrative in his former solemn manner.</p>
+
+<p>"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, over great plains
+where the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we
+fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the
+banks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to
+meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should
+be ours from the place where the water runs up no longer on this stream,
+to a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken
+like warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with
+the bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from
+the great lake; we threw them the bones."</p>
+
+<p>"All this I have heard and believe," said the white man, observing that
+the Indian paused: "but it was long before the English came into the
+country."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale-faces
+who came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my
+fathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then,
+Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion only by permitting
+his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which rendered his
+language, as spoken at times, so very musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were
+one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood
+its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we
+worshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of
+our songs of triumph!"</p>
+
+<p>"Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white.
+"But you are a just man, for an Indian! and, as I suppose you hold their
+gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the
+council fire."</p>
+
+<p>"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The
+blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch
+landed, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens
+and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found
+the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they
+were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a
+sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have
+never visited the graves of, my fathers!"</p>
+
+<p>"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned the scout, a good
+deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; "and they often aid
+a man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my
+own bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the
+wolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their
+kin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the blossoms of those summers!&mdash;fallen, one by one: so all of
+my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on
+the hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows
+in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the
+sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas is here!" said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,
+near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?"</p>
+
+<p>The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an
+involuntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> this sudden
+interruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head
+at the unexpected sounds.</p>
+
+<p>At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a
+noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No
+exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked,
+or reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment
+when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish
+impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs,
+and, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and
+reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son,
+and demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these
+woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been on their trail," replied the young Indian, "and know that
+they number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid,
+like cowards."</p>
+
+<p>"The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!" said the white man,
+whom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. "That
+bushy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but
+he will know what road we travel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tis enough!" returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting
+sun; "they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us
+eat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois
+'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get
+the game&mdash;talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the
+biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the
+hill! Now, Uncas," he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a
+kind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, "I will
+bet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum,
+that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the
+left."</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be!" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with
+youthful eagerness; "all but the tips of his horns are hid!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a boy!" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and
+addressing the father. "Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the
+creatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="UNCAS_SLAYS_A_DEER" id="UNCAS_SLAYS_A_DEER"></a>
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="500" height="634" alt="UNCAS SLAYS A DEER" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">UNCAS SLAYS A DEER<br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas<br />
+darted to his side, and passed his knife across the throat</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p><p>Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill,
+on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece
+with his hand, saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?"</p>
+
+<p>"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by
+instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like
+a man who was convinced of his error. "I must leave the buck to your
+arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to
+eat."</p>
+
+<p>The instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture
+of the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the
+animal with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he
+fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers
+moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another
+moment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing
+into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the
+very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated
+animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the
+throat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the
+waters with its blood.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas done with Indian skill," said the scout, laughing inwardly, but
+with vast satisfaction; "and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an
+arrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who
+scented game.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes
+began to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; "if they come
+within range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations
+should be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to
+my ears the woods are dumb."</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one deer, and he is dead," said the Indian, bending his
+body till his ear nearly touched the earth. "I hear the sounds of feet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following
+on his trail."</p>
+
+<p>"No. The horses of white men are coming!" returned the other, raising
+himself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former
+composure. "Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p><p>"That will I, and in English that the king needn't be ashamed to
+answer," returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he
+boasted; "but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast;
+'tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a
+man who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although
+he may have lived with the redskins long enough to be suspected! Ha!
+there goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too&mdash;now I hear
+the bushes move&mdash;yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the
+falls&mdash;and&mdash;but here they come themselves; God keep them from the
+Iroquois!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove<br />
+Till I torment thee for this injury."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the
+party, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the
+Indian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the
+periodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great
+distance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his
+red companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers,
+who had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest,
+advanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates,
+in readiness to receive them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who comes?" demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across
+his left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the
+trigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act, "Who
+comes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,"
+returned he who rode foremost. "Men who have journeyed since the rising
+sun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly
+tired of their wayfaring."</p>
+
+<p>"You are, then, lost," interrupted the hunter, "and have found how
+helpless 'tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them
+than we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the
+stature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of
+the crown called William Henry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hoot!" shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though,
+instantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at
+less risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> "You are as much
+off the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer!
+William Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business
+with the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to
+Edward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of
+pushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across
+Champlain, into his den again."</p>
+
+<p>Before the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition,
+another horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into
+the pathway, in front of his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?" demanded a new
+speaker; "the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our
+destination is the head of the lake."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the
+road across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a
+path, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the
+palace of the king himself."</p>
+
+<p>"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage," returned
+Heyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. "It is
+enough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us
+by a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his
+knowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are."</p>
+
+<p>"An Indian lost in the woods!" said the scout, shaking his head
+doubtingly; "when the sun is scorching the tree-tops, and the
+water-courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees, will tell
+him in which quarter the north star will shine at night! The woods are
+full of deer paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known
+to everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters
+altogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican
+and the bend in the river. Is he a Mohawk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was
+farther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued,
+until this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently
+indifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an
+activity and interest that had evidently got the better of their
+reserve, by surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"A Huron!" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open
+distrust; "they are a thievish race, nor do I care by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> whom they are
+adopted; you can never make anything of them but skulks and vagabonds.
+Since you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only
+wonder that you have not fallen in with more."</p>
+
+<p>"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles in
+our front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,
+and that he serves with our forces as a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo," returned
+the other, positively. "A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican
+for honesty; and when they will fight, which they won't all do, having
+suffered their cunning enemies, the Maquas, to make them women&mdash;but when
+they will fight at all, look to a Delaware, or a Mohican, for a
+warrior!"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough of this," said Heyward, impatiently; "I wish not to inquire into
+the character of a man that I know, and to whom you must be a stranger.
+You have not yet answered my question: what is our distance from the
+main army at Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that may depend on who is your guide. One would think such a
+horse as that might get over a good deal of ground atwixt sun-up and
+sun-down."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish no contention of idle words with you, friend," said Heyward,
+curbing his dissatisfied manner, and speaking in a more gentle voice;
+"if you will tell me the distance to Fort Edward, and conduct me
+thither, your labor shall not go without its reward."</p>
+
+<p>"And in so doing, how know I that I don't guide an enemy, and a spy of
+Montcalm, to the works of the army? It is not every man who can speak
+the English tongue that is an honest subject."</p>
+
+<p>"If you serve with the troops, of whom I judge you to be a scout, you
+should know of such a regiment of the king as the 60th."</p>
+
+<p>"The 60th! you can tell me little of the Royal Americans that I don't
+know, though I do wear a hunting-shirt instead of a scarlet jacket."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, among the other things, you may know the name of its
+major?"</p>
+
+<p>"Its major!" interrupted the hunter, elevating his body like one who was
+proud of his trust. "If there is a man in the country who knows Major
+Effingham, he stands before you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a corps which has many majors; the gentleman you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> name is the
+senior, but I speak of the junior of them all; he who commands the
+companies in garrison at William Henry."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I have heard that a young gentleman of vast riches, from one
+of the provinces far south, has got the place. He is over young, too, to
+hold such rank, and to be put above men whose heads are beginning to
+bleach; and yet they say he is a soldier in his knowledge, and a gallant
+gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever he may be, or however he may be qualified for his rank, he now
+speaks to you, and of course can be no enemy to dread."</p>
+
+<p>The scout regarded Heyward in surprise, and then lifting his cap, he
+answered, in a tone less confident than before, though still expressing
+doubt,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard a party was to leave the encampment this morning, for the
+lake shore."</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard the truth; but I preferred a nearer route, trusting to
+the knowledge of the Indian I mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>"And he deceived you, and then deserted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither, as I believe; certainly not the latter, for he is to be found
+in the rear."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to look at the creatur'; if it is a true Iroquois I can
+tell him by his knavish look, and by his paint," said the scout,
+stepping past the charger of Heyward, and entering the path behind the
+mare of the singing-master, whose foal had taken advantage of the halt
+to exact the maternal contribution. After shoving aside the bushes, and
+proceeding a few paces, he encountered the females, who awaited the
+result of the conference with anxiety, and not entirely without
+apprehension. Behind these, the runner leaned against a tree, where he
+stood the close examination of the scout with an air unmoved, though
+with a look so dark and savage, that it might in itself excite fear.
+Satisfied with his scrutiny, the hunter soon left him. As he repassed
+the females, he paused a moment to gaze upon their beauty, answering to
+the smile and nod of Alice with a look of open pleasure. Thence he went
+to the side of the motherly animal, and spending a minute in a fruitless
+inquiry into the character of her rider, he shook his head and returned
+to Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor
+any other tribe can alter him," he said, when he had regained his former
+position. "If we were alone, and you would leave that noble horse at the
+mercy of the wolves to-night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> I could show you the way to Edward,
+myself, within an hour, for it lies only about an hour's journey hence;
+but with such ladies in your company 'tis impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why? they are fatigued, but they are quite equal to a ride of a few
+more miles."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a natural impossibility!" repeated the scout; "I wouldn't walk a
+mile in these woods after night gets into them, in company with that
+runner, for the best rifle in the colonies. They are full of outlying
+Iroquois, and your mongrel Mohawk knows where to find them too well, to
+be my companion."</p>
+
+<p>"Think you so?" said Heyward, leaning forward in the saddle, and
+dropping his voice nearly to a whisper; "I confess I have not been
+without my own suspicions, though I have endeavored to conceal them, and
+affected a confidence I have not always felt, on account of my
+companions. It was because I suspected him that I would follow no
+longer; making him, as you see, follow me."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he was one of the cheats as soon as I laid eyes on him!"
+returned the scout, placing a finger on his nose, in sign of caution.
+"The thief is leaning against the foot of the sugar sapling, that you
+can see over them bushes; his right leg is in a line with the bark of
+the tree, and," tapping his rifle, "I can take him from where I stand,
+between the ankle and the knee, with a single shot, putting an end to
+his tramping through the woods, for at least a month to come. If I
+should go back to him, the cunning varmint would suspect something, and
+be dodging through the trees like a frightened deer."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not do. He may be innocent, and I dislike the act. Though, if I
+felt confident of his treachery&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a safe thing to calculate on the knavery of an Iroquois," said the
+scout, throwing his rifle forward, by a sort of instinctive movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" interrupted Heyward, "it will not do&mdash;we must think of some
+other scheme; and yet, I have much reason to believe the rascal has
+deceived me."</p>
+
+<p>The hunter, who had already abandoned his intention of maiming the
+runner, mused a moment, and then made a gesture, which instantly brought
+his two red companions to his side. They spoke together earnestly in the
+Delaware language, though in an undertone; and by the gestures of the
+white man, which were frequently directed towards the top of the
+sapling, it was evident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> he pointed out the situation of their hidden
+enemy. His companions were not long in comprehending his wishes, and
+laying aside their fire-arms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the
+path, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious
+movements, that their steps were inaudible.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, go you back," said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward, "and
+hold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without breaking
+his paint."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said Heyward, proudly, "I will seize him myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the bushes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will dismount."</p>
+
+<p>"And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he
+would wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to
+deal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to
+prosper in his undertakings. Go, then, talk openly to the miscreant, and
+seem to believe him the truest friend you have on 'arth."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of
+the office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed
+upon him a conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered
+his invaluable trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun
+had already disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his
+light,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the
+hour the savage usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless
+acts of vengeance or hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by
+apprehension, he left the scout, who immediately entered into a loud
+conversation with the stranger that had so unceremoniously enlisted
+himself in the party of travellers that morning. In passing his gentler
+companions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement, and was pleased
+to find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day, they
+appeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was
+other than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was
+merely employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he
+spurred his charger, and drew the reins again, when the animal had
+carried him within a few yards of the place where the sullen runner
+still stood, leaning against the tree.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>"You may see, Magua," he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom
+and confidence, "that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no
+nearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with
+the rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate.
+But, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking
+to the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the
+woods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely
+till the morning."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his
+imperfect English, "Is he alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alone!" hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to
+be assumed without embarrassment. "O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you
+know that we are with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Le Renard Subtil will go," returned the runner, coolly raising his
+little wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; "and the
+pale-faces will see none but their own color."</p>
+
+<p>"Go! Whom call you Le Renard?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua," returned the
+runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. "Night
+is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him."</p>
+
+<p>"And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry
+concerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman
+that his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be
+one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will
+not hear him, or feel him, in the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid
+him stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted
+with the business of a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones
+of his fathers," was the answer of the unmoved runner.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough, Magua," said Heyward; "are we not friends? Why should there be
+bitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services
+when performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary
+limbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to
+spare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the
+ladies are refreshed we will proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women," muttered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the
+Indian, in his native language, "and when they want to eat, their
+warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness."</p>
+
+<p>"What say you, Renard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Le Subtil says it is good."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of
+Heyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and
+seating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of
+some former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending
+his looks slowly and cautiously around him.</p>
+
+<p>"This is well," continued Heyward; "and Le Renard will have strength and
+sight to find the path in the morning;" he paused, for sounds like the
+snapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the
+adjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,&mdash;"we
+must be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path,
+and shut us out from the fortress."</p>
+
+<p>The hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his
+eyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his
+nostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than
+usual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to
+represent intense attention.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly
+extricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand
+towards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect
+the point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the
+tremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single
+instant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be
+hardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil
+cautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and
+guarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change.
+Heyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg
+over the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and
+seize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood.
+In order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an
+air of calmness and friendship.</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil does not eat," he said, using the appellation he had
+found most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. "His corn is not well
+parched, and it seems dry. Let me examine;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> perhaps something may be
+found among my own provisions that will help his appetite."</p>
+
+<p>Magua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered
+their hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his
+riveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward
+moving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the
+young man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged,
+at a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the
+form of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in
+its paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed
+the shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that
+was accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter's rifle.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">"In such a night</span><br />
+Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;<br />
+And saw the lion's shadow ere himself."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Merchant of Venice.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the
+pursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive
+surprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he
+dashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend
+his aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards,
+he met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful
+pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>"Why so soon disheartened!" he exclaimed; "the scoundrel must be
+concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not
+safe while he goes at large."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed
+scout; "I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black
+snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I
+pulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a
+reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should
+call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in
+these matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its
+leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow
+blossom, in the month of July!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,
+"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the
+longer for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks
+him, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens
+motion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But
+when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,
+a stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!"</p>
+
+<p>"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>"Is life grievous to you?" interrupted the scout. "Yonder red devils
+would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you
+were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so
+often slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece
+within sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!
+'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such
+a fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent,
+or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,
+ag'in this hour to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool
+assurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face
+the danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge
+with which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with
+a vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy
+arches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid, his
+unresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those
+barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the
+gathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His
+awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each
+waving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and
+twenty times he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his
+lurking foes, peering from their hiding-places, in never-ceasing
+watchfulness of the movements of his party. Looking upward, he found
+that the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on the blue sky,
+were already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the
+imbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he stood, was to be
+traced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.</p>
+
+<p>"What is to be done?" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt
+in such a pressing strait; "desert me not, for God's sake! remain to
+defend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!"</p>
+
+<p>His companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe,
+heeded not this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was
+maintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a whisper,
+Heyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones
+of the younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.
+It was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure that
+nearly concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> the welfare of the travellers. Yielding to his
+powerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that seemed
+fraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the
+dusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more
+definite, when the white man, motioning, with his hand, as if he
+conceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,
+and in the English tongue,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless
+things to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place
+forever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the
+worst of serpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor
+resolution to throw away!"</p>
+
+<p>"How can such a wish be doubted! have I not already offered&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the
+cunning of the devils who fill these woods," calmly interrupted the
+scout, "but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to
+realize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man's
+thoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were
+never made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any
+other recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.
+First, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your
+friends, or without serving you, we shall only injure ourselves!"</p>
+
+<p>"Name them."</p>
+
+<p>"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen;
+and the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a
+secret from all mortal men."</p>
+
+<p>"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled."</p>
+
+<p>"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the
+heart's blood to a stricken deer!"</p>
+
+<p>Heyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through
+the increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps,
+swiftly, towards the place where he had left the remainder of his party.
+When they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly
+acquainted them with the conditions of their new guide, and with the
+necessity that existed for their hushing every apprehension, in instant
+and serious exertions. Although his alarming communication was not
+received without much secret terror by the listeners, his earnest and
+impressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the danger, succeeded
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.
+Silently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist
+them from their saddles, when they descended quickly to the water's
+edge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more by the
+agency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.</p>
+
+<p>"What to do with these dumb creatures!" muttered the white man, on whom
+the sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; "it
+would be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river;
+and to leave them here, would be to tell the Mingos that they have not
+far to seek to find their owners!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods," Heyward
+ventured to suggest.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they
+must equal a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will
+blind their fire-balls of eyes! Chingach&mdash;Hist? what stirs the bush?"</p>
+
+<p>"The colt."</p>
+
+<p>"That colt, at least, must die," muttered the scout, grasping the mane
+of the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; "Uncas, your arrows!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without
+regard to the whispering tones used by the others; "spare the foal of
+Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would
+willingly injure naught."</p>
+
+<p>"When men struggle for the single life God has given them," said the
+scout sternly, "even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the
+wood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
+Draw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows."</p>
+
+<p>The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,
+when the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward
+to its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its
+throat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the
+struggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it
+glided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed
+of apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the
+travellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,
+heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors
+in the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had
+just drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge
+and those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before
+the bosom of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,
+they led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.</p>
+
+<p>At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed
+by the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a
+direction opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the
+scout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some
+low bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,
+into which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied
+without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown
+behind them towards the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark
+barrier along the margin of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the
+element, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and
+posting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,
+followed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they
+proceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only interrupted by the
+rippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the low dash
+made by their own cautious footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of
+the canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or receded from the
+shore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the river,
+with a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.
+Occasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness,
+that the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render
+more impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any
+sounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that
+all was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practised
+senses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume
+his slow and unguarded progress. At length they reached a point in the
+river, where the roving eye of Heyward became riveted on a cluster of
+black objects, collected at a spot where the high bank threw a deeper
+shadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating to advance, he pointed
+out the place to the attention of his companion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p><p>"Ay," returned the composed scout, "the Indians have hid the beasts
+with the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes
+would be blinded by the darkness of such a hole."</p>
+
+<p>The whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held
+between the scout and his new comrades, during which, they whose fates
+depended on the faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a
+little leisure to observe their situation more minutely.</p>
+
+<p>The river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which
+impended above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were
+surmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the
+precipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep
+and narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree-tops,
+which were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay
+alike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks
+soon bounded the view, by the same dark and wooded outline; but in
+front, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled
+against the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued
+those sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,
+in truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a
+soothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic, though
+not unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors,
+however, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that
+night had assisted to lend the place, to a painful sense of their real
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>The horses had been secured to some scattered shrubs that grew in the
+fissures of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to
+pass the night. The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate
+fellow-travellers to seat themselves in the forward end of the canoe,
+and took possession of the other himself, as erect and steady as if he
+floated in a vessel of much firmer materials. The Indians warily
+retraced their steps towards the place they had left, when the scout,
+placing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail
+bark directly into the centre of the turbulent stream. For many minutes
+the struggle between the light bubble in which they floated, and the
+swift current, was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand,
+and almost afraid to breathe, lest they should expose the frail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> fabric
+to the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters in
+feverish suspense. Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were
+sweeping them to destruction, when the master-hand of their pilot would
+bring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid. A long, a vigorous, and,
+as it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the struggle.
+Just as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they
+were about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract,
+the canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a
+level with the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we? and what is next to be done?" demanded Heyward,
+perceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"You are at the foot of Glenn's," returned the other, speaking aloud,
+without fear of consequences, within the roar of the cataract; "and the
+next thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and you
+should go down again the hard road we have travelled, faster than you
+came up; 'tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;
+and five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in the hurry-skurry, with a
+little birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will
+bring up the Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without
+his scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty."</p>
+
+<p>His passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot
+touched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form
+of the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before
+it disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of
+the river. Left by their guide, the travellers remained a few minutes in
+helpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a
+false step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and
+roaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of
+them. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for aided by the skill
+of the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at
+the side of the low rock before they thought the scout had even time to
+rejoin his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned," cried Heyward,
+cheerfully, "and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,
+my vigilant sentinel, can you see anything of those you call the
+Iroquois, on the mainland?"</p>
+
+<p>"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> a foreign
+tongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!
+If Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the
+tribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and
+Oneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,
+among the French!"</p>
+
+<p>"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard
+that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
+called women!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, shame on the Hollanders<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and Iroquois, who circumvented them by
+their deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty
+years, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins
+of a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and
+would now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night
+upon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign
+tongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> of his tribe be in Canada,
+or be in New York."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the
+cause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches
+of the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,
+changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are
+brave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our
+enemies?"</p>
+
+<p>"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen," returned the scout,
+ascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. "I trust to
+other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the
+trail of the Mingos."</p>
+
+<p>"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout
+courage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but
+the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the
+wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian
+ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the
+dead colt? Ha! what noise is that?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>"Poor Miriam!" murmured the stranger; "thy foal was foreordained to
+become a prey to ravenous beasts!" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,
+amid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"First born of Egypt, smite did He,<br />
+Of mankind, and of beast also;<br />
+O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,<br />
+On Pharaoh and his servants too!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner," said the
+scout; "but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.
+He has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will
+happen; and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits
+to the rationality of killing a four-footed beast, to save the lives of
+human men. It may be as you say," he continued, reverting to the purport
+of Heyward's last remark; "and the greater the reason why we should cut
+our steaks, and let the carcase drive down the stream, or we shall have
+the pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.
+Besides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the
+Iroquois, the cunning varlets are quick enough at understanding the
+reason of a wolf's howl."</p>
+
+<p>The scout, whilst making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain
+necessary implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of
+travellers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his
+intentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared
+in succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a
+perpendicular rock, that rose to the height of a few yards within as
+many feet of the water's edge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;<br />
+He wales a portion with judicious care;<br />
+And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Burns.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heyward</span>, and his female companions, witnessed this mysterious movement
+with secret uneasiness; for, though the conduct of the white man had
+hitherto been above reproach, his rude equipments, blunt address, and
+strong antipathies, together with the character of his silent
+associates, were all causes for exciting distrust in minds that had been
+so recently alarmed by Indian treachery.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger alone disregarded the passing incidents. He seated himself
+on a projection of the rocks, whence he gave no other signs of
+consciousness than by the struggles of his spirit, as manifested in
+frequent and heavy sighs. Smothered voices were next heard, as though
+men called to each other in the bowels of the earth, when a sudden light
+flashed upon those without, and laid bare the much-prized secret of the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>At the farther extremity of a narrow, deep cavern in the rock, whose
+length appeared much extended by the perspective and the nature of the
+light by which it was seen, was seated the scout, holding a blazing knot
+of pine. The strong glare of the fire fell full upon his sturdy,
+weather-beaten countenance and forest attire, lending an air of romantic
+wildness to the aspect of an individual, who, seen by the sober light of
+day, would have exhibited the peculiarities of a man remarkable for the
+strangeness of his dress, the iron-like inflexibility of his frame, and
+the singular compound of quick, vigilant sagacity, and of exquisite
+simplicity, that by turns usurped the possession of his muscular
+features. At a little distance in advance stood Uncas, his whole person
+thrown powerfully into view. The travellers anxiously regarded the
+upright, flexible figure of the young Mohican, graceful and unrestrained
+in the attitudes and movements of nature. Though his person was more
+than usually screened by a green and fringed hunting-shirt, like that of
+the white man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> there was no concealment to his dark, glancing, fearless
+eye, alike terrible and calm; the bold outline of his high, haughty
+features, pure in their native red; or to the dignified elevation of his
+receding forehead, together with all the finest proportions of a noble
+head, bared to the generous scalping tuft. It was the first opportunity
+possessed by Duncan and his companions, to view the marked lineaments of
+either of their Indian attendants, and each individual of the party felt
+relieved from a burden of doubt, as the proud and determined, though
+wild expression of the features of the young warrior forced itself on
+their notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the
+vale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote
+his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The
+ingenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would
+have looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which
+life had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward,
+though accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the
+uncorrupted natives, openly expressed his admiration at such an
+unblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man.</p>
+
+<p>"I could sleep in peace," whispered Alice, in reply, "with such a
+fearless and generous looking youth for my sentinel. Surely, Duncan,
+those cruel murders, those terrific scenes of torture, of which we read
+and hear so much, are never acted in the presence of such as he!"</p>
+
+<p>"This, certainly, is a rare and brilliant instance of those natural
+qualities, in which these peculiar people are said to excel," he
+answered. "I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and
+eye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not
+practise a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition
+of what we esteem virtue than according to the fashion of a savage. As
+bright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among
+Christians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though,
+for the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing
+them. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes,
+but prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should," said Cora; "who,
+that looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>A short, and apparently an embarrassed silence succeeded this remark,
+which was interrupted by the scout calling to them, aloud, to enter.</p>
+
+<p>"This fire begins to show too bright a flame," he continued, as they
+complied, "and might light the Mingos to our undoing. Uncas, drop the
+blanket, and show the knaves its dark side. This is not such a supper as
+a major of the Royal Americans has a right to expect, but I've known
+stout detachments of the corps glad to eat their venison raw, and
+without a relish too.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Here, you see, we have plenty of salt, and can
+make a quick broil. There's fresh sassafras boughs for the ladies to sit
+on, which may not be as proud as their my-hog-guinea chairs, but which
+sends up a sweeter flavor than the skin of any hog can do, be it of
+Guinea, or be it of any other land. Come, friend, don't be mournful for
+the colt; 'twas an innocent thing, and had not seen much hardship. Its
+death will save the creature many a sore back and weary foot!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncas did as the other had directed, and when the voice of Hawkeye
+ceased, the roar of the cataract sounded like the rumbling of distant
+thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we quite safe in this cavern?" demanded Heyward. "Is there no
+danger of surprise? A single armed man, at its entrance, would hold us
+at his mercy."</p>
+
+<p>A spectral-looking figure stalked from out the darkness behind the
+scout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it towards the farther
+extremity of their place of retreat. Alice uttered a faint shriek, and
+even Cora rose to her feet, as this appalling object moved into the
+light; but a single word from Heyward calmed them, with the assurance it
+was only their attendant, Chingachgook, who, lifting another blanket,
+discovered that the cavern had two outlets. Then, holding the brand, he
+crossed a deep, narrow chasm in the rocks, which ran at right angles
+with the passage they were in, but which, unlike that, was open to the
+heavens, and entered another cave, answering to the description of the
+first, in every essential particular.</p>
+
+<p>"Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> caught in a
+burrow with one hole," said Hawkeye, laughing; "you can easily see the
+cunning of the place&mdash;the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows
+is soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is
+scarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say
+was, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any
+along the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these
+sweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These
+rocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at
+othersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until
+it has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing
+there, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency."</p>
+
+<p>"In what part of them are we?" asked Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but
+where, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved
+softer on each side of us, and so they left the centre of the river bare
+and dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in."</p>
+
+<p>"We are then on an island?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and
+below. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up on
+the height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It
+falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;
+there, it skips; here, it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and
+in another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep
+hollows, that rumble and quake the 'arth; and hereaway, it ripples and
+sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gulleys in the old stone,
+as it 'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river
+seems disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the
+descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the
+shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if
+unwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt! Ay, lady,
+the fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat, is coarse, and
+like a fish-net, to little spots I can show you, where the river
+fabricates all sorts of images, as if, having broke loose from order, it
+would try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After
+the water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a
+headstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a
+few rods below you may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> see it all, flowing on steadily towards the sea,
+as was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!"</p>
+
+<p>While his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of
+their place of concealment, from this untutored description of
+Glenn's,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> they were much inclined to judge differently from Hawkeye,
+of its wild beauties. But they were not in a situation to suffer their
+thoughts to dwell on the charms of natural objects; and, as the scout
+had not found it necessary to cease his culinary labors while he spoke,
+unless to point out, with a broken fork, the direction of some
+particularly obnoxious point in the rebellious stream, they now suffered
+their attention to be drawn to the necessary, though more vulgar
+consideration of their supper.</p>
+
+<p>The repast, which was greatly aided by the addition of a few delicacies
+that Heyward had the precaution to bring with him when they left their
+horses, was exceedingly refreshing to the wearied party. Uncas acted as
+attendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his
+power, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse
+Heyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian
+customs, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial
+employment, especially in favor of their women. As the rites of
+hospitality were, however, considered sacred among them, this little
+departure from the dignity of manhood excited no audible comment. Had
+there been one there sufficiently disengaged to become a close observer,
+he might have fancied that the services of the young chief were not
+entirely impartial. That while he tendered to Alice the gourd of sweet
+water and the venison in a trencher, neatly carved from the knot of the
+pepperidge, with sufficient courtesy, in performing the same offices to
+her sister, his dark eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance.
+Once or twice he was compelled to speak, to command the attention of
+those he served. In such cases, he made use of English, broken and
+imperfect, but sufficiently intelligible, and which he rendered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> so mild
+and musical, by his deep,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> guttural voice, that it never failed to
+cause both ladies to look up in admiration and astonishment. In the
+course of these civilities, a few sentences were exchanged, that served
+to establish the appearance of an amicable intercourse between the
+parties.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile, the gravity of Chingachgook remained immovable. He had
+seated himself more within the circle of light, where the frequent
+uneasy glances of his guests were better enabled to separate the natural
+expression of his face from the artificial terrors of the war-paint.
+They found a strong resemblance between father and son, with the
+difference that might be expected from age and hardships. The fierceness
+of his countenance now seemed to slumber, and in its place was to be
+seen the quiet, vacant composure, which distinguishes an Indian warrior,
+when his faculties are not required for any of the greater purposes of
+his existence. It was, however, easy to be seen, by the occasional
+gleams that shot across his swarthy visage, that it was only necessary
+to arouse his passions, in order to give full effect to the terrific
+device which he had adopted to intimidate his enemies. On the other
+hand, the quick, roving eye of the scout seldom rested. He ate and drank
+with an appetite that no sense of danger could disturb, but his
+vigilance seemed never to desert him. Twenty times the gourd or the
+venison was suspended before his lips, while his head was turned aside,
+as though he listened to some distant and distrusted sounds&mdash;a movement
+that never failed to recall his guests from regarding the novelties of
+their situation, to a recollection of the alarming reasons that had
+driven them to seek it. As these frequent pauses were never followed by
+any remark, the momentary uneasiness they created quickly passed away,
+and for a time was forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, friend," said Hawkeye, drawing out a keg from beneath a cover of
+leaves, towards the close of the repast, and addressing the stranger who
+sat at his elbow, doing great justice to his culinary skill, "try a
+little spruce; 'twill wash away all thoughts of the colt, and quicken
+the life in your bosom. I drink to our better friendship, hoping that a
+little horse-flesh may leave no heartburnings atween us. How do you name
+yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gamut&mdash;David Gamut," returned the singing-master, preparing to wash
+down his sorrows in a powerful draught of the woodman's high-flavored
+and well-laced compound.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p><p>"A very good name, and, I dare say, handed down from honest
+forefathers. I'm an admirator of names, though the Christian fashions
+fall far below savage customs in this particular. The biggest coward I
+ever knew was called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out
+of hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod. With an
+Indian 'tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally
+is&mdash;not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a
+snake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings
+of human natur', and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least
+expect him. What may be your calling?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am an unworthy instructor in the art of psalmody."</p>
+
+<p>"Anan!"</p>
+
+<p>"I teach singing to the youths, of the Connecticut levy."</p>
+
+<p>"You might be better employed. The young hounds go laughing and singing
+too much already through the woods, when they ought not to breathe
+louder than a fox in his cover. Can you use the smooth bore, or handle
+the rifle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Praised be God, I have never had occasion to meddle with murderous
+implements!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you understand the compass, and lay down the water-courses and
+mountains of the wilderness on paper, in order that they who follow may
+find places by their given names?"</p>
+
+<p>"I practise no such employment."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a pair of legs that might make a long path seem short! you
+journey sometimes, I fancy, with tidings for the general."</p>
+
+<p>"Never; I follow no other than my own high vocation, which is
+instruction in sacred music!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a strange calling!" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, "to go
+through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may
+happen to come out of other men's throats. Well, friend, I suppose it is
+your gift, and mustn't be denied any more than if 'twas shooting, or
+some other better inclination. Let us hear what you can do in that way;
+'twill be a friendly manner of saying good-night, for 'tis time that
+these ladies should be getting strength for a hard and a long push, in
+the pride of the morning, afore the Maquas are stirring!"</p>
+
+<p>"With joyful pleasure do I consent," said David, adjusting his
+iron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which
+he immediately tendered to Alice. "What can be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> more fitting and
+consolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such
+exceeding jeopardy!"</p>
+
+<p>Alice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Indulge yourself," he whispered: "ought not the suggestion of the
+worthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her
+keen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book
+was open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the
+poet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of
+Israel, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora
+betrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song
+proceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and
+the tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.</p>
+
+<p>The air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of
+the rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy
+excitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran
+through their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and
+true ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined
+cavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling
+notes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the
+rocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into
+stone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an
+expression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features
+to relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature
+subdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his
+ears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the
+settlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before
+the hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long
+seemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener
+felt the storms of heaven than any testimonials of weakness. The singers
+were dwelling on one of those low, dying chords, which the ear devours
+with such greedy rapture, as if conscious that it is about to lose them,
+when a cry, that seemed neither human nor earthly, rose in the outward
+air, penetrating not only the recesses of the cavern, but to the inmost
+hearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a stillness apparently as
+deep as if the waters had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> checked in their furious progress, at
+such a horrid and unusual interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" repeated Heyward aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if
+expecting the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed
+their own astonishment. At length they spoke together earnestly, in the
+Delaware language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed
+aperture, cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first
+spoke in English.</p>
+
+<p>"What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell; though two of us
+have ranged the woods for more than thirty years! I did believe there
+was no cry that Indians or beast could make, that my ears had not heard;
+but this has proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to
+intimidate their enemies?" asked Cora, who stood drawing her veil about
+her person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound;
+but when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for
+anything else! Well, Uncas!" speaking in Delaware to the young chief as
+he re-entered, "what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to be seen without," continued Hawkeye, shaking his
+head in discontent; "and our hiding-place is still in darkness! Pass
+into the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be
+afoot long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to
+Edward, while the Mingos are taking their morning nap."</p>
+
+<p>Cora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the
+more timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place,
+however, she whispered a request to Duncan that he would follow. Uncas
+raised the blanket for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank
+him for this act of attention, they saw the scout seated again before
+the dying embers, with his face resting on his hands, in a manner which
+showed how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> deeply he brooded on the unaccountable interruption which
+had broken up their evening devotions.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through
+the narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable
+position, he joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him
+for the first time since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort
+Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave us not, Duncan," said Alice; "we cannot sleep in such a place as
+this, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears!"</p>
+
+<p>"First let us examine into the security of your fortress," he answered,
+"and then we will speak of rest."</p>
+
+<p>He approached the farther end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like
+the others, was concealed by blankets, and removing the thick screen,
+breathed the fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the
+river flowed through a deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn
+in the soft rock, directly beneath his feet, forming an effectual
+defence, as he believed, against any danger from that quarter; the
+water, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing, and sweeping along, in
+its most violent and broken manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side," he continued,
+pointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current, before
+he dropped the blanket; "and as you know that good men and true are on
+guard in front, I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should
+be disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is
+necessary to you both."</p>
+
+<p>"Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion, though she cannot put
+it in practise," returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by
+the side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; "there would be other causes
+to chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this
+mysterious noise. Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the
+anxiety a father must endure, whose children lodge, he knows not where
+or how, in such a wilderness, and in the midst of so many perils?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a father, and cannot deny his nature."</p>
+
+<p>"How kind has he ever been to all my follies! how tender and indulgent
+to all my wishes!" sobbed Alice. "We have been selfish, sister, in
+urging our visit at such hazard!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>"I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much
+embarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might
+neglect him in his strait, his children at least were faithful!"</p>
+
+<p>"When he heard of your arrival at Edward," said Heyward, kindly, "there
+was a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though the
+latter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly
+prevailed. 'It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them,
+Duncan,' he said, 'and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he who
+holds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but
+half her firmness!'"</p>
+
+<p>"And did he not speak of me, Heyward?" demanded Alice, with jealous
+affection. "Surely, he forgot not altogether his little Elsie?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was impossible," returned the young man; "he called you by a
+thousand endearing epithets, that I may not presume to use, but to the
+justice of which I can warmly testify. Once, indeed, he said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Duncan ceased speaking; for while his eyes were riveted on those of
+Alice, who had turned towards him with the eagerness of filial
+affection, to catch his words, the same strong horrid cry, as before,
+filled the air, and rendered him mute. A long, breathless silence
+succeeded, during which each looked at the others in fearful expectation
+of hearing the sound repeated. At length the blanket was slowly raised,
+and the scout stood in the aperture with a countenance whose firmness
+evidently began to give way, before a mystery that seemed to threaten
+some danger, against which all his cunning and experience might prove of
+no avail.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"They do not sleep.</span><br />
+On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,<br />
+I see them sit."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Gray.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">Twould</span> be neglecting a warning that is given for our good, to lie hid
+any longer," said Hawkeye, "when such sounds are raised in the forest!
+The gentle ones may keep close, but the Mohicans and I will watch upon
+the rock, where I suppose a major of the 60th would wish to keep us
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"Is then our danger so pressing?" asked Cora.</p>
+
+<p>"He who makes strange sounds, and gives them out for man's information,
+alone knows our danger. I should think myself wicked, unto rebellion
+against his will, was I to burrow with such warnings in the air! Even
+the weak soul who passes his days in singing, is stirred by the cry,
+and, as he says, is 'ready to go forth to the battle.' If 'twere only a
+battle, it would be a thing understood by us all, and easily managed;
+but I have heard that when such shrieks are atween heaven and 'arth, it
+betokens another sort of warfare!"</p>
+
+<p>"If all our reasons for fear, my friend, are confined to such as proceed
+from supernatural causes, we have but little occasion to be alarmed,"
+continued the undisturbed Cora; "are you certain that our enemies have
+not invented some new and ingenious method to strike us with terror,
+that their conquest may become more easy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady," returned the scout, solemnly, "I have listened to all the sounds
+of the woods for thirty years, as a man will listen, whose life and
+death depend on the quickness of his ears. There is no whine of the
+panther, no whistle of the catbird, nor any invention of the devilish
+Mingos, that can cheat me! I have heard the forest moan like mortal men
+in their affliction; often, and again, have I listened to the wind
+playing its music in the branches of the girdled trees; and I have heard
+the lightning cracking in the air, like the snapping of blazing brush,
+as it spitted forth sparks and forked flames; but never have I thought
+that I heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> more than the pleasure of Him who sported with the things
+of his hand. But neither the Mohicans, nor I, who am a white man without
+a cross, can explain the cry just heard. We, therefore, believe it a
+sign given for our good."</p>
+
+<p>"It is extraordinary!" said Heyward, taking his pistols from the place
+where he had laid them on entering; "be it a sign of peace or a signal
+of war, it must be looked to. Lead the way, my friend; I follow."</p>
+
+<p>On issuing from their place of confinement, the whole party instantly
+experienced a grateful renovation of spirits, by exchanging the pent air
+of the hiding-place for the cool and invigorating atmosphere, which
+played around the whirlpools and pitches of the cataract. A heavy
+evening breeze swept along the surface of the river, and seemed to drive
+the roar of the falls into the recesses of their own caverns, whence it
+issued heavily and constant, like thunder rumbling beyond the distant
+hills. The moon had risen, and its light was already glancing here and
+there on the waters above them; but the extremity of the rock where they
+stood still lay in shadow. With the exception of the sounds produced by
+the rushing waters, and an occasional breathing of the air, as it
+murmured past them in fitful currents, the scene was as still as night
+and solitude could make it. In vain were the eyes of each individual
+bent along the opposite shores, in quest of some signs of life, that
+might explain the nature of the interruption they had heard. Their
+anxious and eager looks were baffled by the deceptive light, or rested
+only on naked rocks, and straight and immovable trees.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to be seen but the gloom and quiet of a lovely
+evening," whispered Duncan: "how much should we prize such a scene, and
+all this breathing solitude, at any other moment, Cora! Fancy yourselves
+in security and what now, perhaps, increases your terror, may be made
+conducive to enjoyment&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" interrupted Alice.</p>
+
+<p>The caution was unnecessary. Once more the same sound arose, as if from
+the bed of the river, and having broken out of the narrow bounds of the
+cliffs, was heard undulating through the forest, in distant and dying
+cadences.</p>
+
+<p>"Can any here give a name to such a cry?" demanded Hawkeye, when the
+last echo was lost in the woods; "if so, let him speak; for myself, I
+judge it not to belong to 'arth!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p><p>"Here, then, is one who can undeceive you," said Duncan; "I know the
+sound full well, for often have I heard it on the field of battle, and
+in situations which are frequent in a soldier's life. 'Tis the horrid
+shriek that a horse will give in his agony; oftener drawn from him in
+pain, though sometimes in terror. My charger is either a prey to the
+beasts of the forest, or he sees his danger, without the power to avoid
+it. The sound might deceive me in the cavern, but in the open air I know
+it too well to be wrong."</p>
+
+<p>The scout and his companions listened to this simple explanation with
+the interest of men who imbibe new ideas, at the same time that they get
+rid of old ones, which had proved disagreeable inmates. The two latter
+uttered their usual and expressive exclamation, "Hugh!" as the truth
+first glanced upon their minds, while the former, after a short musing
+pause, took upon himself to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot deny your words," he said; "for I am little skilled in horses,
+though born where they abound. The wolves must be hovering above their
+heads on the bank, and the timorsome creatures are calling on man for
+help, in the best manner they are able. Uncas,"&mdash;he spoke in
+Delaware&mdash;"Uncas, drop down in the canoe, and whirl a brand among the
+pack; or fear may do what the wolves can't get at to perform, and leave
+us without horses in the morning, when we shall have so much need to
+journey swiftly!"</p>
+
+<p>The young native had already descended to the water, to comply, when a
+long howl was raised on the edge of the river, and was borne swiftly off
+into the depths of the forest, as though the beasts, of their own
+accord, were abandoning their prey in sudden terror. Uncas, with
+instinctive quickness, receded, and the three foresters held another of
+their low, earnest conferences.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been like hunters who have lost the points of the heavens, and
+from whom the sun has been hid for days," said Hawkeye, turning away
+from his companions; "now we begin again to know the signs of our
+course, and the paths are cleared from briers! Seat yourselves in the
+shade which the moon throws from yonder beech&mdash;'tis thicker than that of
+the pines&mdash;and let us wait for that which the Lord may choose to send
+next. Let all your conversation be in whispers; though it would be
+better, and perhaps, in the end, wiser, if each one held discourse with
+his own thoughts, for a time."</p>
+
+<p>The manner of the scout was seriously impressive, though no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> longer
+distinguished by any signs of unmanly apprehension. It was evident that
+his momentary weakness had vanished with the explanation of a mystery
+which his own experience had not served to fathom; and though he now
+felt all the realities of their actual condition, that he was prepared
+to meet them with the energy of his hardy nature. This feeling seemed
+also common to the natives, who placed themselves in positions which
+commanded a full view of both shores, while their own persons were
+effectually concealed from observation. In such circumstances, common
+prudence dictated that Heyward and his companions should imitate a
+caution that proceeded from so intelligent a source. The young man drew
+a pile of the sassafras from the cave, and placing it in the chasm which
+separated the two caverns, it was occupied by the sisters, who were thus
+protected by the rocks from any missiles, while their anxiety was
+relieved by the assurance that no danger could approach without a
+warning. Heyward himself was posted at hand, so near that he might
+communicate with his companions without raising his voice to a dangerous
+elevation, while David, in imitation of the woodsmen, bestowed his
+person in such a manner among the fissures of the rocks, that his
+ungainly limbs were no longer offensive to the eye.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner, hours passed by without further interruption. The moon
+reached the zenith, and shed its mild light perpendicularly on the
+lovely sight of the sisters slumbering peacefully in each other's arms.
+Duncan cast the wide shawl of Cora before a spectacle he so much loved
+to contemplate, and then suffered his own head to seek a pillow on the
+rock. David began to utter sounds that would have shocked his delicate
+organs in more wakeful moments; in short, all but Hawkeye and the
+Mohicans lost every idea of consciousness, in uncontrollable drowsiness.
+But the watchfulness of these vigilant protectors neither tired nor
+slumbered. Immovable as that rock, of which each appeared to form a
+part, they lay, with their eyes roving, without intermission, along the
+dark margin of trees that bounded the adjacent shores of the narrow
+stream. Not a sound escaped them; the most subtle examination could not
+have told they breathed. It was evident that this excess of caution
+proceeded from an experience that no subtlety on the part of their
+enemies could deceive. It was, however, continued without any apparent
+consequences, until the moon had set, and a pale streak above the
+tree-tops, at the bend of the river a little below, announced the
+approach of day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p><p>Then, for the first time, Hawkeye was seen to stir. He crawled along
+the rock, and shook Duncan from his heavy slumbers.</p>
+
+<p>"Now is the time to journey," he whispered; "awake the gentle ones, and
+be ready to get into the canoe when I bring it to the landing-place."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had a quiet night?" said Heyward; "for myself, I believe sleep
+has got the better of my vigilance."</p>
+
+<p>"All is yet still as midnight. Be silent, but be quick."</p>
+
+<p>By this time Duncan was thoroughly awake, and he immediately lifted the
+shawl from the sleeping females. The motion caused Cora to raise her
+hand as if to repulse him, while Alice murmured, in her soft, gentle
+voice, "No, no, dear father, we were not deserted; Duncan was with us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sweet innocence," whispered the youth; "Duncan is here, and while
+life continues or danger remains, he will never quit thee. Cora! Alice!
+awake! The hour has come to move!"</p>
+
+<p>A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the form of the other
+standing upright before him, in bewildered horror, was the unexpected
+answer he received. While the words were still on the lips of Heyward,
+there had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries as served to drive the
+swift currents of his own blood back from its bounding course into the
+fountains of his heart. It seemed, for near a minute, as if demons of
+hell had possessed themselves of the air about them, and were venting
+their savage humors in barbarous sounds. The cries came from no
+particular direction, though it was evident they filled the woods, and
+as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the caverns of the falls, the
+rocks, the bed of the river, and the upper air. David raised his tall
+person in the midst of the infernal din, with a hand on either ear,
+exclaiming&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whence comes this discord! Has hell broke loose, that man should utter
+sounds like these!"</p>
+
+<p>The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles, from the
+opposite banks of the stream, followed this incautious exposure of his
+person, and left the unfortunate singing-master senseless on that rock
+where he had been so long slumbering. The Mohicans boldly sent back the
+intimidating yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of savage triumph
+at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then quick and close
+between them, but either party was too well skilled to leave even a limb
+exposed to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> hostile aim. Duncan listened with intense anxiety for
+the strokes of the paddle, believing that flight was now their only
+refuge. The river glanced by with its ordinary velocity, but the canoe
+was nowhere to be seen on its dark waters. He had just fancied they were
+cruelly deserted by the scout, as a stream of flame issued from the rock
+beneath him, and a fierce yell, blended with a shriek of agony,
+announced that the messenger of death, sent from the fatal weapon of
+Hawkeye, had found a victim. At this slight repulse the assailants
+instantly withdrew, and gradually the place became as still as before
+the sudden tumult.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan seized the favorable moment to spring to the body of Gamut, which
+he bore within the shelter of the narrow chasm that protected the
+sisters. In another minute the whole party was collected in this spot of
+comparative safety.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor fellow has saved his scalp," said Hawkeye, coolly passing his
+hand over the head of David; "but he is a proof that a man may be born
+with too long a tongue! 'Twas downright madness to show six feet of
+flesh and blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages. I only wonder
+he has escaped with life."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he not dead!" demanded Cora, in a voice whose husky tones showed how
+powerfully natural horror struggled with her assumed firmness. "Can we
+do aught to assist the wretched man?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! the life is in his heart yet, and after he has slept awhile he
+will come to himself, and be a wiser man for it, till the hour of his
+real time shall come," returned Hawkeye, casting another oblique glance
+at the insensible body, while he filled his charger with admirable
+nicety. "Carry him in, Uncas, and lay him on the sassafras. The longer
+his nap lasts the better it will be for him, as I doubt whether he can
+find a proper cover for such a shape on these rocks; and singing won't
+do any good with the Iroquois."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe, then, the attack will be renewed?" asked Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouthful!
+They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, when they meet a loss, and
+fail in the surprise, to fall back; but we shall have them on again,
+with new expedients to circumvent us, and master our scalps. Our main
+hope," he continued, raising his rugged countenance, across which a
+shade of anxiety just then passed like a darkening cloud, "will be to
+keep the rock until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Munro can send a party to our help! God send it may
+be soon, and under a leader that knows the Indian customs!"</p>
+
+<p>"You hear our probable fortunes, Cora," said Duncan, "and you know we
+have everything to hope from the anxiety and experience of your father.
+Come, then, with Alice, into this cavern, where you, at least, will be
+safe from the murderous rifles of our enemies and where you may bestow a
+care suited to your gentle natures on our unfortunate comrade."</p>
+
+<p>The sisters followed him into the outer cave, where David was beginning,
+by his sighs, to give symptoms of returning consciousness; and then
+commending the wounded man to their attention, he immediately prepared
+to leave them.</p>
+
+<p>"Duncan!" said the tremulous voice of Cora, when he had reached the
+mouth of the cavern. He turned, and beheld the speaker, whose color had
+changed to a deadly paleness, and whose lip quivered, gazing after him,
+with an expression of interest which immediately recalled him to her
+side. "Remember, Duncan, how necessary your safety is to our own&mdash;how
+you bear a father's sacred trust&mdash;how much depends on your discretion
+and care&mdash;in short," she added, while the tell-tale blood stole over her
+features, crimsoning her very temples, "how very deservedly dear you are
+to all of the name of Munro."</p>
+
+<p>"If anything could add to my own base love of life," said Heyward,
+suffering his unconscious eyes to wander to the youthful form of the
+silent Alice, "it would be so kind an assurance. As major of the 60th,
+our honest host will tell you I must take my share of the fray; but our
+task will be easy; it is merely to keep these blood-hounds at bay for a
+few hours."</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for reply, he tore himself from the presence of the
+sisters, and joined the scout and his companions, who still lay within
+the protection of the little chasm between the two caves.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Uncas," said the former, as Heyward joined them, "you are
+wasteful of your powder, and the kick of the rifle disconcerts your aim!
+Little powder, light lead, and a long arm, seldom fail of bringing the
+death screech from a Mingo! At least, such has been my experience with
+the creatur's. Come, friends; let us to our covers, for no man can tell
+when or where a Maqua<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> will strike his blow."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>The Indians silently repaired to their appointed stations, which were
+fissures in the rocks, whence they could command the approaches to the
+foot of the falls. In the centre of the little island, a few short and
+stunted pines had found root, forming a thicket, into which Hawkeye
+darted with the swiftness of a deer, followed by the active Duncan. Here
+they secured themselves, as well as circumstances would permit, among
+the shrubs and fragments of stone that were scattered about the place.
+Above them was a bare, rounded rock, on each side of which the water
+played its gambols, and plunged into the abysses beneath, in the manner
+already described. As the day had now dawned, the opposite shores no
+longer presented a confused outline, but they were able to look into the
+woods, and distinguish objects beneath the canopy of gloomy pines.</p>
+
+<p>A long and anxious watch succeeded, but without any further evidences of
+a renewed attack; and Duncan began to hope that their fire had proved
+more fatal than was supposed, and that their enemies had been
+effectually repulsed. When he ventured to utter this impression to his
+companion, it was met by Hawkeye with an incredulous shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"You know not the nature of a Maqua, if you think he is so easily beaten
+back without a scalp!" he answered. "If there was one of the imps
+yelling this morning, there were forty! and they know our number and
+quality too well to give up the chase so soon. Hist! look into the water
+above, just where it breaks over the rocks. I am no mortal, if the risky
+devils haven't swam down upon the very pitch, and, as bad luck would
+have it, they have hit the head of the island. Hist! man, keep close! or
+the hair will be off your crown in the turning of a knife!"</p>
+
+<p>Heyward lifted his head from the cover, and beheld what he justly
+considered a prodigy of rashness and skill. The river had worn away the
+edge of the soft rock in such a manner, as to render its first pitch
+less abrupt and perpendicular than is usual at waterfalls. With no other
+guide than the ripple of the stream where it met the head of the island,
+a party of their insatiable foes had ventured into the current, and swam
+down upon this point, knowing the ready access it would give, if
+successful, to their intended victims. As Hawkeye ceased speaking, four
+human heads could be seen peering above a few logs of drift-wood that
+had lodged on these naked rocks, and which had probably suggested the
+idea of the practicability of the hazardous undertaking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> At the next
+moment, a fifth form was seen floating over the green edge of the fall,
+a little from the line of the island. The savage struggled powerfully to
+gain the point of safety, and, favored by the glancing water, he was
+already stretching forth an arm to meet the grasp of his companions,
+when he shot away again with the whirling current, appeared to rise into
+the air, with uplifted arms and starting eyeballs, and fell, with a
+sullen plunge, into that deep and yawning abyss over which he hovered. A
+single, wild, despairing shriek rose from the cavern, and all was hushed
+again, as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>The first generous impulse of Duncan was to rush to the rescue of the
+hapless wretch; but he felt himself bound to the spot by the iron grasp
+of the immovable scout.</p>
+
+<p>"Would ye bring certain death upon us, by telling the Mingos where we
+lie?" demanded Hawkeye, sternly; "'tis a charge of powder saved, and
+ammunition is as precious now as breath to a worried deer! Freshen the
+priming of your pistols&mdash;the mist of the falls is apt to dampen the
+brimstone&mdash;and stand firm for a close struggle, while I fire on their
+rush."</p>
+
+<p>He placed his finger in his mouth, and drew a long, shrill whistle,
+which was answered from the rocks that were guarded by the Mohicans.
+Duncan caught glimpses of heads above the scattered drift-wood, as this
+signal rose on the air, but they disappeared again as suddenly as they
+had glanced upon his sight. A low, rustling sound next drew his
+attention behind him, and turning his head, he beheld Uncas within a few
+feet, creeping to his side. Hawkeye spoke to him in Delaware, when the
+young chief took his position with singular caution and undisturbed
+coolness. To Heyward this was a moment of feverish and impatient
+suspense; though the scout saw fit to select it as a fit occasion to
+read a lecture to his more youthful associates on the art of using
+fire-arms with discretion.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all we'pons," he commenced, "the long-barrelled, true-grooved,
+soft-metalled rifle is the most dangerous in skilful hands, though it
+wants a strong arm, a quick eye, and great judgment in charging, to put
+forth all its beauties. The gunsmiths can have but little insight into
+their trade, when they make their fowling-pieces and short horsemen's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by the low but expressive "Hugh!" of Uncas.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_BATTLE_AT_GLENS_FALLS" id="THE_BATTLE_AT_GLENS_FALLS"></a>
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="500" height="631" alt="THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that<br /> effort, and the
+result was, that both tottered on the<br /> brink of the precipice</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p><p>"I see them, boy, I see them!" continued Hawkeye; "they are gathering
+for the rush, or they would keep their dingy backs below the logs. Well,
+let them," he added, examining his flint; "the leading man certainly
+comes on to his death, though it should be Montcalm himself!"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the woods were filled with another burst of cries, and at
+the signal four savages sprang from the cover of the drift-wood. Heyward
+felt a burning desire to rush forward to meet them, so intense was the
+delirious anxiety of the moment; but he was restrained by the deliberate
+examples of the scout and Uncas. When their foes who leaped over the
+black rock that divided them, with long bounds, uttering the wildest
+yells, were within a few rods, the rifle of Hawkeye slowly rose among
+the shrubs, and poured out its fatal contents. The foremost Indian
+bounded like a stricken deer, and fell headlong among the clefts of the
+island.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Uncas!" cried the scout, drawing his long knife, while his quick
+eyes began to flash with ardor, "take the last of the screeching imps;
+of the other two we are sartain!"</p>
+
+<p>He was obeyed; and but two enemies remained to be overcome. Heyward had
+given one of his pistols to Hawkeye, and together they rushed down a
+little declivity towards their foes; they discharged their weapons at
+the same instant, and equally without success.</p>
+
+<p>"I know'd it! and I said it!" muttered the scout, whirling the despised
+little implement over the falls with bitter disdain. "Come on, ye bloody
+minded hell-hounds! ye meet a man without a cross!"</p>
+
+<p>The words were barely uttered, when he encountered a savage of gigantic
+stature, and of the fiercest mien. At the same moment, Duncan found
+himself engaged with the other, in a similar contest of hand to hand.
+With ready skill, Hawkeye and his antagonist each grasped that uplifted
+arm of the other which held the dangerous knife. For near a minute they
+stood looking one another in the eye, and gradually exerting the power
+of their muscles for the mastery. At length, the toughened sinews of the
+white man prevailed over the less practised limbs of the native. The arm
+of the latter slowly gave way before the increasing force of the scout,
+who suddenly wresting his armed hand from the grasp of the foe, drove
+the sharp weapon through his naked bosom to the heart. In the meantime
+Heyward had been pressed in a more deadly struggle. His slight sword was
+snapped in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> first encounter. As he was destitute of any other means
+of defence, his safety now depended entirely on bodily strength and
+resolution. Though deficient in neither of these qualities, he had met
+an enemy every way his equal. Happily, he soon succeeded in disarming
+his adversary, whose knife fell on the rock at their feet; and from this
+moment it became a fierce struggle, who should cast the other over the
+dizzy height into a neighboring cavern of the falls. Every successive
+struggle brought them nearer to the verge, where Duncan perceived the
+final and conquering effort must be made. Each of the combatants threw
+all his energies into that effort, and the result was, that both
+tottered on the brink of the precipice. Heyward felt the grasp of the
+other at his throat, and saw the grim smile the savage gave, under the
+revengeful hope that he hurried his enemy to a fate similar to his own,
+as he felt his body slowly yielding to a resistless power, and the young
+man experienced the passing agony of such a moment in all its horrors.
+At that instant of extreme danger, a dark hand and glancing knife
+appeared before him; the Indian released his hold, as the blood flowed
+freely from around the several tendons of the wrist; and while Duncan
+was drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, his charmed eyes were
+still riveted on the fierce and disappointed countenance of his foe, who
+fell sullenly and disappointed down the irrecoverable precipice.</p>
+
+<p>"To cover! to cover!" cried Hawkeye, who just then had despatched the
+enemy; "to cover, for your lives! the work is but half ended!"</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican gave a shout of triumph, and, followed by Duncan, he
+glided up the acclivity they had descended to the combat, and sought the
+friendly shelter of the rocks and shrubs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"They linger yet,</span><br />
+Avengers of their native land."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Gray.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> warning call of the scout was not uttered without occasion. During
+the occurrence of the deadly encounter just related, the roar of the
+falls was unbroken by any human sound whatever. It would seem that
+interest in the result had kept the natives on the opposite shores in
+breathless suspense, while the quick evolutions and swift changes in the
+position of the combatants, effectually prevented a fire that might
+prove dangerous alike to friend and enemy. But the moment the struggle
+was decided, a yell arose as fierce and savage as wild and revengful
+passions could throw into the air. It was followed by the swift flashes
+of the rifles, which sent their leaden messengers across the rock in
+volleys, as though the assailants would pour out their impotent fury on
+the insensible scene of the fatal contest.</p>
+
+<p>A steady, though deliberate return was made from the rifle of
+Chingachgook, who had maintained his post throughout the fray with
+unmoved resolution. When the triumphant shout of Uncas was borne to his
+ears, the gratified father raised his voice in a single responsive cry,
+after which his busy piece alone proved that he still guarded his pass
+with unwearied diligence. In this manner many minutes flew by with the
+swiftness of thought: the rifles of the assailants speaking, at times,
+in rattling volleys, and at others, in occasional, scattering shots.
+Though the rock, the trees, and the shrubs, were cut and torn in a
+hundred places around the besieged, their cover was so close, and so
+rigidly maintained, that, as yet, David had been the only sufferer in
+their little band.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them burn their powder," said the deliberate scout, while bullet
+after bullet whizzed by the place where he securely lay; "there will be
+a fine gathering of lead when it is over, and I fancy the imps will tire
+of the sport, afore these old stones cry out for mercy! Uncas, boy, you
+waste the kernels by overcharging: and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> a kicking rifle never carries a
+true bullet. I told you to take that loping miscreant under the line of
+white paint; now, if your bullet went a hair's breadth, it went two
+inches above it. The life lies low in a Mingo, and humanity teaches us
+to make a quick end of the sarpents."</p>
+
+<p>A quiet smile lighted the haughty features of the young Mohican,
+betraying his knowledge of the English language, as well as of the
+other's meaning; but he suffered it to pass away without vindication or
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot permit you to accuse Uncas of want of judgment or of skill,"
+said Duncan; "he saved my life in the coolest and readiest manner, and
+he has made a friend who never will require to be reminded of the debt
+he owes."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas partly raised his body, and offered his hand to the grasp of
+Heyward. During this act of friendship, the two young men exchanged
+looks of intelligence which caused Duncan to forget the character and
+condition of his wild associate. In the meanwhile, Hawkeye, who looked
+on this burst of youthful feeling with a cool but kind regard, made the
+following reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Life is an obligation which friends often owe each other in the
+wilderness. I dare say I may have served Uncas some such turn myself
+before now; and I very well remember that he has stood between me and
+death five different times: three times from the Mingos, once in
+crossing Horican, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That bullet was better aimed than common!" exclaimed Duncan,
+involuntarily shrinking from a shot which struck the rock at his side
+with a smart rebound.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye laid his hand on the shapeless metal, and shook his head, as he
+examined it, saying, "Falling lead is never flattened! had it come from
+the clouds this might have happened!"</p>
+
+<p>But the rifle of Uncas was deliberately raised towards the heavens,
+directing his companions to a point, where the mystery was immediately
+explained. A ragged oak grew on the right bank of the river, nearly
+opposite to their position, which, seeking the freedom of the open
+space, had inclined so far forward, that its upper branches overhung
+that arm of the stream which flowed nearest to its own shore. Among the
+topmost leaves, which scantily concealed the gnarled and stunted limbs,
+a savage was nestled, partly concealed by the trunk of the tree, and
+partly exposed, as though looking down upon them to ascertain the effect
+produced by his treacherous aim.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>"These devils will scale heaven to circumvent us to our ruin," said
+Hawkeye; "keep him in play, boy, until I can bring 'Killdeer' to bear,
+when we will try his metal on each side of the tree at once."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas delayed his fire until the scout uttered the word. The rifles
+flashed, the leaves and the bark of the oak flew into the air, and were
+scattered by the wind, but the Indian answered their assault by a
+taunting laugh, sending down upon them another bullet in return, that
+struck the cap of Hawkeye from his head. Once more the savage yells
+burst out of the woods, and the leaden hail whistled above the heads of
+the besieged, as if to confine them to a place where they might become
+easy victims to the enterprise of the warrior who had mounted the tree.</p>
+
+<p>"This must be looked to!" said the scout, glancing about him with an
+anxious eye. "Uncas, call up your father; we have need of all our
+we'pons to bring the cunning varmint from his roost."</p>
+
+<p>The signal was instantly given; and, before Hawkeye had reloaded his
+rifle, they were joined by Chingachgook. When his son pointed out to the
+experienced warrior the situation of their dangerous enemy, the usual
+exclamatory "Hugh!" burst from his lips; after which, no further
+expression of surprise or alarm was suffered to escape him. Hawkeye and
+the Mohicans conversed earnestly together in Delaware for a few moments,
+when each quietly took his post, in order to execute the plan they had
+speedily devised.</p>
+
+<p>The warrior in the oak had maintained a quick, though ineffectual fire,
+from the moment of his discovery. But his aim was interrupted by the
+vigilance of his enemies, whose rifles instantaneously bore on any part
+of his person that was left exposed. Still his bullets fell in the
+centre of the crouching party. The clothes of Heyward, which rendered
+him peculiarly conspicuous, were repeatedly cut, and once blood was
+drawn from a slight wound in his arm.</p>
+
+<p>At length, emboldened by the long and patient watchfulness of his
+enemies, the Huron attempted a better and more fatal aim. The quick eye
+of the Mohicans caught the dark line of his lower limbs incautiously
+exposed through the thin foliage, a few inches from the trunk of the
+tree. Their rifles made a common report, when, sinking on his wounded
+limb, part of the body of the savage came into view. Swift as thought,
+Hawkeye seized the advantage and discharged his fatal weapon into the
+top of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> the oak. The leaves were unusually agitated; the dangerous rifle
+fell from its commanding elevation, and after a few moments of vain
+struggling, the form of the savage was seen swinging in the wind, while
+he still grasped a ragged and naked branch of the tree, with hands
+clenched in desperation.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him, in pity give him&mdash;the contents of another rifle!" cried
+Duncan, turning away his eyes in horror from the spectacle of a
+fellow-creature in such awful jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a karnel!" exclaimed the obdurate Hawkeye; "his death is certain,
+and we have no powder to spare, for Indian fights sometimes last for
+days; 'tis their scalps or ours!&mdash;and God, who made us, has put into our
+natures the craving to keep the skin on the head!"</p>
+
+<p>Against this stern and unyielding morality, supported as it was by such
+visible policy, there was no appeal. From that moment the yells in the
+forest once more ceased, the fire was suffered to decline, and all eyes,
+those of friends as well as enemies, became fixed on the hopeless
+condition of the wretch who was dangling between heaven and earth. The
+body yielded to the currents of air, and though no murmur or groan
+escaped the victim, there were instants when he grimly faced his foes,
+and the anguish of cold despair might be traced, through the intervening
+distance, in possession of his swarthy lineaments. Three several times
+the scout raised his piece in mercy, and as often prudence getting the
+better of his intention, it was again silently lowered. At length one
+hand of the Huron lost its hold, and dropped exhausted to his side. A
+desperate and fruitless struggle to recover the branch succeeded, and
+then the savage was seen for a fleeting instant, grasping wildly at the
+empty air. The lightning is not quicker than was the flame from the
+rifle of Hawkeye; the limbs of the victim trembled and contracted, the
+head fell to the bosom, and the body parted the foaming waters like
+lead, when the element closed above it, in its ceaseless velocity, and
+every vestige of the unhappy Huron was lost forever.</p>
+
+<p>No shout of triumph succeeded this important advantage, but even the
+Mohicans gazed at each other in silent horror. A single yell burst from
+the woods, and all was again still. Hawkeye, who alone appeared to
+reason on the occasion, shook his head at his own momentary weakness,
+even uttering his self-disapprobation aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas the last charge in my horn, and the last bullet in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> pouch, and
+'twas the act of a boy!" he said; "what mattered it whether he struck
+the rock living or dead: feeling would soon be over. Uncas, lad, go down
+to the canoe, and bring up the big horn; it is all the powder we have
+left, and we shall need it to the last grain, or I am ignorant of the
+Mingo nature."</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican complied, leaving the scout turning over the useless
+contents of his pouch, and shaking the empty horn with renewed
+discontent. From this unsatisfactory examination, however, he was soon
+called by a loud and piercing exclamation from Uncas, that sounded, even
+to the unpractised ears of Duncan, as the signal of some new and
+unexpected calamity. Every thought filled with apprehension for the
+precious treasure he had concealed in the cavern, the young man started
+to his feet, totally regardless of the hazard he incurred by such an
+exposure. As if actuated by a common impulse, his movement was imitated
+by his companions, and, together, they rushed down the pass to the
+friendly chasm, with a rapidity that rendered the scattering fire of
+their enemies perfectly harmless. The unwonted cry had brought the
+sisters, together with the wounded David, from their place of refuge;
+and the whole party, at a single glance, was made acquainted with the
+nature of the disaster that had disturbed even the practised stoicism of
+their youthful Indian protector.</p>
+
+<p>At a short distance from the rock, their little bark was to be seen
+floating across the eddy, towards the swift current of the river, in a
+manner which proved that its course was directed by some hidden agent.
+The instant this unwelcome sight caught the eye of the scout, his rifle
+was levelled as by instinct, but the barrel gave no answer to the bright
+sparks of the flint.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis too late, 'tis too late!" Hawkeye exclaimed, dropping the useless
+piece in bitter disappointment; "the miscreant has struck the rapid; and
+had we powder, it could hardly send the lead swifter than he now goes!"</p>
+
+<p>The adventurous Huron raised his head above the shelter of the canoe,
+and while it glided swiftly down the stream, he waved his hand, and gave
+forth the shout, which was the known signal of success. His cry was
+answered by a yell and a laugh from the woods, as tauntingly exulting as
+if fifty demons were uttering their blasphemies at the fall of some
+Christian soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Well may you laugh, ye children of the devil!" said the scout, seating
+himself on a projection of the rock, and suffering his gun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> to fall
+neglected at his feet, "for the three quickest and surest rifles in
+these woods are no better than so many stalks of mullein, or the last
+year's horns of a buck!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is to be done?" demanded Duncan, losing the first feeling of
+disappointment in a more manly desire for exertion; "what will become of
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye made no other reply than by passing his finger around the crown
+of his head, in a manner so significant, that none who witnessed the
+action could mistake its meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, surely, our case is not so desperate!" exclaimed the youth;
+"the Hurons are not here; we may make good the caverns; we may oppose
+their landing."</p>
+
+<p>"With what?" coolly demanded the scout. "The arrows of Uncas, or such
+tears as women shed! No, no; you are young, and rich, and have friends,
+and at such an age I know it is hard to die! But," glancing his eyes at
+the Mohicans, "let us remember we are men without a cross, and let us
+teach these natives of the forest that white blood can run as freely as
+red, when the appointed hour is come."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan turned quickly in the direction indicated by the other's eyes,
+and read a confirmation of his worst apprehensions in the conduct of the
+Indians. Chingachgook, placing himself in a dignified posture on another
+fragment of the rock, had already laid aside his knife and tomahawk, and
+was in the act of taking the eagle's plume from his head, and smoothing
+the solitary tuft of hair in readiness to perform its last and revolting
+office. His countenance was composed, though thoughtful, while his dark
+gleaming eyes were gradually losing the fierceness of the combat in an
+expression better suited to the change he expected momentarily to
+undergo.</p>
+
+<p>"Our case is not, cannot be so hopeless!" said Duncan; "even at this
+moment succor may be at hand. I see no enemies! they have sickened of a
+struggle in which they risk so much with so little prospect of gain!"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be a minute, or it may be an hour, afore the wily sarpents steal
+upon us, and it is quite in natur' for them to be lying within hearing
+at this very moment," said Hawkeye; "but come they will, and in such a
+fashion as will leave us nothing to hope! Chingachgook"&mdash;he spoke in
+Delaware&mdash;"my brother, we have fought our last battle together, and the
+Maquas will triumph in the death of the sage man of the Mohicans, and of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> pale-face, whose eyes can make night as day, and level the clouds
+to the mists of the springs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let the Mingo women go weep over their slain!" returned the Indian,
+with characteristic pride and unmoved firmness; "the Great Snake of the
+Mohicans has coiled himself in their wigwams, and has poisoned their
+triumph with the wailings of children whose fathers have not returned!
+Eleven warriors lie hid from the graves of their tribes since the snows
+have melted, and none will tell where to find them when the tongue of
+Chingachgook shall be silent! Let them draw the sharpest knife, and
+whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their
+hands. Uncas, topmost branch of a noble trunk, call on the cowards to
+hasten or their hearts will soften, and they will change to women!"</p>
+
+<p>"They look among the fishes for their dead!" returned the low, soft
+voice of the youthful chieftain; "the Hurons float with the slimy eels!
+They drop from the oaks like fruit that is ready to be eaten! and the
+Delawares laugh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay," muttered the scout, who had listened to this peculiar burst of
+the natives with deep attention; "they have warmed their Indian
+feelings, and they'll soon provoke the Maquas to give them a speedy end.
+As for me, who am of the whole blood of the whites, it is befitting that
+I should die as becomes my color, with no words of scoffing in my mouth,
+and without bitterness at the heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why die at all!" said Cora, advancing from the place where natural
+horror had, until this moment, held her riveted to the rock; "the path
+is open on every side; fly, then, to the woods, and call on God for
+succor. Go, brave men, we owe you too much already; let us no longer
+involve you in our hapless fortunes!"</p>
+
+<p>"You but little know the craft of the Iroquois, lady, if you judge they
+have left the path open to the woods!" returned Hawkeye, who, however,
+immediately added in his simplicity, "the down stream current, it is
+certain, might soon sweep us beyond the reach of their rifles or the
+sounds of their voices."</p>
+
+<p>"Then try the river. Why linger to add to the number of the victims of
+our merciless enemies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," repeated the scout, looking about him proudly, "because it is
+better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an
+evil conscience! What answer could we give Munro, when he asked us where
+and how we left his children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go to him, and say, that you left them with a message to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> hasten to
+their aid," returned Cora, advancing nigher to the scout, in her
+generous ardor; "that the Hurons bear them into the northern wilds, but
+that by vigilance and speed they may yet be rescued; and if, after all,
+it should please heaven that his assistance come too late, bear to him,"
+she continued, her voice gradually lowering, until it seemed nearly
+choked, "the love, the blessings, the final prayers of his daughters,
+and bid him not mourn their early fate, but to look forward with humble
+confidence to the Christian's goal to meet his children."</p>
+
+<p>The hard, weather-beaten features of the scout began to work, and when
+she had ended, he dropped his chin to his hand, like a man musing
+profoundly on the nature of the proposal.</p>
+
+<p>"There is reason in her words!" at length broke from his compressed and
+trembling lips; "ay, and they bear the spirit of Christianity; what
+might be right and proper in a redskin, may be sinful in a man who has
+not even a cross in blood to plead for his ignorance. Chingachgook!
+Uncas! hear you the talk of the dark-eyed woman!"</p>
+
+<p>He now spoke in Delaware to his companions, and his address, though calm
+and deliberate, seemed very decided. The elder Mohican heard him with
+deep gravity, and appeared to ponder on his words, as though he felt the
+importance of their import. After a moment of hesitation, he waved his
+hand in assent, and uttered the English word "Good!" with the peculiar
+emphasis of his people. Then, replacing his knife and tomahawk in his
+girdle, the warrior moved silently to the edge of the rock which was
+most concealed from the banks of the river. Here he paused a moment,
+pointed significantly to the woods below, and saying a few words in his
+own language, as if indicating his intended route, he dropped into the
+water, and sank from before the eyes of the witnesses of his movements.</p>
+
+<p>The scout delayed his departure to speak to the generous girl, whose
+breathing became lighter as she saw the success of her remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old," he
+said; "and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better
+word. If you are led into the woods, that is such of you as may be
+spared for a while, break the twigs on the bushes as you pass, and make
+the marks of your trail as broad as you can, when, if mortal eyes can
+see them, depend on having a friend who will follow to the ends of 'arth
+afore he desarts you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p><p>He gave Cora an affectionate shake of the hand, lifted his rifle, and
+after regarding it a moment with melancholy solicitude, laid it
+carefully aside, and descended to the place where Chingachgook had just
+disappeared. For an instant he hung suspended by the rock; and looking
+about him, with a countenance of peculiar care, he added, bitterly, "Had
+the powder held out, this disgrace could never have befallen!" then,
+loosening his hold, the water closed above his head, and he also became
+lost to view.</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were now turned on Uncas, who stood leaning against the ragged
+rock, in immovable composure. After waiting a short time, Cora pointed
+down the river, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your friends have not been seen, and are now, most probably, in safety;
+is it not time for you to follow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas will stay," the young Mohican calmly answered in English.</p>
+
+<p>"To increase the horror of our capture, and to diminish the chances of
+our release! Go, generous young man," Cora continued, lowering her eyes
+under the gaze of the Mohican, and, perhaps, with an intuitive
+consciousness of her power; "go to my father, as I have said, and be the
+most confidential of my messengers. Tell him to trust you with the means
+to buy the freedom of his daughters. Go! 'tis my wish, 'tis my prayer,
+that you will go!"</p>
+
+<p>The settled, calm look of the young chief changed to an expression of
+gloom, but he no longer hesitated. With a noiseless step he crossed the
+rock, and dropped into the troubled stream. Hardly a breath was drawn by
+those he left behind, until they caught a glimpse of his head emerging
+for air, far down the current, when he again sank, and was seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>These sudden and apparently successful experiments had all taken place
+in a few minutes of that time which had now become so precious. After
+the last look at Uncas, Cora turned, and, with a quivering lip,
+addressed herself to Heyward:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of your boasted skill in the water, too, Duncan," she
+said; "follow, then, the wise example set you by these simple and
+faithful beings."</p>
+
+<p>"Is such the faith that Cora Munro would exact from her protector?" said
+the young man, smiling mournfully, but with bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a time for idle subtleties and false opinions," she
+answered; "but a moment when every duty should be equally considered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+To us you can be of no further service here, but your precious life may
+be saved for other and nearer friends."</p>
+
+<p>He made no reply, though his eyes fell wistfully on the beautiful form
+of Alice, who was clinging to his arm with the dependency of an infant.</p>
+
+<p>"Consider," continued Cora, after a pause, during which she seemed to
+struggle with a pang even more acute than any that her fears had
+excited, "that the worst to us can be but death; a tribute that all must
+pay at the good time of God's appointment."</p>
+
+<p>"There are evils worse than death," said Duncan, speaking hoarsely, and
+as if fretful at her importunity, "but which the presence of one who
+would die in your behalf may avert."</p>
+
+<p>Cora ceased her entreaties; and, veiling her face in her shawl, drew the
+nearly insensible Alice after her into the deepest recess of the inner
+cavern.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 13em;">"Be gay securely;</span><br />
+Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous clouds,<br />
+That hang on thy clear brow."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Death of Agrippina.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the
+combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated
+imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images
+and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he
+felt a difficulty in persuading himself of their truth. Still ignorant
+of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he
+at first listened intently to any signal, or sounds of alarm, which
+might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking.
+His attention was, however, bestowed in vain; for, with the
+disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost,
+leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look about
+him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before
+had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect
+the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies, was as
+fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of
+the rivers seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life.
+The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest
+was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the
+currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk,
+which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant
+spectator of the fray, now stooped from his high and ragged perch, and
+soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice
+had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to
+open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed
+possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural
+accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began
+to rally his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a
+reviving confidence of success.</p>
+
+<p>"The Hurons are not to be seen," he said, addressing David, who had by
+no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had
+received; "let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to
+Providence."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember to have united with two comely maidens, in lifting up our
+voices in praise and thanksgiving," returned the bewildered
+singing-master; "since which time I have been visited by a heavy
+judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep,
+while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the
+fulness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment!
+But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but
+those of your own psalmody shall be excluded."</p>
+
+<p>"There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many
+waters is sweet to the senses!" said David, pressing his hand confusedly
+on his brow. "Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as
+though the departed spirits of the damned&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, not now," interrupted the impatient Heyward, "they have
+ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone too!
+everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may
+create those sounds you love so well to hear."</p>
+
+<p>David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at
+this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led
+to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied
+senses; and, leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow
+mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew
+before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an
+aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned
+by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its
+outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which
+one arm of the river rushed, to form the junction with its sister
+branch, a few rods below.</p>
+
+<p>"I like not that principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit
+without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate," he said,
+while busied in this employment; "our own maxim, which says, 'while life
+remains there is hope,' is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> consoling, and better suited to a
+soldier's temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle
+encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you
+all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that
+trembling weeper on your bosom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am calmer, Duncan," said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her
+sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; "much
+calmer, now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret,
+free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who
+have risked so much already in our behalf."</p>
+
+<p>"Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!" said
+Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed towards the outer
+entrance of the cavern. "With two such examples of courage before him, a
+man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero." He then seated himself
+in the centre of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand
+convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced
+the sullen desperation of his purpose. "The Hurons, if they come, may
+not gain our position so easily as they think," he lowly muttered; and
+dropping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result
+in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to
+their place of retreat.</p>
+
+<p>With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless
+silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the
+recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its
+inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed
+security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining
+possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give
+utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully
+destroy.</p>
+
+<p>David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of
+light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the
+pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in
+turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition
+than any that had yet met his eye. He was, most probably, acting all
+this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of
+Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward;
+for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words "Isle
+of Wight," drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+through the preliminary modulations of the air, whose name he had just
+mentioned with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.</p>
+
+<p>"May not this prove dangerous?" asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at
+Major Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard amid the din of the
+falls," was the answer; "besides, the cavern will prove his friend. Let
+him indulge his passion, since it may be done without hazard."</p>
+
+<p>"Isle of Wight!" repeated David, looking about him with that dignity
+with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his
+school; "'tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words; let it be sung with
+meet respect!"</p>
+
+<p>After allowing a moment of stillness, to enforce his discipline, the
+voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually
+stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds
+rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced
+by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually
+wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even
+prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the
+singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the
+sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice
+unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid
+features of Gamut with an expression of chastened delight that she
+neither affected nor wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile
+on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward
+soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to
+fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the
+wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice.
+The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of
+music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that
+touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated
+powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with
+long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that
+instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as
+though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"We are lost!" exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>"Not yet, not yet," returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward; "the
+sound came from the centre of the island, and it has been produced by
+the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there
+is still hope."</p>
+
+<p>Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of
+Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters
+in such a manner that they awaited the result in silence. A second yell
+soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down
+the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached
+the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage
+triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as
+man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest
+barbarity.</p>
+
+<p>The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to
+their fellows from the water's edge, and were answered from the heights
+above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between
+the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the
+abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds
+diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for
+the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in
+truth they were above and on every side of them.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few
+yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope,
+with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the
+impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot
+where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the
+jargon of the Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to
+distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the <i>patois</i> of the
+Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, "La Longue
+Carabine!" causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which,
+Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated
+hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learnt for the
+first time, had been his late companion.</p>
+
+<p>"La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!" passed from mouth to mouth,
+until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which
+would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a
+vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of
+savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a
+foe, whose body, Heyward could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> collect from their expressions, they
+hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he whispered to the trembling sisters, "now is the moment of
+uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are still
+safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our
+enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may
+look for succor from Webb."</p>
+
+<p>There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward
+well knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance
+and method. More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they
+brushed the sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the
+branches to snap. At length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of the
+blanket fell, and a faint ray of light gleamed into the inner part of
+the cave. Cora folded Alice to her bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to
+his feet. A shout was at that moment heard, as if issuing from the
+centre of the rock, announcing that the neighboring cavern had at length
+been entered. In a minute, the number and loudness of the voices
+indicated that the whole party was collected in and around that secret
+place.</p>
+
+<p>As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other,
+Duncan, believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and
+the sisters, to place himself between the latter and the first onset of
+the terrible meeting. Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the
+slight barrier which separated him only by a few feet from his
+relentless pursuers, and placing his face to the casual opening, he even
+looked out, with a sort of desperate indifference, on their movements.</p>
+
+<p>Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian,
+whose deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the
+proceedings of his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the
+vault opposite, which was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the
+humble furniture of the scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of
+sassafras with a color that the natives well knew was anticipating the
+season. Over this sign of their success, they set up a howl, like an
+opening from so many hounds who had recovered a lost trail. After this
+yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant bed of the cavern, and bore
+the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs, as if they suspected
+them of concealing the person of the man they had so long hated and
+feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the chief
+bearing a load of the brush, and pointing, exultingly, to the deep red
+stains with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells,
+whose meaning Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent
+repetition of the name of "La Longue Carabine!" When his triumph had
+ceased, he cast the brush on the slight heap that Duncan had made before
+the entrance of the second cavern, and closed the view. His example was
+followed by others, who, as they drew the branches from the cave of the
+scout, threw them into one pile, adding, unconsciously, to the security
+of those they sought. The very slightness of the defence was its chief
+merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush, which all of
+them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been
+accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.</p>
+
+<p>As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches
+settled in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a
+compact body, Duncan once more breathed freely. With a light step, and
+lighter heart, he returned to the centre of the cave, and took the place
+he had left, where he could command a view of the opening next the
+river. While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as
+if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the
+cavern in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, towards
+the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry
+betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead
+comrades.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most
+critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the
+anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to
+those who were so little able to sustain it.</p>
+
+<p>"They are gone, Cora!" he whispered; "Alice, they are returned whence
+they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone delivered us from
+the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!" exclaimed the younger sister,
+rising from the encircling arms of Cora, and casting herself with
+enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; "to that Heaven who has spared
+the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so
+much love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Both Heyward, and the more tempered Cora, witnessed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> act of
+involuntary emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly
+believing that piety had never worn a form so lovely as it had now
+assumed in the youthful person of Alice. Her eyes radiant with the glow
+of grateful feelings; the flush of her beauty was again seated on her
+cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and anxious to pour out its
+thanksgivings, through the medium of her eloquent features. But when her
+lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared frozen by some
+new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her
+soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror;
+while those hands which she had raised, clasped in each other, towards
+heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed
+forward in convulsed motion. Heyward turned, the instant she gave a
+direction to his suspicions, and, peering just above the ledge which
+formed the threshold of the open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the
+malignant, fierce, and savage features of Le Renard Subtil.</p>
+
+<p>In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not
+desert him. He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian's
+countenance, that his eye, accustomed to the open air, had not yet been
+able to penetrate the dusky light which pervaded the depth of the
+cavern. He had even thought of retreating beyond a curvature in the
+natural wall, which might still conceal him and his companions, when, by
+the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot across the features of the
+savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were betrayed.</p>
+
+<p>The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible
+truth was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the
+impulses of his hot blood, Duncan levelled his pistol and fired. The
+report of the weapon made the cavern bellow like an eruption from a
+volcano; and when the smoke it vomited had been driven away before the
+current of air which issued from the ravine, the place so lately
+occupied by the features of his treacherous guide was vacant. Rushing to
+the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure, stealing around
+a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.</p>
+
+<p>Among the savages, a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which
+had just been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le
+Renard raised his voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was
+answered by a spontaneous yell from the mouth of every Indian within
+hearing of the sound. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> clamorous noises again rushed down the
+island; and before Duncan had time to recover from the shock, his feeble
+barrier of brush was scattered to the winds, the cavern was entered at
+both its extremities, and he and his companions were dragged from their
+shelter and borne into the day, where they stood surrounded by the whole
+band of the triumphant Hurons.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn<br />
+As much as we this night have overwatched!"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> instant the shock of this sudden misfortune had abated, Duncan began
+to make his observations on the appearance and proceedings of their
+captors. Contrary to the usages of the natives in the wantonness of
+their success, they had respected, not only the persons of the trembling
+sisters, but his own. The rich ornaments of his military attire had
+indeed been repeatedly handled by different individuals of the tribe
+with eyes expressing a savage longing to possess the baubles; but before
+the customary violence could be resorted to, a mandate in the
+authoritative voice of the large warrior already mentioned, stayed the
+uplifted hand, and convinced Heyward that they were to be reserved for
+some object of particular moment.</p>
+
+<p>While, however, these manifestations of weakness were exhibited by the
+young and vain of the party, the more experienced warriors continued
+their search throughout both caverns, with an activity that denoted they
+were far from being satisfied with those fruits of their conquest which
+had already been brought to light. Unable to discover any new victim,
+these diligent workers of vengeance soon approached their male
+prisoners, pronouncing the name of "La Longue Carabine," with a
+fierceness that could not easily be mistaken. Duncan affected not to
+comprehend the meaning of their repeated and violent interrogatories,
+while his companion was spared the effort of a similar deception by his
+ignorance of French. Wearied, at length, by their importunities, and
+apprehensive of irritating his captors by too stubborn a silence, the
+former looked about him in quest of Magua; who might interpret his
+answers to questions which were at each moment becoming more earnest and
+threatening.</p>
+
+<p>The conduct of this savage had formed a solitary exception to that of
+all his fellows. While the others were busily occupied in seeking to
+gratify their childish passion for finery, by plundering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> even the
+miserable effects of the scout, or had been searching, with such
+bloodthirsty vengeance in their looks, for their absent owner, Le Renard
+had stood at a little distance from the prisoners, with a demeanor so
+quiet and satisfied, as to betray that he had already effected the grand
+purpose of this treachery. When the eyes of Heyward first met those of
+his recent guide, he turned them away in horror at the sinister though
+calm look he encountered. Conquering his disgust, however, he was able,
+with an averted face, to address his successful enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil is too much of a warrior," said the reluctant Heyward,
+"to refuse telling an unarmed man what his conquerors say."</p>
+
+<p>"They ask for the hunter who knows the paths through the woods,"
+returned Magua, in his broken English, laying his hand, at the same
+time, with a ferocious smile, on the bundle of leaves with which a wound
+on his own shoulder was bandaged. "La Longue Carabine! his rifle is
+good, and his eye never shut; but, like the short gun of the white
+chief, it is nothing against the life of Le Subtil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard is too brave to remember the hurts received in war, or the
+hands that gave them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was it war, when the tired Indian rested at the sugar-tree to taste his
+corn! who filled the bushes with creeping enemies! who drew the knife!
+whose tongue was peace, while his heart was colored with blood! Did
+Magua say that the hatchet was out of the ground, and that his hand had
+dug it up?"</p>
+
+<p>As Duncan dared not retort upon his accuser by reminding him of his own
+premeditated treachery, and disdained to deprecate his resentment by any
+words of apology, he remained silent. Magua seemed also content to rest
+the controversy as well as all further communication there, for he
+resumed the leaning attitude against the rock, from which, in momentary
+energy, he had arisen. But the cry of "La Longue Carabine" was renewed
+the instant the impatient savages perceived that the short dialogue was
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear," said Magua, with stubborn indifference; "the red Hurons call
+for the life of 'The Long Rifle,' or they will have the blood of them
+that keep him hid!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is gone&mdash;escaped; he is far beyond their reach."</p>
+
+<p>Renard smiled with cold contempt, as he answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace; but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> redmen know
+how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies. Where is his body? Let
+the Hurons see his scalp!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not dead, but escaped."</p>
+
+<p>Magua shook his head incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a bird, to spread his wings; or is he a fish, to swim without
+air! The white chief reads in his books, and he believes the Hurons are
+fools!"</p>
+
+<p>"Though no fish, The Long Rifle can swim. He floated down the stream
+when the powder was all burnt, and when the eyes of the Hurons were
+behind a cloud."</p>
+
+<p>"And why did the white chief stay?" demanded the still incredulous
+Indian. "Is he a stone that goes to the bottom, or does the scalp burn
+his head?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I am not a stone, your dead comrade, who fell into the falls,
+might answer, were the life still in him," said the provoked young man,
+using, in his anger, that boastful language which was most likely to
+excite the admiration of an Indian. "The white man thinks none but
+cowards desert their women."</p>
+
+<p>Magua muttered a few words, inaudibly, between his teeth, before he
+continued, aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Can the Delawares swim, too, as well as crawl in the bushes? Where is
+Le Gros Serpent?"</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who perceived by the use of these Canadian appellations, that
+his late companions were much better known to his enemies than to
+himself, answered, reluctantly, "He also is gone down with the water."</p>
+
+<p>"Le Cerf Agile is not here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not whom you call 'The Nimble Deer,'" said Duncan, gladly
+profiting by any excuse to create delay.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas," returned Magua, pronouncing the Delaware name with even greater
+difficulty than he spoke his English words. "'Bounding Elk' is what the
+white man says, when he calls to the young Mohican."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is some confusion in names between us, Le Renard," said Duncan,
+hoping to provoke a discussion. "<i>Daim</i> is the French for deer, and
+<i>cerf</i> for stag; <i>&eacute;lan</i> is the true term, when one would speak of an
+elk."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," muttered the Indian, in his native tongue; "the pale-faces are
+prattling women! they have two words for each thing, while a redskin
+will make the sound of his voice speak for him." Then changing his
+language, he continued, adhering to the imperfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> nomenclature of his
+provincial instructors, "The deer is swift, but weak; the elk is swift,
+but strong; and the son of Le Serpent is Le Cerf Agile. Has he leaped
+the river to the woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean the younger Delaware, he too is gone down with the water."</p>
+
+<p>As there was nothing improbable to an Indian in the manner of the
+escape, Magua admitted the truth of what he had heard, with a readiness
+that afforded additional evidence how little he would prize such
+worthless captives. With his companions, however, the feeling was
+manifestly different.</p>
+
+<p>The Hurons had awaited the result of this short dialogue with
+characteristic patience, and with a silence that increased until there
+was a general stillness in the band. When Heyward ceased to speak, they
+turned their eyes, as one man, on Magua, demanding, in this expressive
+manner, an explanation of what had been said. Their interpreter pointed
+to the river, and made them acquainted with the result, as much by the
+action as by the few words he uttered. When the fact was generally
+understood, the savages raised a frightful yell, which declared the
+extent of their disappointment. Some ran furiously to the water's edge,
+beating the air with frantic gestures, while others spat upon the
+element, to resent the supposed treason it had committed against their
+acknowledged rights as conquerors. A few, and they not the least
+powerful and terrific of the band, threw lowering looks, in which the
+fiercest passion was only tempered by habitual self-command, at those
+captives who still remained in their power; while one or two even gave
+vent to their malignant feelings by the most menacing gestures, against
+which neither the sex nor the beauty of the sisters was any protection.
+The young soldier made a desperate, but fruitless effort, to spring to
+the side of Alice, when he saw the dark hand of a savage twisted in the
+rich tresses which were flowing in volumes over her shoulders, while a
+knife was passed around the head from which they fell, as if to denote
+the horrid manner in which it was about to be robbed of its beautiful
+ornament. But his hands were bound; and at the first movement he made,
+he felt the grasp of the powerful Indian who directed the band, pressing
+his shoulder like a vise. Immediately conscious how unavailing any
+struggle against such an overwhelming force must prove, he submitted to
+his fate, encouraging his gentle companions by a few low and tender
+assurances that the natives seldom failed to threaten more than they
+performed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>But, while Duncan resorted to these words of consolation to quiet the
+apprehensions of the sisters, he was not so weak as to deceive himself.
+He well knew that the authority of an Indian chief was so little
+conventional, that it was oftener maintained by physical superiority
+than by any moral supremacy he might possess. The danger was, therefore,
+magnified exactly in proportion to the number of the savage spirits by
+which they were surrounded. The most positive mandate from him who
+seemed the acknowledged leader, was liable to be violated at each
+moment, by any rash hand that might choose to sacrifice a victim to the
+<i>manes</i> of some dead friend or relative. While, therefore, he sustained
+an outward appearance of calmness and fortitude, his heart leaped into
+his throat, whenever any of their fierce captors drew nearer than common
+to the helpless sisters, or fastened one of their sullen wandering looks
+on those fragile forms which were so little able to resist the slightest
+assault.</p>
+
+<p>His apprehensions were, however, greatly relieved, when he saw that the
+leader had summoned his warriors to himself in council. Their
+deliberations were short, and it would seem, by the silence of most of
+the party, the decision unanimous. By the frequency with which the few
+speakers pointed in the direction of the encampment of Webb, it was
+apparent they dreaded the approach of danger from that quarter. This
+consideration probably hastened their determination, and quickened the
+subsequent movements.</p>
+
+<p>During this short conference, Heyward, finding a respite from his
+greatest fears, had leisure to admire the cautious manner in which the
+Hurons had made their approaches, even after hostilities had ceased.</p>
+
+<p>It has already been stated, that the upper half of the island was a
+naked rock, and destitute of any other defences than a few scattered
+logs of drift-wood. They had selected this point to make their descent,
+having borne the canoe through the wood around the cataract for that
+purpose. Placing their arms in the little vessel, a dozen men clinging
+to its sides had trusted themselves to the direction of the canoe, which
+was controlled by two of the most skilful warriors, in attitudes that
+enabled them to command a view of the dangerous passage. Favored by this
+arrangement, they touched the head of the island at that point which had
+proved so fatal to their first adventures, but with the advantages of
+superior numbers, and the possession of fire-arms. That such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> had been
+the manner of their descent was rendered quite apparent to Duncan; for
+they now bore the light bark from the upper end of the rock, and placed
+it in the water, near the mouth of the outer cavern. As soon as this
+change was made, the leader made signs to the prisoners to descend and
+enter.</p>
+
+<p>As resistance was impossible, and remonstrance useless, Heyward set the
+example of submission, by leading the way into the canoe, where he was
+soon seated with the sisters, and the still wondering David.
+Notwithstanding the Hurons were necessarily ignorant of the little
+channels among the eddies and rapids of the stream, they knew the common
+signs of such a navigation too well to commit any material blunder. When
+the pilot chosen for the task of guiding the canoe had taken his
+station, the whole band plunged again into the river, the vessel glided
+down the current, and in a few moments the captives found themselves on
+the south bank of the stream, nearly opposite to the point where they
+had struck it the preceding evening.</p>
+
+<p>Here was held another short but earnest consultation, during which the
+horses, to whose panic their owners ascribed their heaviest misfortune,
+were led from the cover of the woods, and brought to the sheltered spot.
+The band now divided. The great chief so often mentioned, mounting the
+charger of Heyward, led the way directly across the river, followed by
+most of his people, and disappeared in the woods, leaving the prisoners
+in charge of six savages, at whose head was Le Renard Subtil. Duncan
+witnessed all their movements with renewed uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>He had been fond of believing, from the uncommon forbearance of the
+savages, that he was reserved as a prisoner to be delivered to Montcalm.
+As the thoughts of those who are in misery seldom slumber, and the
+invention is never more lively than when it is stimulated by hope,
+however feeble and remote, he had even imagined that the parental
+feelings of Munro were to be made instrumental in seducing him from his
+duty to the king. For though the French commander bore a high character
+for courage and enterprise, he was also thought to be expert in those
+political practices, which do not always respect the nicer obligations
+of morality, and which so generally disgraced the European diplomacy of
+that period.</p>
+
+<p>All those busy and ingenious speculations were now annihilated by the
+conduct of his captors. That portion of the band who had followed the
+huge warrior took the route towards the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> foot of the Horican, and no
+other expectation was left for himself and companions, than that they
+were to be retained as hopeless captives by their savage conquerors.
+Anxious to know the worst, and willing, in such an emergency, to try the
+potency of gold, he overcame his reluctance to speak to Magua.
+Addressing himself to his former guide, who had now assumed the
+authority and manner of one who was to direct the future movements of
+the party, he said, in tones as friendly and confiding as he could
+assume,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I would speak to Magua, what is fit only for so great a chief to hear."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian turned his eyes on the young soldier scornfully, as he
+answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Speak; trees have no ears!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the red Hurons are not deaf; and counsel that is fit for the great
+men of a nation would make the young warriors drunk. If Magua will not
+listen, the officer of the king knows how to be silent."</p>
+
+<p>The savage spoke carelessly to his comrades, who were busied, after
+their awkward manner, in preparing the horses for the reception of the
+sisters, and moved a little to one side, whither, by a cautious gesture,
+he induced Heyward to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"Now speak," he said; "if the words are such as Magua should hear."</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil has proved himself worthy of the honorable name given
+to him by his Canada fathers," commenced Heyward; "I see his wisdom, and
+all that he has done for us, and shall remember it, when the hour to
+reward him arrives. Yes! Renard has proved that he is not only a great
+chief in council, but one who knows how to deceive his enemies!"</p>
+
+<p>"What has Renard done?" coldly demanded the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"What! has he not seen that the woods were filled with outlying parties
+of the enemies, and that the Serpent could not steal through them
+without being seen? Then, did he not lose his path to blind the eyes of
+the Hurons? Did he not pretend to go back to his tribe, who had treated
+him ill, and driven him from their wigwams like a dog? And, when we saw
+what he wished to do, did we not aid him, by making a false face, that
+the Hurons might think the white man believed that his friend was his
+enemy? Is not all this true? And when Le Subtil had shut the eyes and
+stopped the ears of his nation by his wisdom, did they not forget<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> that
+they had once done him wrong, and forced him to flee to the Mohawks? And
+did they not leave him on the south side of the river, with their
+prisoners, while they have gone foolishly on the north? Does not Renard
+mean to turn like a fox on his footsteps, and to carry to the rich and
+gray-headed Scotchman his daughters? Yes, Magua, I see it all, and I
+have already been thinking how so much wisdom and honesty should be
+repaid. First, the chief of William Henry will give as a great chief
+should for such a service. The medal<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> of Magua will no longer be of
+tin, but of beaten gold; his horn will run over with powder; dollars
+will be as plenty in his pouch as pebbles on the shore of Horican; and
+the deer will lick his hand, for they will know it to be vain to fly
+from the rifle he will carry! As for myself, I know not how to exceed
+the gratitude of the Scotchman, but I&mdash;yes, I will&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What will the young chief who comes from towards the sun, give?"
+demanded the Huron, observing that Heyward hesitated in his desire to
+end the enumeration of benefits with that which might form the climax of
+an Indian's wishes.</p>
+
+<p>"He will make the fire-water from the Islands in the salt lake flow
+before the wigwam of Magua, until the heart of the Indian shall be
+lighter than the feathers of the humming-bird, and his breath sweeter
+than the wild honeysuckle."</p>
+
+<p>Le Renard had listened gravely as Heyward slowly proceeded in his subtle
+speech. When the young man mentioned the artifice he supposed the Indian
+to have practised on his own nation, the countenance of the listener was
+veiled in an expression of cautious gravity. At the allusion to the
+injury which Duncan affected to believe had driven the Huron from his
+native tribe, a gleam of such ungovernable ferocity flashed from the
+other's eyes, as induced the adventurous speaker to believe he had
+struck the proper chord. And by the time he reached the part where he so
+artfully blended the thirst of vengeance with the desire of gain, he
+had, at least, obtained a command of the deepest attention of the
+savage. The question put by Le Renard had been calm, and with all the
+dignity of an Indian; but it was quite apparent, by the thoughtful
+expression of the listener's countenance, that the answer was most
+cunningly devised. The Huron mused a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> moments, and then laying his
+hand on the rude bandages of his wounded shoulder, he said, with some
+energy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do friends make such remarks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would La Longue Carabine cut one so light on an enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do the Delawares crawl upon those they love, like snakes, twisting
+themselves to strike?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would Le Gros Serpent have been heard by the ears of one he wished to
+be deaf?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does the white chief burn his powder in the faces of his brothers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he ever miss his aim, when seriously bent to kill?" returned
+Duncan, smiling with well acted sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Another long and deliberate pause succeeded these sententious questions
+and ready replies. Duncan saw that the Indian hesitated. In order to
+complete his victory, he was in the act of recommencing the enumeration
+of the rewards, when Magua made an expressive gesture and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Enough; Le Renard is a wise chief, and what he does will be seen. Go,
+and keep the mouth shut. When Magua speaks, it will be the time to
+answer."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, perceiving that the eyes of his companion were warily fastened
+on the rest of the band, fell back immediately, in order to avoid the
+appearance of any suspicious confederacy with their leader. Magua
+approached the horses, and affected to be well pleased with the
+diligence and ingenuity of his comrades. He then signed to Heyward to
+assist the sisters into the saddles, for he seldom deigned to use the
+English tongue, unless urged by some motive of more than usual moment.</p>
+
+<p>There was no longer any plausible pretext for delay; and Duncan was
+obliged, however reluctantly, to comply. As he performed this office, he
+whispered his reviving hopes in the ears of the trembling females, who,
+through dread of encountering the savage countenances of their captors,
+seldom raised their eyes from the ground. The mare of David had been
+taken with the followers of the large chief; in consequence, its owner,
+as well as Duncan, was compelled to journey on foot. The latter did not,
+however, so much regret this circumstance, as it might enable him to
+retard the speed of the party; for he still turned his longing looks in
+the direction of Fort Edward, in the vain expectation of catching some
+sound from that quarter of the forest, which might denote the approach
+of succor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p><p>When all were prepared, Magua made the signal to proceed, advancing in
+front to lead the party in person. Next followed David, who was
+gradually coming to a true sense of his condition, as the effects of the
+wound became less and less apparent. The sisters rode in his rear, with
+Heyward at their side, while the Indians flanked the party, and brought
+up the close of the march, with a caution that seemed never to tire.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner they proceeded in uninterrupted silence, except when
+Heyward addressed some solitary word of comfort to the females, or David
+gave vent to the moanings of his spirit in piteous exclamations, which
+he intended should express the humility of resignation. Their direction
+lay towards the south, and in a course nearly opposite to the road to
+William Henry. Notwithstanding this apparent adherence in Magua to the
+original determination of his conquerors, Heyward could not believe his
+tempting bait was so soon forgotten; and he knew the windings of an
+Indian path too well, to suppose that its apparent course led directly
+to its object, when artifice was at all necessary. Mile after mile was,
+however, passed through the boundless woods, in this painful manner,
+without any prospect of a termination to their journey. Heyward watched
+the sun, as he darted his meridian rays through the branches of the
+trees, and pined for the moment when the policy of Magua should change
+their route to one more favorable to his hopes. Sometimes he fancied the
+wary savage, despairing of passing the arm of Montcalm in safety, was
+holding his way towards a well-known border settlement, where a
+distinguished officer of the crown, and a favored friend of the Six
+Nations, held his large possessions, as well as his usual residence. To
+be delivered into the hands of Sir William Johnson was far preferable to
+being led into the wilds of Canada; but in order to effect even the
+former, it would be necessary to traverse the forest for many weary
+leagues, each step of which was carrying him farther from the scene of
+the war, and, consequently, from the post, not only of honor, but of
+duty.</p>
+
+<p>Cora alone remembered the parting injunctions of the scout, and whenever
+an opportunity offered, she stretched forth her arm to bend aside the
+twigs that met her hands. But the vigilance of the Indians rendered this
+act of precaution both difficult and dangerous. She was often defeated
+in her purpose, by encountering their watchful eyes, when it became
+necessary to feign an alarm she did not feel, and occupy the limb by
+some gesture of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> feminine apprehension. Once, and once only, was she
+completely successful; when she broke down the bough of a large sumach,
+and, by a sudden thought, let her glove fall at the same instant. This
+sign, intended for those that might follow, was observed by one of her
+conductors, who restored the glove, broke the remaining branches of the
+bush in such a manner that it appeared to proceed from the struggling of
+some beast in its branches, and then laid his hand on his tomahawk, with
+a look so significant, that it put an effectual end to these stolen
+memorials of their passage.</p>
+
+<p>As there were horses, to leave the prints of their footsteps, in both
+bands of the Indians, this interruption cut off any probable hopes of
+assistance being conveyed through the means of their trail.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward would have ventured a remonstrance, had there been anything
+encouraging in the gloomy reserve of Magua. But the savage, during all
+this time, seldom turned to look at his followers, and never spoke. With
+the sun for his only guide, or aided by such blind marks as are only
+known to the sagacity of a native, he held his way along the barrens of
+pine, through occasional little fertile vales, across brooks and
+rivulets, and over undulating hills, with the accuracy of instinct, and
+nearly with the directness of a bird. He never seemed to hesitate.
+Whether the path was hardly distinguishable, whether it disappeared, or
+whether it lay beaten and plain before him, made no sensible difference
+in his speed or certainty. It seemed as if fatigue could not affect him.
+Whenever the eyes of the wearied travellers rose from the decayed leaves
+over which they trod, his dark form was to be seen glancing among the
+stems of the trees in front, his head immovably fastened in a forward
+position, with the light plume on his crest fluttering in a current of
+air, made solely by the swiftness of his own motion.</p>
+
+<p>But all this diligence and speed were not without an object. After
+crossing a low vale, through which a gushing brook meandered, he
+suddenly ascended a hill, so steep and difficult of ascent, that the
+sisters were compelled to alight, in order to follow. When the summit
+was gained, they found themselves on a level spot, but thinly covered
+with trees, under one of which Magua had thrown his dark form, as if
+willing and ready to seek that rest which was so much needed by the
+whole party.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Cursed by my tribe</span><br />
+If I forgive him."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Shylock.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Indian had selected, for this desirable purpose, one of those steep,
+pyramidal hills, which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds,
+and which so frequently occur in the valleys of America. The one in
+question was high and precipitous; its top flattened, as usual; but with
+one of its sides more than ordinarily irregular. It possessed no other
+apparent advantage for a resting-place than in its elevation and form,
+which might render defence easy, and surprise nearly impossible. As
+Heyward, however, no longer expected that rescue which time and distance
+now rendered so improbable, he regarded these little peculiarities with
+an eye devoid of interest, devoting himself entirely to the comfort and
+condolence of his feebler companions. The Narragansetts were suffered to
+browse on the branches of the trees and shrubs that were thinly
+scattered over the summit of the hill, while the remains of their
+provisions were spread under the shade of a beech, that stretched its
+horizontal limbs like a canopy above them.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the swiftness of their flight, one of the Indians had
+found an opportunity to strike a straggling fawn with an arrow, and had
+borne the more preferable fragments of the victim patiently on his
+shoulders, to the stopping-place. Without any aid from the science of
+cookery, he was immediately employed, in common with his fellows, in
+gorging himself with this digestible sustenance. Magua alone sat apart,
+without participation in the revolting meal, and apparently buried in
+the deepest thought.</p>
+
+<p>This abstinence, so remarkable in an Indian, when he possessed the means
+of satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Heyward. The
+young man willingly believed that the Huron deliberated on the most
+eligible manner of eluding the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> vigilance of his associates. With a view
+to assist his plans, by any suggestion of his own, and to strengthen the
+temptation, he left the beech, and straggled as if without an object, to
+the spot where Le Renard was seated.</p>
+
+<p>"Has not Magua kept the sun in his face long enough to escape all danger
+from the Canadians?" he asked, as though no longer doubtful of the good
+intelligence established between them; "and will not the chief of
+William Henry be better pleased to see his daughters before another
+night may have hardened his heart to their loss, to make him less
+liberal in his reward?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do the pale-faces love their children less in the morning than at
+night?" asked the Indian, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"By no means," returned Heyward, anxious to recall his error, if he had
+made one; "the white man may, and does often, forget the burial-place of
+his fathers; he sometimes ceases to remember those he should love and
+has promised to cherish; but the affection of a parent for his child is
+never permitted to die."</p>
+
+<p>"And is the heart of the white-headed chief soft, and will he think of
+the babes that his squaws have given him? He is hard to his warriors,
+and his eyes are made of stone!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is severe to the idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he
+is a leader, but just and humane. I have known many fond and tender
+parents, but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer towards his
+child. You have seen the gray-head in front of his warriors, Magua; but
+I have seen his eyes swimming in water, when he spoke of those children
+who are now in your power!"</p>
+
+<p>Heyward paused, for he knew not how to construe the remarkable
+expression that gleamed across the swarthy features of the attentive
+Indian. At first it seemed as if the remembrance of the promised reward
+grew vivid in his mind, while he listened to the sources of parental
+feeling which were to assure its possession; but as Duncan proceeded,
+the expression of joy became so fiercely malignant, that it was
+impossible not to apprehend it proceeded from some passion more sinister
+than avarice.</p>
+
+<p>"Go," said the Huron, suppressing the alarming exhibition in an instant,
+in a death-like calmness of countenance; "go to the dark-haired
+daughter, and say, Magua waits to speak. The father will remember what
+the child promises."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who interpreted this speech to express a wish for some
+additional pledge that the promised gifts should not be withheld,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+slowly and reluctantly repaired to the place where the sisters were now
+resting from their fatigue, to communicate its purport to Cora.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand the nature of an Indian's wishes," he concluded, as he
+led her towards the place where she was expected, "and must be prodigal
+of your offers of powder and blankets. Ardent spirits are, however, the
+most prized by such as he; nor would it be amiss to add some boon from
+your own hand, with that grace you so well know how to practise.
+Remember, Cora, that on your presence of mind and ingenuity even your
+life, as well as that of Alice, may in some measure depend."</p>
+
+<p>"Heyward, and yours!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mine is of little moment; it is already sold to my king, and is a prize
+to be seized by any enemy who may possess the power. I have no father to
+expect me, and but few friends to lament a fate which I have courted
+with the insatiable longings of youth after distinction. But hush! we
+approach the Indian. Magua, the lady with whom you wish to speak is
+here."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian rose slowly from his seat, and stood for near a minute silent
+and motionless. He then signed with his hand for Heyward to retire,
+saying coldly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When the Huron talks to the women, his tribe shut their ears."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, still lingering, as if refusing to comply, Cora said, with a
+calm smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You hear, Heyward, and delicacy at least should urge you to retire. Go
+to Alice, and comfort her with our reviving prospects."</p>
+
+<p>She waited until he had departed, and then turning to the native, with
+the dignity of her sex in her voice and manner, she added, "What would
+Le Renard say to the daughter of Munro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," said the Indian, laying his hand firmly upon her arm, as if
+willing to draw her utmost attention to his words; a movement that Cora
+as firmly but quietly repulsed, by extricating the limb from his grasp:
+"Magua was born a chief and a warrior among the red Hurons of the lakes;
+he saw the suns of twenty summers make the snows of twenty winters run
+off in the streams, before he saw a pale-face; and he was happy! Then
+his Canada fathers came into the woods, and taught him to drink the
+fire-water, and he became a rascal. The Hurons drove him from the graves
+of his fathers, as they would chase the hunted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> buffalo. He ran down the
+shores of the lakes, and followed their outlet to the 'city of cannon.'
+There he hunted and fished, till the people chased him again through the
+woods into the arms of his enemies. The chief, who was born a Huron, was
+at last a warrior among the Mohawks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like this I had heard before," said Cora, observing that he
+paused to suppress those passions which began to burn with too bright a
+flame, as he recalled the recollection of his supposed injuries.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it the fault of Le Renard that his head was not made of rock? Who
+gave him the fire-water? who made him a villain? 'Twas the pale-faces,
+the people of your own color."</p>
+
+<p>"And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist, whose
+shades of countenance may resemble mine?" Cora calmly demanded of the
+excited savage.</p>
+
+<p>"No; Magua is a man, and not a fool; such as you never open their lips
+to the burning stream: the Great Spirit has given you wisdom!"</p>
+
+<p>"What then have I to do, or say, in the matter of your misfortunes, not
+to say of your errors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," repeated the Indian, resuming his earnest attitude; "when his
+English and French fathers dug up the hatchet, Le Renard struck the
+war-post of the Mohawks, and went out against his own nation. The
+pale-faces have driven the redskins from their hunting-grounds, and now
+when they fight, a white man leads the way. The old chief at Horican,
+your father, was the great captain of our war-party. He said to the
+Mohawks do this, and do that, and he was minded. He made a law, that if
+an Indian swallowed the fire-water, and came into the cloth wigwams of
+his warriors, it should not be forgotten. Magua foolishly opened his
+mouth, and the hot liquor led him into the cabin of Munro. What did the
+gray-head? let his daughter say."</p>
+
+<p>"He forgot not his words, and did justice by punishing the offender,"
+said the undaunted daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Justice!" repeated the Indian, casting an oblique glance of the most
+ferocious expression at her unyielding countenance; "is it justice to
+make evil, and then punish for it? Magua was not himself; it was the
+fire-water that spoke and acted for him! but Munro did not believe it.
+The Huron chief was tied up before all the pale-faced warriors, and
+whipped like a dog."</p>
+
+<p>Cora remained silent, for she knew not how to palliate this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> imprudent
+severity on the part of her father, in a manner to suit the
+comprehension of an Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"See!" continued Magua, tearing aside the slight calico that very
+imperfectly concealed his painted breast; "here are scars given by
+knives and bullets&mdash;of these a warrior may boast before his nation; but
+the gray-head has left marks on the back of the Huron chief, that he
+must hide, like a squaw, under this painted cloth of the whites."</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought," resumed Cora, "that an Indian warrior was patient, and
+that his spirit felt not, and knew not, the pain his body suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"When the Chippewas tied Magua to the stake, and cut this gash," said
+the other, laying his finger on a deep scar, "the Huron laughed in their
+faces, and told them, Women struck so light! His spirit was then in the
+clouds! But when he felt the blows of Munro, his spirit lay under the
+birch. The spirit of a Huron is never drunk; it remembers forever!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it may be appeased. If my father has done you this injustice, show
+him how an Indian can forgive an injury, and take back his daughters.
+You have heard from Major Heyward&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Magua shook his head, forbidding the repetition of offers he so much
+despised.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have?" continued Cora, after a most painful pause, while
+the conviction forced itself on her mind that the too sanguine and
+generous Duncan had been cruelly deceived by the cunning of the savage.</p>
+
+<p>"What a Huron loves&mdash;good for good; bad for bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"You would then revenge the injury inflicted by Munro on his helpless
+daughters. Would it not be more like a man to go before his face, and
+take the satisfaction of a warrior?"</p>
+
+<p>"The arms of the pale-faces are long, and their knives sharp!" returned
+the savage, with a malignant laugh: "why should Le Renard go among the
+muskets of his warriors, when he holds the spirit of the gray-head in
+his hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Name your intention, Magua," said Cora, struggling with herself to
+speak with steady calmness. "Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or
+do you contemplate even some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means
+of palliating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least, release
+my gentle sister, and pour out all your malice on me. Purchase wealth by
+her safety, and satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of
+both of his daughters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> might bring the aged man to his grave, and where
+would then be the satisfaction of Le Renard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," said the Indian again. "The light eyes can go back to the
+Horican, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired
+woman will swear by the Great Spirit of her fathers to tell no lie."</p>
+
+<p>"What must I promise?" demanded Cora, still maintaining a secret
+ascendency over the fierce native, by the collected and feminine dignity
+of her presence.</p>
+
+<p>"When Magua left his people, his wife was given to another chief; he has
+now made friends with the Hurons, and will go back to the graves of his
+tribe, on the shores of the great lake. Let the daughter of the English
+chief follow, and live in his wigwam forever."</p>
+
+<p>However revolting a proposal of such a character might prove to Cora,
+she retained, notwithstanding her powerful disgust, sufficient
+self-command to reply, without betraying the weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"And what pleasure would Magua find in sharing his cabin with a wife he
+did not love; one who would be of a nation and color different from his
+own? It would be better to take the gold of Munro, and buy the heart of
+some Huron maid with his gifts."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian made no reply for near a minute, but bent his fierce looks on
+the countenance of Cora, in such wavering glances, that her eyes sank
+with shame, under an impression that, for the first time, they had
+encountered an expression that no chaste female might endure. While she
+was shrinking within herself, in dread of having her ears wounded by
+some proposal still more shocking than the last, the voice of Magua
+answered, in its tones of deepest malignancy&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When the blows scorched the back of the Huron, he would know where to
+find a woman to feel the smart. The daughter of Munro would draw his
+water, hoe his corn, and cook his venison. The body of the gray-head
+would sleep among his cannon, but his heart would lie within reach of
+the knife of Le Subtil."</p>
+
+<p>"Monster! well dost thou deserve thy treacherous name!" cried Cora, in
+an ungovernable burst of filial indignation. "None but a fiend could
+meditate such a vengeance! But thou overratest thy power! You shall find
+it is, in truth, the heart of Munro you hold, and that it will defy your
+utmost malice!"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian answered this bold defiance by a ghastly smile, that showed
+an unaltered purpose, while he motioned her away,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> as if to close the
+conference forever. Cora, already regretting her precipitation, was
+obliged to comply, for Magua instantly left the spot, and approached his
+gluttonous comrades. Heyward flew to the side of the agitated female,
+and demanded the result of a dialogue that he had watched at a distance
+with so much interest. But unwilling to alarm the fears of Alice, she
+evaded a direct reply, betraying only by her countenance her utter want
+of success, and keeping her anxious looks fastened on the slightest
+movements of their captors. To the reiterated and earnest questions of
+her sister, concerning their probable destination, she made no other
+answer than by pointing towards the dark group, with an agitation she
+could not control, and murmuring, as she folded Alice to her bosom&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There, there; read our fortunes in their faces; we shall see; we shall
+see!"</p>
+
+<p>The action, and the choked utterance of Cora, spoke more impressively
+than any words, and quickly drew the attention of her companions on that
+spot where her own was riveted with an intenseness that nothing but the
+importance of the stake could create.</p>
+
+<p>When Magua reached the cluster of lolling savages, who, gorged with
+their disgusting meal, lay stretched on the earth in brutal indulgence,
+he commenced speaking with the dignity of an Indian chief. The first
+syllables he uttered had the effect to cause his listeners to raise
+themselves in attitudes of respectful attention. As the Huron used his
+native language, the prisoners, notwithstanding the caution of the
+natives had kept them within the swing of their tomahawks, could only
+conjecture the substance of his harrangue, from the nature of those
+significant gestures with which an Indian always illustrates his
+eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the language, as well as the action of Magua, appeared calm
+and deliberate. When he had succeeded in sufficiently awakening the
+attention of his comrades, Heyward fancied, by his pointing so
+frequently towards the direction of the great lakes, that he spoke of
+the land of their fathers, and of their distant tribe. Frequent
+indications of applause escaped the listeners, who, as they uttered the
+expressive "Hugh!" looked at each other in commendation of the speaker.
+Le Renard was too skilful to neglect his advantage. He now spoke of the
+long and painful route by which they had left those spacious grounds and
+happy villages, to come and battle against the enemies of their
+Canadian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> fathers. He enumerated the warriors of the party; their
+several merits; their frequent services to the nation; their wounds, and
+the number of the scalps they had taken. Whenever he alluded to any
+present (and the subtle Indian neglected none), the dark countenance of
+the flattered individual gleamed with exultation, nor did he even
+hesitate to assert the truth of the words, by gestures of applause and
+confirmation. Then the voice of the speaker fell, and lost the loud,
+animated tones of triumph with which he had enumerated their deeds of
+success and victory. He described the cataract of Glenn's; the
+impregnable position of its rocky island, with its caverns, and its
+numerous rapids and whirlpools; he named the name of La Longue Carabine,
+and paused until the forest beneath them had sent up the last echo of a
+loud and long yell, with which the hated appellation was received. He
+pointed towards the youthful military captive, and described the death
+of a favorite warrior, who had been precipitated into the deep ravine by
+his hand. He not only mentioned the fate of him who, hanging between
+heaven and earth, had presented such a spectacle of horror to the whole
+band, but he acted anew the terrors of his situation, his resolution and
+his death, on the branches of a sapling; and, finally, he rapidly
+recounted the manner in which each of their friends had fallen, never
+failing to touch upon their courage, and their most acknowledged
+virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once more
+changed, and became plaintive, and even musical, in its low guttural
+sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain; their
+destitution; their misery, both physical and moral; their distance; and,
+at last, of their unavenged wrongs. Then suddenly lifting his voice to a
+pitch of terrific energy, he concluded, by demanding,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are the Hurons dogs to bear this? Who shall say to the wife of Menowgua
+that the fishes have his scalp, and that his nation have not taken
+revenge! Who will dare meet the mother of Wassawattimie, that scornful
+woman, with his hands clean! What shall be said to the old men when they
+ask us for scalps, and we have not a hair from a white head to give
+them! The women will point their fingers at us. There is a dark spot on
+the names of the Hurons, and it must be hid in blood!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was no longer audible in the burst of rage which now broke
+into the air, as if the wood, instead of containing so small a band, was
+filled with the nation. During the foregoing address the progress of the
+speaker was too plainly read by those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> most interested in his success,
+through the medium of the countenances of the men he addressed. They had
+answered his melancholy and mourning by sympathy and sorrow; his
+assertions, by gestures of confirmation; and his boastings, with the
+exultation of savages. When he spoke of courage, their looks were firm
+and responsive; when he alluded to their injuries, their eyes kindled
+with fury; when he mentioned the taunts of the women, they dropped their
+heads in shame; but when he pointed out their means of vengeance, he
+struck a chord which never failed to thrill in the breast of an Indian.
+With the first intimation that it was within their reach, the whole band
+sprang upon their feet as one man; giving utterance to their rage in the
+most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body with
+drawn knives and uplifted tomahawks. Heyward threw himself between the
+sisters and the foremost, whom he grappled with a desperate strength
+that for a moment checked his violence. This unexpected resistance gave
+Magua time to interpose, and with rapid enunciation and animated
+gesture, he drew the attention of the band again to himself. In that
+language he knew so well how to assume, he diverted his comrades from
+their instant purpose, and invited them to prolong the misery of their
+victims. His proposal was received with acclamations, and executed with
+the swiftness of thought.</p>
+
+<p>Two powerful warriors cast themselves on Heyward, while another was
+occupied in securing the less active singing-master. Neither of the
+captives, however, submitted without a desperate though fruitless
+struggle. Even David hurled his assailant to the earth; nor was Heyward
+secured until the victory over his companion enabled the Indians to
+direct their united force to that object. He was then bound and fastened
+to the body of the sapling, on whose branches Magua had acted the
+pantomime of the falling Huron. When the young soldier regained his
+recollection, he had the painful certainty before his eyes that a common
+fate was intended for the whole party. On his right was Cora, in a
+durance similar to his own, pale and agitated, but with an eye, whose
+steady look still read the proceedings of their enemies. On his left,
+the withes which bound her to a pine, performed that office for Alice
+which her trembling limbs refused, and alone kept her fragile form from
+sinking. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer, but instead of
+looking upwards towards that power which alone could rescue them, her
+unconscious looks wandered to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> the countenance of Duncan with infantile
+dependency. David had contended, and the novelty of the circumstance
+held him silent, in deliberation on the propriety of the unusual
+occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>The vengeance of the Hurons had now taken a new direction, and they
+prepared to execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they
+were familiarized by the practice of centuries. Some sought knots, to
+raise the blazing pile; one was riving the splinters of pine, in order
+to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments; and
+others bent the tops of two saplings to the earth, in order to suspend
+Heyward by the arms between the recoiling branches. But the vengeance of
+Magua sought a deeper and a more malignant enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>While the less refined monsters of the band prepared, before the eyes of
+those who were to suffer, these well known and vulgar means of torture,
+he approached Cora, and pointed out, with the most malign expression of
+countenance, the speedy fate that awaited her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" he added, "what says the daughter of Munro? Her head is too good
+to find a pillow in the wigwam of Le Renard; will she like it better
+when it rolls about this hill a plaything for the wolves? Her bosom
+cannot nurse the children of a Huron; she will see it spit upon by
+Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>"What means the monster!" demanded the astonished Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" was the firm reply. "He is a savage, a barbarous and ignorant
+savage, and knows not what he does. Let us find leisure, with our dying
+breath, to ask for him penitence and pardon."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon!" echoed the fierce Huron, mistaking, in his anger, the meaning
+of her words; "the memory of an Indian is longer than the arm of the
+pale-faces; his mercy shorter than their justice! Say; shall I send the
+yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Magua to the great lakes,
+to carry his water, and feed him with corn?"</p>
+
+<p>Cora beckoned him away, with an emotion of disgust she could not
+control.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me," she said, with a solemnity that for a moment checked the
+barbarity of the Indian; "you mingle bitterness in my prayers; you stand
+between me and my God!"</p>
+
+<p>The slight impression produced on the savage was, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> soon
+forgotten, and he continued pointing, with taunting irony, towards
+Alice.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! the child weeps! She is young to die! Send her to Munro, to comb
+his gray hairs, and keep life in the heart of the old man."</p>
+
+<p>Cora could not resist the desire to look upon her youthful sister, in
+whose eyes she met an imploring glance, that betrayed the longings of
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"What says he, dearest Cora?" asked the trembling voice of Alice. "Did
+he speak of sending me to our father?"</p>
+
+<p>For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a
+countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At
+length she spoke, though her tones had lost their rich and calm fulness,
+in an expression of tenderness that seemed maternal.</p>
+
+<p>"Alice," she said, "the Huron offers us both life, nay, more than both;
+he offers to restore Duncan, our invaluable Duncan, as well as you, to
+our friends&mdash;to our father&mdash;to our heart-stricken, childless father, if
+I will bow down this rebellious, stubborn pride of mine, and consent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands, she looked upward, as
+if seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite.</p>
+
+<p>"Say on," cried Alice; "to what, dearest Cora? O, that the proffer were
+made to me! to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore Duncan,
+how cheerfully could I die!"</p>
+
+<p>"Die!" repeated Cora, with a calmer and a firmer voice, "that were easy!
+Perhaps the alternative may not be less so. He would have me," she
+continued, her accents sinking under a deep consciousness of the
+degradation of the proposal, "follow him to the wilderness; go to the
+habitations of the Hurons; to remain there: in short to become his wife!
+Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections! sister of my love! And you,
+too, Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel. Is life to be
+purchased by such a sacrifice? Will you, Alice, receive it at my hands
+at such a price? And <i>you</i>, Duncan, guide me; control me between you;
+for I am wholly yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Would I!" echoed the indignant and astonished youth. "Cora! Cora! you
+jest with our misery! Name not the horrid alternative again; the thought
+itself is worse than a thousand deaths."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>"That such would be <i>your</i> answer, I well knew!" exclaimed Cora, her
+cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the
+lingering emotions of a woman. "What says my Alice? for her will I
+submit without another murmur."</p>
+
+<p>Although both Heyward and Cora listened with painful suspense and the
+deepest attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the
+delicate and sensitive form of Alice would shrink into itself, as she
+listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her,
+the fingers moving in slight convulsions; her head dropped upon her
+bosom, and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking
+like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of
+animation, and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head
+began to move slowly, in a sign of deep, unconquerable disapprobation.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then die!" shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at the
+unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no
+longer be bridled, at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he
+believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of
+Heyward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered in
+the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation.
+Collecting all his energies in one effort, he snapped the twigs which
+bound him and rushed upon another savage who was preparing with loud
+yells, and a more deliberate aim, to repeat the blow. They encountered,
+grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked body of his
+antagonist afforded Heyward no means of holding his adversary, who
+glided from his grasp, and rose again with one knee on his chest,
+pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the
+knife gleaming in the air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and
+was rather accompanied, than followed, by the sharp crack of a rifle. He
+felt his breast relieved from the load it had endured; he saw the savage
+expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant
+wildness, when the Indian fell dead on the faded leaves by his side.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"<i>Clo.</i>&mdash;I am gone, sir,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And anon, sir,</span><br />
+I'll be with you again."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Twelfth Night.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Hurons stood aghast at this sudden visitation of death on one of
+their band. But, as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had
+dared to immolate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name of
+"La Longue Carabine" burst simultaneously from every lip, and was
+succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered
+by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had
+piled their arms; and at the next moment, Hawkeye, too eager to load the
+rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the
+clubbed weapon, and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold
+and rapid as was the progress of the scout, it was exceeded by that of a
+light and vigorous form which, bounding past him, leaped, with
+incredible activity and daring, into the very centre of the Hurons,
+where it stood, whirling a tomahawk, and flourishing a glittering knife,
+with fearful menaces, in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could
+follow these unexpected and audacious movements, an image, armed in the
+emblematic panoply of death, glided before their eyes, and assumed a
+threatening attitude at the other's side. The savage tormentors recoiled
+before these warlike intruders, and uttered as they appeared in such
+quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamation of
+surprise, followed by the well known and dreaded appellations of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Le Cerf Agile! Le Gros Serpent!"</p>
+
+<p>But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily
+disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he
+comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his
+followers by his voice as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long
+and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud whoop upon the expecting
+Chingachgook. It was the signal for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> a general combat. Neither party had
+fire-arms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner;
+hand to hand, with weapons of offence, and none of defence.</p>
+
+<p>Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single, well
+directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward tore the
+weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly towards the fray.
+As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent
+from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a
+whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another
+enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable
+weapon he beat down the slight and inartificial defences of his
+antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the blow. Heyward ventured to
+hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment of
+closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and
+checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight
+advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon
+his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him of
+the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully
+engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the
+desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to
+foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and
+succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron
+grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long.
+In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!"</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment, the breech of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head
+of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as
+he sank from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless.</p>
+
+<p>When Uncas had brained his first antagonist, he turned, like a hungry
+lion, to seek another. The fifth and only Huron disengaged at the first
+onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were
+employed in the deadly strife, he sought, with hellish vengeance, to
+complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph, he
+sprang towards the defenceless Cora, sending his keen axe, as the
+dreadful precursor of his approach. The tomahawk grazed her shoulder,
+and cutting the withes which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at
+liberty to fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless of her
+own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> safety, threw herself on the bosom of Alice, striving with
+convulsed and ill-directed fingers, to tear asunder the twigs which
+confined the person of her sister. Any other than a monster would have
+relented at such an act of generous devotion to the best and purest
+affection; but the breast of the Huron was a stranger to sympathy.
+Seizing Cora by the rich tresses which fell in confusion about her form,
+he tore her from her frantic hold, and bowed her down with brutal
+violence to her knees. The savage drew the flowing curls through his
+hand, and raising them on high with an outstretched arm, he passed the
+knife around the exquisitely moulded head of his victim, with a taunting
+and exulting laugh. But he purchased this moment of fierce gratification
+with the loss of the fatal opportunity. It was just then the sight
+caught the eye of Uncas. Bounding from his footsteps he appeared for an
+instant darting through the air, and descending in a ball he fell on the
+chest of his enemy, driving him many yards from the spot, headlong and
+prostrate. The violence of the exertion cast the young Mohican at his
+side. They arose together, fought, and bled, each in his turn. But the
+conflict was soon decided; the tomahawk of Heyward and the rifle of
+Hawkeye descended on the skull of the Huron, at the same moment that the
+knife of Uncas reached his heart.</p>
+
+<p>The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le Gros Serpent. Well
+did these barbarous warriors prove that they deserved those significant
+names which had been bestowed for deeds in former wars. When they
+engaged, some little time was lost in eluding the quick and vigorous
+thrusts which had been aimed at their lives. Suddenly darting on each
+other, they closed, and came to the earth, twisted together like twining
+serpents, in pliant and subtle folds. At the moment when the victors
+found themselves unoccupied, the spot where these experienced and
+desperate combatants lay, could only be distinguished by a cloud of dust
+and leaves which moved from the centre of the little plain towards its
+boundary, as if raised by the passage of a whirlwind. Urged by the
+different motives of filial affection, friendship, and gratitude,
+Heyward and his companions rushed with one accord to the place,
+encircling the little canopy of dust which hung above the warriors. In
+vain did Uncas dart around the cloud, with a wish to strike his knife
+into the heart of his father's foe; the threatening rifle of Hawkeye was
+raised and suspended in vain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> while Duncan endeavored to seize the
+limbs of the Huron with hands that appeared to have lost their power.
+Covered, as they were, with dust and blood, the swift evolutions of the
+combatants seemed to incorporate their bodies into one. The death-like
+looking figure of the Mohican, and the dark form of the Huron, gleamed
+before their eyes in such quick and confused succession, that the
+friends of the former knew not where nor when to plant the succoring
+blow. It is true there were short and fleeting moments, when the fiery
+eyes of Magua were seen glittering, like the fabled organs of the
+basilisk, through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he
+read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the
+presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile hand could descend on
+his devoted head, its place was filled by the scowling visage of
+Chingachgook. In this manner the scene of the combat was removed from
+the centre of the little plain to its verge. The Mohican now found an
+opportunity to make a powerful thrust with his knife; Magua suddenly
+relinquished his grasp, and fell backward without motion, and seemingly
+without life. His adversary leaped on his feet, making the arches of the
+forest ring with the sounds of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done for the Delawares! victory to the Mohican!" cried Hawkeye,
+once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle; "a finishing
+blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor
+rob him of his right to the scalp."</p>
+
+<p>But, at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of
+descending, the subtle Huron rolled swiftly from beneath the danger,
+over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet, was seen
+leaping, with a single bound, into the centre of a thicket of low
+bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed
+their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were
+following with speed and clamor, like hounds in open view of the deer,
+when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their
+purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas like himself," cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices
+contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all
+matters which concerned the Mingos; "a lying and deceitful varlet as he
+is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain
+still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to
+life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go&mdash;let him go; 'tis but
+one man, and he without rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French
+commerades; and, like a rattler that has lost his fangs, he can do no
+further mischief, until such time as he, and we too, may leave the
+prints of our moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. See, Uncas,"
+he added, in Delaware, "your father is flaying the scalps already. It
+may be well to go round and feel the vagabonds that are left, or we may
+have another of them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay
+that has been winged."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_FIGHT_IN_THE_FOREST" id="THE_FIGHT_IN_THE_FOREST"></a>
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="500" height="630" alt="THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception<br /> of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and<br /> Le Gros Serpent</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p><p>So saying, the honest, but implacable scout, made the circuit of the
+dead, into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much
+coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had,
+however, been anticipated by the elder Mohican, who had already torn the
+emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain.</p>
+
+<p>But Uncas, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with
+instinctive delicacy, accompanied by Heyward, to the assistance of the
+females, and quickly releasing Alice, placed her in the arms of Cora. We
+shall not attempt to describe the gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of
+events which glowed in the bosoms of the sisters, who were thus
+unexpectedly restored to life and to each other. Their thanksgivings
+were deep and silent; the offerings of their gentle spirits, burning
+brightest and purest on the secret altars of their hearts; and their
+renovated and more earthly feelings exhibiting themselves in long and
+fervent, though speechless caresses. As Alice rose from her knees, where
+she had sunk by the side of Cora, she threw herself on the bosom of the
+latter; and sobbed aloud the name of their aged father, while her soft,
+dove-like eyes sparkled with the rays of hope.</p>
+
+<p>"We are saved! we are saved!" she murmured; "to return to the arms of
+our dear, dear father, and his heart will not be broken with grief. And
+you too, Cora, my sister; my more than sister, my mother; you too are
+spared. And Duncan," she added, looking round upon the youth with a
+smile of ineffable innocence, "even our own brave and noble Duncan has
+escaped without a hurt."</p>
+
+<p>To these ardent and nearly incoherent words Cora made no other answer
+than by straining the youthful speaker to her heart, as she bent over
+her, in melting tenderness. The manhood of Heyward felt no shame in
+dropping tears over this spectacle of affectionate rapture; and Uncas
+stood, fresh and blood-stained from the combat, a calm, and, apparently,
+an unmoved looker-on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> it is true, but with eyes that had already lost
+their fierceness, and were beaming with a sympathy that elevated him far
+above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before the
+practices of his nation.</p>
+
+<p>During this display of emotions so natural in their situation, Hawkeye,
+whose vigilant distrust had satisfied itself that the Hurons, who
+disfigured the heavenly scene, no longer possessed the power to
+interrupt its harmony, approached David, and liberated him from the
+bonds he had, until that moment, endured with the most exemplary
+patience.</p>
+
+<p>"There," exclaimed the scout, casting the last withe behind him, "you
+are once more master of your own limbs, though you seem not to use them
+with greater judgment than that in which they were first fashioned. If
+advice from one who is not older than yourself, but who having lived
+most of his time in the wilderness, may be said to have experience
+beyond his years, will give no offence, you are welcome to my thoughts;
+and these are, to part with the little tooting instrument in your jacket
+to the first fool you meet with, and buy some useful we'pon with the
+money, if it be only the barrel of a horseman's pistol. By industry and
+care, you might thus come to some prefarment; for by this time, I should
+think, your eyes would plainly tell you that a carrion crow is a better
+bird than a mocking thresher. The one will, at least, remove foul sights
+from before the face of man, while the other is only good to brew
+disturbances in the woods, by cheating the ears of all that hear them."</p>
+
+<p>"Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to
+the victory!" answered the liberated David. "Friend," he added,
+thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand towards Hawkeye, in kindness,
+while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee that the hairs of
+my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence; for,
+though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever
+found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not
+join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the
+bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skilful hast thou proved thyself in
+the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge
+other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well
+worthy of a Christian's praise."</p>
+
+<p>"The thing is but a trifle, and what you may often see, if you tarry
+long among us," returned the scout, a good deal softened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> towards the
+man of song, by this unequivocal expression of gratitude. "I have got
+back my old companion, 'Killdeer,'" he added, striking his hand on the
+breech of his rifle; "and that in itself is a victory. These Iroquois
+are cunning, but they outwitted themselves when they placed their
+fire-arms out of reach; and had Uncas or his father been gifted with
+only their common Indian patience, we should have come in upon the
+knaves with three bullets instead of one, and that would have made a
+finish of the whole pack; yon loping varlet, as well as his commerades.
+But 'twas all foreordered, and for the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou sayest well," returned David, "and hast caught the true spirit of
+Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is
+predestined to be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth,
+and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer."</p>
+
+<p>The scout, who by this time was seated, examining into the state of his
+rifle with a species of parental assiduity, now looked up at the other
+in a displeasure that he did not affect to conceal, roughly interrupting
+further speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctrine, or no doctrine," said the sturdy woodsman, "'tis the belief
+of knaves, and the curse of an honest man. I can credit that yonder
+Huron was to fall by my hand, for with my own eyes I have seen it; but
+nothing short of being a witness will cause me to think he had met with
+any reward, or that Chingachgook, there, will be condemned at the final
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no warranty for such an audacious doctrine, nor any covenant
+to support it," cried David, who was deeply tinctured with the subtle
+distinctions which, in his time, and more especially in his province,
+had been drawn around the beautiful simplicity of revelation, by
+endeavoring to penetrate the awful mystery of the divine nature,
+supplying faith by self-sufficiency, and by consequence, involving those
+who reasoned from such human dogmas in absurdities and doubt; "your
+temple is reared on the sands, and the first tempest will wash away its
+foundation. I demand your authorities for such an uncharitable assertion
+(like other advocates of a system, David was not always accurate in his
+use of terms). Name chapter and verse; in which of the holy books do you
+find language to support you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Book!" repeated Hawkeye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do
+you take me for a whimpering boy at the apron-string of one of your old
+gals; and this good rifle on my knee for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> the feather of a goose's wing,
+my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a
+cross-barred handkercher to carry my dinner? Book! what have such as I,
+who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do
+with books? I never read but in one, and the words that are written
+there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may
+boast that of forty long and hard-working years."</p>
+
+<p>"What call you the volume?" said David, misconceiving the other's
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it is
+not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who
+read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man
+may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so
+clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If
+any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the
+windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a
+fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the
+level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power."</p>
+
+<p>The instant David discovered that he battled with a disputant who
+imbibed his faith from the lights of nature, eschewing all subtleties of
+doctrine, he willingly abandoned a controversy from which he believed
+neither profit nor credit was to be derived. While the scout was
+speaking, he had also seated himself, and producing the ready little
+volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty,
+which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his
+orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of
+the western continent&mdash;of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted
+bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but
+after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared to
+exercise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or rather in
+thanksgiving for, the recent victory. He waited patiently for Hawkeye to
+cease, then lifting his eyes, together with his voice, he said, aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I invite you, friends, to join in praise for this signal deliverance
+from the hands of barbarians and infidels, to the comfortable and solemn
+tones of the tune, called 'Northampton.'"</p>
+
+<p>He next named the page and verse where the rhymes selected were to be
+found, and applied the pitch-pipe to his lips, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> decent gravity
+that he had been wont to use in the temple. This time he was, however,
+without any accompaniment, for the sisters were just then pouring out
+those tender effusions of affection which have been already alluded to.
+Nothing deterred by the smallness of his audience, which, in truth,
+consisted only of the discontented scout, he raised his voice,
+commencing and ending the sacred song without accident or interruption
+of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye listened, while he coolly adjusted his flint and reloaded his
+rifle; but the sounds, wanting the extraneous assistance of scene and
+sympathy, failed to awaken his slumbering emotions. Never minstrel, or
+by whatever more suitable name David should be known, drew upon his
+talents in the presence of more insensible auditors; though considering
+the singleness and sincerity of his motive, it is probable that no bard
+of profane song ever uttered notes that ascended so near to that throne
+where all homage and praise is due. The scout shook his head, and
+muttering some unintelligible words, among which "throat" and
+"Iroquois," were alone audible, he walked away, to collect, and to
+examine into, the state of the captured arsenal of the Hurons. In this
+office he was now joined by Chingachgook, who found his own, as well as
+the rifle of his son, among the arms. Even Heyward and David were
+furnished with weapons; nor was ammunition wanting to render them all
+effectual.</p>
+
+<p>When the foresters had made their selection, and distributed their
+prizes, the scout announced that the hour had arrived when it was
+necessary to move. By this time the song of Gamut had ceased, and the
+sisters had learned to still the exhibition of their emotions. Aided by
+Duncan and the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous
+sides of that hill which they had so lately ascended under so very
+different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of
+their massacre. At the foot, they found the Narragansetts browsing the
+herbage of the bushes; and having mounted, they followed the movements
+of a guide, who, in the most deadly straits, had so often proved himself
+their friend. The journey was, however, short. Hawkeye, leaving the
+blind path that the Hurons had followed, turned short to his right, and
+entering the thicket, he crossed a babbling brook, and halted in a
+narrow dell, under the shade of a few water elms. Their distance from
+the base of the fatal hill was but a few rods, and the steeds had been
+serviceable only in crossing the shallow stream.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>The scout and the Indians appeared to be familiar with the sequestered
+place where they now were; for, leaning their rifles against the trees,
+they commenced throwing aside the dried leaves, and opening the blue
+clay, out of which a clear and sparkling spring of bright, glancing
+water, quickly bubbled. The white man then looked about him, as though
+seeking for some object, which was not to be found as readily as he
+expected:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Them careless imps, the Mohawks, with their Tuscarora and Onondaga
+brethren, have been here slaking their thirst," he muttered, "and the
+vagabonds have thrown away the gourd! This is the way with benefits,
+when they are bestowed on such disremembering hounds! Here has the Lord
+laid his hand, in the midst of the howling wilderness, for their good,
+and raised a fountain of water from the bowels of the 'arth, that might
+laugh at the richest shop of apothecary's ware in all the colonies; and
+see! the knaves have trodden in the clay, and deformed the cleanliness
+of the place, as though they were brute beasts, instead of human men."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas silently extended towards him the desired gourd, which the spleen
+of Hawkeye had hitherto prevented him from observing, on a branch of an
+elm. Filling it with water, he retired a short distance, to a place
+where the ground was more firm and dry; here he coolly seated himself,
+and after taking a long, and, apparently, a grateful draught, he
+commenced a very strict examination of the fragments of food left by the
+Hurons, which had hung in a wallet on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, lad!" he continued, returning the empty gourd to Uncas; "now
+we will see how these rampaging Hurons lived, when outlying in
+ambushments. Look at this! The varlets know the better pieces of the
+deer; and one would think they might carve and roast a saddle, equal to
+the best cook in the land! But everything is raw, for the Iroquois are
+thorough savages. Uncas, take my steel, and kindle a fire; a mouthful of
+a tender broil will give natur' a helping hand, after so long a trail."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, perceiving that their guides now set about their repast in
+sober earnest, assisted the ladies to alight, and placed himself at
+their side, not unwilling to enjoy a few moments of grateful rest, after
+the bloody scene he had just gone through. While the culinary process
+was in hand, curiosity induced him to inquire into the circumstances
+which had led to their timely and unexpected rescue:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>"How is it that we see you so soon, my generous friend," he asked, "and
+without aid from the garrison of Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had we gone to the bend in the river, we might have been in time to
+rake the leaves over your bodies, but too late to have saved your
+scalps," coolly answered the scout. "No, no; instead of throwing away
+strength and opportunity by crossing to the fort, we lay by, under the
+bank of the Hudson, waiting to watch the movements of the Hurons."</p>
+
+<p>"You were, then, witnesses of all that passed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not of all; for Indian sight is too keen to be easily cheated, and we
+kept close. A difficult matter it was, too, to keep this Mohican boy
+snug in the ambushment. Ah! Uncas, Uncas, your behavior was more like
+that of a curious woman than of a warrior on his scent."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas permitted his eyes to turn for an instant on the sturdy
+countenance of the speaker, but he neither spoke nor gave any indication
+of repentance. On the contrary, Heyward thought the manner of the young
+Mohican was disdainful, if not a little fierce, and that he suppressed
+passions that were ready to explode, as much in compliment to the
+listeners, as from the deference he usually paid to his white associate.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw our capture?" Heyward next demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"We heard it," was the significant answer. "An Indian yell is plain
+language to men who have passed their days in the woods. But when you
+landed, we were driven to crawl, like sarpents, beneath the leaves; and
+then we lost sight of you entirely, until we placed eyes on you again,
+trussed to the trees, and ready bound for an Indian massacre."</p>
+
+<p>"Our rescue was the deed of Providence. It was nearly a miracle that you
+did not mistake the path, for the Hurons divided, and each band had its
+horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! there we were thrown off the scent, and might, indeed, have lost
+the trail, had it not been for Uncas; we took the path, however, that
+led into the wilderness; for we judged, and judged rightly, that the
+savages would hold that course with their prisoners. But when we had
+followed it for many miles, without finding a single twig broken, as I
+had advised, my mind misgave me; especially as all the footsteps had the
+prints of moccasins."</p>
+
+<p>"Our captors had the precaution to see us shod like themselves," said
+Duncan, raising a foot, and exhibiting the buckskin he wore.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>"Ay, 'twas judgmatical, and like themselves; though we were too expart
+to be thrown from a trail by so common an invention."</p>
+
+<p>"To what, then, are we indebted for our safety?"</p>
+
+<p>"To what, as a white man who has no taint of Indian blood, I should be
+ashamed to own; to the judgment of the young Mohican, in matters which I
+should know better than he, but which I can now hardly believe to be
+true, though my own eyes tell me it is so."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis extraordinary! will you not name the reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas was bold enough to say, that the beasts ridden by the gentle
+ones," continued Hawkeye, glancing his eyes, not without curious
+interest, on the fillies of the ladies, "planted the legs of one side on
+the ground at the same time, which is contrary to the movements of all
+trotting four-footed animals of my knowledge, except the bear. And yet
+here are horses that always journey in this manner, as my own eyes have
+seen, and as their trail has shown for twenty long miles."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the merit of the animal! They come from the shores of
+Narragansett Bay, in the small province of Providence Plantations, and
+are celebrated for their hardihood, and the ease of this peculiar
+movement; though other horses are not unfrequently trained to the same."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be&mdash;it may be," said Hawkeye, who had listened with singular
+attention to this explanation; "though I am a man who has the full blood
+of the whites, my judgment in deer and beaver is greater than in beasts
+of burden. Major Effingham has many noble chargers, but I have never
+seen one travel after such a sideling gait."</p>
+
+<p>"True; for he would value the animals for very different properties.
+Still is this a breed highly esteemed, and as you witness, much honored
+with the burdens it is often destined to bear."</p>
+
+<p>The Mohicans had suspended their operations about the glimmering fire,
+to listen; and when Duncan had done, they looked at each other
+significantly, the father uttering the never-failing exclamation of
+surprise. The scout ruminated, like a man digesting his newly acquired
+knowledge, and once more stole a curious glance at the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare to say there are even stranger sights to be seen in the
+settlements!" he said, at length; "natur' is sadly abused by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> man, when
+he once gets the mastery. But, go sideling or go straight, Uncas had
+seen the movement, and their trail led us on to the broken bush. The
+outer branch, near the prints of one of the horses, was bent upward, as
+a lady breaks a flower from its stem, but all the rest were ragged and
+broken down, as if the strong hand of a man had been tearing them! So I
+concluded that the cunning varmints had seen the twig bent, and had torn
+the rest, to make us believe a buck had been feeling the boughs with his
+antlers."</p>
+
+<p>"I do believe your sagacity did not deceive you; for some such thing
+occurred!"</p>
+
+<p>"That was easy to see," added the scout, in no degree conscious of
+having exhibited any extraordinary sagacity; "and a very different
+matter it was from a waddling horse! It then struck me the Mingos would
+push for this spring, for the knaves well know the vartue of its
+waters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it, then, so famous?" demanded Heyward, examining, with a more
+curious eye, the secluded dell, with its bubbling fountain, surrounded,
+as it was, by earth of a deep dingy brown.</p>
+
+<p>"Few redskins, who travel south and east of the great lakes, but have
+heard of its qualities. Will you taste for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Heyward took the gourd, and after swallowing a little of the water,
+threw it aside with grimaces of discontent. The scout laughed in his
+silent, but heartfelt manner, and shook his head with vast satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you want the flavor that one gets by habit; the time was when I
+liked it as little as yourself; but I have come to my taste, and I now
+crave it, as a deer does the licks.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Your high spiced wines are not
+better liked than a redskin relishes this water; especially when his
+natur' is ailing. But Uncas has made his fire, and it is time we think
+of eating, for our journey is long, and all before us."</p>
+
+<p>Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had
+instant recourse to the fragments of food which had escaped the voracity
+of the Hurons. A very summary process completed the simple cookery, when
+he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal, with the silence and
+characteristic diligence of men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> who ate in order to enable themselves
+to endure great and unremitting toil.</p>
+
+<p>When this necessary, and, happily, grateful duty had been performed,
+each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draught at
+that solitary and silent spring,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> around which and its sister
+fountains, within fifty years, the wealth, beauty, and talents of a
+hemisphere were to assemble in throngs, in pursuit of health and
+pleasure. Then Hawkeye announced his determination to proceed. The
+sisters resumed their saddles; Duncan and David grasped their rifles,
+and followed on their footsteps; the scout leading the advance, and the
+Mohicans bringing up the rear. The whole party moved swiftly through the
+narrow path, towards the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle
+unheeded with the adjacent brook, and the bodies of the dead to fester
+on the neighboring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too
+common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or
+comment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"I'll seek a readier path."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Parnell.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> route taken by Hawkeye lay across those sandy plains, relieved by
+occasional valleys and swells of land, which had been traversed by their
+party on the morning of the same day, with the baffled Magua for their
+guide. The sun had now fallen low towards the distant mountains; and as
+their journey lay through the interminable forest, the heat was no
+longer oppressive. Their progress, in consequence, was proportionate;
+and long before the twilight gathered about them, they had made good
+many toilsome miles on their return.</p>
+
+<p>The hunter, like the savage whose place he filled, seemed to select
+among the blind signs of their wild route, with a species of instinct,
+seldom abating his speed, and never pausing to deliberate. A rapid and
+oblique glance at the moss on the trees, with an occasional upward gaze
+towards the setting sun, or a steady but passing look at the direction
+of the numerous water-courses, through which he waded, were sufficient
+to determine his path, and remove his greatest difficulties. In the
+meantime, the forest began to change its hues, losing that lively green
+which had embellished its arches, in the graver light which is the usual
+precursor of the close of day.</p>
+
+<p>While the eyes of the sisters were endeavoring to catch glimpses through
+the trees, of the flood of golden glory which formed a glittering halo
+around the sun, tinging here and there with ruby streaks, or bordering
+with narrow edgings of shining yellow, a mass of clouds that lay piled
+at no great distance above the western hills, Hawkeye turned suddenly,
+and, pointing upwards towards the gorgeous heavens, he spoke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder is the signal given to a man to seek his food and natural rest,"
+he said: "better and wiser would it be, if he could understand the signs
+of nature, and take a lesson from the fowls of the air and the beasts of
+the fields! Our night, however, will soon be over; for, with the moon,
+we must be up and moving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> again. I remember to have fou't the Maquas,
+hereaways, in the first war in which I ever drew blood from man; and we
+threw up a work of blocks, to keep the ravenous varmints from handling
+our scalps. If my marks do not fail me, we shall find the place a few
+rods farther to our left."</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for an assent, or, indeed, for any reply, the sturdy
+hunter moved boldly into a dense thicket of young chestnuts, shoving
+aside the branches of the exuberant shoots which nearly covered the
+ground, like a man who expected, at each step, to discover some object
+he had formerly known. The recollection of the scout did not deceive
+him. After penetrating through the brush, matted as it was with briers,
+for a few hundred feet he entered an open space, that surrounded a low,
+green hillock, which was crowned by the decayed block-house in question.
+This rude and neglected building was one of those deserted works, which,
+having been thrown up on an emergency, had been abandoned with the
+disappearance of danger, and was now quietly crumbling in the solitude
+of the forest, neglected, and nearly forgotten, like the circumstances
+which had caused it to be reared. Such memorials of the passage and
+struggles of man are yet frequent throughout the broad barrier of
+wilderness which once separated the hostile provinces, and form a
+species of ruins that are intimately associated with the recollections
+of colonial history, and which are in appropriate keeping with the
+gloomy character of the surrounding scenery.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The roof of bark had
+long since fallen, and mingled with the soil; but the huge logs of pine,
+which had been hastily thrown together, still preserved their relative
+positions, though one angle of the work had given way under the
+pressure, and threatened a speedy downfall to the remainder of the
+rustic edifice. While Heyward and his companions hesitated to approach a
+building so decayed, Hawkeye and the Indians entered within the low
+walls, not only without fear, but with obvious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> interest. While the
+former surveyed the ruins, both internally and externally, with the
+curiosity of one whose recollections were reviving at each moment,
+Chingachgook related to his son, in the language of the Delawares, and
+with the pride of a conqueror, the brief history of the skirmish which
+had been fought, in his youth, in that secluded spot. A strain of
+melancholy, however, blended with his triumph, rendering his voice, as
+usual, soft and musical.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the sisters gladly dismounted, and prepared to enjoy
+their halt in the coolness of the evening, and in a security which they
+believed nothing but the beasts of the forest could invade.</p>
+
+<p>"Would not our resting-place have been more retired, my worthy friend,"
+demanded the more vigilant Duncan, perceiving that the scout had already
+finished his short survey, "had we chosen a spot less known, and one
+more rarely visited than this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Few live who know the block-house was ever raised," was the slow and
+musing answer; "'tis not often that books are made, and narratives
+written, of such a scrimmage as was here fou't atween the Mohicans and
+the Mohawks, in a war of their own waging. I was then a younker, and
+went out with the Delawares, because I know'd they were a scandalized
+and wronged race. Forty days and forty nights did the imps crave our
+blood around this pile of logs, which I designed and partly reared,
+being, as you'll remember, no Indian myself, but a man without a cross.
+The Delawares lent themselves to the work, and we made it good, ten to
+twenty, until our numbers were nearly equal, and then we sallied out
+upon the hounds, and not a man of them ever got back to tell the fate of
+his party. Yes, yes; I was then young, and new to the sight of blood;
+and not relishing the thought that creatures who had spirits like myself
+should lay on the naked ground, to be torn asunder by beasts, or to
+bleach in the rains, I buried the dead with my own hands, under that
+very little hillock where you have placed yourselves; and no bad seat
+does it make neither, though it be raised by the bones of mortal men."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward and the sisters arose, on the instant, from the grassy
+sepulchre; nor could the two latter, notwithstanding the terrific scenes
+they had so recently passed through, entirely suppress an emotion of
+natural horror, when they found themselves in such familiar contact with
+the grave of the dead Mohawks. The gray light, the gloomy little area of
+dark grass, surrounded by its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> border of brush, beyond which the pines
+rose, in breathing silence, apparently, into the very clouds, and the
+death-like stillness of the vast forest, were all in unison to deepen
+such a sensation.</p>
+
+<p>"They are gone, and they are harmless," continued Hawkeye, waving his
+hand, with a melancholy smile, at their manifest alarm: "they'll never
+shout the war-whoop nor strike a blow with the tomahawk again! And of
+all those who aided in placing them where they lie, Chingachgook and I
+only are living! The brothers and family of the Mohican formed our
+war-party; and you see before you all that are now left of his race."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the listeners involuntarily sought the forms of the Indians,
+with a compassionate interest in their desolate fortune. The dark
+persons were still to be seen within the shadows of the block-house, the
+son listening to the relation of his father with that sort of
+intenseness which would be created by a narrative that redounded so much
+to the honor of those whose names he had long revered for their courage
+and savage virtues.</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought the Delawares a pacific people," said Duncan, "and that
+they never waged war in person; trusting the defence of their lands to
+those very Mohawks that you slew!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true in part," returned the scout, "and yet, at the bottom, 'tis a
+wicked lie. Such a treaty was made in ages gone by, through the
+deviltries of the Dutchers, who wished to disarm the natives that had
+the best right to the country where they had settled themselves. The
+Mohicans, though a part of the same nation, having to deal with the
+English, never entered into the silly bargain, but kept to their
+manhood; as in truth did the Delawares, when their eyes were opened to
+their folly. You see before you a chief of the great Mohican Sagamores!
+Once his family could chase their deer over tracts of country wider than
+that which belongs to the Albany Patteroon, without crossing brook or
+hill that was not their own; but what is left to their descendant! He
+may find his six feet of earth when God chooses, and keep it in peace,
+perhaps, if he has a friend who will take the pains to sink his head so
+low that the ploughshares cannot reach it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive that the subject might lead to a
+discussion that would interrupt the harmony so necessary to the
+preservation of his fair companions: "we have journeyed far, and few
+among us are blessed with forms like that of yours, which seems to know
+neither fatigue nor weakness."</p>
+
+<p>"The sinews and bones of a man carry me through it all," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> the
+hunter, surveying his muscular limbs with a simplicity that betrayed the
+honest pleasure the compliment afforded him: "there are larger and
+heavier men to be found in the settlements, but you might travel many
+days in a city before you could meet one able to walk fifty miles
+without stopping to take breath, or who has kept the hounds within
+hearing during a chase of hours. However, as flesh and blood are not
+always the same, it is quite reasonable to suppose that the gentle ones
+are willing to rest, after all they have seen and done this day. Uncas,
+clear out the spring, while your father and I make a cover for their
+tender heads of these chestnut shoots, and a bed of grass and leaves."</p>
+
+<p>The dialogue ceased, while the hunter and his companions busied
+themselves in preparations for the comfort and protection of those they
+guided. A spring, which many long years before had induced the natives
+to select the place for their temporary fortification, was soon cleared
+of leaves, and a fountain of crystal gushed from the bed, diffusing its
+waters over the verdant hillock. A corner of the building was then
+roofed in such a manner as to exclude the heavy dew of the climate, and
+piles of sweet shrubs and dried leaves were laid beneath it for the
+sisters to repose on.</p>
+
+<p>While the diligent woodsmen were employed in this manner, Cora and Alice
+partook of that refreshment which duty required much more than
+inclination prompted them to accept. They then retired within the walls,
+and first offering up their thanksgivings for past mercies, and
+petitioning for a continuance of the divine favor throughout the coming
+night, they laid their tender forms on the fragrant couch, and in spite
+of recollections and forebodings, soon sank into those slumbers which
+nature so imperiously demanded, and which were sweetened by hopes for
+the morrow. Duncan had prepared himself to pass the night in
+watchfulness near them, just without the ruin, but the scout, perceiving
+his intention, pointed towards Chingachgook, as he coolly disposed his
+own person on the grass, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The eyes of a white man are too heavy and too blind for such a watch as
+this! The Mohican will be our sentinel, therefore let us sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I proved myself a sluggard on my post during the past night," said
+Heyward, "and have less need of repose than you, who did more credit to
+the character of a soldier. Let all the party seek their rest, then,
+while I hold guard."</p>
+
+<p>"If we lay among the white tents of the 60th, and in front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> of an enemy
+like the French, I could not ask for a better watchman," returned the
+scout; "but in the darkness and among the signs of the wilderness your
+judgment would be like the folly of a child, and your vigilance thrown
+away. Do then, like Uncas and myself, sleep, and sleep in safety."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward perceived, in truth, that the younger Indian had thrown his form
+on the side of the hillock while they were talking, like one who sought
+to make the most of the time allotted to rest, and that his example had
+been followed by David, whose voice literally "clove to his jaws," with
+the fever of his wound, heightened, as it was, by their toilsome march.
+Unwilling to prolong a useless discussion, the young man affected to
+comply, by posting his back against the logs of the block-house, in a
+half-recumbent posture, though resolutely determined, in his own mind,
+not to close an eye until he had delivered his precious charge into the
+arms of Munro himself. Hawkeye, believing he had prevailed, soon fell
+asleep, and a silence as deep as the solitude in which they had found
+it, pervaded the retired spot.</p>
+
+<p>For many minutes Duncan succeeded in keeping his senses on the alert,
+and alive to every moaning sound that arose from the forest. His vision
+became more acute as the shades of evening settled on the place; and
+even after the stars were glimmering above his head, he was able to
+distinguish the recumbent forms of his companions, as they lay stretched
+on the grass, and to note the person of Chingachgook, who sat upright
+and motionless as one of the trees which formed the dark barrier on
+every side. He still heard the gentle breathings of the sisters, who lay
+within a few feet of him, and not a leaf was ruffled by the passing air,
+of which his ear did not detect the whispering sound. At length,
+however, the mournful notes of a whippoorwill became blended with the
+moanings of an owl; his heavy eyes occasionally sought the bright rays
+of the stars, and then he fancied he saw them through the fallen lids.
+At instants of momentary wakefulness he mistook a bush for his associate
+sentinel; his head next sank upon his shoulder, which, in its turn,
+sought the support of the ground; and, finally, his whole person become
+relaxed and pliant, and the young man sank into a deep sleep, dreaming
+that he was a knight of ancient chivalry, holding his midnight vigils
+before the tent of a recaptured princess, whose favor he did not despair
+of gaining, by such a proof of devotion and watchfulness.</p>
+
+<p>How long the tired Duncan lay in this insensible state he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> never knew
+himself, but his slumbering visions had been long lost in total
+forgetfulness, when he was awakened by a light tap on the shoulder.
+Aroused by this signal, slight as it was, he sprang upon his feet with a
+confused recollection of the self-imposed duty he had assumed with the
+commencement of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Who comes?" he demanded, feeling for his sword at the place where it
+was usually suspended, "Speak! friend or enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Friend," replied the low voice of Chingachgook; who, pointing upwards
+at the luminary which was shedding its mild light through the opening in
+the trees, directly in their bivouac, immediately added, in his rude
+English, "moon comes, and white man's fort far&mdash;far off; time to move,
+when sleep shuts both eyes of the Frenchman!"</p>
+
+<p>"You say true! call up your friends, and bridle the horses, while I
+prepare my own companions for the march!"</p>
+
+<p>"We are awake, Duncan," said the soft, silvery tones of Alice within the
+building, "and ready to travel very fast after so refreshing a sleep;
+but you have watched through the tedious night in our behalf, after
+having endured so much fatigue the live-long day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, rather, I would have watched, but my treacherous eyes betrayed me;
+twice have I proved myself unfit for the trust I bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Duncan, deny it not," interrupted the smiling Alice, issuing from
+the shadows of the building into the light of the moon, in all the
+loveliness of her freshened beauty; "I know you to be a heedless one,
+when self is the object of your care, and but too vigilant in favor of
+others. Can we not tarry here a little longer, while you find the rest
+you need? Cheerfully, most cheerfully, will Cora and I keep the vigils,
+while you, and all these brave men, endeavor to snatch a little sleep!"</p>
+
+<p>"If shame could cure me of my drowsiness, I should never close an eye
+again," said the uneasy youth, gazing at the ingenuous countenance of
+Alice, where, however, in its sweet solicitude, he read nothing to
+confirm his half awakened suspicion. "It is but too true, that after
+leading you into danger by my heedlessness, I have not even the merit of
+guarding your pillows as should become a soldier."</p>
+
+<p>"No one but Duncan himself should accuse Duncan of such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> a weakness. Go,
+then, and sleep; believe me, neither of us, weak girls as we are, will
+betray our watch."</p>
+
+<p>The young man was relieved from the awkwardness of making any further
+protestations of his own demerits, by an exclamation from Chingachgook,
+and the attitude of riveted attention assumed by his son.</p>
+
+<p>"The Mohicans hear an enemy!" whispered Hawkeye, who, by this time, in
+common with the whole party, was awake and stirring. "They scent danger
+in the wind!"</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid!" exclaimed Heyward. "Surely we have had enough of
+bloodshed!"</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke, however, the young soldier seized his rifle, and
+advancing towards the front, prepared to atone for his venial
+remissness, by freely exposing his life in defence of those he attended.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of food,"
+he said, in a whisper, as soon as the low, and apparently distant
+sounds, which had startled the Mohicans, reached his own ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Hist!" returned the attentive scout; "'tis man; even I can now tell his
+tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an Indian's! That
+scampering Huron has fallen in with one of Montcalm's outlying parties,
+and they have struck upon our trail. I shouldn't like, myself, to spill
+more human blood in this spot," he added, looking around with anxiety in
+his features, at the dim objects by which he was surrounded; "but what
+must be, must! Lead the horses into the block-house, Uncas; and,
+friends, do you follow to the same shelter. Poor and old as it is, it
+offers a cover, and has rung with the crack of a rifle afore to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He was instantly obeyed, the Mohicans leading the Narragansetts within
+the ruin, whither the whole party repaired with the most guarded
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>The sounds of approaching footsteps were now too distinctly audible to
+leave any doubts as to the nature of the interruption. They were soon
+mingled with voices calling to each other in an Indian dialect, which
+the hunter, in a whisper, affirmed to Heyward was the language of the
+Hurons. When the party reached the point where the horses had entered
+the thicket which surrounded the block-house, they were evidently at
+fault, having lost those marks which, until that moment, had directed
+their pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem by the voices that twenty men were soon collected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> at that
+one spot, mingling their different opinions and advice in noisy clamor.</p>
+
+<p>"The knaves know our weakness," whispered Hawkeye, who stood by the side
+of Heyward, in deep shade, looking through an opening in the logs, "or
+they wouldn't indulge their idleness in such a squaw's march. Listen to
+the reptiles! each man among them seems to have two tongues, and but a
+single leg."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, brave as he was in the combat, could not, in such a moment of
+painful suspense, make any reply to the cool and characteristic remark
+of the scout. He only grasped his rifle more firmly, and fastened his
+eyes upon the narrow opening, through which he gazed upon the moonlight
+view with increasing anxiety. The deeper tones of one who spoke as
+having authority were next heard, amid a silence that denoted the
+respect with which his orders, or rather advice, was received. After
+which, by the rustling of leaves, and cracking of dried twigs, it was
+apparent the savages were separating in pursuit of the lost trail.
+Fortunately for the pursued, the light of the moon, while it shed a
+flood of mild lustre upon the little area around the ruin, was not
+sufficiently strong to penetrate the deep arches of the forest, where
+the objects still lay in deceptive shadow. The search proved fruitless;
+for so short and sudden had been the passage from the faint path the
+travellers had journeyed into the thicket, that every trace of their
+footsteps was lost in the obscurity of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long, however, before the restless savages were heard beating
+the brush, and gradually approaching the inner edge of that dense border
+of young chestnuts which encircled the little area.</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming," muttered Heyward, endeavoring to thrust his rifle
+through the chink in the logs; "let us fire on their approach."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep everything in the shade," returned the scout; "the snapping of a
+flint, or even the smell of a single karnel of the brimstone, would
+bring the hungry varlets upon us in a body. Should it please God that we
+must give battle for the scalps, trust to the experience of men who know
+the ways of the savages, and who are not often backward when the
+war-whoop is howled."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan cast his eyes behind him, and saw that the trembling sisters were
+cowering in the far corner of the building, while the Mohicans stood in
+the shadow, like two upright posts, ready, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> apparently willing, to
+strike when the blow should be needed. Curbing his impatience, he again
+looked out upon the area, and awaited the result in silence. At that
+instant the thicket opened, and a tall and armed Huron advanced a few
+paces into the open space. As he gazed upon the silent block-house, the
+moon fell upon his swarthy countenance, and betrayed its surprise and
+curiosity. He made the exclamation which usually accompanies the former
+emotion in an Indian, and, calling in a low voice, soon drew a companion
+to his side.</p>
+
+<p>These children of the woods stood together for several moments pointing
+at the crumbling edifice, and conversing in the unintelligible language
+of their tribe. They then approached, though with slow and cautious
+steps, pausing every instant to look at the building, like startled
+deer, whose curiosity struggled powerfully with their awakened
+apprehensions for the mastery. The foot of one of them suddenly rested
+on the mound, and he stooped to examine its nature. At this moment,
+Heyward observed that the scout loosened his knife in his sheath, and
+lowered the muzzle of his rifle. Imitating these movements, the young
+man prepared himself for the struggle, which now seemed inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>The savages were so near, that the least motion in one of the horses, or
+even a breath louder than common, would have betrayed the fugitives.
+But, in discovering the character of the mound, the attention of the
+Hurons appeared directed to a different object. They spoke together, and
+the sounds of their voices were low and solemn, as if influenced by a
+reverence that was deeply blended with awe. Then they drew warily back,
+keeping their eyes riveted on the ruin, as if they expected to see the
+apparitions of the dead issue from its silent walls, until having
+reached the boundary of the area, they moved slowly into the thicket,
+and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye dropped the breech of his rifle to the earth, and drawing a
+long, free breath, exclaimed, in an audible whisper,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! they respect the dead, and it has this time saved their own lives,
+and, it may be, the lives of better men too."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward lent his attention for a single moment to his companion, but
+without replying, he again turned towards those who just then interested
+him more. He heard the two Hurons leave the bushes, and it was soon
+plain that all the pursuers were gathered about them, in deep attention
+to their report. After a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> minutes of earnest and solemn dialogue,
+altogether different from the noisy clamor with which they had first
+collected about the spot, the sounds grew fainter and more distant, and
+finally were lost in the depths of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye waited until a signal from the listening Chingachgook assured
+him that every sound from the retiring party was completely swallowed by
+the distance, when he motioned to Heyward to lead forth the horses, and
+to assist the sisters into their saddles. The instant this was done,
+they issued through the broken gateway, and stealing out by a direction
+opposite to the one by which they had entered, they quitted the spot,
+the sisters casting furtive glances at the silent grave and crumbling
+ruin, as they left the soft light of the moon, to bury themselves in the
+gloom of the woods.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"<i>Guard.</i>&mdash;Qui est l&agrave;?<br />
+<i>Puc.</i>&mdash;Paisans, pauvres gens de France."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>King Henry VI.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the rapid movement from the block-house, and until the party was
+deeply buried in the forest, each individual was too much interested in
+the escape to hazard a word even in whispers. The scout resumed his post
+in the advance, though his steps, after he had thrown a safe distance
+between himself and his enemies, were more deliberate than in their
+previous march, in consequence of his utter ignorance of the localities
+of the surrounding woods. More than once he halted to consult with his
+confederates, the Mohicans, pointing upwards at the moon, and examining
+the barks of the trees with care. In these brief pauses, Heyward and the
+sisters listened, with senses rendered doubly acute by the danger, to
+detect any symptoms which might announce the proximity of their foes. At
+such moments, it seemed as if a vast range of country lay buried in
+eternal sleep; not the least sound arising from the forest, unless it
+was the distant and scarcely audible rippling of a water-course. Birds,
+beasts, and man, appeared to slumber alike, if, indeed, any of the
+latter were to be found in that wide tract of wilderness. But the sounds
+of the rivulet, feeble and murmuring as they were, relieved the guides
+at once from no trifling embarrassment, and towards it they immediately
+held their way.</p>
+
+<p>When the banks of the little stream were gained, Hawkeye made another
+halt; and, taking the moccasins from his feet, he invited Heyward and
+Gamut to follow his example. He then entered the water, and for near an
+hour they travelled in the bed of the brook, leaving no trail. The moon
+had already sunk into an immense pile of black clouds, which lay
+impending above the western horizon, when they issued from the low and
+devious water-course to rise again to the light and level of the sandy
+but wooded plain. Here the scout seemed to be once more at home, for he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+held on his way with the certainty and diligence of a man who moved in
+the security of his own knowledge. The path soon became more uneven, and
+the travellers could plainly perceive that the mountains drew nigher to
+them on each hand, and that they were, in truth, about entering one of
+their gorges. Suddenly, Hawkeye made a pause, and waiting until he was
+joined by the whole party, he spoke, though in tones so low and
+cautious, that they added to the solemnity of his words, in the quiet
+and darkness of the place.</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to know the pathways, and to find the licks and
+water-courses of the wilderness," he said; "but who that saw this spot
+could venture to say, that a mighty army was at rest among yonder silent
+trees and barren mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are then at no great distance from William Henry?" said Heyward,
+advancing nigher to the scout.</p>
+
+<p>"It is yet a long and weary path, and when and where to strike it, is
+now our greatest difficulty. See," he said, pointing through the trees
+towards a spot where a little basin of water reflected the stars from
+its placid bosom, "here is the 'bloody pond'; and I am on the ground
+that I have not only often travelled, but over which I have fou't the
+enemy, from the rising to the setting sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is the sepulchre of the
+brave men who fell in the contest. I have heard it named, but never have
+I stood on its banks before."</p>
+
+<p>"Three battles did we make with the Dutch-Frenchman<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> in a day,"
+continued Hawkeye, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, rather than
+replying to the remark of Duncan. "He met us hard by, in our outward
+march to ambush his advance, and scattered us, like driven deer, through
+the defile, to the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our fallen
+trees, and made head against him, under Sir William&mdash;who was made Sir
+William for that very deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace of
+the morning! Hundreds of Frenchmen saw the sun that day for the last
+time; and even the leader, Dieskau himself, fell into our hands so cut
+and torn with the lead, that he has gone back to his own country, unfit
+for further acts in war."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas a noble repulse!" exclaimed Heyward, in the heat of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> his youthful
+ardor; "the fame of it reached us early, in our southern army."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! but it did not end there. I was sent by Major Effingham, at Sir
+William's own bidding, to outflank the French, and carry the tidings of
+their disaster across the portage, to the fort on the Hudson. Just
+hereaway, where you see the trees rise into a mountain swell, I met a
+party coming down to our aid, and I led them where the enemy were taking
+their meal, little dreaming that they had not finished the bloody work
+of the day."</p>
+
+<p>"And you surprised them?"</p>
+
+<p>"If death can be a surprise to men who are thinking only of the cravings
+of their appetites. We gave them but little breathing time, for they had
+borne hard upon us in the fight of the morning, and there were few in
+our party who had not lost friend or relative by their hands. When all
+was over, the dead, and some say the dying, were cast into that little
+pond. These eyes have seen its waters colored with blood, as natural
+water never yet flowed from the bowels of the 'arth."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a convenient, and, I trust, will prove a peaceful grave for a
+soldier. You have, then, seen much service on this frontier?"</p>
+
+<p>"I!" said the scout, erecting his tall person with an air of military
+pride; "there are not many echoes among these hills that haven't rung
+with the crack of my rifle, nor is there the space of a square mile
+atwixt Horican and the river, that 'Killdeer' hasn't dropped a living
+body on, be it an enemy or be it a brute beast. As for the grave, there,
+being as quiet as you mention, it is another matter. There are them in
+the camp who say and think, man, to lie still, should not be buried
+while the breath is in the body; and certain it is that in the hurry of
+that evening, the doctors had but little time to say who was living and
+who was dead. Hist! see you nothing walking on the shore of the pond?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis not probable that any are as houseless as ourselves, in this
+dreary forest."</p>
+
+<p>"Such as he may care but little for house or shelter, and night dew can
+never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout,
+grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to
+make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror
+had got the mastery of a man usually so dauntless.</p>
+
+<p>"By heaven! there is a human form, and it approaches! Stand to your
+arms, my friends; for we know not whom we encounter."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p><p>"Qui vive?" demanded a stern, quick voice, which sounded like a
+challenge from another world, issuing out of that solitary and solemn
+place.</p>
+
+<p>"What says it?" whispered the scout; "it speaks neither Indian nor
+English!"</p>
+
+<p>"Qui vive?" repeated the same voice, which was quickly followed by the
+rattling of arms, and a menacing attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"France!" cried Heyward, advancing from the shadow of the trees to the
+shore of the pond, within a few yards of the sentinel.</p>
+
+<p>"D'o&ugrave; venez-vous&mdash;o&ugrave; allez-vous, d'aussi bonne heure?" demanded the
+grenadier, in the language and with the accent of a man from old France.</p>
+
+<p>"Je viens de l&agrave; d&eacute;couverte, et je vais me coucher."</p>
+
+<p>"Etes-vous officier du roi?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour un provincial! Je suis
+capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward well knew that the other was of a
+regiment in the line); j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant de
+l&agrave; fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler! je les ai fait
+prisonni&egrave;res pr&egrave;s de l'autre fort, et je les conduis au g&eacute;n&eacute;ral."</p>
+
+<p>"Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis fach&eacute; pour vous," exclaimed the young
+soldier, touching his cap with grace; "mais&mdash;fortune de guerre! vous
+trouverez notre g&eacute;n&eacute;ral un brave homme, et bien poli avec les dames."</p>
+
+<p>"C'est le caract&egrave;re des gens de guerre," said Cora, with admirable
+self-possession. "Adieu, mon ami; je vous souhaiterais un devoir plus
+agr&eacute;able &agrave; remplir."</p>
+
+<p>The soldier made a low and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and
+Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately
+forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond,
+little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself
+those words, which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and
+perhaps by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"Vive le vin, l'amour," etc., etc.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis well you understood the knave!" whispered the scout, when they had
+gained a little distance from the place, and letting his rifle fall into
+the hollow of his arm again; "I soon saw that he was one of them uneasy
+Frenchers; and well for him it was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> his speech was friendly and his
+wishes kind, or a place might have been found for his bones among those
+of his countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a long and heavy groan which arose from the little
+basin, as though, in truth, the spirits of the departed lingered about
+their watery sepulchre.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely it was of flesh!" continued the scout; "no spirit could handle
+its arms so steadily!"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>was</i> of flesh; but whether the poor fellow still belongs to this
+world may well be doubted," said Heyward, glancing his eyes around him,
+and missing Chingachgook from their little band. Another groan more
+faint than the former, was succeeded by a heavy and sullen plunge into
+the water, and all was as still again as if the borders of the dreary
+pool had never been awakened from the silence of creation. While they
+yet hesitated in uncertainty, the form of the Indian was seen gliding
+out of the thicket. As the chief rejoined them, with one hand he
+attached the reeking scalp of the unfortunate young Frenchman to his
+girdle, and with the other he replaced the knife and tomahawk that had
+drunk his blood. He then took his wonted station, with the air of a man
+who believed he had done a deed of merit.</p>
+
+<p>The scout dropped one end of his rifle to the earth, and leaning his
+hands on the other, he stood musing in profound silence. Then shaking
+his head in a mournful manner, he muttered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'T would have been a cruel and an unhuman act for a white-skin; but
+'tis the gift and natur' of an Indian, and I suppose it should not be
+denied. I could wish, though, it had befallen an accursed Mingo, rather
+than that gay young boy from the old countries."</p>
+
+<p>"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive the unconscious sisters might
+comprehend the nature of the detention, and conquering his disgust by a
+train of reflections very much like that of the hunter; "'tis done; and
+though better it were left undone, cannot be amended. You see we are,
+too obviously, within the sentinels of the enemy; what course do you
+propose to follow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hawkeye, rousing himself again, "'tis as you say, too late
+to harbor further thoughts about it. Ay, the French have gathered around
+the fort in good earnest, and we have a delicate needle to thread in
+passing them."</p>
+
+<p>"And but little time to do it in," added Heyward, glancing his eyes
+upward, toward the bank of vapor that concealed the setting moon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>"And little time to do it in!" repeated the scout. "The thing may be
+done in two fashions, by the help of Providence, without which it may
+not be done at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Name them quickly, for time presses."</p>
+
+<p>"One would be to dismount the gentle ones, and let their beasts range
+the plain; by sending the Mohicans in front, we might then cut a lane
+through their sentries, and enter the fort over the dead bodies."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not do&mdash;it will not do!" interrupted the generous Heyward; "a
+soldier might force his way in this manner, but never with such a
+convoy."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twould be, indeed, a bloody path for tender feet to wade in," returned
+the equally reluctant scout; "but I thought it befitting my manhood to
+name it. We must then turn on our trail and get without the line of
+their look-outs, when we will bend short to the west, and enter the
+mountains; where I can hide you, so that all the devil's hounds in
+Montcalm's pay would be thrown off the scent, for months to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Let it be done, and that instantly."</p>
+
+<p>Further words were unnecessary; for Hawkeye, merely uttering the mandate
+to "follow," moved along the route by which they had just entered their
+present critical and even dangerous situation. Their progress, like
+their late dialogue, was guarded, and without noise; for none knew at
+what moment a passing patrol, or a crouching picket of the enemy, might
+rise upon their path. As they held their silent way along the margin of
+the pond, again Heyward and the scout stole furtive glances at its
+appalling dreariness. They looked in vain for the form they had so
+recently seen stalking along its silent shores, while a low and regular
+wash of the little waves, by announcing that the waters were not yet
+subsided, furnished a frightful memorial of the deed of blood they had
+just witnessed. Like all that passing and gloomy scene, the low basin,
+however, quickly melted in the darkness, and became blended with the
+mass of black objects in the rear of the travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye soon deviated from the line of their retreat, and striking off
+towards the mountains which form the western boundary of the narrow
+plain, he led his followers, with swift steps, deep within the shadows
+that were cast from their high and broken summits. The route was now
+painful; lying over ground ragged with rocks, and intersected with
+ravines, and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> progress proportionately slow. Bleak and black hills
+lay on every side of them, compensating in some degree for the
+additional toil of the march, by the sense of security they imparted. At
+length the party began slowly to climb a steep and rugged ascent by a
+path that curiously wound among rocks and trees, avoiding the one, and
+supported by the other, in a manner that showed it had been devised by
+men long practised in the arts of the wilderness. As they gradually rose
+from the level of the valleys, the thick darkness which usually precedes
+the approach of day began to disperse, and objects were seen in the
+plain and palpable colors with which they had been gifted by nature.
+When they issued from the stunted woods which clung to the barren sides
+of the mountain, upon a flat and mossy rock that formed its summit, they
+met the morning, as it came blushing above the green pines of a hill
+that lay on the opposite side of the valley of the Horican.</p>
+
+<p>The scout now told the sisters to dismount; and taking the bridles from
+the mouths, and the saddles off the backs of the jaded beasts, he turned
+them loose, to glean a scanty subsistence among the shrubs and meagre
+herbage of that elevated region.</p>
+
+<p>"Go," he said, "and seek your food where natur' gives it you; and beware
+that you become not food to ravenous wolves yourselves, among these
+hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Have we no further need of them?" demanded Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"See, and judge with your own eyes," said the scout, advancing towards
+the eastern brow of the mountain, whither he beckoned for the whole
+party to follow; "if it was as easy to look into the heart of man as it
+is to spy out the nakedness of Montcalm's camp from this spot,
+hypocrites would grow scarce, and the cunning of a Mingo might prove a
+losing game, compared to the honesty of a Delaware."</p>
+
+<p>When the travellers reached the verge of the precipice, they saw, at a
+glance, the truth of the scout's declaration, and the admirable
+foresight with which he had led them to their commanding station.</p>
+
+<p>The mountain on which they stood, elevated, perhaps, a thousand feet in
+the air, was a high cone that rose a little in advance of that range
+which stretches for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
+meeting its sister piles, beyond the water, it ran off towards the
+Canadas, in confused and broken masses of rock, thinly sprinkled with
+evergreens. Immediately at the feet of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> party, the southern shore of
+the Horican swept in a broad semicircle, from mountain to mountain,
+marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat
+elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared
+from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented
+with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted
+with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the
+waters became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of
+vapor that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning
+air. But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills pointed out
+the passage by which they found their way still farther north, to spread
+their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute into
+the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather
+broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction,
+the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
+reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and
+sandy lands, across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their
+double journey. Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
+sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light vapor were rising in
+spiral wreaths from the uninhabited woods, looking like the smokes of
+hidden cottages; or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle with
+the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary, snow-white cloud floated
+above the valley, and marked the spot beneath which lay the silent pool
+of the "bloody pond."</p>
+
+<p>Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its western than to its
+eastern margin, lay the extensive earthen ramparts and low buildings of
+William Henry. Two of the sweeping bastions appeared to rest on the
+water which washed their bases, while a deep ditch and extensive
+morasses guarded its other sides and angles. The land had been cleared
+of wood for a reasonable distance around the work, but every other part
+of the scene lay in the green livery of nature, except where the limpid
+water mellowed the view, or the bold rocks thrust their black and naked
+heads above the undulating outline of the mountain ranges. In its front
+might be seen the scattered sentinels, who held a weary watch against
+their numerous foes; and within the walls themselves, the travellers
+looked down upon men still drowsy with a night of vigilance. Towards the
+southeast, but in immediate contact with the fort, was an entrenched
+camp, posted on a rocky eminence, that would have been far more eligible
+for the work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> itself, in which Hawkeye pointed out the presence of those
+auxiliary regiments that had so recently left the Hudson in their
+company. From the woods, a little farther to the south, rose numerous
+dark and lurid smokes, that were easily to be distinguished from the
+purer exhalations of the springs, and which the scout also showed to
+Heyward, as evidences that the enemy lay in force in that direction.</p>
+
+<p>But the spectacle which most concerned the young soldier was on the
+western bank of the lake, though quite near to its southern termination.
+On a strip of land, which appeared, from his stand, too narrow to
+contain such an army, but which, in truth, extended many hundreds of
+yards from the shores of the Horican to the base of the mountain, were
+to be seen the white tents and military engines of an encampment of ten
+thousand men. Batteries were already thrown up in their front, and even
+while the spectators above them were looking down, with such different
+emotions, on a scene which lay like a map beneath their feet, the roar
+of artillery rose from the valley, and passed off in thundering echoes,
+along the eastern hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Morning is just touching them below," said the deliberate and musing
+scout, "and the watchers have a mind to wake up the sleepers by the
+sound of cannon. We are a few hours too late? Montcalm has already
+filled the woods with his accursed Iroquois."</p>
+
+<p>"The place is, indeed, invested," returned Duncan, "but is there no
+expedient by which we may enter? capture in the works would be far
+preferable to falling again into the hands of roving Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"See!" exclaimed the scout, unconsciously directing the attention of
+Cora to the quarters of her own father, "how that shot has made the
+stones fly from the side of the commandant's house! Ay! these Frenchers
+will pull it to pieces faster than it was put together, solid and thick
+though it be."</p>
+
+<p>"Heyward, I sicken at the sight of danger that I cannot share," said the
+undaunted, but anxious daughter. "Let us go to Montcalm, and demand
+admission: he dare not deny a child the boon."</p>
+
+<p>"You would scarce find the tent of the Frenchman with the hair on your
+head," said the blunt scout. "If I had but one of the thousand boats
+which lie empty along that shore, it might be done. Ha! here will soon
+be an end of the firing, for yonder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> comes a fog that will turn day to
+night, and make an Indian arrow more dangerous than a moulded cannon.
+Now, if you are equal to the work, and will follow, I will make a push;
+for I long to get down into that camp, if it be only to scatter some
+Mingo dogs that I see lurking in the skirts of yonder thicket of birch."</p>
+
+<p>"We are equal," said Cora, firmly: "on such an errand we will follow to
+any danger."</p>
+
+<p>The scout turned to her with a smile of honest and cordial approbation
+as he answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs and quick eyes, that
+feared death as little as you! I'd send them jabbering Frenchers back
+into their den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so many
+fettered hounds or hungry wolves. But stir," he added, turning from her
+to the rest of the party, "the fog comes rolling down so fast, we shall
+have but just the time to meet it on the plain, and use it as a cover.
+Remember, if any accident should befall me, to keep the air blowing on
+your left cheeks&mdash;or rather, follow the Mohicans; they'd scent their
+way, be it in day or be it at night."</p>
+
+<p>He then waved his hand for them to follow, and threw himself down the
+steep declivity, with free, but careful footsteps. Heyward assisted the
+sisters to descend, and in a few minutes they were all far down a
+mountain whose sides they had climbed with so much toil and pain.</p>
+
+<p>The direction taken by Hawkeye soon brought the travellers to the level
+of the plain, nearly opposite to a sally-port in the western curtain of
+the fort, which lay, itself, at the distance of about half a mile from
+the point where he halted to allow Duncan to come up with his charge. In
+their eagerness, and favored by the nature of the ground, they had
+anticipated the fog, which was rolling heavily down the lake, and it
+became necessary to pause, until the mists had wrapped the camp of the
+enemy in their fleecy mantle. The Mohicans profited by the delay, to
+steal out of the woods, and to make a survey of surrounding objects.
+They were followed at a little distance by the scout, with a view to
+profit early by their report, and to obtain some faint knowledge for
+himself of the more immediate localities.</p>
+
+<p>In a very few moments he returned, his face reddened with vexation,
+while he muttered his disappointment in words of no very gentle import.</p>
+
+<p>"Here has the cunning Frenchman been posting a picket<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> directly in our
+path," he said; "redskins and whites; and we shall be as likely to fall
+into their midst as to pass them in the fog!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot we make a circuit to avoid the danger," asked Heyward, "and come
+into our path again when it is passed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who that once bends from the line of his march in a fog can tell when
+or how to turn to find it again! The mists of Horican are not like the
+curls from a peace-pipe, or the smoke which settles above a mosquito
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>He was yet speaking, when a crashing sound was heard, and a cannon-ball
+entered the thicket, striking the body of a sapling, and rebounding to
+the earth, its force being much expended by previous resistance. The
+Indians followed instantly like busy attendants on the terrible
+messenger, and Uncas commenced speaking earnestly and with much action,
+in the Delaware tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so, lad," muttered the scout, when he had ended; "for
+desperate fevers are not to be treated like a toothache. Come, then, the
+fog is shutting in."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" cried Heyward; "first explain your expectations."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis soon done, and a small hope it is; but it is better than nothing.
+This shot that you see," added the scout, kicking the harmless iron with
+his foot, "has ploughed the 'arth in its road from the fort, and we
+shall hunt for the furrow it has made, when all other signs may fail. No
+more words, but follow, or the fog may leave us in the middle of our
+path, a mark for both armies to shoot at."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward perceiving that, in fact, a crisis had arrived when acts were
+more required than words, placed himself between the sisters, and drew
+them swiftly forward, keeping the dim figure of their leader in his eye.
+It was soon apparent that Hawkeye had not magnified the power of the
+fog, for before they had proceeded twenty yards, it was difficult for
+the different individuals of the party to distinguish each other, in the
+vapor.</p>
+
+<p>They had made their little circuit to the left, and were already
+inclining again towards the right, having, as Heyward thought, got over
+nearly half the distance to the friendly works, when his ears were
+saluted with the fierce summons, apparently within twenty feet of them,
+of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Qui va l&agrave;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Push on!" whispered the scout, once more bending to the left.</p>
+
+<p>"Push on!" repeated Heyward; when the summons was renewed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> by a dozen
+voices, each of which seemed charged with menace.</p>
+
+<p>"C'est moi," cried Duncan, dragging, rather than leading those he
+supported, swiftly onward.</p>
+
+<p>"B&ecirc;te!&mdash;qui?&mdash;moi!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ami de l&agrave; France."</p>
+
+<p>"Tu m'as plus l'air d'un <i>ennemi</i> de l&agrave; France; arr&ecirc;te! o&ugrave; pardieu je te
+ferai ami du diable. Non! feu, camarades, feu!"</p>
+
+<p>The order was instantly obeyed, and the fog was stirred by the explosion
+of fifty muskets. Happily, the aim was bad, and the bullets cut the air
+in a direction a little different from that taken by the fugitives;
+though still so nigh them, that to the unpractised ears of David and the
+two females, it appeared as if they whistled within a few inches of the
+organs. The outcry was renewed, and the order, not only to fire again,
+but to pursue, was too plainly audible. When Heyward briefly explained
+the meaning of the words they heard, Hawkeye halted, and spoke with
+quick decision and great firmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us deliver our fire," he said; "they will believe it a sortie, and
+give way, or they will wait for reinforcements."</p>
+
+<p>The scheme was well conceived, but failed in its effect. The instant the
+French heard the pieces, it seemed as if the plain was alive with men,
+muskets rattling along its whole extent, from the shores of the lake to
+the farthest boundary of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall draw their entire army upon us, and bring on a general
+assault," said Duncan: "lead on, my friend, for your own life, and
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>The scout seemed willing to comply; but, in the hurry of the moment, and
+in the change of position, he had lost the direction. In vain he turned
+either cheek towards the light air; they felt equally cool. In this
+dilemma, Uncas lighted on the furrow of the cannon-ball, where it had
+cut the ground in three adjacent ant-hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the range!" said Hawkeye, bending to catch a glimpse of the
+direction, and then instantly moving onward.</p>
+
+<p>Cries, oaths, voices calling to each other, and the reports of muskets,
+were now quick and incessant, and, apparently, on every side of them.
+Suddenly, a strong glare of light flashed across the scene, the fog
+rolled upwards in thick wreaths, and several cannon belched across the
+plain, and the roar was thrown heavily back from the bellowing echoes of
+the mountain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p><p>"'Tis from the fort!" exclaimed Hawkeye, turning short on his tracks;
+"and we, like stricken fools, were rushing to the woods, under the very
+knives of the Maquas."</p>
+
+<p>The instant their mistake was rectified, the whole party retraced the
+error with the utmost diligence. Duncan willingly relinquished the
+support of Cora to the arm of Uncas, and Cora as readily accepted the
+welcome assistance. Men, hot and angry in pursuit, were evidently on
+their footsteps, and each instant threatened their capture, if not their
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to
+direct the operations of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand firm, and be ready, my gallant 60ths!" suddenly exclaimed a voice
+above them; "wait to see the enemy,&mdash;fire low, and sweep the glacis."</p>
+
+<p>"Father! father!" exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; "it is I!
+Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
+agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn
+echo. "'Tis she! God has restored me my children! Throw open the
+sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field; pull not a trigger, lest
+ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan heard the grating of the rusty hinges, and darting to the spot,
+directed by the sound, he met a long line of dark red warriors, passing
+swiftly towards the glacis. He knew them for his own battalion of the
+royal Americans, and flying to their head, soon swept every trace of his
+pursuers from before the works.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, Cora and Alice had stood trembling and bewildered by
+this unexpected desertion; but, before either had leisure for speech, or
+even thought, an officer of gigantic frame whose locks were bleached
+with years and service, but whose air of military grandeur had been
+rather softened than destroyed by time, rushed out of the body of the
+mist, and folded them to his bosom, while large scalding tears rolled
+down his pale and wrinkled cheeks, and he exclaimed, in the peculiar
+accent of Scotland,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For this I thank thee, Lord! Let danger come as it will, thy servant is
+now prepared!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Then go we in, to know his embassy;<br />
+Which I could, with ready guess, declare,<br />
+Before the Frenchman speak a word of it."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>King Henry V.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A few</span> succeeding days were passed amid the privations, the uproar, and
+the dangers of the siege, which was vigorously pressed by a power
+against whose approaches Munro possessed no competent means of
+resistance. It appeared as if Webb, with his army, which lay slumbering
+on the banks of the Hudson, had utterly forgotten the strait to which
+his countrymen were reduced. Montcalm had filled the woods of the
+portage with his savages, every yell and whoop from whom rang through
+the British encampment, chilling the hearts of men who were already but
+too much disposed to magnify the danger.</p>
+
+<p>Not so, however, with the besieged. Animated by the words, and
+stimulated by the examples, of their leaders, they had found their
+courage, and maintained their ancient reputation, with zeal that did
+justice to the stern character of their commander. As if satisfied with
+the toil of marching through the wilderness to encounter his enemy, the
+French general, though of approved skill, had neglected to seize the
+adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might have been exterminated
+with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of the country,
+would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of contempt
+for eminences, or rather dread of the labor of ascending them, might
+have been termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It
+originated in the simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the
+nature of the combats, and the density of the forests, fortresses were
+rare, and artillery next to useless. The carelessness engendered by
+these usages descended even to the war of the Revolution, and lost the
+States the important fortress of Ticonderoga, opening a way for the army
+of Burgoyne into what was then the bosom of the country. We look back at
+this ignorance, or infatuation, whichever it may be called, with wonder,
+knowing that the neglect of an eminence, whose difficulties, like those
+of Mount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Defiance, have been so greatly exaggerated, would, at the
+present time, prove fatal to the reputation of the engineer who had
+planned the works at their base, or to that of the general whose lot it
+was to defend them.</p>
+
+<p>The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of
+nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the
+scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health,
+or pleasure, or floats steadily towards his object on those artificial
+waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>
+who has dared to stake his political character on the hazardous issue,
+is not to suppose that his ancestors traversed those hills, or struggled
+with the same currents with equal facility. The transportation of a
+single heavy gun was often considered equal to a victory gained; if,
+happily, the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it
+from its necessary concomitant, the ammunition, as to render it no more
+than an useless tube of unwieldy iron.</p>
+
+<p>The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
+resolute Scotsman who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
+neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the
+plain, and caused them to be served with vigor and skill. Against this
+assault, the besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty
+preparations of a fortress in the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of
+his own service in it, that Major Heyward profited by a parley that had
+just been beaten, by repairing to the ramparts of one of the water
+bastions, to breathe the cool air from the lake, and to take a survey of
+the progress of the siege. He was alone, if the solitary sentinel who
+paced the mound be excepted; for the artillerists had hastened also to
+profit by the temporary suspension of their arduous duties. The evening
+was delightfully calm, and the light air from the limpid water fresh and
+soothing. It seemed as if, with the termination to the roar of artillery
+and the plunging of shot, nature had also seized the moment to assume
+her mildest and most captivating form. The sun poured down his parting
+glory on the scene, without the oppression of those fierce rays that
+belong to the climate and the season. The mountains looked green and
+fresh and lovely; tempered with the milder light, or softened in shadow,
+as thin vapors floated between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> them and the sun. The numerous islands
+rested on the bosom of the Horican, some low and sunken, as if imbedded
+in the waters, and others appearing to hover above the element, in
+little hillocks of green velvet; among which the fishermen of the
+beleaguering army peacefully rowed their skiffs, or floated at rest on
+the glassy mirror, in quiet pursuit of their employment.</p>
+
+<p>The scene was at once animated and still. All that pertained to nature
+was sweet, or simply grand; while those parts which depended on the
+temper and movements of man were lively and playful.</p>
+
+<p>Two little spotless flags were abroad, the one on a salient angle of the
+fort, and the other on the advanced battery of the besiegers; emblems of
+the truce which existed, not only to the acts, but it would seem, also,
+to the enmity of the combatants.</p>
+
+<p>Behind these, again, swung, heavily opening and closing in silken folds,
+the rival standards of England and France.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred gay and thoughtless young Frenchmen were drawing a net to the
+pebbly beach, within dangerous proximity to the sullen but silent cannon
+of the fort, while the eastern mountain was sending back the loud shouts
+and gay merriment that attended their sport. Some were rushing eagerly
+to enjoy the aquatic games of the lake, and others were already toiling
+their way up the neighboring hills, with the restless curiosity of their
+nation. To all these sports and pursuits, those of the enemy who watched
+the besieged, and the besieged themselves, were, however, merely the
+idle, though sympathizing spectators. Here and there a picket had,
+indeed, raised a song, or mingled in a dance, which had drawn the dusky
+savages around them, from their lairs in the forest. In short,
+everything wore rather the appearance of a day of pleasure, than of an
+hour stolen from the dangers and toil of a bloody and vindictive
+warfare.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan had stood in a musing attitude, contemplating this scene a few
+minutes, when his eyes were directed to the glacis in front of the
+sally-port already mentioned, by the sounds of approaching footsteps. He
+walked to an angle of the bastion, and beheld the scout advancing, under
+the custody of a French officer, to the body of the fort. The
+countenance of Hawkeye was haggard and careworn, and his air dejected,
+as though he felt the deepest degradation at having fallen into the
+power of his enemies. He was without his favorite weapon, and his arms
+were even bound behind him with thongs, made of the skin of a deer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> The
+arrival of flags, to cover the messengers of summons, had occurred so
+often of late, that when Heyward first threw his careless glance on this
+group, he expected to see another of the officers of the enemy, charged
+with a similar office; but the instant he recognized the tall person,
+and still sturdy, though downcast features of his friend the woodsman,
+he started with surprise, and turned to descend from the bastion into
+the bosom of the work.</p>
+
+<p>The sounds of other voices, however, caught his attention, and for a
+moment caused him to forget his purpose. At the inner angle of the mound
+he met the sisters, walking along the parapet in search, like himself,
+of air and relief from confinement. They had not met from that painful
+moment when he deserted them on the plain, only to assure their safety.
+He had parted from them worn with care, and jaded with fatigue; he now
+saw them refreshed and blooming, though timid and anxious. Under such an
+inducement, it will cause no surprise that the young man lost sight, for
+a time, of other objects in order to address them. He was, however,
+anticipated by the voice of the ingenuous and youthful Alice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! thou truant! thou recreant knight! he who abandons his damsels in
+the very lists!" she cried; "here have we been days, nay, ages,
+expecting you at our feet, imploring mercy and forgetfulness of your
+craven backsliding, or, I should rather say, back-running&mdash;for verily
+you fled in a manner that no stricken deer, as our worthy friend the
+scout would say, could equal!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know that Alice means our thanks and our blessings," added the
+graver and more thoughtful Cora. "In truth, we have a little wondered
+why you should so rigidly absent yourself from a place where the
+gratitude of the daughters might receive the support of a parent's
+thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father himself could tell you, that though absent from your
+presence, I have not been altogether forgetful of your safety," returned
+the young man; "the mastery of yonder village of huts," pointing to the
+neighboring entrenched camp, "has been keenly disputed; and he who holds
+it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My
+days and my nights have all been passed there since we separated,
+because I thought that duty called me thither. But," he added with an
+air of chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal,
+"had I been aware that what I then believed a soldier's conduct could so
+be construed, shame would have been added to the list of reasons."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>"Heyward!&mdash;Duncan!" exclaimed Alice, bending forward to read his
+half-averted countenance, until a lock of her golden hair rested on her
+flushed cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her
+eye; "did I think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would
+silence it forever, Cora can say, if Cora would, how justly we have
+prized your services, and how deep&mdash;I had almost said, how fervent&mdash;is
+our gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>"And will Cora attest the truth of this?" cried Duncan, suffering the
+cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure.
+"What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of
+the knight in the duty of a soldier?"</p>
+
+<p>Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face towards the water, as
+if looking on the sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes
+on the young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish
+that at once drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not well, dearest Miss Munro!" he exclaimed; "we have trifled
+while you are in suffering."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis nothing," she answered, refusing his offered support with feminine
+reserve. "That I cannot see the sunny side of the picture of life, like
+this artless but ardent enthusiast," she added, laying her hand lightly,
+but affectionately, on the arm of her sister, "is the penalty of
+experience, and, perhaps, the misfortune of my nature. See," she
+continued, as if determined to shake off infirmity, in a sense of duty;
+"look around you, Major Heyward, and tell me what a prospect is this for
+the daughter of a soldier whose greatest happiness is his honor and his
+military renown."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither ought nor shall be tarnished by circumstances over which he has
+had no control," Duncan warmly replied. "But your words recall me to my
+own duty. I go now to your gallant father, to hear his determination in
+matters of the last moment to the defence. God bless you in every
+fortune, noble&mdash;Cora&mdash;I may and must call you." She frankly gave him her
+hand, though her lip quivered, and her cheeks gradually became of an
+ashy paleness. "In every fortune, I know you will be an ornament and
+honor to your sex. Alice, adieu"&mdash;his tone changed from admiration to
+tenderness&mdash;"adieu, Alice; we shall soon meet again; as conquerors, I
+trust, and amid rejoicings!"</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for an answer from either, the young man threw himself
+down the grassy steps of the bastion, and moving rapidly across the
+parade, he was quickly in the presence of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> father. Munro was
+pacing his narrow apartment with a disturbed air and gigantic strides as
+Duncan entered.</p>
+
+<p>"You have anticipated my wishes, Major Heyward," he said; "I was about
+to request this favor."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to see, sir, that the messenger I so warmly recommended has
+returned in custody of the French! I hope there is no reason to distrust
+his fidelity?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fidelity of 'The Long Rifle' is well known to me," returned Munro,
+"and is above suspicion; though his usual good fortune seems, at last,
+to have failed. Montcalm has got him, and with the accursed politeness
+of his nation, he has sent him in with a doleful tale, of 'knowing how I
+valued the fellow, he could not think of retaining him.' A Jesuitical
+way, that, Major Duncan Heyward, of telling a man of his misfortunes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the general and his succor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did ye look to the south as ye entered, and could ye not see them?"
+said the old soldier, laughing bitterly. "Hoot! hoot! you're an
+impatient boy, sir, and cannot give the gentlemen leisure for their
+march!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming, then? The scout has said as much?"</p>
+
+<p>"When? and by what path? for the dunce has omitted to tell me this.
+There is a letter, it would seem, too; and that is the only agreeable
+part of the matter. For the customary attentions of your Marquis of
+Montcalm&mdash;I warrant me, Duncan, that he of Lothian would buy a dozen
+such marquisates&mdash;but, if the news of the letter were bad, the gentility
+of this French monsieur would certainly compel him to let us know it."</p>
+
+<p>"He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your
+'<i>bonhommie</i>,' I would venture, if the truth was known, the fellow's
+grandfather taught the noble science of dancing."</p>
+
+<p>"But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue: what
+verbal report does he make?"</p>
+
+<p>"O! sir, he is not wanting in natural organs, and he is free to tell all
+that he has seen and heard. The whole amount is this: there is a fort of
+his majesty's on the banks of the Hudson, called Edward, in honor of his
+gracious highness of York, you'll know; and it is well filled with armed
+men, as such a work should be."</p>
+
+<p>"But was there no movement, no signs of any intention to advance to our
+relief?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>"There were the morning and evening parades; and when one of the
+provincial loons&mdash;you'll know, Duncan, you're half a Scotsman
+yourself&mdash;when one of them dropped his powder over his porretch, if it
+touched the coals, it just burnt!" Then suddenly changing his bitter,
+ironical manner, to one more grave and thoughtful, he continued; "and
+yet there might, and must be, something in that letter which it would be
+well to know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Our decision should be speedy," said Duncan, gladly availing himself of
+this change of humor, to press the more important objects of their
+interview; "I cannot conceal from you, sir, that the camp will not be
+much longer tenable; and I am sorry to add, that things appear no better
+in the fort; more than half the guns are bursted."</p>
+
+<p>"And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the
+lake; some have been rusting in the woods since the discovery of the
+country; and some were never guns at all&mdash;mere privateersmen's
+playthings! Do you think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst
+of a wilderness, three thousand miles from Great Britain!"</p>
+
+<p>"The walls are crumbling about our ears, and provisions begin to fail
+us," continued Heyward, without regarding this new burst of indignation;
+"even the men show signs of discontent and alarm."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Heyward," said Munro, turning to his youthful associate with the
+dignity of his years and superior rank; "I should have served his
+majesty for half a century, and earned these gray hairs, in vain, were I
+ignorant of all you say, and of the pressing nature of our
+circumstances; still, there is everything due to the honor of the king's
+arms and something to ourselves. While there is hope of succor, this
+fortress will I defend, though it be to be done with pebbles gathered on
+the lake shore. It is a sight of the letter, therefore, that we want,
+that we may know the intentions of the man the Earl of Loudon has left
+among us as his substitute."</p>
+
+<p>"And can I be of service in the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you can; the Marquis of Montcalm has, in addition to his other
+civilities, invited me to a personal interview between the works and his
+own camp; in order, as he says, to impart some additional information.
+Now, I think it would not be wise to show any undue solicitude to meet
+him, and I would employ you, an officer of rank, as my substitute; for
+it would but ill comport with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the honor of Scotland to let it be said
+one of her gentlemen was outdone in civility by a native of any other
+country on earth."</p>
+
+<p>Without assuming the supererogatory task of entering into a discussion
+of the comparative merits of national courtesy, Duncan cheerfully
+assented to supply the place of the veteran in the approaching
+interview. A long and confidential communication now succeeded, during
+which the young man received some additional insight into his duty, from
+the experience and native acuteness of his commander, and then the
+former took his leave.</p>
+
+<p>As Duncan could only act as the representative of the commandant of the
+fort, the ceremonies which should have accompanied a meeting between the
+heads of the adverse forces were of course dispensed with. The truce
+still existed, and with a roll and beat of the drum, and covered by a
+little white flag, Duncan left the sally-port, within ten minutes after
+his instructions were ended. He was received by the French officer in
+advance with the usual formalities, and immediately accompanied to a
+distant marquee of the renowned soldier who led the forces of France.</p>
+
+<p>The general of the enemy received the youthful messenger, surrounded by
+his principal officers, and by a swarthy band of the native chiefs, who
+had followed him to the field, with the warriors of their several
+tribes. Heyward paused short, when, in glancing his eyes rapidly over
+the dark group of the latter, he beheld the malignant countenance of
+Magua, regarding him with the calm but sullen attention which marked the
+expression of that subtle savage. A slight exclamation of surprise even
+burst from the lips of the young man; but instantly recollecting his
+errand, and the presence in which he stood, he suppressed every
+appearance of emotion, and turned to the hostile leader, who had already
+advanced a step to receive him.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis of Montcalm was, at the period of which we write, in the
+flower of his age, and, it may be added, in the zenith of his fortunes.
+But, even in that enviable situation, he was affable, and distinguished
+as much for his attention to the forms of courtesy, as for that
+chivalrous courage which, only two short years afterwards, induced him
+to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham. Duncan, in turning his
+eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them to rest with
+pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble military
+air, of the French general.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>"Monsieur," said the latter, "j'ai beaucoup de plaisir &agrave;&mdash;bah!&mdash;o&ugrave; est
+cet interpr&ecirc;te?"</p>
+
+<p>"Je crois, monsieur, qu'il ne sera pas n&eacute;cessaire," Heyward modestly
+replied; "je parle un peu Fran&ccedil;ais."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! j'en suis bien aise," said Montcalm, taking Duncan familiarly by
+the arm, and leading him deep into the marquee, a little out of
+ear-shot; "je d&eacute;teste ces fripons-l&agrave;; on ne sait jamais sur quel pi&eacute; on
+est avec eux. Eh, bien! monsieur," he continued, still speaking in
+French; "though I should have been proud of receiving your commandant, I
+am very happy that he has seen proper to employ an officer so
+distinguished, and who, I am sure, is so amiable, as yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan bowed low, pleased with the compliment, in spite of a most heroic
+determination to suffer no artifice to allure him into forgetfulness of
+the interest of his prince; and Montcalm, after a pause of a moment, as
+if to recollect his thoughts, proceeded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your commandant is a brave man, and well qualified to repel my assault.
+Mais, monsieur, is it not time to begin to take more counsel of
+humanity, and less of your courage? The one as strongly characterizes
+the hero as the other."</p>
+
+<p>"We consider the qualities as inseparable," returned Duncan, smiling;
+"but while we find in the vigor of your excellency every motive to
+stimulate the one, we can, as yet, see no particular call for the
+exercise of the other."</p>
+
+<p>Montcalm, in his turn, slightly bowed, but it was with the air of a man
+too practised to remember the language of flattery. After musing a
+moment, he added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible my glasses have deceived me, and that your works resist
+our cannon better than I had supposed. You know our force?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our accounts vary," said Duncan, carelessly; "the highest, however, has
+not exceeded twenty thousand men."</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman bit his lip, and fastened his eyes keenly on the other as
+if to read his thoughts; then, with a readiness peculiar to himself, he
+continued, as if assenting to the truth of an enumeration which quite
+doubled his army,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a poor compliment to the vigilance of us soldiers, monsieur,
+that, do what we will, we never can conceal our numbers. If it were to
+be done at all, one would believe it might succeed in these woods.
+Though you think it too soon to listen to the calls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> of humanity," he
+added, smiling archly, "I may be permitted to believe that gallantry is
+not forgotten by one so young as yourself. The daughters of the
+commandant, I learn, have passed into the fort since it was invested?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, monsieur; but, so far from weakening our efforts, they set
+us an example of courage in their own fortitude. Were nothing but
+resolution necessary to repel so accomplished a soldier as M. de
+Montcalm, I would gladly trust the defence of William Henry to the elder
+of those ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"We have a wise ordinance in our Salique laws, which says, 'The crown of
+France shall never degrade the lance to the distaff,'" said Montcalm,
+dryly, and with a little hauteur; but instantly adding, with his former
+frank and easy air, "as all the nobler qualities are hereditary, I can
+easily credit you; though, as I said before, courage has its limits, and
+humanity must not be forgotten. I trust, monsieur, you come authorized
+to treat for the surrender of the place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has your excellency found our defence so feeble as to believe the
+measure necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be sorry to have the defence protracted in such a manner as to
+irritate my red friends there," continued Montcalm, glancing his eyes at
+the group of grave and attentive Indians, without attending to the
+other's question; "I find it difficult, even now, to limit them to the
+usages of war."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward was silent; for a painful recollection of the dangers he had so
+recently escaped came over his mind, and recalled the images of those
+defenceless beings who had shared in all his sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>"Ces messieurs-l&agrave;," said Montcalm, following up the advantage which he
+conceived he had gained, "are most formidable when baffled: and it is
+unnecessary to tell you with what difficulty they are restrained in
+their anger. Eh bien, monsieur! shall we speak of the terms?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear your excellency has been deceived as to the strength of William
+Henry, and the resources of its garrison!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not sat down before Quebec, but an earthen work, that is
+defended by twenty-three hundred gallant men," was the laconic reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Our mounds are earthen, certainly&mdash;nor are they seated on the rocks of
+Cape Diamond; but they stand on that shore which proved so destructive
+to Dieskau and his army. There is also a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> powerful force within a few
+hours' march of us, which we account upon as part of our means."</p>
+
+<p>"Some six or eight thousand men," returned Montcalm, with much apparent
+indifference, "whom their leader wisely judges to be safer in their
+works than in the field."</p>
+
+<p>It was now Heyward's turn to bite his lip with vexation, as the other so
+coolly alluded to a force which the young man knew to be overrated. Both
+mused a little while in silence, when Montcalm renewed the conversation,
+in a way that showed he believed the visit of his guest was solely to
+propose terms of capitulation. On the other hand, Heyward began to throw
+sundry inducements in the way of the French general, to betray the
+discoveries he had made through the intercepted letter. The artifice of
+neither, however, succeeded; and after a protracted and fruitless
+interview, Duncan took his leave, favorably impressed with an opinion of
+the courtesy and talents of the enemy's captain, but as ignorant of what
+he came to learn as when he arrived. Montcalm followed him as far as the
+entrance of the marquee, renewing his invitations to the commandant of
+the fort to give him an immediate meeting in the open ground, between
+the two armies.</p>
+
+<p>There they separated, and Duncan returned to the advanced post of the
+French, accompanied as before; whence he instantly proceeded to the
+fort, and to the quarters of his own commander.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"<i>Edg.</i>&mdash;Before you fight the battle, ope this letter."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>King Lear.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Major Heyward</span> found Munro attended only by his daughters. Alice sat upon
+his knee, parting the gray hairs on the forehead of the old man with her
+delicate fingers; and, whenever he affected to frown on her trifling,
+appeasing his assumed anger by pressing her ruby lips fondly on his
+wrinkled brow. Cora was seated nigh them, a calm and amused looker-on;
+regarding the wayward movements of her more youthful sister, with that
+species of maternal fondness which characterized her love for Alice. Not
+only the dangers through which they had passed, but those which still
+impended above them, appeared to be momentarily forgotten, in the
+soothing indulgence of such a family meeting. It seemed as if they had
+profited by the short truce, to devote an instant to the purest and best
+affections: the daughters forgetting their fears, and the veteran his
+cares, in the security of the moment. Of this scene, Duncan, who in his
+eagerness to report his arrival had entered unannounced, stood many
+moments an unobserved and a delighted spectator. But the quick and
+dancing eyes of Alice soon caught a glimpse of his figure reflected from
+a glass, and she sprang blushing from her father's knee, exclaiming
+aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Major Heyward!"</p>
+
+<p>"What of the lad?" demanded the father; "I have sent him to crack a
+little with the Frenchman. Ha! sir, you are young, and you're nimble!
+Away with you, ye baggage; as if there were not troubles enough for a
+soldier, without having his camp filled with such prattling hussies as
+yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>Alice laughingly followed her sister, who instantly led the way from an
+apartment where she perceived their presence was no longer desirable.
+Munro, instead of demanding the result of the young man's mission, paced
+the room for a few moments, with his hands behind his back, and his head
+inclined towards the floor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> like a man lost in thought. At length he
+raised his eyes, glistening with a father's fondness, and exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They are a pair of excellent girls, Heyward, and such as any one may
+boast of."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not now to learn my opinion of your daughters, Colonel Munro."</p>
+
+<p>"True, lad, true," interrupted the impatient old man; "you were about
+opening your mind more fully on that matter the day you got in; but I
+did not think it becoming in an old soldier to be talking of nuptial
+blessings and wedding jokes when the enemies of his king were likely to
+be unbidden guests at the feast! But I was wrong, Duncan, boy, I was
+wrong there; and I am now ready to hear what you have to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Notwithstanding the pleasure your assurance gives me, dear sir, I have
+just now a message from Montcalm&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let the Frenchman and all his host go to the devil, sir?" exclaimed the
+hasty veteran. "He is not yet master of William Henry, nor shall he ever
+be, provided Webb proves himself the man he should. No, sir! thank
+Heaven, we are not yet in such a strait that it can be said Munro is too
+much pressed to discharge the little domestic duties of his own family.
+Your mother was the only child of my bosom friend, Duncan; and I'll just
+give you a hearing, though all the knights of St. Louis were in a body
+at the sally-port, with the French saint at their head, craving to speak
+a word under favor. A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which
+can be bought with sugar-hogsheads! and then your two-penny marquisates!
+The thistle is the order for dignity and antiquity; the veritable <i>nemo
+me impune lacessit</i> of chivalry! Ye had ancestors in that degree,
+Duncan, and they were an ornament to the nobles of Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, who perceived that his superior took a malicious pleasure in
+exhibiting his contempt for the message of the French general, was fain
+to humor a spleen that he knew would be short-lived; he therefore
+replied with as much indifference as he could assume on such a
+subject,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My request, as you know, sir, went so far as to presume to the honor of
+being your son."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, boy, you found words to make yourself very plainly comprehended.
+But, let me ask ye, sir, have you been as intelligible to the girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honor, no," exclaimed Duncan, warmly; "there would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> have been an
+abuse of a confided trust, had I taken advantage of my situation for
+such a purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Your notions are those of a gentleman, Major Heyward, and well enough
+in their place. But Cora Munro is a maiden too discreet, and of a mind
+too elevated and improved, to need the guardianship even of a father."</p>
+
+<p>"Cora!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;Cora! we are talking of your pretensions to Miss Munro, are we not,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;I was not conscious of having mentioned her name," said Duncan,
+stammering.</p>
+
+<p>"And to marry whom, then, did you wish my consent, Major Heyward?"
+demanded the old soldier, erecting himself in the dignity of offended
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"You have another, and not less lovely child."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice!" exclaimed the father, in an astonishment equal to that with
+which Duncan had just repeated the name of her sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Such was the direction of my wishes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The young man awaited in silence the result of the extraordinary effect
+produced by a communication which, as it now appeared, was so
+unexpected. For several minutes Munro paced the chamber with long and
+rapid strides, his rigid features working convulsively, and every
+faculty seemingly absorbed in the musings of his own mind. At length, he
+paused directly in front of Heyward, and riveting his eyes upon those of
+the other, he said, with a lip that quivered violently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Duncan Heyward, I have loved you for the sake of him whose blood is in
+your veins; I have loved you for your own good qualities; and I have
+loved you, because I thought you would contribute to the happiness of my
+child. But all this love would turn to hatred, were I assured that what
+I so much apprehend is true."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid that any act or thought of mine should lead to such a
+change!" exclaimed the young man, whose eye never quailed under the
+penetrating look it encountered. Without adverting the impossibility of
+the other's comprehending those feelings which were hid in his own
+bosom, Munro suffered himself to be appeased by the unaltered
+countenance he met, and with a voice sensibly softened, he continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You would be my son, Duncan, and you're ignorant of the history of the
+man you wish to call your father. Sit ye down,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> young man, and I will
+open to you the wounds of a seared heart, in as few words as may be
+suitable."</p>
+
+<p>By this time, the message of Montcalm was as much forgotten by him who
+bore it as by the man for whose ears it was intended. Each drew a chair,
+and while the veteran communed a few moments with his own thoughts,
+apparently in sadness, the youth suppressed his impatience in a look and
+attitude of respectful attention. At length the former spoke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You'll know, already, Major Heyward, that my family was both ancient
+and honorable," commenced the Scotsman; "though it might not altogether
+be endowed with that amount of wealth that should correspond with its
+degree. I was, may be, such an one as yourself when I plighted my faith
+to Alice Graham, the only child of a neighboring laird of some estate.
+But the connection was disagreeable to her father, on more accounts than
+my poverty. I did therefore what an honest man should&mdash;restored the
+maiden her troth, and departed the country in the service of my king. I
+had seen many regions, and had shed much blood in different lands,
+before duty called me to the islands of the West Indies. There it was my
+lot to form a connection with one who in time became my wife, and the
+mother of Cora. She was the daughter of a gentleman of those isles, by a
+lady whose misfortune it was, if you will," said the old man, proudly,
+"to be descended, remotely, from that unfortunate class who are so
+basely enslaved to administer to the wants of a luxurious people. Ay,
+sir, that is a curse entailed on Scotland by her unnatural union with a
+foreign and trading people. But could I find a man among them who would
+dare to reflect on my child, he should feel the weight of a father's
+anger! Ha! Major Heyward, you are yourself born at the south, where
+these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis most unfortunately true, sir," said Duncan, unable any longer to
+prevent his eyes from sinking to the floor in embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"And you cast it on my child as a reproach! You scorn to mingle the
+blood of the Heywards with one so degraded&mdash;lovely and virtuous though
+she be?" fiercely demanded the jealous parent.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!" returned
+Duncan, at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply
+rooted as if it had been ingrafted in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> his nature. "The sweetness, the
+beauty, the witchery of your younger daughter, Colonel Munro, might
+explain my motives, without imputing to me this injustice."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye are right, sir," returned the old man, again changing his tones to
+those of gentleness, or rather softness; "the girl is the image of what
+her mother was at her years, and before she had become acquainted with
+grief. When death deprived me of my wife I returned to Scotland,
+enriched by the marriage; and would you think it, Duncan! The suffering
+angel had remained in the heartless state of celibacy twenty long years,
+and that for the sake of a man who could forget her! She did more, sir;
+she over-looked my want of faith, and all difficulties being now
+removed, she took me for her husband."</p>
+
+<p>"And became the mother of Alice?" exclaimed Duncan, with an eagerness
+that might have proved dangerous at a moment when the thoughts of Munro
+were less occupied than at present.</p>
+
+<p>"She did, indeed," said the old man, "and dearly did she pay for the
+blessing she bestowed. But she is a saint in heaven, sir; and it ill
+becomes one whose foot rests on the grave to mourn a lot so blessed. I
+had her but a single year, though; a short term of happiness for one who
+had seen her youth fade in hopeless pining."</p>
+
+<p>There was something so commanding in the distress of the old man, that
+Heyward did not dare to venture a syllable of consolation. Munro sat
+utterly unconscious of the other's presence, his features exposed and
+working with the anguish of his regrets, while heavy tears fell from his
+eyes, and rolled unheeded from his cheeks to the floor. At length he
+moved, as if suddenly recovering his recollection; when he arose, and
+taking a single turn across the room, he approached his companion with
+an air of military grandeur, and demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Have you not, Major Heyward, some communication that I should hear from
+the Marquis de Montcalm?"</p>
+
+<p>Duncan started, in his turn, and immediately commenced, in an
+embarrassed voice, the half-forgotten message. It is unnecessary to
+dwell upon the evasive, though polite manner, with which the French
+general had eluded every attempt of Heyward to worm from him the purport
+of the communication he had proposed making, or on the decided, though
+still polished message, by which he now gave his enemy to understand,
+that unless he chose to receive it in person, he should not receive it
+at all. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> Munro listened to the detail of Duncan, the excited feelings
+of the father gradually gave way before the obligations of his station,
+and when the other was done, he saw before him nothing but the veteran,
+swelling with the wounded feelings of a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"You have said enough, Major Heyward!" exclaimed the angry old man:
+"enough to make a volume of commentary on French civility. Here has this
+gentleman invited me to a conference, and when I send him a capable
+substitute, for ye're all that, Duncan, though your years are but few,
+he answers me with a riddle."</p>
+
+<p>"He may have thought less favorably of the substitute, my dear sir; and
+you will remember that the invitation, which he now repeats, was to the
+commandant of the works, and not to his second."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, is not a substitute clothed with all the power and dignity
+of him who grants the commission? He wishes to confer with Munro! Faith,
+sir, I have much inclination to indulge the man, if it should only be to
+let him behold the firm countenance we maintain in spite of his numbers
+and his summons. There might be no bad policy in such a stroke, young
+man."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who believed it of the last importance that they should speedily
+come at the contents of the letter borne by the scout, gladly encouraged
+this idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt, he could gather no confidence by witnessing our
+indifference," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You never said truer word. I could wish, sir, that he would visit the
+works in open day, and in the form of a storming party: that is the
+least failing method of proving the countenance of an enemy, and would
+be far preferable to the battering system he has chosen. The beauty and
+manliness of warfare has been much deformed, Major Heyward, by the arts
+of your Monsieur Vauban. Our ancestors were far above such scientific
+cowardice!"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be very true, sir; but we are now obliged to repel art by art.
+What is your pleasure in the matter of the interview?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will meet the Frenchman, and that without fear or delay; promptly;
+sir, as becomes a servant of my royal master. Go, Major Heyward, and
+give them a flourish of the music; and send out a messenger to let them
+know who is coming. We will follow with a small guard, for such respect
+is due to one who holds the honor of his king in keeping; and harkee,
+Duncan," he added, in a half whisper, though they were alone, "it may be
+prudent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> have some aid at hand, in case there should be treachery at
+the bottom of it all."</p>
+
+<p>The young man availed himself of this order to quit the apartment; and,
+as the day was fast coming to a close, he hastened, without delay, to
+make the necessary arrangements. A very few minutes only were necessary
+to parade a few files, and to despatch an orderly with a flag to
+announce the approach of the commandant of the fort. When Duncan had
+done both these, he led the guard to the sally-port, near which he found
+his superior ready, waiting his appearance. As soon as the usual
+ceremonials of a military departure were observed, the veteran and his
+more youthful companion left the fortress, attended by the escort.</p>
+
+<p>They had proceeded only a hundred yards from the works, when the little
+array which attended the French general to the conference, was seen
+issuing from the hollow way, which formed the bed of a brook that ran
+between the batteries of the besiegers and the fort. From the moment
+that Munro left his own works to appear in front of his enemies, his air
+had been grand, and his step and countenance highly military. The
+instant he caught a glimpse of the white plume that waved in the hat of
+Montcalm, his eye lighted, and age no longer appeared to possess any
+influence over his vast and still muscular person.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak to the boys to be watchful, sir," he said, in an undertone, to
+Duncan; "and to look well to their flints and steel, for one is never
+safe with a servant of these Louises; at the same time, we will show
+them the front of men in deep security. Ye'll understand me, Major
+Heyward!"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by the clamor of a drum from the approaching
+Frenchmen, which was immediately answered, when each party pushed an
+orderly in advance, bearing a white flag, and the wary Scotsman halted,
+with his guard close at his back. As soon as this slight salutation had
+passed, Montcalm moved towards them with a quick but graceful step,
+baring his head to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly
+to the earth in courtesy. If the air of Munro was more commanding and
+manly, it wanted both the ease and insinuating polish of that of the
+Frenchman. Neither spoke for a few moments, each regarding the other
+with curious and interested eyes. Then, as became his superior rank and
+the nature of the interview, Montcalm broke the silence. After uttering
+the usual words of greeting, he turned to Duncan, and continued with a
+smile of recognition, speaking always in French,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_MEETING_OF_THE_GENERALS" id="THE_MEETING_OF_THE_GENERALS"></a>
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="500" height="630" alt="THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm<br /> moved towards
+them with a quick but graceful step,<br /> baring his head to the veteran, and
+dropping his spotless<br /> plume nearly to the earth in courtesy</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p><p>"I am rejoiced, monsieur, that you have given us the pleasure of your
+company on this occasion. There will be no necessity to employ an
+ordinary interpreter; for, in your hands, I feel the same security as if
+I spoke your language myself."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan acknowledged the compliment, when Montcalm, turning to his guard,
+which, in imitation of that of their enemies, pressed close upon him,
+continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"En arri&egrave;re, mes enfans&mdash;il fait chaud; retirez-vous un peu."</p>
+
+<p>Before Major Heyward would imitate this proof of confidence, he glanced
+his eyes around the plain, and beheld with uneasiness the numerous dusky
+groups of savages, who looked out from the margin of the surrounding
+woods, curious spectators of the interview.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur de Montcalm will readily acknowledge the difference in our
+situation," he said, with some embarrassment, pointing at the same time
+towards those dangerous foes, who were to be seen in almost every
+direction. "Were we to dismiss our guard, we should stand here at the
+mercy of our enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you have the plighted faith of <i>un gentilhomme Fran&ccedil;ais</i>; for
+your safety," returned Montcalm, laying his hand impressively on his
+heart; "it should suffice."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall. Fall back," Duncan added to the officer who led the escort;
+"fall back, sir, beyond hearing, and wait for orders."</p>
+
+<p>Munro witnessed this movement with manifest uneasiness; nor did he fail
+to demand an instant explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not our interest, sir, to betray no distrust?" retorted Duncan.
+"Monsieur de Montcalm pledges his word for our safety, and I have
+ordered the men to withdraw a little, in order to prove how much we
+depend on his assurance."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be all right, sir, but I have no overweening reliance on the
+faith of these marquesses, or marquis, as they call themselves. Their
+patents of nobility are too common to be certain that they bear the seal
+of true honor."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget, dear sir, that we confer with an officer distinguished
+alike in Europe and America for his deeds. From a soldier of his
+reputation we can have nothing to apprehend."</p>
+
+<p>The old man made a gesture of resignation, though his rigid features
+still betrayed his obstinate adherence to a distrust, which he derived
+from a sort of hereditary contempt of his enemy, rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> than from any
+present signs which might warrant so uncharitable a feeling. Montcalm
+waited patiently until this little dialogue in demi-voice was ended,
+when he drew nigher, and opened the subject of their conference.</p>
+
+<p>"I have solicited this interview from your superior, monsieur," he said,
+"because I believe he will allow himself to be persuaded that he has
+already done everything which is necessary for the honor of his prince,
+and will not listen to the admonitions of humanity. I will forever bear
+testimony that his resistance has been gallant, and was continued as
+long as there was hope."</p>
+
+<p>When this opening was translated to Munro, he answered with dignity, but
+with sufficient courtesy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"However I may prize such testimony from Monsieur Montcalm, it will be
+more valuable when it shall be better merited."</p>
+
+<p>The French general smiled, as Duncan gave him the purport of this reply,
+and observed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is now so freely accorded to approved courage, may be refused to
+useless obstinacy. Monsieur would wish to see my camp, and witness, for
+himself, our numbers, and the impossibility of his resisting them, with
+success?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know that the king of France is well served," returned the unmoved
+Scotsman, as soon as Duncan ended his translation; "but my own royal
+master has as many and as faithful troops."</p>
+
+<p>"Though not at hand, fortunately for us," said Montcalm, without
+waiting, in his ardor, for the interpreter. "There is a destiny in war,
+to which a brave man knows how to submit, with the same courage that he
+faces his foes."</p>
+
+<p>"Had I been conscious that Monsieur Montcalm was master of the English,
+I should have spared myself the trouble of so awkward a translation,"
+said the vexed Duncan, dryly; remembering instantly his recent by-play
+with Munro.</p>
+
+<p>"Your pardon, monsieur," rejoined the Frenchman, suffering a slight
+color to appear on his dark cheek. "There is a vast difference between
+understanding and speaking a foreign tongue; you will, therefore, please
+to assist me still." Then after a short pause, he added, "These hills
+afford us every opportunity of reconnoitring your works, messieurs, and
+I am possibly as well acquainted with their weak condition as you can be
+yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask the French general if his glasses can reach to the Hudson," said
+Munro, proudly; "and if he knows when and where to expect the army of
+Webb."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>"Let General Webb be his own interpreter," returned the politic
+Montcalm, suddenly extending an open letter towards Munro, as he spoke;
+"you will there learn, monsieur, that his movements are not likely to
+prove embarrassing to my army."</p>
+
+<p>The veteran seized the offered paper, without waiting for Duncan to
+translate the speech, and with an eagerness that betrayed how important
+he deemed its contents. As his eye passed hastily over the words, his
+countenance changed from its look of military pride to one of deep
+chagrin: his lip began to quiver; and, suffering the paper to fall from
+his hand, his head dropped upon his chest, like that of a man whose
+hopes were withered at a single blow. Duncan caught the letter from the
+ground, and without apology for the liberty he took, he read at a glance
+its cruel purport. Their common superior, so far from encouraging them
+to resist, advised a speedy surrender, urging in the plainest language
+as a reason, the utter impossibility of his sending a single man to
+their rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is no deception!" exclaimed Duncan, examining the billet both
+inside and out; "this is the signature of Webb, and must be the captured
+letter."</p>
+
+<p>"The man has betrayed me!" Munro at length bitterly exclaimed: "he has
+brought dishonor to the door of one where disgrace was never before
+known to dwell, and shame has he heaped heavily on my gray hairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Say not so," cried Duncan; "we are yet masters of the fort, and of our
+honor. Let us then sell our lives at such a rate as shall make our
+enemies believe the purchase too dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, I thank thee," exclaimed the old man, rousing himself from his
+stupor; "you have, for once, reminded Munro of his duty. We will go
+back, and dig our graves behind those ramparts."</p>
+
+<p>"Messieurs," said Montcalm, advancing towards them a step, in generous
+interest, "you little know Louis de St. V&eacute;ran, if you believe him
+capable of profiting by this letter to humble brave men, or to build up
+a dishonest reputation for himself. Listen to my terms before you leave
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"What says the Frenchman?" demanded the veteran, sternly; "does he make
+a merit of having captured a scout, with a note from headquarters? Sir,
+he had better raise this siege, to go and sit down before Edward if he
+wishes to frighten his enemy with words."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>Duncan explained the other's meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur de Montcalm, we will hear you," the veteran added, more calmly,
+as Duncan ended.</p>
+
+<p>"To retain the fort is now impossible," said his liberal enemy; "it is
+necessary to the interests of my master that it should be destroyed;
+but, as for yourselves, and your brave comrades, there is no privilege
+dear to a soldier that shall be denied."</p>
+
+<p>"Our colors?" demanded Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Carry them to England, and show them to your king."</p>
+
+<p>"Our arms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep them; none can use them better."</p>
+
+<p>"Our march; the surrender of the place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall all be done in a way most honorable to yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan now turned to explain these proposals to his commander, who heard
+him with amazement, and a sensibility that was deeply touched by such
+unusual and unexpected generosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Go you, Duncan," he said; "go with this marquess, as indeed marquess he
+should be; go to his marquee and arrange it all. I have lived to see two
+things in my old age, that never did I expect to behold. An Englishman
+afraid to support a friend, and a Frenchman too honest to profit by his
+advantage."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the veteran again dropped his head to his chest, and returned
+slowly towards the fort, exhibiting, by the dejection of his air, to the
+anxious garrison, a harbinger of evil tidings.</p>
+
+<p>From the shock of this unexpected blow the haughty feelings of Munro
+never recovered; but from that moment there commenced a change in his
+determined character, which accompanied him to a speedy grave. Duncan
+remained to settle the terms of the capitulation. He was seen to
+re-enter the works during the first watches of the night, and
+immediately after a private conference with the commandant, to leave
+them again, It was then openly announced, that hostilities must
+cease&mdash;Munro having signed a treaty, by which the place was to be
+yielded to the enemy, with the morning; the garrison to retain their
+arms, their colors, and their baggage, and consequently, according to
+military opinion, their honor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.<br />
+The web is wove. The work is done."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Gray.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> hostile armies, which lay in the wilds of the Horican, passed the
+night of the 9th of August, 1757, much in the manner they would had they
+encountered on the fairest fields of Europe. While the conquered were
+still, sullen, and dejected, the victors triumphed. But there are limits
+alike to grief and joy; and long before the watches of the morning came,
+the stillness of those boundless woods was only broken by a gay call
+from some exulting young Frenchman of the advanced pickets, or a
+menacing challenge from the fort, which sternly forbade the approach of
+any hostile footsteps before the stipulated moment. Even these
+occasional threatening sounds ceased to be heard in that dull hour which
+precedes the day, at which period a listener might have sought in vain
+any evidence of the presence of those armed powers that then slumbered
+on the shores of the "holy lake."</p>
+
+<p>It was during these moments of deep silence, that the canvas which
+concealed the entrance to a spacious marquee in the French encampment
+was shoved aside, and a man issued from beneath the drapery into the
+open air. He was enveloped in a cloak that might have been intended as a
+protection from the chilling damps of the woods, but which served
+equally well as a mantle, to conceal his person. He was permitted to
+pass the grenadier, who watched over the slumbers of the French
+commander, without interruption, the man making the usual salute which
+betokens military deference, as the other passed swiftly through the
+little city of tents, in the direction of William Henry. Whenever this
+unknown individual encountered one of the numberless sentinels who
+crossed his path, his answer was prompt, and as it appeared
+satisfactory; for he was uniformly allowed to proceed, without further
+interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of such repeated, but brief interruptions, he had
+moved, silently, from the centre of the camp, to its most advanced
+outposts, when he drew nigh the soldier who held his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> watch nearest to
+the works of the enemy. As he approached he was received with the usual
+challenge,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Qui vive?"</p>
+
+<p>"France," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Le mot d'ordre?"</p>
+
+<p>"La victoire," said the other, drawing so nigh as to be heard in a loud
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"C'est bien," returned the sentinel, throwing his musket from the charge
+to his shoulder; "vous vous promenez bien matin, monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>"Il est n&eacute;cessaire d'&ecirc;tre vigilant, mon enfant," the other observed,
+dropping a fold of his cloak, and looking the soldier close in the face,
+as he passed him, still continuing his way towards the British
+fortification. The man started; his arms rattled heavily, as he threw
+them forward, in the lowest and most respectful salute; and when he had
+again recovered his piece, he turned to walk his post, muttering between
+his teeth,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Il faut &ecirc;tre vigilant, en v&eacute;rit&eacute;! je crois que nous avons l&agrave;, un
+caporal qui ne dort jamais!"</p>
+
+<p>The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped
+the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause until he had
+reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the
+western water bastion of the fort. The light of an obscure moon was just
+sufficient to render objects, though dim, perceptible in their outlines.
+He, therefore, took the precaution to place himself against the trunk of
+a tree, where he leaned for many minutes, and seemed to contemplate the
+dark and silent mounds of the English works in profound attention. His
+gaze at the ramparts was not that of a curious or idle spectator; but
+his looks wandered from point to point, denoting his knowledge of
+military usages, and betraying that his search was not unaccompanied by
+distrust. At length he appeared satisfied; and having cast his eyes
+impatiently upwards towards the summit of the eastern mountain, as if
+anticipating the approach of the morning, he was in the act of turning
+on his footsteps, when a light sound on the nearest angle of the bastion
+caught his ear, and induced him to remain.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a figure was seen to approach the edge of the rampart, where
+it stood, apparently contemplating in its turn the distant tents of the
+French encampment. Its head was then turned towards the east, as though
+equally anxious for the appearance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of light, when the form leaned
+against the mound, and seemed to gaze upon the glassy expanse of the
+waters, which, like a submarine firmament, glittered with its thousand
+mimic stars. The melancholy air, the hour, together with the vast frame
+of the man who thus leaned, in musing, against the English ramparts,
+left no doubt as to his person, in the mind of his observant spectator.
+Delicacy, no less than prudence, now urged him to retire; and he had
+moved cautiously round the body of the tree for that purpose, when
+another sound drew his attention, and once more arrested his footsteps.
+It was a low and almost inaudible movement of the water, and was
+succeeded by a grating of pebbles one against the other. In a moment he
+saw a dark form rise, as it were out of the lake, and steal without
+further noise to the land, within a few feet of the place where he
+himself stood. A rifle next slowly rose between his eyes and the watery
+mirror; but before it could be discharged his own hand was on the lock.</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed the savage, whose treacherous aim was so singularly
+and so unexpectedly interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>Without making any reply, the French officer laid his hand on the
+shoulder of the Indian, and led him in profound silence to a distance
+from the spot, where their subsequent dialogue might have proved
+dangerous, and where it seemed that one of them, at least, sought a
+victim. Then, throwing open his cloak, so as to expose his uniform and
+the cross of St. Louis which was suspended at his breast, Montcalm
+sternly demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What means this! Does not my son know that the hatchet is buried
+between the English and his Canadian Father?"</p>
+
+<p>"What can the Hurons do?" returned the savage, speaking also, though
+imperfectly, in the French language. "Not a warrior has a scalp, and the
+pale-faces make friends!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Le Renard Subtil! Methinks this is an excess of zeal for a friend
+who was so late an enemy! How many suns have set since Le Renard struck
+the war-post of the English?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is that sun!" demanded the sullen savage. "Behind the hill; and
+it is dark and cold. But when he comes again, it will be bright and
+warm. Le Subtil is the sun of his tribe. There have been clouds, and
+many mountains between him and his nation; but now he shines, and it is
+a clear sky!"</p>
+
+<p>"That Le Renard has power with his people, I well know," said Montcalm;
+"for yesterday he hunted for their scalps, and to-day they hear him at
+the council-fire."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p><p>"Magua is a great chief."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him prove it, by teaching his nation how to conduct itself towards
+our new friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did the chief of the Canadas bring his young men into the woods,
+and fire his cannon at the earthen house?" demanded the subtle Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"To subdue it. My master owns the land, and your father has been ordered
+to drive off these English squatters. They have consented to go, and now
+he calls them enemies no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis well. Magua took the hatchet to color it with blood. It is now
+bright; when it is red, it shall be buried."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magua is pledged not to sully the lilies of France. The enemies of
+the great king across the salt lake are his enemies; his friends, the
+friends of the Hurons."</p>
+
+<p>"Friends!" repeated the Indian, in scorn. "Let his father give Magua a
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>Montcalm, who felt that his influence over the warlike tribes he had
+gathered was to be maintained by concession rather than by power,
+complied reluctantly with the other's request. The savage placed the
+finger of the French commander on a deep scar in his bosom, and then
+exultingly demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Does my father know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"What warrior does not? 'tis where a leaden bullet has cut."</p>
+
+<p>"And this?" continued the Indian, who had turned his naked back to the
+other, his body being without its usual calico mantle.</p>
+
+<p>"This!&mdash;my son has been sadly injured, here; who has done this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magua slept hard in the English wigwams, and the sticks have left their
+mark," returned the savage, with a hollow laugh, which did not conceal
+the fierce temper that nearly choked him. Then recollecting himself,
+with sudden and native dignity, he added, "Go; teach your young men, it
+is peace. Le Renard Subtil knows how to speak to a Huron warrior."</p>
+
+<p>Without deigning to bestow further words, or to wait for any answer, the
+savage cast his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and moved silently
+through the encampment towards the woods where his own tribe was known
+to lie. Every few yards as he proceeded he was challenged by the
+sentinels; but he stalked sullenly onward, utterly disregarding the
+summons of the soldiers, who only spared his life because they knew the
+air and tread no less than the obstinate daring of an Indian.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p><p>Montcalm lingered long and melancholy on the strand, where he had been
+left by his companion, brooding deeply on the temper which his
+ungovernable ally had just discovered. Already had his fair fame been
+tarnished by one horrid scene, and in circumstances fearfully resembling
+those under which he now found himself. As he mused he became keenly
+sensible of the deep responsibility they assume who disregard the means
+to attain their end, and of all the danger of setting in motion an
+engine which it exceeds human power to control. Then shaking off a train
+of reflections that he accounted a weakness in such a moment of triumph,
+he retraced his steps towards his tent, giving the order as he passed,
+to make the signal that should arouse the army from its slumbers.</p>
+
+<p>The first tap of the French drums was echoed from the bosom of the fort,
+and presently the valley was filled with the strains of martial music,
+rising long, thrilling, and lively above the rattling accompaniment. The
+horns of the victors sounded merry and cheerful flourishes, until the
+last laggard of the camp was at his post; but the instant the British
+fifes had blown their shrill signal, they became mute. In the meantime
+the day had dawned, and when the line of the French army was ready to
+receive its general, the rays of a brilliant sun were glancing along the
+glittering array. Then that success, which was already so well known,
+was officially announced; the favored band who were selected to guard
+the gates of the fort were detailed, and defiled before their chief; the
+signal of their approach was given, and all the usual preparations for a
+change of masters were ordered and executed directly under the guns of
+the contested works.</p>
+
+<p>A very different scene presented itself within the lines of the
+Anglo-American army. As soon as the warning signal was given, it
+exhibited all the signs of a hurried and forced departure. The sullen
+soldiers shouldered their empty tubes and fell into their places, like
+men whose blood had been heated by the past contest, and who only
+desired the opportunity to revenge an indignity which was still wounding
+to their pride, concealed as it was under all the observances of
+military etiquette. Women and children ran from place to place, some
+bearing the scanty remnants of their baggage, and others searching in
+the ranks for those countenances they looked up to for protection.</p>
+
+<p>Munro appeared among his silent troops firm but dejected. It was evident
+that the unexpected blow had struck deep into his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> heart, though he
+struggled to sustain his misfortune with the port of man.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan was touched at the quiet and impressive exhibition of his grief.
+He had discharged his own duty, and he now pressed to the side of the
+old man, to know in what particular he might serve him.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughters," was the brief but expressive reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! are not arrangements already made for their convenience?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I am only a soldier, Major Heyward," said the veteran. "All that
+you see here, claim alike to be my children."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan had heard enough. Without losing one of those moments which had
+now become so precious, he flew towards the quarters of Munro, in quest
+of the sisters. He found them on the threshold of the low edifice,
+already prepared to depart, and surrounded by a clamorous and weeping
+assemblage of their own sex, that had gathered about the place, with a
+sort of instinctive consciousness that it was the point most likely to
+be protected. Though the cheeks of Cora were pale, and her countenance
+anxious, she had lost none of her firmness; but the eyes of Alice were
+inflamed, and betrayed how long and bitterly she had wept. They both,
+however, received the young man with undisguised pleasure; the former,
+for a novelty, being the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"The fort is lost," she said, with a melancholy smile; "though our good
+name, I trust, remains."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis brighter than ever. But, dearest Miss Munro, it is time to think
+less of others, and to make some provision for yourself. Military
+usage,&mdash;pride,&mdash;that pride on which you so much value yourself, demands
+that your father and I should for a little while continue with the
+troops. Then where to seek a proper protector for you against the
+confusion and chances of such a scene?"</p>
+
+<p>"None is necessary," returned Cora; "who will dare to injure or insult
+the daughter of such a father, at a time like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would not leave you alone," continued the youth, looking about him in
+a hurried manner, "for the command of the best regiment in the pay of
+the king. Remember, our Alice is not gifted with all your firmness, and
+God only knows the terror she might endure."</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right," Cora replied, smiling again, but far more sadly than
+before. "Listen! chance has already sent us a friend when he is most
+needed."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p><p>Duncan did listen, and on the instant comprehended her meaning. The low
+and serious sounds of the sacred music, so well known to the eastern
+provinces, caught his ear, and instantly drew him to an apartment in an
+adjacent building, which had already been deserted by its customary
+tenants. There he found David, pouring out his pious feelings, through
+the only medium in which he ever indulged. Duncan waited, until, by the
+cessation of the movement of the hand, he believed the strain was ended,
+when, by touching his shoulder, he drew the attention of the other to
+himself, and in a few words explained his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," replied the single-minded disciple of the King of Israel,
+when the young man had ended; "I have found much that is comely and
+melodious in the maidens, and it is fitting that we who have consorted
+in so much peril, should abide together in peace. I will attend them,
+when I have completed my morning praise, to which nothing is now wanting
+but the doxology. Wilt thou bear a part, friend? The metre is common,
+and the tune, 'Southwell.'"</p>
+
+<p>Then, extending the little volume, and giving the pitch of the air anew
+with considerate attention, David recommenced and finished his strains,
+with a fixedness of manner that it was not easy to interrupt. Heyward
+was fain to wait until the verse was ended; when, seeing David relieving
+himself from the spectacles, and replacing the book, he continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It will be your duty to see that none dare to approach the ladies with
+any rude intention, or to offer insult or taunt at the misfortune of
+their brave father. In this task you will be seconded by the domestics
+of their household."</p>
+
+<p>"Even so."</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible that the Indians and stragglers of the enemy may
+intrude, in which case you will remind them of the terms of the
+capitulation, and threaten to report their conduct to Montcalm. A word
+will suffice."</p>
+
+<p>"If not, I have that here which shall," returned David, exhibiting his
+book, with an air in which meekness and confidence were singularly
+blended. "Here are words which, uttered, or rather thundered, with
+proper emphasis, and in measured time, shall quiet the most unruly
+temper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"'Why rage the heathen furiously!'"&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," said Heyward, interrupting the burst of his musical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+invocation: "we understand each other; it is time that we should now
+assume our respective duties."</p>
+
+<p>Gamut cheerfully assented, and together they sought the females. Cora
+received her new, and somewhat extraordinary protector, courteously at
+least; and even the pallid features of Alice lighted again with some of
+their native archness as she thanked Heyward for his care. Duncan took
+occasion to assure them he had done the best that circumstances
+permitted, and, as he believed, quite enough for the security of their
+feelings; of danger there was none. He then spoke gladly of his
+intention to rejoin them the moment he had led the advance a few miles
+towards the Hudson, and immediately took his leave.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the signal of departure had been given, and the head of the
+English column was in motion. The sisters started at the sound, and
+glancing their eyes around, they saw the white uniforms of the French
+grenadiers, who had already taken possession of the gates of the fort.
+At that moment, an enormous cloud seemed to pass suddenly above their
+heads, and looking upward, they discovered that they stood beneath the
+wide folds of the standard of France.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go," said Cora; "this is no longer a fit place for the children
+of an English officer."</p>
+
+<p>Alice clung to the arm of her sister, and together they left the parade,
+accompanied by the moving throng that surrounded them.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed the gates, the French officers, who had learned their
+rank, bowed often and low, forbearing, however, to intrude those
+attentions which they saw, with peculiar tact, might not be agreeable.
+As every vehicle and each beast of burden was occupied by the sick and
+wounded, Cora had decided to endure the fatigues of a foot march, rather
+than interfere with their comforts. Indeed, many a maimed and feeble
+soldier was compelled to drag his exhausted limbs in the rear of the
+columns, for the want of the necessary means of conveyance, in that
+wilderness. The whole, however, was in motion; the weak and wounded,
+groaning, and in suffering; their comrades, silent and sullen; and the
+women and children in terror, they knew not of what.</p>
+
+<p>As the confused and timid throng left the protecting mounds of the fort,
+and issued on the open plain, the whole scene was at once presented to
+their eyes. At a little distance on the right, and somewhat in the rear,
+the French army stood to their arms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Montcalm having collected his
+parties, so soon as his guards had possession of the works. They were
+attentive but silent observers of the proceedings of the vanquished,
+failing in none of the stipulated military honors, and offering no taunt
+or insult, in their success, to their less fortunate foes. Living masses
+of the English, to the amount in the whole of near three thousand, were
+moving slowly across the plain, towards the common centre, and gradually
+approached each other, as they converged to the point of their march, a
+vista cut through the lofty trees, where the road to the Hudson entered
+the forest. Along the sweeping borders of the woods, hung a dark cloud
+of savages, eying the passage of their enemies, and hovering, at a
+distance, like vultures, who were only kept from swooping on their prey,
+by the presence and restraint of a superior army. A few had straggled
+among the conquered columns, where they stalked in sullen discontent;
+attentive, though, as yet, passive observers of the moving multitude.</p>
+
+<p>The advance, with Heyward at its head, had already reached the defile,
+and was slowly disappearing, when the attention of Cora was drawn to a
+collection of stragglers, by the sounds of contention. A truant
+provincial was paying the forfeit of his disobedience, by being
+plundered of those very effects which had caused him to desert his place
+in the ranks. The man was of powerful frame, and too avaricious to part
+with his goods without a struggle. Individuals from either party
+interfered; the one side to prevent, and the other to aid in the
+robbery. Voices grew loud and angry, and a hundred savages appeared, as
+it were by magic, where a dozen only had been seen a minute before. It
+was then that Cora saw the form of Magua gliding among his countrymen,
+and speaking with his fatal and artful eloquence. The mass of women and
+children stopped, and hovered together like alarmed and fluttering
+birds. But the cupidity of the Indian was soon gratified, and the
+different bodies again moved slowly onward.</p>
+
+<p>The savages now fell back, and seemed content to let their enemies
+advance without further molestation. But as the female crowd approached
+them, the gaudy colors of a shawl attracted the eyes of a wild and
+untutored Huron. He advanced to seize it, without the least hesitation.
+The woman, more in terror than through love of the ornament, wrapped her
+child in the coveted article, and folded both more closely to her bosom.
+Cora was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> the act of speaking, with an intent to advise the woman to
+abandon the trifle, when the savage relinquished his hold of the shawl,
+and tore the screaming infant from her arms. Abandoning everything to
+the greedy grasp of those around her, the mother darted, with
+distraction in her mien, to reclaim her child. The Indian smiled grimly,
+and extended one hand, in sign of a willingness to exchange, while with
+the other, he flourished the babe over his head, holding it by the feet
+as if to enhance the value of the ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;here&mdash;there&mdash;all&mdash;any&mdash;everything!" exclaimed the breathless
+woman; tearing the lighter articles of dress from her person, with
+ill-directed and trembling fingers; "take all, but give me my babe!"</p>
+
+<p>The savage spurned the worthless rags, and perceiving that the shawl had
+already become a prize to another, his bantering but sullen smile
+changing to a gleam of ferocity, he dashed the head of the infant
+against a rock, and cast its quivering remains to her very feet. For an
+instant, the mother stood, like a statue of despair, looking wildly down
+at the unseemly object, which had so lately nestled in her bosom and
+smiled in her face; and then she raised her eyes and countenance towards
+heaven, as if calling on God to curse the perpetrator of the foul deed.
+She was spared the sin of such a prayer; for, maddened at his
+disappointment, and excited at the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully
+drove his tomahawk into her own brain. The mother sank under the blow,
+and fell, grasping at her child, in death, with the same engrossing love
+that had caused her to cherish it when living.</p>
+
+<p>At that dangerous moment Magua placed his hands to his mouth, and raised
+the fatal and appalling whoop. The scattered Indians started at the
+well-known cry, as coursers bound at the signal to quit the goal; and,
+directly, there arose such a yell along the plain, and through the
+arches of the wood, as seldom burst from human lips before. They who
+heard it listened with a curdling horror at the heart, little inferior
+to that dread which may be expected to attend the blasts of the final
+summons.</p>
+
+<p>More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the
+signal, and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive
+alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded.
+Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects.
+Resistance only served to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their
+furious blows long after their victims<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> were beyond the power of their
+resentment. The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a
+torrent; and, as the natives became heated and maddened by the sight,
+many among them even kneeled to the earth, and drank freely, exultingly,
+hellishly, of the crimson tide.</p>
+
+<p>The trained bodies of the troops threw themselves quickly into solid
+masses, endeavoring to awe their assailants by the imposing appearance
+of a military front. The experiment in some measure succeeded, though
+far too many suffered their unloaded muskets to be torn from their
+hands, in the vain hope of appeasing the savages.</p>
+
+<p>In such a scene none had leisure to note the fleeting moments. It might
+have been ten minutes (it seemed an age), that the sisters had stood
+riveted to one spot, horror-stricken, and nearly helpless. When the
+first blow was struck, their screaming companions had pressed upon them
+in a body, rendering flight impossible; and now that fear or death had
+scattered most, if not all, from around them, they saw no avenue open,
+but such as conducted to the tomahawks of their foes. On every side
+arose shrieks, groans, exhortations, and curses. At this moment Alice
+caught a glimpse of the vast form of her father, moving rapidly across
+the plain, in the direction of the French army. He was, in truth,
+proceeding to Montcalm, fearless of every danger, to claim the tardy
+escort for which he had before conditioned. Fifty glittering axes and
+barbed spears were offered unheeded at his life, but the savages
+respected his rank and calmness, even in their fury. The dangerous
+weapons were brushed aside by the still nervous arm of the veteran, or
+fell of themselves, after menacing an act that it would seem no one had
+courage to perform. Fortunately, the vindictive Magua was searching for
+his victim in the very band the veteran had just quitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Father&mdash;father&mdash;we are here!" shrieked Alice, as he passed, at no great
+distance, without appearing to heed them. "Come to us, father, or we
+die!"</p>
+
+<p>The cry was repeated, and in terms and tones that might have melted a
+heart of stone, but it was unanswered. Once, indeed, the old man
+appeared to catch the sounds, for he paused and listened; but Alice had
+dropped senseless on the earth, and Cora had sunk at her side, hovering
+in untiring tenderness over her lifeless form. Munro shook his head in
+disappointment, and proceeded, bent on the high duty of his station.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>"Lady," said Gamut, who, helpless and useless as he was, had not yet
+dreamed of deserting his trust, "it is the jubilee of the devils, and
+this is not a meet place for Christians to tarry in. Let us up and fly."</p>
+
+<p>"Go," said Cora, still gazing at her unconscious sister; "save thyself.
+To me thou canst not be of further use."</p>
+
+<p>David comprehended the unyielding character of her resolution, by the
+simple but expressive gesture that accompanied her words. He gazed, for
+a moment, at the dusky forms that were acting their hellish rites on
+every side of him, and his tall person grew more erect, while his chest
+heaved, and every feature swelled, and seemed to speak with the power of
+the feelings by which he was governed.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Jewish boy might tame the evil spirit of Saul by the sound of
+his harp, and the words of sacred song, it may not be amiss," he said,
+"to try the potency of music here."</p>
+
+<p>Then raising his voice to its highest tones, he poured out a strain so
+powerful as to be heard even amid the din of that bloody field. More
+than one savage rushed towards them, thinking to rifle the unprotected
+sisters of their attire, and bear away their scalps; but when they found
+this strange and unmoved figure riveted to his post, they paused to
+listen. Astonishment soon changed to admiration, and they passed on to
+other and less courageous victims, openly expressing their satisfaction
+at the firmness with which the white warrior sang his death song.
+Encouraged and deluded by his success, David exerted all his powers to
+extend what he believed so holy an influence. The unwonted sounds caught
+the ears of a distant savage, who flew raging from group to group, like
+one who, scorning to touch the vulgar herd, hunted for some victim more
+worthy of his renown. It was Magua, who uttered a yell of pleasure when
+he beheld his ancient prisoners again at his mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, laying his soiled hands on the dress of Cora, "the
+wigwam of the Huron is still open. Is it not better than this place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Away!" cried Cora, veiling her eyes from his revolting aspect.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian laughed tauntingly, as he held up his reeking hand, and
+answered,&mdash;"It is red, but it comes from white veins!"</p>
+
+<p>"Monster! there is blood, oceans of blood, upon thy soul; thy spirit has
+moved this scene."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p><p>"Magua is a great chief!" returned the exulting savage; "will the dark
+hair go to his tribe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never! strike, if thou wilt, and complete thy revenge."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment; and then catching the light and senseless form of
+Alice in his arms, the subtle Indian moved swiftly across the plain
+towards the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" shrieked Cora, following wildly on his footsteps; "release the
+child! wretch! what is't you do?"</p>
+
+<p>But Magua was deaf to her voice; or rather he knew his power, and was
+determined to maintain it.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay&mdash;lady&mdash;stay," called Gamut, after the unconscious Cora. "The holy
+charm is beginning to be felt, and soon shalt thou see this horrid
+tumult stilled."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that, in his turn, he was unheeded, the faithful David
+followed the distracted sister, raising his voice again in sacred song,
+and sweeping the air to the measure, with his long arm, in diligent
+accompaniment. In this manner they traversed the plain, through the
+flying, the wounded, and the dead. The fierce Huron was, at any time,
+sufficient for himself and the victim that he bore; though Cora would
+have fallen, more than once, under the blows of her savage enemies, but
+for the extraordinary being who stalked in her rear, and who now
+appeared to the astonished natives gifted with the protecting spirit of
+madness.</p>
+
+<p>Magua, who knew how to avoid the more pressing dangers, and also to
+elude pursuit, entered the woods through a low ravine, where he quickly
+found the Narragansetts, which the travellers had abandoned so shortly
+before, awaiting his appearance, in custody of a savage as fierce and as
+malign in his expression as himself. Laying Alice on one of the horses,
+he made a sign to Cora to mount the other.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the horror excited by the presence of her captor, there
+was a present relief in escaping from the bloody scene enacting on the
+plain, to which Cora could not be altogether insensible. She took her
+seat, and held forth her arms for her sister, with an air of entreaty
+and love that even the Huron could not deny. Placing Alice, then, on the
+same animal with Cora, he seized the bridle, and commenced his route by
+plunging deeper into the forest. David, perceiving that he was left
+alone, utterly disregarded, as a subject too worthless even to destroy,
+threw his long limb across the saddle of the beast they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> deserted,
+and made such progress in the pursuit as the difficulties of the path
+permitted.</p>
+
+<p>They soon began to ascend, but as the motion had a tendency to revive
+the dormant faculties of her sister, the attention of Cora was too much
+divided between the tenderest solicitude in her behalf, and in listening
+to the cries which were still too audible on the plain, to note the
+direction in which they journeyed. When, however, they gained the
+flattened surface of the mountain-top, and approached the eastern
+precipice, she recognized the spot to which she had once before been led
+under the more friendly auspices of the scout. Here Magua suffered them
+to dismount; and, notwithstanding their own captivity, the curiosity
+which seems inseparable from horror, induced them to gaze at the
+sickening sight below.</p>
+
+<p>The cruel work was still unchecked. On every side the captured were
+flying before their relentless persecutors, while the armed columns of
+the Christian king stood fast in an apathy which has never been
+explained, and which has left an unmovable blot on the otherwise fair
+escutcheon of their leader. Nor was the sword of death stayed until
+cupidity got the mastery of revenge. Then, indeed, the shrieks of the
+wounded and the yells of their murderers grew less frequent, until,
+finally, the cries of horror were lost to their ear, or were drowned in
+the loud, long, and piercing whoops of the triumphant savages.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">"Why, anything:</span><br />
+An honorable murderer, if you will;<br />
+For naught I did in hate, but all in honor."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Othello.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> bloody and inhuman scene rather incidentally mentioned than
+described in the preceding chapter, is conspicuous in the pages of
+colonial history, by the merited title of "The Massacre of William
+Henry." It so far deepened the stain which a previous and very similar
+event had left upon the reputation of the French commander, that it was
+not entirely erased by his early and glorious death. It is now becoming
+obscured by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm died like a hero
+on the plains of Abraham, have yet to learn how much he was deficient in
+that moral courage without which no man can be truly great. Pages might
+be written to prove, from this illustrious example, the defects of human
+excellence; to show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
+courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence beneath the
+chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
+was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found
+wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior
+to policy. But the task would exceed our prerogatives; and, as history,
+like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of
+imaginary brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint V&eacute;ran will be
+viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender of his country, while
+his cruel apathy on the shores of the Oswego and of the Horican will be
+forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the part of a sister muse,
+we shall at once retire from her sacred precincts, within the proper
+limits of our own humble vocation.</p>
+
+<p>The third day from the capture of the fort was drawing to a close, but
+the business of the narrative must still detain the reader on the shores
+of the "holy lake." When last seen, the environs of the works were
+filled with violence and uproar. They were now possessed by stillness
+and death. The blood-stained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> conquerors had departed; and their camp,
+which had so lately rung with the merry rejoicings of a victorious army,
+lay a silent and deserted city of huts. The fortress was a smouldering
+ruin; charred rafters, fragments of exploded artillery, and rent
+mason-work, covering its earthen mounds in confused disorder.</p>
+
+<p>A frightful change had also occurred in the season. The sun had hid its
+warmth behind an impenetrable mass of vapor, and hundreds of human
+forms, which had blackened beneath the fierce heats of August, were
+stiffening in their deformity, before the blasts of a premature
+November. The curling and spotless mists, which had been seen sailing
+above the hills towards the north, were now returning in an interminable
+dusky sheet, that was urged along by the fury of a tempest. The crowded
+mirror of the Horican was gone; and, in its place, the green and angry
+waters lashed the shores, as if indignantly casting back its impurities
+to the polluted strand. Still the clear fountain retained a portion of
+its charmed influence, but it reflected only the sombre gloom that fell
+from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which
+commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its
+asperities, had disappeared, and the northern air poured across the
+waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be
+conjectured by the eye, or fashioned by the fancy.</p>
+
+<p>The fiercer element had cropped the verdure of the plain, which looked
+as though it were scathed by the consuming lightning. But, here and
+there, a dark green tuft rose in the midst of the desolation; the
+earliest fruits of a soil that had been fattened with human blood. The
+whole landscape, which, seen by a favoring light, and in a genial
+temperature, had been found so lovely, appeared now like some pictured
+allegory of life, in which objects were arrayed in their harshest but
+truest colors, and without the relief of any shadowing.</p>
+
+<p>The solitary and arid blades of grass arose from the passing gusts
+fearfully perceptible; the bold and rocky mountains were too distinct in
+their barrenness, and the eye even sought relief, in vain, by attempting
+to pierce the illimitable void of heaven, which was shut to its gaze by
+the dusky sheet of ragged and driving vapor.</p>
+
+<p>The wind blew unequally; sometimes sweeping heavily along the ground,
+seeming to whisper its moanings in the cold ears of the dead, then
+rising in a shrill and mournful whistling, it entered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the forest with a
+rush that filled the air with the leaves and branches it scattered in
+its path. Amid the unnatural shower, a few hungry ravens struggled with
+the gale; but no sooner was the green ocean of woods, which stretched
+beneath them, passed, than they gladly stopped, at random, to their
+hideous banquet.</p>
+
+<p>In short, it was the scene of wildness and desolation; and it appeared
+as if all who had profanely entered it had been stricken, at a blow, by
+the relentless arm of death. But the prohibition had ceased; and for the
+first time since the perpetrators of those foul deeds which had assisted
+to disfigure the scene were gone, living human beings had now presumed
+to approach the place.</p>
+
+<p>About an hour before the setting of the sun, on the day already
+mentioned, the forms of five men might have been seen issuing from the
+narrow vista of trees, where the path to the Hudson entered the forest,
+and advancing in the direction of the ruined works. At first their
+progress was slow and guarded, as though they entered with reluctance
+amid the horrors of the spot, or dreaded the renewal of its frightful
+incidents. A light figure preceded the rest of the party, with the
+caution and activity of a native; ascending every hillock to
+reconnoitre, and indicating, by gestures, to his companions, the route
+he deemed it most prudent to pursue. Nor were those in the rear wanting
+in every caution and foresight known to forest warfare. One among them,
+he also was an Indian, moved a little on one flank, and watched the
+margin of the woods, with eyes long accustomed to read the smallest sign
+of danger. The remaining three were white, though clad in vestments
+adapted, both in quality and color, to their present hazardous
+pursuit,&mdash;that of hanging on the skirts of a retiring army in the
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>The effects produced by the appalling sights that constantly arose in
+their path to the lake shore, were as different as the characters of the
+respective individuals who composed the party. The youth in front threw
+serious but furtive glances at the mangled victims, as he stepped
+lightly across the plain, afraid to exhibit his feelings, and yet too
+inexperienced to quell entirely their sudden and powerful influence. His
+red associate, however, was superior to such a weakness. He passed the
+groups of dead with a steadiness of purpose, and an eye so calm, that
+nothing but long and inveterate practice could enable him to maintain.
+The sensations produced in the minds of even the white men were
+different, though uniformly sorrowful. One, whose gray locks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> and
+furrowed lineaments, blending with a martial air and tread, betrayed, in
+spite of the disguise of a woodsman's dress, a man long experienced in
+scenes of war, was not ashamed to groan aloud, whenever a spectacle of
+more than usual horror came under his view. The young man at his elbow
+shuddered, but seemed to suppress his feelings in tenderness to his
+companion. Of them all, the straggler who brought up the rear appeared
+alone to betray his real thoughts, without fear of observation or dread
+of consequences. He gazed at the most appalling sight with eyes and
+muscles that knew not how to waver, but with execrations so bitter and
+deep as to denote how much he denounced the crime of his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will perceive at once, in these respective characters, the
+Mohicans, and their white friend, the scout; together with Munro and
+Heyward. It was, in truth, the father in quest of his children, attended
+by the youth who felt so deep a stake in their happiness, and those
+brave and trusty foresters, who had already proved their skill and
+fidelity through the trying scenes related.</p>
+
+<p>When Uncas, who moved in front, had reached the centre of the plain, he
+raised a cry that drew his companions in a body to the spot. The young
+warrior had halted over a group of females who lay in a cluster, a
+confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding the revolting horror of the
+exhibition, Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap,
+endeavoring, with a love that no unseemliness could extinguish, to
+discover whether any vestiges of those they sought were to be seen among
+the tattered and many-colored garments. The father and lover found
+instant relief in the search; though each was condemned again to
+experience the misery of an uncertainty that was hardly less
+insupportable than the most revolting truth. They were standing, silent
+and thoughtful, around the melancholy pile, when the scout approached.
+Eying the sad spectacle with an angry countenance, the sturdy woodsman,
+for the first time since his entering the plain, spoke intelligibly and
+aloud:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have been on many a shocking field, and have followed a trail of
+blood for many miles," he said, "but never have I found the hand of the
+devil so plain as it is here to be seen! Revenge is an Indian feeling,
+and all who know me know that there is no cross in my veins; but this
+much will I say&mdash;here, in the face of heaven, and with the power of the
+Lord so manifest in this howling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> wilderness,&mdash;that should these
+Frenchers ever trust themselves again within the range of a ragged
+bullet, there is one rifle shall play its part, so long as flint will
+fire or powder burn! I leave the tomahawk and knife to such as have a
+natural gift to use them. What say you, Chingachgook," he added in
+Delaware; "shall the Hurons boast of this to their women when the deep
+snows come?"</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of resentment flashed across the dark lineaments of the Mohican
+chief: he loosened his knife in its sheath; and then turning calmly from
+the sight, his countenance settled into a repose as deep as if he never
+knew the instigation of passion.</p>
+
+<p>"Montcalm! Montcalm!" continued the deeply resentful and less
+self-restrained scout; "they say a time must come, when all the deeds
+done in the flesh will be seen at a single look; and that by eyes
+cleared from mortal infirmities. Woe betide the wretch who is born to
+behold this plain, with the judgment hanging about his soul! Ha&mdash;as I am
+a man of white blood, yonder lies a redskin, without the hair of his
+head where nature rooted it! Look to him, Delaware; it may be one of
+your missing people; and he should have burial like a stout warrior. I
+see it in your eye, Sagamore: a Huron pays for this, afore the fall
+winds have blown away the scent of the blood!"</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook approached the mutilated form, and turning it over, he
+found the distinguishing marks of one of those six allied tribes, or
+nations, as they were called, who, while they fought in the English
+ranks, were so deadly hostile to his own people. Spurning the loathsome
+object with his foot, he turned from it with the same indifference he
+would have quitted a brute carcass. The scout comprehended the action,
+and very deliberately pursued his own way, continuing, however, his
+denunciations against the French commander in the same resentful strain.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but vast wisdom and unlimited power should dare to sweep off
+men in multitudes," he added; "for it is only the one that can know the
+necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that
+can replace the creatures of the Lord? I hold it a sin to kill the
+second buck afore the first is eaten, unless a march in the front, or an
+ambushment, be contemplated. It is a different matter with a few
+warriors in open and rugged fight, for 'tis their gift to die with the
+rifle or the tomahawk in hand; according as their natures may happen to
+be, white or red. Uncas, come this way, lad, and let the ravens settle
+upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Mingo. I know, from often seeing it, that they have a craving
+for the flesh of an Oneida; and it is as well to let the bird follow the
+gift of its natural appetite."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed the young Mohican, rising on the extremities of his
+feet, and gazing intently in his front, frightening the raven to some
+other prey, by the sound and the action.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, boy?" whispered the scout, lowering his tall form into a
+crouching attitude, like a panther about to take his leap; "God send it
+be a tardy Frencher, skulking for plunder. I do believe 'Killdeer' would
+take an oncommon range to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncas, without making any reply, bounded away from the spot, and in the
+next instant he was seen tearing from a bush, and waving in triumph a
+fragment of the green riding-veil of Cora. The movement, the exhibition,
+and the cry, which again burst from the lips of the young Mohican,
+instantly drew the whole party about him.</p>
+
+<p>"My child!" said Munro, speaking quick and wildly "give me my child!"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas will try," was the short and touching answer.</p>
+
+<p>The simple but meaning assurance was lost on the father, who seized the
+piece of gauze, and crushed it in his hand, while his eyes roamed
+fearfully among the bushes, as if he equally dreaded and hoped for the
+secrets they might reveal.</p>
+
+<p>"Here are no dead," said Heyward; "the storm seems not to have passed
+this way."</p>
+
+<p>"That's manifest; and clearer than the heavens above our heads,"
+returned the undisturbed scout; "but either she, or they that have
+robbed her, have passed the bush; for I remember the rag she wore to
+hide a face that all did love to look upon. Uncas, you are right; the
+dark-hair has been here, and she has fled like a frightened fawn, to the
+wood; none who could fly would remain to be murdered. Let us search for
+the marks she left; for to Indian eyes, I sometimes think even a
+humming-bird leaves his trail in the air."</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican darted away at the suggestion, and the scout had
+hardly done speaking, before the former raised a cry of success from the
+margin of the forest. On reaching the spot, the anxious party perceived
+another portion of the veil fluttering on the lower branch of a beech.</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, softly," said the scout, extending his long rifle in front of
+the eager Heyward; "we now know our work, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> beauty of the trail
+must not be deformed. A step too soon may give us hours of trouble. We
+have them, though; that much is beyond denial."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless ye, bless ye, worthy man!" exclaimed Munro; "whither, then, have
+they fled, and where are my babes?"</p>
+
+<p>"The path they have taken depends on many chances. If they have gone
+alone, they are quite as likely to move in a circle as straight, and
+they may be within a dozen miles of us; but if the Hurons, or any of the
+French Indians, have laid hands on them, 'tis probable they are now near
+the borders of the Canadas. But what matters that?" continued the
+deliberate scout, observing the powerful anxiety and disappointment the
+listeners exhibited; "here are the Mohicans and I on one end of the
+trail, and, rely on it, we find the other, though they should be a
+hundred leagues asunder! Gently, gently, Uncas, you are as impatient as
+a man in the settlements; you forget that light feet leave but faint
+marks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed Chingachgook, who had been occupied in examining an
+opening that had been evidently made through the low underbrush, which
+skirted the forest; and who now stood erect, as he pointed downwards, in
+the attitude and with the air of a man who beheld a disgusting serpent.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the palpable impression of the footstep of a man," cried
+Heyward, bending over the indicated spot; "he has trod in the margin of
+this pool, and the mark cannot be mistaken. They are captives."</p>
+
+<p>"Better so than left to starve in the wilderness," returned the scout;
+"and they will leave a wider trail. I would wager fifty beaver skins
+against as many flints, that the Mohicans and I enter their wigwams
+within the month! Stoop to it, Uncas, and try what you can make of the
+moccasin; for moccasin it plainly is, and no shoe."</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican bent over the track, and removing the scattered leaves
+from around the place, he examined it with much of that sort of scrutiny
+that a money-dealer, in these days of pecuniary doubts, would bestow on
+a suspected due-bill. At length he arose from his knees, satisfied with
+the result of the examination.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boy," demanded the attentive scout, "what does it say? can you
+make anything of the tell-tale?"</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p><p>"Ha! that rampaging devil again! there never will be an end of his
+loping, till 'Killdeer' has said a friendly word to him."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward reluctantly admitted the truth of this intelligence, and now
+expressed rather his hopes than his doubts by saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One moccasin is so much like another, it is probable there is some
+mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"One moccasin like another! you may as well say that one foot is like
+another; though we all know that some are long, and others short; some
+broad, and others narrow; some with high, and some with low insteps;
+some in-toed, and some out. One moccasin is no more like another than
+one book is like another; though they who can read in one are seldom
+able to tell the marks of the other. Which is all ordered for the best,
+giving to every man his natural advantages. Let me get down to it,
+Uncas; neither book nor moccasin is the worse for having two opinions,
+instead of one." The scout stooped to the task, and instantly added,
+"You are right, boy; here is the patch we saw so often in the other
+chase. And the fellow will drink when he can get an opportunity: your
+drinking Indian always learns to walk with a wider toe than the natural
+savage, it being the gift of a drunkard to straddle, whether of white or
+red skin. 'Tis just the length and breadth too! look at it, Sagamore:
+you measured the prints more than once, when we hunted the varmints from
+Glenn's to the health-springs."</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook complied; and after finishing his short examination, he
+arose, and with a quiet demeanor, he merely pronounced the word&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Magua!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here then have passed the dark-hair and
+Magua."</p>
+
+<p>"And not Alice?" demanded Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Of her we have not yet seen the signs," returned the scout, looking
+closely around at the trees, the bushes, and the ground. "What have we
+there? Uncas, bring hither the thing you see dangling from yonder
+thorn-bush."</p>
+
+<p>When the Indian had complied, the scout received the prize, and holding
+it on high, he laughed in his silent but heartfelt manner.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the tooting we'pon of the singer! now we shall have a trail a
+priest might travel," he said. "Uncas, look for the marks of a shoe that
+is long enough to uphold six feet two of tottering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> human flesh. I begin
+to have some hopes of the fellow, since he has given up squalling to
+follow some better trade."</p>
+
+<p>"At least, he has been faithful to his trust," said Heyward; "and Cora
+and Alice are not without a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hawkeye, dropping his rifle, and leaning on it with an air
+of visible contempt, "he will do their singing. Can he slay a buck for
+their dinner; journey by the moss on the beeches, or cut the throat of a
+Huron? If not, the first catbird<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> he meets is the cleverest of the
+two. Well, boy, any signs of such a foundation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here is something like the footstep of one who has worn a shoe; can it
+be that of our friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Touch the leaves lightly, or you'll disconsart the formation. That!
+that is the print of a foot, but 'tis the dark-hair's; and small it is,
+too, for one of such a noble height and grand appearance. The singer
+would cover it with his heel."</p>
+
+<p>"Where! let me look on the footsteps of my child," said Munro, shoving
+the bushes aside, and bending fondly over the nearly obliterated
+impression. Though the tread, which had left the mark, had been light
+and rapid, it was still plainly visible. The aged soldier examined it
+with eyes that grew dim as he gazed; nor did he rise from his stooping
+posture until Heyward saw that he had watered the trace of his
+daughter's passage with a scalding tear. Willing to divert a distress
+which threatened each moment to break through the restraint of
+appearances, by giving the veteran something to do, the young man said
+to the scout,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As we now possess these infallible signs, let us commence our march. A
+moment, at such a time, will appear an age to the captives."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the swiftest leaping deer that gives the longest chase,"
+returned Hawkeye, without moving his eyes from the different marks that
+had come under his view; "we know that the rampaging Huron has
+passed,&mdash;and the dark hair,&mdash;and the singer,&mdash;but where is she of the
+yellow locks and blue eyes? Though little, and far from being as bold as
+her sister, she is fair to the view, and pleasant in discourse. Has she
+no friend, that none care for her?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>"God forbid she should ever want hundreds! Are we not now in her
+pursuit? for one, I will never cease the search till she be found."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case we may have to journey by different paths; for here she
+has not passed, light and little as her footstep would be."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward drew back, all his ardor to proceed seeming to vanish on the
+instant. Without attending to this sudden change in the other's humor,
+the scout, after musing a moment, continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no woman in this wilderness could leave such a print as that,
+but the dark-hair or her sister. We know that the first has been here,
+but where are the signs of the other? Let us push deeper on the trail,
+and if nothing offers, we must go back to the plain and strike another
+scent. Move on, Uncas, and keep your eyes on the dried leaves. I will
+watch the bushes, while your father shall run with a low nose to the
+ground. Move on, friends; the sun is getting behind the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nothing that I can do?" demanded the anxious Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" repeated the scout, who, with his red friends, was already
+advancing in the order he had prescribed; "yes, you can keep in our
+rear, and be careful not to cross the trail."</p>
+
+<p>Before they had proceeded many rods, the Indians stopped, and appeared
+to gaze at some signs on the earth, with more than their usual keenness.
+Both father and son spoke quick and loud, now looking at the object of
+their mutual admiration, and now regarding each other with the most
+unequivocal pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"They have found the little foot!" exclaimed the scout, moving forward,
+without attending further to his own portion of the duty. "What have we
+here? An ambushment has been planted in the spot? No, by the truest
+rifle on the frontiers, here have been them one-sided horses again! Now
+the whole secret is out, and all is plain as the north star at midnight.
+Yes, here they have mounted. There the beasts have been bound to a
+sapling, in waiting; and yonder runs the broad path away to the north,
+in full sweep for the Canadas."</p>
+
+<p>"But still there are no signs of Alice&mdash;of the younger Miss
+Munro,"&mdash;said Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless the shining bauble Uncas has just lifted from the ground should
+prove one. Pass it this way, lad, that we may look at it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><p>Heyward instantly knew it for a trinket that Alice was fond of wearing,
+and which he recollected, with the tenacious memory of a lover, to have
+seen, on the fatal morning of the massacre, dangling from the fair neck
+of his mistress. He seized the highly prized jewel; and as he proclaimed
+the fact, it vanished from the eyes of the wondering scout, who in vain
+looked for it on the ground, long after it was warmly pressed against
+the beating heart of Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!" said the disappointed Hawkeye, ceasing to rake the leaves with
+the breech of his rifle; "'tis a certain sign of age, when the sight
+begins to weaken. Such a glittering gewgaw, and not to be seen! Well,
+well, I can squint along a clouded barrel yet, and that is enough to
+settle all disputes between me and the Mingos. I should like to find the
+thing too, if it were only to carry it to the right owner, and that
+would be bringing the two ends of what I call a long trail
+together,&mdash;for by this time the broad St. Lawrence, or, perhaps, the
+Great Lakes themselves, are atwixt us."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the more reason why we should not delay our march," returned
+Heyward; "let us proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"Young blood and hot blood, they say, are much the same thing. We are
+not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the
+Horican, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a
+wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish
+knowledge would carry you through harmless. An Indian never starts on
+such an expedition without smoking over his council-fire; and though a
+man of white blood, I honor their customs in this particular, seeing
+that they are deliberate and wise. We will, therefore, go back, and
+light our fire to-night in the ruins of the old fort, and in the morning
+we shall be fresh, and ready to undertake our work like men, and not
+like babbling women or eager boys."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward saw, by the manner of the scout, that altercation would be
+useless. Munro had again sunk into that sort of apathy which had beset
+him since his late overwhelming misfortunes, and from which he was
+apparently to be roused only by some new and powerful excitement. Making
+a merit of necessity, the young man took the veteran by the arm, and
+followed in the footsteps of the Indians and the scout, who had already
+begun to retrace the path which conducted them to the plain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p>
+"<i>Salar.</i>&mdash;Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
+flesh; what's that good for?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Shy.</i>&mdash;To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will
+feed my revenge."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Merchant of Venice.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> shades of evening had come to increase the dreariness of the place,
+when the party entered the ruins of William Henry. The scout and his
+companions immediately made their preparations to pass the night there;
+but with an earnestness and sobriety of demeanor, that betrayed how much
+the unusual horrors they had just witnessed worked on even their
+practised feelings. A few fragments of rafters were reared against a
+blackened wall; and when Uncas had covered them slightly with brush, the
+temporary accommodations were deemed sufficient. The young Indian
+pointed towards his rude hut, when his labor was ended; and Heyward, who
+understood the meaning of the silent gesture, gently urged Munro to
+enter. Leaving the bereaved old man alone with his sorrows, Duncan
+immediately returned to the open air, too much excited himself to seek
+the repose he had recommended to his veteran friend.</p>
+
+<p>While Hawkeye and the Indians lighted their fire, and took their
+evening's repast, a frugal meal of dried bear's meat, the young man paid
+a visit to that curtain of the dilapidated fort which looked out on the
+sheet of the Horican. The wind had fallen, and the waves were already
+rolling on the sandy beach beneath him, in a more regular and tempered
+succession. The clouds, as if tired of their furious chase, were
+breaking asunder; the heavier volumes, gathering in black masses about
+the horizon, while the lighter scud still hurried above the water, or
+eddied among the tops of the mountains, like broken flights of birds,
+hovering around their roosts. Here and there, a red and fiery star
+struggled through the drifting vapor, furnishing a lurid gleam of
+brightness to the dull aspect of the heavens. Within the bosom of the
+encircling hills, an impenetrable darkness had already settled; and the
+plain lay like a vast and deserted charnel-house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> without omen or
+whisper to disturb the slumbers of its numerous and hapless tenants.</p>
+
+<p>Of this scene, so chillingly in accordance with the past, Duncan stood
+for many minutes a rapt observer. His eyes wandered from the bosom of
+the mound, where the foresters were seated around their glimmering fire,
+to the fainter light which still lingered in the skies, and then rested
+long and anxiously on the embodied gloom, which lay like a dreary void
+on that side of him where the dead reposed. He soon fancied that
+inexplicable sounds arose from the place, though so indistinct and
+stolen, as to render not only their nature but even their existence
+uncertain. Ashamed of his apprehensions, the young man turned towards
+the water, and strove to divert his attentions to the mimic stars that
+dimly glimmered on its moving surface. Still, his too conscious ears
+performed their ungrateful duty, as if to warn him of some lurking
+danger. At length a swift trampling seemed quite audibly to rush athwart
+the darkness. Unable any longer to quiet his uneasiness, Duncan spoke in
+a low voice to the scout, requesting him to ascend the mound to the
+place where he stood. Hawkeye threw his rifle across an arm, and
+complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm, as to prove how much he
+counted on the security of their position.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" said Duncan, when the other placed himself deliberately at his
+elbow: "there are suppressed noises on the plain which may show that
+Montcalm has not yet entirely deserted his conquest."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ears are better than eyes," said the undisturbed scout, who,
+having just deposited a portion of bear between his grinders, spoke
+thick and slow, like one whose mouth was doubly occupied. "I, myself,
+saw him caged in Ty, with all his host; for your Frenchers, when they
+have done a clever thing, like to get back, and have a dance, or a
+merry-making, with the women over their success."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not. An Indian seldom sleeps in war, and plunder may keep a
+Huron here after his tribe has departed. It would be well to extinguish
+the fire, and have a watch&mdash;listen! you hear the noise I mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"An Indian more rarely lurks about the graves. Though ready to slay, and
+not over-regardful of the means, he is commonly content with the scalp,
+unless when blood is hot, and temper up; but after the spirit is once
+fairly gone, he forgets his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> enmity, and is willing to let the dead find
+their natural rest. Speaking of spirits, Major, are you of opinion that
+the heaven of a redskin and of us whites will be one and the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt&mdash;no doubt. I thought I heard it again! or was it the rustling
+of the leaves in the top of the beech?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my own part," continued Hawkeye, turning his face, for a moment, in
+the direction indicated by Heyward, but with a vacant and careless
+manner, "I believe that paradise is ordained for happiness; and that men
+will be indulged in it according to their dispositions and gifts. I
+therefore judge that a redskin is not far from the truth when he
+believes he is to find them glorious hunting-grounds of which his
+traditions tell; nor, for that matter, do I think it would be any
+disparagement to a man without a cross to pass his time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You hear it again?" interrupted Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay; when food is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows
+bold," said the unmoved scout. "There would be picking, too, among the
+skins of the devils, if there was light and time for the sport. But,
+concerning the life that is to come, major: I have heard preachers say,
+in the settlements, that heaven was a place of rest. Now men's minds
+differ as to their ideas of enjoyment. For myself, and I say it with
+reverence to the ordering of Providence, it would be no great indulgence
+to be kept shut up in those mansions of which they preach, having a
+natural longing for motion and the chase."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who was now made to understand the nature of the noises he had
+heard, answered with more attention to the subject which the humor of
+the scout had chosen for discussion, by saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is difficult to account for the feelings that may attend the last
+great change."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a change, indeed, for a man who has passed his days in the
+open air," returned the single-minded scout; "and who has so often
+broken his fast on the head-waters of the Hudson, to sleep within sound
+of the roaring Mohawk. But it is a comfort to know we serve a merciful
+Master, though we do it each after his fashion, and with great tracts of
+wilderness atween us&mdash;what goes there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not the rushing of the wolves you have mentioned?"</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye slowly shook his head, and beckoned for Duncan to follow him to
+a spot, to which the glare from the fire did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> extend. When he had
+taken this precaution, the scout placed himself in an attitude of
+intense attention, and listened long and keenly for a repetition of the
+low sound that had so unexpectedly startled him. His vigilance, however,
+seemed exercised in vain; for, after a fruitless pause, he whispered to
+Duncan,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We must give a call to Uncas. The boy has Indian senses, and may hear
+what is hid from us; for being a white-skin, I will not deny my nature."</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican, who was conversing in a low voice with his father,
+started as he heard the moaning of an owl, and springing on his feet he
+looked towards the black mounds, as if seeking the place whence the
+sounds proceeded. The scout repeated the call, and in a few moments,
+Duncan saw the figure of Uncas stealing cautiously along the rampart, to
+the spot where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye explained his wishes in a very few words, which were spoken in
+the Delaware tongue. So soon as Uncas was in possession of the reason
+why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the
+eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at
+the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the
+manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired
+information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and bent over the dark
+object, on which he had kept his eyes riveted. Then it was he discovered
+that the form of Uncas had vanished, and that he beheld only the dark
+outline of an inequality in the embankment.</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of the Mohican?" he demanded of the scout, stepping
+back in amazement; "it was here that I saw him fall, and I could have
+sworn that here he yet remained."</p>
+
+<p>"Hist! speak lower; for we know not what ears are open, and the Mingos
+are a quick-witted breed. As for Uncas, he is out on the plain, and the
+Maquas, if any such are about us, will find their equal."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that Montcalm has not called off all his Indians? Let us give
+the alarm to our companions, that we may stand to our arms. Here are
+five of us, who are not unused to meet an enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word to either, as you value life. Look at the Sagamore, how like
+a grand Indian chief he sits by the fire. If there are any skulkers out
+in the darkness, they will never discover by his countenance that we
+suspect danger at hand."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p><p>"But they may discover him, and it will prove his death. His person can
+be too plainly seen by the light of that fire, and he will become the
+first and most certain victim."</p>
+
+<p>"It is undeniable that now you speak the truth," returned the scout,
+betraying more anxiety than was usual; "yet what can be done? A single
+suspicious look might bring on an attack before we are ready to receive
+it. He knows, by the call I gave to Uncas, that we have struck a scent:
+I will tell him that we are on the trail of the Mingos; his Indian
+nature will teach him how to act."</p>
+
+<p>The scout applied his fingers to his mouth, and raised a low hissing
+sound, that caused Duncan, at first, to start aside, believing that he
+heard a serpent. The head of Chingachgook was resting on a hand, as he
+sat musing by himself; but the moment he heard the warning of the animal
+whose name he bore, it arose to an upright position and his dark eyes
+glanced swiftly and keenly on every side of him. With this sudden and
+perhaps involuntary movement, every appearance of surprise or alarm
+ended. His rifle lay untouched, and apparently unnoticed, within reach
+of his hand. The tomahawk that he had loosened in his belt for the sake
+of ease, was even suffered to fall from its usual situation to the
+ground, and his form seemed to sink, like that of a man whose nerves and
+sinews were suffered to relax for the purpose of rest. Cunningly
+resuming his former position, though with a change of hands, as if the
+movement had been made merely to relieve the limb, the native awaited
+the result with a calmness and fortitude that none but an Indian warrior
+would have known how to exercise.</p>
+
+<p>But Heyward saw that while to a less instructed eye the Mohican chief
+appeared to slumber, his nostrils were expanded, his head was turned a
+little to one side, as if to assist the organs of hearing, and that his
+quick and rapid glances ran incessantly over every object, within the
+power of his vision.</p>
+
+<p>"See the noble fellow!" whispered Hawkeye, pressing the arm of Heyward;
+"he knows that a look or a motion might discansart our schemes, and put
+us at the mercy of them imps&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by the flash and report of a rifle. The air was
+filled with sparks of fire around that spot where the eyes of Heyward
+were still fastened with admiration and wonder. A second look told him
+that Chingachgook had disappeared in the confusion. In the meantime the
+scout had thrown forward his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> rifle, like one prepared for service, and
+awaited impatiently the moment when an enemy might rise to view. But
+with the solitary and fruitless attempt made on the life of
+Chingachgook, the attack appeared to have terminated. Once or twice the
+listeners thought they could distinguish the distant rustling of bushes,
+as bodies of some unknown description rushed through them; nor was it
+long before Hawkeye pointed out the "scampering of the wolves," as they
+fled precipitately before the passage of some intruder on their proper
+domains. After an impatient and breathless pause, a plunge was heard in
+the water, and it was immediately followed by the report of another
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes Uncas!" said the scout; "the boy bears a smart piece! I know
+its crack, as well as a father knows the language of his child, for I
+carried the gun myself until a better offered."</p>
+
+<p>"What can this mean?" demanded Duncan; "we are watched, and, as it would
+seem, marked for destruction."</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder scattered brand can witness that no good was intended, and this
+Indian will testify that no harm has been done," returned the scout,
+dropping his rifle across his arm again, and following Chingachgook, who
+just then reappeared within the circle of light, into the bosom of the
+works. "How is it, Sagamore? Are the Mingos upon us in earnest, or is it
+only one of those rept<i>y</i>les who hang upon the skirts of a war party, to
+scalp the dead, go in, and make their boast among the squaws of the
+valiant deeds done on the pale-faces?"</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook very quietly resumed his seat; nor did he make any reply,
+until after he had examined the firebrand which had been struck by the
+bullet that had nearly proved fatal to himself. After which, he was
+content to reply, holding a single finger up to view, with the English
+monosyllable,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought as much," returned Hawkeye, seating himself; "and as he had
+got the cover of the lake afore Uncas pulled upon him, it is more than
+probable the knave will sing his lies about some great ambushment, in
+which he was outlying on the trail of two Mohicans and a white
+hunter&mdash;for the officers can be considered as little better than idlers
+in such a scrimmage. Well, let him&mdash;let him. There are always some
+honest men in every nation, though heaven knows, too, that they are
+scarce among the Maquas, to look down an upstart when he brags ag'in
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> face of reason. The varlet sent his lead within whistle of your
+ears, Sagamore."</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook turned a calm and incurious eye towards the place where the
+ball had struck, and then resumed his former attitude, with a composure
+that could not be disturbed by so trifling an incident. Just then Uncas
+glided into the circle, and seated himself at the fire, with the same
+appearance of indifference as was maintained by his father.</p>
+
+<p>Of these several movements Heyward was a deeply interested and wondering
+observer. It appeared to him as though the foresters had some secret
+means of intelligence, which had escaped the vigilance of his own
+faculties. In place of that eager and garrulous narration with which a
+white youth would have endeavored to communicate, and perhaps
+exaggerate, that which had passed out in the darkness of the plain, the
+young warrior was seemingly content to let his deeds speak for
+themselves. It was, in fact, neither the moment nor the occasion for an
+Indian to boast of his exploits; and it is probable, that had Heyward
+neglected to inquire, not another syllable would, just then, have been
+uttered on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of our enemy, Uncas?" demanded Duncan: "we heard your
+rifle, and hoped you had not fired in vain."</p>
+
+<p>The young chief removed a fold of his hunting-shirt, and quietly exposed
+the fatal tuft of hair, which he bore as the symbol of victory.
+Chingachgook laid his hand on the scalp, and considered it for a moment
+with deep attention. Then dropping it, with disgust depicted in his
+strong features, he ejaculated,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oneida!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oneida!" repeated the scout, who was fast losing his interest in the
+scene, in an apathy nearly assimilated to that of his red associates,
+but who now advanced with uncommon earnestness to regard the bloody
+badge. "By the Lord, if the Oneidas are outlying upon the trail, we
+shall be flanked by devils on every side of us! Now, to white eyes there
+is no difference between this bit of skin and that of any other Indian,
+and yet the Sagamore declares it came from the poll of a Mingo; nay, he
+even names the tribe of the poor devil with as much ease as if the scalp
+was the leaf of a book, and each hair a letter. What right have
+Christian whites to boast of their learning, when a savage can read a
+language that would prove too much for the wisest of them all! What say
+<i>you</i>, lad; of what people was the knave?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>Uncas raised his eyes to the face of the scout, and answered, in his
+soft voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oneida."</p>
+
+<p>"Oneida, again! when one Indian makes a declaration it is commonly true;
+but when he is supported by his people, set it down as gospel!"</p>
+
+<p>"The poor fellow has mistaken us for French," said Heyward; "or he would
+not have attempted the life of a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"He mistake a Mohican in his paint for a Huron! You would be as likely
+to mistake the white-coated grenadiers of Montcalm for the scarlet
+jackets of the 'Royal Americans'," returned the scout. "No, no, the
+sarpent knew his errand; nor was there any great mistake in the matter,
+for there is but little love atween a Delaware and a Mingo, let their
+tribes go out to fight for whom they may, in a white quarrel. For that
+matter, though the Oneidas do serve his sacred majesty, who is my own
+sovereign lord and master, I should not have deliberated long about
+letting off 'Killdeer' at the imp myself, had luck thrown him in my
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"That would have been an abuse of our treaties, and unworthy of your
+character."</p>
+
+<p>"When a man consorts much with a people," continued Hawkeye, "if they
+are honest and he no knave, love will grow up atwixt them. It is true
+that white cunning has managed to throw the tribes into great confusion
+as respects friends and enemies; so that the Hurons and the Oneidas, who
+speak the same tongue, or what may be called the same, take each other's
+scalps, and the Delawares are divided among themselves; a few hanging
+about their great council-fire on their own river, and fighting on the
+same side with the Mingos, while the greater part are in the Canadas,
+out of natural enmity to the Maquas&mdash;thus throwing everything into
+disorder, and destroying all the harmony of warfare. Yet a red natur' is
+not likely to alter with every shift of policy; so that the love atwixt
+a Mohican and a Mingo is much like the regard between a white man and a
+sarpent."</p>
+
+<p>"I regret to hear it; for I had believed those natives who dwelt within
+our boundaries had found us too just and liberal, not to identify
+themselves fully with our quarrels."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I believe it is natur' to give a preference to one's own quarrels
+before those of strangers. Now, for myself, I do love justice; and
+therefore I will not say I hate a Mingo, for that may be unsuitable to
+my color and my religion, though I will just repeat,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> it may have been
+owing to the night that 'Killdeer' had no hand in the death of this
+skulking Oneida."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as if satisfied with the force of his own reasons, whatever might
+be their effect on the opinions of the other disputant, the honest but
+implacable woodsman turned from the fire, content to let the controversy
+slumber. Heyward withdrew to the rampart, too uneasy and too little
+accustomed to the warfare of the woods to remain at ease under the
+possibility of such insidious attacks. Not so, however, with the scout
+and the Mohicans. Those acute and long practised senses, whose powers so
+often exceed the limits of all ordinary credulity, after having detected
+the danger, had enabled them to ascertain its magnitude and duration.
+Not one of the three appeared in the least to doubt their perfect
+security, as was indicated by the preparations that were soon made to
+sit in council over their future proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion of nations, and even of tribes, to which Hawkeye alluded,
+existed at that period in the fullest force. The great tie of language,
+and, of course, of a common origin, was severed in many places; and it
+was one of its consequences, that the Delaware and the Mingo (as the
+people of the Six Nations were called) were found fighting in the same
+ranks, while the latter sought the scalp of the Huron, though believed
+to be the root of his own stock. The Delawares were even divided among
+themselves. Though love for the soil which had belonged to his ancestors
+kept the Sagamore of the Mohicans with a small band of followers who
+were serving at Edward, under the banners of the English king, by far
+the largest portion of his nation were known to be in the field as
+allies of Montcalm. The reader probably knows, if enough has not already
+been gleaned from this narrative, that the Delaware, or Lenape, claimed
+to be the progenitors of that numerous people, who once were masters of
+most of the Eastern and Northern States of America, of whom the
+community of the Mohicans was an ancient and highly honored member.</p>
+
+<p>It was, of course, with a perfect understanding of the minute and
+intricate interest which had armed friend against friend, and brought
+natural enemies to combat by each other's side, that the scout and his
+companions now disposed themselves to deliberate on the measures that
+were to govern their future movements, amid so many jarring and savage
+races of men. Duncan knew enough of Indian customs to understand the
+reason that the fire was replenished, and why the warriors, not
+excepting Hawkeye,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> took their seats within the curl of its smoke with
+so much gravity and decorum. Placing himself at an angle of the works,
+where he might be a spectator of the scene within, while he kept a
+watchful eye against any danger from without, he awaited the result with
+as much patience as he could summon.</p>
+
+<p>After a short and impressive pause, Chingachgook lighted a pipe whose
+bowl was curiously carved in one of the soft stones of the country, and
+whose stem was a tube of wood, and commenced smoking. When he had
+inhaled enough of the fragrance of the soothing weed, he passed the
+instrument into the hands of the scout. In this manner the pipe had made
+its rounds three several times, amid the most profound silence, before
+either of the party opened his lips. Then the Sagamore, as the oldest
+and highest in rank, in a few calm and dignified words, proposed the
+subject for deliberation. He was answered by the scout; and Chingachgook
+rejoined, when the other objected to his opinions. But the youthful
+Uncas continued a silent and respectful listener, until Hawkeye, in
+complaisance, demanded his opinion. Heyward gathered from the manners of
+the different speakers, that the father and son espoused one side of a
+disputed question, while the white man maintained the other. The contest
+gradually grew warmer, until it was quite evident the feelings of the
+speakers began to be somewhat enlisted in the debate.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the increasing warmth of the amicable contest, the most
+decorous Christian assembly, not even excepting those in which its
+reverend ministers are collected, might have learned a wholesome lesson
+of moderation from the forbearance and courtesy of the disputants. The
+words of Uncas were received with the same deep attention as those which
+fell from the maturer wisdom of his father; and so far from manifesting
+any impatience, neither spoke in reply, until a few moments of silent
+meditation were, seemingly, bestowed in deliberating on what had already
+been said.</p>
+
+<p>The language of the Mohicans was accompanied by gestures so direct and
+natural, that Heyward had but little difficulty in following the thread
+of their argument. On the other hand, the scout was obscure; because,
+from the lingering pride of color, he rather affected the cold and
+artificial manner which characterizes all classes of Anglo-Americans,
+when unexcited. By the frequency with which the Indians described the
+marks of a forest trail, it was evident they urged a pursuit by land,
+while the repeated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> sweep of Hawkeye's arm towards the Horican denoted
+that he was for a passage across its waters.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was, to every appearance, fast losing ground, and the point
+was about to be decided against him, when he arose to his feet, and
+shaking off his apathy, he suddenly assumed the manner of an Indian, and
+adopted all the arts of native eloquence. Elevating an arm, he pointed
+out the track of the sun, repeating the gesture for every day that was
+necessary to accomplish their object. Then he delineated a long and
+painful path, amid rocks and water-courses. The age and weakness of the
+slumbering and unconscious Munro were indicated by signs too palpable to
+be mistaken. Duncan perceived that even his own powers were spoken
+lightly of, as the scout extended his palm, and mentioned him by
+appellation of the "Open Hand,"&mdash;a name his liberality had purchased of
+all the friendly tribes. Then came a representation of the light and
+graceful movements of a canoe, set in forcible contrast to the tottering
+steps of one enfeebled and tired. He concluded by pointing to the scalp
+of the Oneida, and apparently urging the necessity of their departing
+speedily, and in a manner that should leave no trail.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohicans listened gravely, and with countenances that reflected the
+sentiments of the speaker. Conviction gradually wrought its influence,
+and towards the close of Hawkeye's speech, his sentences were
+accompanied by the customary exclamation of commendation. In short,
+Uncas and his father became converts to his way of thinking, abandoning
+their own previously expressed opinions with a liberality and candor
+that, had they been the representatives of some great and civilized
+people, would have infallibly worked their political ruin, by
+destroying, forever, their reputation for consistency.</p>
+
+<p>The instant the matter in discussion was decided, the debate, and
+everything connected with it, except the results, appeared to be
+forgotten. Hawkeye, without looking round to read his triumph in
+applauding eyes, very composedly stretched his tall frame before the
+dying embers, and closed his own organs in sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose time had been
+so much devoted to the interests of others, seized the moment to devote
+some attention to themselves. Casting off, at once, the grave and
+austere demeanor of an Indian chief, Chingachgook commenced speaking to
+his son in the soft and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met
+the familiar air of his father; and before the hard breathing of the
+scout announced that he slept, a complete change was effected in the
+manner of his two associates.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while thus
+engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it
+intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The
+compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was
+wonderful,&mdash;extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even
+feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and
+ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to
+smile in reply to the other's contagious, but low laughter. While under
+the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity
+was to be seen in the softened features of the Sagamore. His figured
+panoply of death looked more like a disguise assumed in mockery, than a
+fierce annunciation of a desire to carry destruction in his footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour passed in the indulgence of their better feelings,
+Chingachgook abruptly announced his desire to sleep, by wrapping his
+head in his blanket, and stretching his form on the naked earth. The
+merriment of Uncas instantly ceased; and carefully raking the coals in
+such a manner that they should impart their warmth to his father's feet,
+the youth sought his own pillow among the ruins of the place.</p>
+
+<p>Imbibing renewed confidence from the security of these experienced
+foresters, Heyward soon imitated their example; and long before the
+night had turned, they who lay in the bosom of the ruined work, seemed
+to slumber as heavily as the unconscious multitude whose bones were
+already beginning to bleach on the surrounding plain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes<br />
+On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Childe Harold.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> heavens were still studded with stars, when Hawkeye came to arouse
+the sleepers. Casting aside their cloaks Munro and Heyward were on their
+feet while the woodsman was still making his low calls, at the entrance
+of the rude shelter where they had passed the night. When they issued
+from beneath its concealment, they found the scout awaiting their
+appearance nigh by, and the only salutation between them was the
+significant gesture for silence, made by their sagacious leader.</p>
+
+<p>"Think over your prayers," he whispered, as they approached him; "for He
+to whom you make them knows all tongues; that of the heart as well as
+those of the mouth. But speak not a syllable; it is rare for a white
+voice to pitch itself properly in the woods, as we have seen by the
+example of that miserable devil, the singer. Come," he continued,
+turning towards a curtain of the works; "let us get into the ditch on
+this side, and be regardful to step on the stones and fragments of wood
+as you go."</p>
+
+<p>His companions complied, though to two of them the reasons of this
+extraordinary precaution were yet a mystery. When they were in the low
+cavity that surrounded the earthen fort on three sides, they found the
+passage nearly choked by the ruins. With care and patience, however,
+they succeeded in clambering after the scout, until they reached the
+sandy shore of the Horican.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a trail that nothing but a nose can follow," said the satisfied
+scout, looking back along their difficult way; "grass is a treacherous
+carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print
+from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots, there might, indeed,
+have been something to fear; but with the deer-skin suitably prepared, a
+man may trust himself, generally, on rocks with safety. Shove in the
+canoe nigher to the land, Uncas; this sand will take a stamp as easily
+as the butter of the Jarmans on the Mohawk. Softly, lad, softly; it must
+not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> touch the beach, or the knaves will know by what road we have left
+the place."</p>
+
+<p>The young man observed the precaution; and the scout, laying a board
+from the ruins to the canoe, made a sign for the two officers to enter.
+When this was done, everything was studiously restored to its former
+disorder; and then Hawkeye succeeded in reaching his little birchen
+vessel, without leaving behind him any of those marks which he appeared
+so much to dread. Heyward was silent, until the Indians had cautiously
+paddled the canoe some distance from the fort, and within the broad and
+dark shadow that fell from the eastern mountain on the glassy surface of
+the lake; then he demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What need have we for this stolen and hurried departure?"</p>
+
+<p>"If the blood of an Oneida could stain such a sheet of pure water as
+this we float on," returned the scout, "your two eyes would answer your
+own question. Have you forgotten the skulking rept<i>y</i>le that Uncas
+slew?"</p>
+
+<p>"By no means. But he was said to be alone, and dead men give no cause
+for fear."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, he was alone in his deviltry! but an Indian whose tribe counts so
+many warriors, need seldom fear his blood will run, without the
+death-shriek coming speedily from some of his enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"But our presence&mdash;the authority of Colonel Munro&mdash;would prove a
+sufficient protection against the anger of our allies, especially in a
+case where a wretch so well merited his fate. I trust in Heaven you have
+not deviated a single foot from the direct line of our course, with so
+slight a reason!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think the bullet of that varlet's rifle would have turned aside,
+though his majesty the king had stood in its path?" returned the
+stubborn scout. "Why did not the grand Frencher, he who is
+captain-general of the Canadas, bury the tomahawks of the Hurons, if a
+word from a white can work so strongly on the natur' of an Indian?"</p>
+
+<p>The reply of Heyward was interrupted by a groan from Munro; but after he
+had paused a moment, in deference to the sorrow of his aged friend, he
+resumed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"The Marquis of Montcalm can only settle that error with his God," said
+the young man solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay; now there is reason in your words, for they are bottomed on
+religion and honesty. There is a vast difference between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> throwing a
+regiment of white coats atwixt the tribes and the prisoners, and coaxing
+an angry savage to forget he carries a knife and a rifle, with words
+that must begin with calling him your son. No, no," continued the scout,
+looking back at the dim shore of William Henry, which was now fast
+receding, and laughing in his own silent but heartfelt manner; "I have
+put a trail of water atween us; and unless the imps can make friends
+with the fishes, and hear who has paddled across their basin, this fine
+morning, we shall throw the length of the Horican behind us, before they
+have made up their minds which path to take."</p>
+
+<p>"With foes in front, and foes in our rear, our journey is like to be one
+of danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Danger!" repeated Hawkeye, calmly; "no, not absolutely of danger; for,
+with vigilant ears and quick eyes, we can manage to keep a few hours
+ahead of the knaves; or, if we must try the rifle, there are three of us
+who understand its gifts as well as any you can name on the borders. No,
+not of danger; but that we shall have what you may call a brisk push of
+it is probable; and it may happen, a brush, a skrimmage, or some such
+divarsion, but always where covers are good, and ammunition abundant."</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that Heyward's estimate of danger differed in some degree
+from that of the scout, for, instead of replying, he now sat in silence,
+while the canoe glided over several miles of water. Just as the day
+dawned, they entered the narrows of the lake,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> and stole swiftly and
+cautiously among their numberless little islands. It was by this road
+that Montcalm had retired with his army; and the adventurers knew not
+but he had left some of his Indians in ambush, to protect the rear of
+his forces, and collect the stragglers. They, therefore, approached the
+passage with the customary silence of their guarded habits.</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook laid aside his paddle; while Uncas and the scout<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> urged the
+light vessel through crooked and intricate channels, where every foot
+that they advanced exposed them to the danger of some sudden rising on
+their progress. The eyes of the Sagamore moved warily from islet to
+islet, and copse to copse, as the canoe proceeded; and when a clearer
+sheet of water permitted, his keen vision was bent along the bald rocks
+and impending forests, that frowned upon the narrow strait.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, who was a doubly interested spectator, as well from the
+beauties of the place as from the apprehension natural to his situation,
+was just believing that he had permitted the latter to be excited
+without sufficient reason, when the paddle ceased moving, in obedience
+to a signal from Chingachgook.</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed Uncas, nearly at the moment that the light tap his
+father had made on the side of the canoe notified them of the vicinity
+of danger.</p>
+
+<p>"What now?" asked the scout; "the lake is as smooth as if the winds had
+never blown, and I can see along its sheet for miles; there is not so
+much as the black head of a loon dotting the water."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian gravely raised his paddle, and pointed in the direction in
+which his own steady look was riveted. Duncan's eyes followed the
+motion. A few rods in their front lay another of the low wooded islets,
+but it appeared as calm and peaceful as if its solitude had never been
+disturbed by the foot of man.</p>
+
+<p>"I see nothing," he said, "but land and water; and a lovely scene it
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"Hist!" interrupted the scout. "Ay, Sagamore, there is always a reason
+for what you do. 'Tis but a shade, and yet it is not natural. You see
+the mist, major, that is rising above the island; you can't call it a
+fog, for it is more like a streak of thin cloud&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is vapor from the water."</p>
+
+<p>"That a child could tell. But what is the edging of blacker smoke that
+hangs along its lower side, and which you may trace down into the
+thicket of hazel? 'Tis from a fire; but one that, in my judgment, has
+been suffered to burn low."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us then push for the place, and relieve our doubts," said the
+impatient Duncan; "the party must be small that can lie on such a bit of
+land."</p>
+
+<p>"If you judge of Indian cunning by the rules you find in books, or by
+white sagacity, they will lead you astray, if not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> your death,"
+returned Hawkeye, examining the signs of the place with that acuteness
+which distinguished him. "If I may be permitted to speak in this matter,
+it will be to say, that we have but two things to choose between: the
+one is, to return, and give up all thoughts of following the Hurons&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice far too loud for their
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," continued Hawkeye, making a hasty sign to repress his
+impatience; "I am much of your mind myself; though I thought it becoming
+my experience to tell the whole. We must then make a push, and if the
+Indians or Frenchers are in the narrows, run the gauntlet through these
+toppling mountains. Is there reason in my words, Sagamore?"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian made no other answer than by dropping his paddle into the
+water, and urging forward the canoe. As he held the office of directing
+its course, his resolution was sufficiently indicated by the movement.
+The whole party now plied their paddles vigorously, and in a very few
+moments they had reached a point whence they might command an entire
+view of the northern shore of the island, the side that had hitherto
+been concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"There they are, by all the truth of signs," whispered the scout; "two
+canoes and a smoke. The knaves haven't yet got their eyes out of the
+mist, or we should hear the accursed whoop. Together, friend! we are
+leaving them, and are already nearly out of whistle of a bullet."</p>
+
+<p>The well known crack of a rifle, whose ball came skipping along the
+placid surface of the strait, and a shrill yell from the island,
+interrupted his speech, and announced that their passage was discovered.
+In another instant several savages were seen rushing into the canoes,
+which were soon dancing over the water, in pursuit. These fearful
+precursors of a coming struggle produced no change in the countenances
+and movements of his three guides, so far as Duncan could discover,
+except that the strokes of their paddles were longer and more in unison,
+and caused the little bark to spring forward like a creature possessing
+life and volition.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold them there, Sagamore," said Hawkeye, looking coolly backward over
+his left shoulder, while he still plied his paddle; "keep them just
+there. Them Hurons have never a piece in their nation that will execute
+at this distance; but 'Killdeer' has a barrel on which a man may
+calculate."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p><p>The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle. Three several times he brought
+the piece to his shoulder, and when his companions were expecting its
+report, he as often lowered it to request the Indians would permit their
+enemies to approach a little nigher. At length his accurate and
+fastidious eye seemed satisfied, and throwing out his left arm on the
+barrel, he was slowly elevating the muzzle, when an exclamation from
+Uncas, who sat in the bow, once more caused him to suspend the shot.</p>
+
+<p>"What now, lad?" demanded Hawkeye; "you saved a Huron from the
+death-shriek by that word; have you reason for what you do?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncas pointed towards the rocky shore a little in their front, whence
+another war canoe was darting directly across their course. It was too
+obvious now that their situation was imminently perilous to need the aid
+of language to confirm it. The scout laid aside his rifle, and resumed
+the paddle, while Chingachgook inclined the bows of the canoe a little
+towards the western shore, in order to increase the distance between
+them and this new enemy. In the meantime they were reminded of the
+presence of those who pressed upon their rear, by wild and exulting
+shouts. The stirring scene awakened even Munro from his apathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us make for the rocks on the main," he said, with the mien of a
+tired soldier, "and give battle to the savages. God forbid that I, or
+those attached to me and mine, should ever trust again to the faith of
+any servant of the Louis's!"</p>
+
+<p>"He who wishes to prosper in Indian warfare," returned the scout, "must
+not be too proud to learn from the wit of a native. Lay her more along
+the land, Sagamore; we are doubling on the varlets, and perhaps they may
+try to strike our trail on the long calculation."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye was not mistaken; for when the Hurons found their course was
+likely to throw them behind their chase, they rendered it less direct,
+until, by gradually bearing more and more obliquely, the two canoes were
+ere long, gliding on parallel lines, within two hundred yards of each
+other. It now became entirely a trial of speed. So rapid was the
+progress of the light vessels, that the lake curled in their front, in
+miniature waves, and their motion became undulating by its own velocity.
+It was, perhaps, owing to this circumstance, in addition to the
+necessity of keeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> every hand employed at the paddles, that the
+Hurons had not immediate recourse to their fire-arms. The exertions of
+the fugitives were too severe to continue long, and the pursuers had the
+advantage of numbers. Duncan observed, with uneasiness, that the scout
+began to look anxiously about him, as if searching for some further
+means of assisting their flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Edge her a little more from the sun, Sagamore," said the stubborn
+woodsman; "I see the knaves are sparing a man to the rifle. A single
+broken bone might lose us our scalps. Edge more from the sun and we will
+put the island between us."</p>
+
+<p>The expedient was not without its use. A long, low island lay at a
+little distance before them, and as they closed with it, the chasing
+canoe was compelled to take a side opposite to that on which the pursued
+passed. The scout and his companions did not neglect this advantage, but
+the instant they were hid from observation by the bushes, they redoubled
+efforts that before had seemed prodigious. The two canoes came round the
+last low point, like two coursers at the top of their speed, the
+fugitives taking the lead. This change had brought them nigher to each
+other, however, while it altered their relative positions.</p>
+
+<p>"You showed knowledge in the shaping of birchen bark, Uncas, when you
+chose this from among the Huron canoes," said the scout, smiling,
+apparently more in satisfaction at their superiority in the race, than
+from that prospect of final escape which now began to open a little upon
+them. "The imps have put all their strength again at the paddles, and we
+are to struggle for our scalps with bits of flattened wood, instead of
+clouded barrels and true eyes. A long stroke, and together, friends."</p>
+
+<p>"They are preparing for a shot," said Heyward; "and as we are in a line
+with them, it can scarcely fail."</p>
+
+<p>"Get you then into the bottom of the canoe," returned the scout; "you
+and the colonel; it will be so much taken from the size of the mark."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward smiled, as he answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It would be but an ill example for the highest in rank to dodge, while
+the warriors were under fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! Lord! That is now a white man's courage!" exclaimed the scout;
+"and like too many of his notions, not to be maintained by reason. Do
+you think the Sagamore, or Uncas, or even I, who am a man without a
+cross, would deliberate about finding a cover in the skrimmage, when an
+open body would do no good? For what have the Frenchers reared up their
+Quebec, if fighting is always to be done in the clearings?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_FLIGHT_ACROSS_THE_LAKE" id="THE_FLIGHT_ACROSS_THE_LAKE"></a>
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="500" height="627" alt="THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were<br /> sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance,<br /> deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised<br /> the fatal rifle</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>"All that you say is very true, my friend," replied Heyward; "still,
+our customs must prevent us from doing as you wish."</p>
+
+<p>A volley from the Hurons interrupted the discourse, and as the bullets
+whistled about them, Duncan saw the head of Uncas turned, looking back
+at himself and Munro. Notwithstanding the nearness of the enemy, and his
+own great personal danger, the countenance of the young warrior
+expressed no other emotion, as the former was compelled to think, than
+amazement at finding men willing to encounter so useless an exposure.
+Chingachgook was probably better acquainted with the notions of white
+men, for he did not even cast a glance aside from the riveted look his
+eye maintained on the object by which he governed their course. A ball
+soon struck the light and polished paddle from the hands of the chief,
+and drove it through the air, far in the advance. A shout arose from the
+Hurons, who seized the opportunity to fire another volley. Uncas
+described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe
+passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it
+on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans, and then lent his
+strength and skill again to the important task.</p>
+
+<p>The clamorous sounds of "Le Gros Serpent!" "La Longue Carabine!" "Le
+Cerf Agile!" burst at once from the canoes behind, and seemed to give
+new zeal to the pursuers. The scout seized "Killdeer" in his left hand,
+and elevating it above his head, he shook it in triumph at his enemies.
+The savages answered the insult with a yell, and immediately another
+volley succeeded. The bullets pattered along the lake, and one even
+pierced the bark of their little vessel. No perceptible emotion could be
+discovered in the Mohicans during this critical moment, their rigid
+features expressing neither hope nor alarm; but the scout again turned
+his head, and laughing in his own silent manner, he said to Heyward,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The knaves love to hear the sounds of their pieces; but the eye is not
+to be found among the Mingos that can calculate a true range in a
+dancing canoe! You see the dumb devils have taken off a man to charge,
+and by the smallest measurement that can be allowed, we move three feet
+to their two!"</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who was not altogether as easy under this nice estimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> of
+distances as his companions, was glad to find, however, that owing to
+their superior dexterity, and the diversion among their enemies, they
+were very sensibly obtaining the advantage. The Hurons soon fired again,
+and a bullet struck the blade of Hawkeye's paddle without injury.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," said the scout, examining the slight indentation with a
+curious eye; "it would not have cut the skin of an infant, much less of
+men, who, like us, have been blown upon by the heavens in their anger.
+Now, major, if you will try to use this piece of flattened wood, I'll
+let 'Killdeer' take a part in the conversation."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward seized the paddle, and applied himself to the work with an
+eagerness that supplied the place of skill, while Hawkeye was engaged in
+inspecting the priming of his rifle. The latter then took a swift aim,
+and fired. The Huron in the bows of the leading canoe had risen with a
+similar object, and he now fell backward, suffering his gun to escape
+from his hands into the water. In an instant, however, he recovered his
+feet, though his gestures were wild and bewildered. At the same moment
+his companions suspended their efforts, and the chasing canoes clustered
+together, and became stationary. Chingachgook and Uncas profited by the
+interval to regain their wind, though Duncan continued to work with the
+most persevering industry. The father and son now cast calm but
+inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any
+injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would,
+in such a moment of necessity, have been permitted to betray the
+accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulder of
+the Sagamore, who, when he perceived that the eyes of Uncas dwelt too
+long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and
+washing off the stain, was content to manifest, in this simple manner,
+the slightness of the injury.</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, softly, major," said the scout, who by this time had reloaded
+his rifle; "we are a little too far already for a rifle to put forth its
+beauties, and you see yonder imps are holding a council. Let them come
+up within striking distance&mdash;my eye may well be trusted in such a
+matter&mdash;and I will trail the varlets the length of the Horican,
+guaranteeing that not a shot of theirs shall, at the worst, more than
+break the skin, while 'Killdeer' shall touch the life twice in three
+times."</p>
+
+<p>"We forget our errand," returned the diligent Duncan. "For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> God's sake
+let us profit by this advantage, and increase our distance from the
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me my children," said Munro hoarsely; "trifle no longer with a
+father's agony, but restore me my babes."</p>
+
+<p>Long and habitual deference to the mandates of his superiors had taught
+the scout the virtue of obedience. Throwing a last and lingering glance
+at the distant canoes, he laid aside his rifle, and relieving the
+wearied Duncan, resumed the paddle, which he wielded with sinews that
+never tired. His efforts were seconded by those of the Mohicans, and a
+very few minutes served to place such a sheet of water between them and
+their enemies, that Heyward once more breathed freely.</p>
+
+<p>The lake now began to expand, and their route lay along a wide reach,
+that was lined, as before, by high and ragged mountains. But the islands
+were few, and easily avoided. The strokes of the paddles grew more
+measured and regular, while they who plied them continued their labor,
+after the close and deadly chase from which they had just relieved
+themselves, with as much coolness as though their speed had been tried
+in sport, rather than under such pressing, nay, almost desperate
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of following the western shore, whither their errand led them,
+the wary Mohican inclined his course more towards those hills behind
+which Montcalm was known to have led his army into the formidable
+fortress of Ticonderoga. As the Hurons, to every appearance, had
+abandoned the pursuit, there was no apparent reason for this excess of
+caution. It was, however, maintained for hours, until they had reached a
+bay, nigh the northern termination of the lake. Here the canoe was
+driven upon the beach, and the whole party landed. Hawkeye and Heyward
+ascended an adjacent bluff, where the former, after considering the
+expanse of water beneath him, pointed out to the latter a small black
+object, hovering under a headland, at the distance of several miles.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see it?" demanded the scout. "Now, what would you account that
+spot, were you left alone to white experience to find your way through
+this wilderness?"</p>
+
+<p>"But for its distance and its magnitude, I should suppose it a bird. Can
+it be a living object?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a canoe of good birchen bark, and paddled by fierce and crafty
+Mingos. Though Providence has lent to those who inhabit the woods eyes
+that would be needless to men in the settlements,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> where there are
+inventions to assist the sight, yet no human organs can see all the
+dangers which at this moment circumvent us. These varlets pretend to be
+bent chiefly on their sun-down meal, but the moment it is dark they will
+be on our trail, as true as hounds on the scent. We must throw them off,
+or our pursuit of Le Renard Subtil may be given up. These lakes are
+useful at times, especially when the game takes the water," continued
+the scout, gazing about him with a countenance of concern; "but they
+give no cover, except it be to the fishes. God knows what the country
+would be, if the settlements should ever spread far from the two rivers.
+Both hunting and war would lose their beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us not delay a moment, without some good and obvious cause."</p>
+
+<p>"I little like that smoke, which you may see worming up along the rock
+above the canoe," interrupted the abstracted scout. "My life on it,
+other eyes than ours see it, and know its meaning. Well, words will not
+mend the matter, and it is time that we were doing."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye moved away from the look-out, and descended, musing profoundly,
+to the shore. He communicated the result of his observations to his
+companions, in Delaware, and a short and earnest consultation succeeded.
+When it terminated, the three instantly set about executing their new
+resolutions.</p>
+
+<p>The canoe was lifted from the water, and borne on the shoulders of the
+party. They proceeded into the wood, making as broad and obvious a trail
+as possible. They soon reached a water-course, which they crossed, and
+continued onward, until they came to an extensive and naked rock. At
+this point, where their footsteps might be expected to be no longer
+visible, they retraced their route to the brook, walking backwards, with
+the utmost care. They now followed the bed of the little stream to the
+lake, into which they immediately launched their canoe again. A low
+point concealed them from the headland, and the margin of the lake was
+fringed for some distance with dense and overhanging bushes. Under the
+cover of these natural advantages, they toiled their way, with patient
+industry, until the scout pronounced that he believed it would be safe
+once more to land.</p>
+
+<p>The halt continued until evening rendered objects indistinct and
+uncertain to the eye. Then they resumed their route, and, favored by the
+darkness, pushed silently and vigorously towards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the western shore.
+Although the rugged outline of mountain, to which they were steering,
+presented no distinctive marks to the eyes of Duncan, the Mohican
+entered the little haven he had selected with the confidence and
+accuracy of an experienced pilot.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was again lifted and borne into the woods where it was
+carefully concealed under a pile of brush. The adventurers assumed their
+arms and packs, and the scout announced to Munro and Heyward that he and
+the Indians were at last in readiness to proceed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Merry Wives of Windsor.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> party had landed on the border of a region that is, even to this
+day, less known to the inhabitants of the States, than the deserts of
+Arabia, or the steppes of Tartary. It was the sterile and rugged
+district which separates the tributaries of Champlain from those of the
+Hudson, the Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence. Since the period of our tale,
+the active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a belt of rich
+and thriving settlements, though none but the hunter or the savage is
+ever known, even now, to penetrate its wild recesses.</p>
+
+<p>As Hawkeye and the Mohicans had, however, often traversed the mountains
+and valleys of this vast wilderness, they did not hesitate to plunge
+into its depths, with the freedom of men accustomed to its privations
+and difficulties. For many hours the travellers toiled on their
+laborious way, guided by a star, or following the direction of some
+water-course, until the scout called a halt, and holding a short
+consultation with the Indians, they lighted their fire, and made the
+usual preparations to pass the remainder of the night where they then
+were.</p>
+
+<p>Imitating the example, and emulating the confidence, of their more
+experienced associates, Munro and Duncan slept without fear, if not
+without uneasiness. The dews were suffered to exhale, and the sun
+dispersed the mists, and was shedding a strong and clear light in the
+forest, when the travellers resumed their journey.</p>
+
+<p>After proceeding a few miles, the progress of Hawkeye, who led the
+advance, became more deliberate and watchful. He often stopped to
+examine the trees; nor did he cross a rivulet, without attentively
+considering the quantity, the velocity, and the color of its waters.
+Distrusting his own judgment his appeals to the opinion of Chingachgook
+were frequent and earnest. During one of these conferences, Heyward
+observed that Uncas stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> a patient and silent, though, as he imagined,
+an interested listener. He was strongly tempted to address the young
+chief, and demand his opinion of their progress; but the calm and
+dignified demeanor of the native induced him to believe that, like
+himself, the other was wholly dependent on the sagacity and intelligence
+of the seniors of the party. At last, the scout spoke in English, and at
+once explained the embarrassment of their situation.</p>
+
+<p>"When I found that the home path of the Hurons run north," he said, "it
+did not need the judgment of many long years to tell that they would
+follow the valleys, and keep atween the waters of the Hudson and the
+Horican, until they might strike the springs of the Canada streams,
+which would lead them into the heart of the country of the Frenchers.
+Yet here are we, within a short range of the Scaroon, and not a sign of
+a trail have we crossed! Human natur' is weak, and it is possible we may
+not have taken the proper scent."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven protect us from such an error!" exclaimed Duncan. "Let us
+retrace our steps, and examine as we go, with keener eyes. Has Uncas no
+counsel to offer in such a strait?"</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican cast a glance at his father, but maintaining his quiet
+and reserved mien, he continued silent. Chingachgook had caught the
+look, and motioning with his hand, he bade him speak. The moment this
+permission was accorded, the countenance of Uncas changed from its grave
+composure to a gleam of intelligence and joy. Bounding forward like a
+deer, he sprang up the side of a little acclivity, a few rods in
+advance, and stood exultingly over a spot of fresh earth that looked as
+though it had been recently upturned by the passage of some heavy
+animal. The eyes of the whole party followed the unexpected movement,
+and read their success in the air of triumph that the youth assumed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the trail!" exclaimed the scout, advancing to the spot: "the lad
+is quick of sight and keen of wit for his years."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis extraordinary that he should have withheld his knowledge so long,"
+muttered Duncan, at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been more wonderful had he spoken without a bidding. No,
+no; your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can
+measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like
+his legs, outruns that of his father; but where experience is the
+master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects
+them accordingly."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p><p>"See!" said Uncas, pointing north and south, at the evident marks of
+the broad trail on either side of him: "the dark-hair has gone towards
+the frost."</p>
+
+<p>"Hound never ran on a more beautiful scent," responded the scout,
+dashing forward, at once, on the indicated route; "we are favored,
+greatly favored, and can follow with high noses. Ay, here are both your
+waddling beasts: this Huron travels like a white general. The fellow is
+stricken with a judgment, and is mad! Look sharp for wheels, Sagamore,"
+he continued, looking back, and laughing in his newly awakened
+satisfaction; "we shall soon have the fool journeying in a coach, and
+that with three of the best pair of eyes on the borders, in his rear."</p>
+
+<p>The spirits of the scout, and the astonishing success of the chase, in
+which a circuitous distance of more than forty miles had been passed,
+did not fail to impart a portion of hope to the whole party. Their
+advance was rapid; and made with as much confidence as a traveller would
+proceed along a wide highway. If a rock, or a rivulet, or a bit of earth
+harder than common, severed the links of the clue they followed, the
+true eye of the scout recovered them at a distance, and seldom rendered
+the delay of a single moment necessary. Their progress was much
+facilitated by the certainty that Magua had found it necessary to
+journey through the valleys; a circumstance which rendered the general
+direction of the route sure. Nor had the Huron entirely neglected the
+arts uniformly practised by the natives when retiring in front of any
+enemy. False trails, and sudden turnings, were frequent, wherever a
+brook, or the formation of the ground, rendered them feasible; but his
+pursuers were rarely deceived, and never failed to detect their error,
+before they had lost either time or distance on the deceptive track.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the afternoon they had passed the Scaroon, and were
+following the route of the declining sun. After descending an eminence
+to a low bottom, through which a stream glided, they suddenly came to a
+place where the party of Le Renard had made a halt. Extinguished brands
+were lying around a spring, the offals of a deer were scattered about
+the place, and the trees bore evident marks of having been browsed by
+the horses. At a little distance, Heyward discovered, and contemplated
+with tender emotion, the small bower under which he was fain to believe
+that Cora and Alice had reposed. But while the earth was trodden, and
+the footsteps of both men and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> beasts were so plainly visible around the
+place, the trail appeared to have suddenly ended.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to follow the track of the Narragansetts, but they seemed
+only to have wandered without guides, or any other object than the
+pursuit of food. At length Uncas, who, with his father, had endeavored
+to trace the route of the horses, came upon a sign of their presence
+that was quite recent. Before following the clue, he communicated his
+success to his companions; and while the latter were consulting on the
+circumstance, the youth reappeared, leading the two fillies, with their
+saddles broken, and the housings soiled, as though they had been
+permitted to run at will for several days.</p>
+
+<p>"What should this mean?" said Duncan, turning pale, and glancing his
+eyes around him, as if he feared the brush and leaves were about to give
+up some horrid secret.</p>
+
+<p>"That our march is come to a quick end, and that we are in an enemy's
+country," returned the scout. "Had the knaves been pressed, and the
+gentle ones wanted horses to keep up with the party, he might have taken
+their scalps; but without an enemy at his heels, and with such rugged
+beasts as these, he would not hurt a hair of their heads. I know your
+thoughts, and shame be it to our color that you have reason for them;
+but he who thinks that even a Mingo would ill-treat a woman, unless it
+be to tomahawk her, knows nothing of Indian natur', or the laws of the
+woods. No, no; I have heard that the French Indians had come into these
+hills, to hunt the moose, and we are getting within scent of their camp.
+Why should they not? the morning and evening guns of Ty may be heard any
+day among these mountains; for the Frenchers are running a new line
+atween the provinces of the king and the Canadas. It is true that the
+horses are here, but the Hurons are gone; let us then hunt for the path
+by which they departed."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye and the Mohicans now applied themselves to their task in good
+earnest. A circle of a few hundred feet in circumference was drawn, and
+each of the party took a segment for his portion. The examination,
+however, resulted in no discovery. The impressions of footsteps were
+numerous, but they all appeared like those of men who had wandered about
+the spot, without any design to quit it. Again the scout and his
+companions made the circuit of the halting-place, each slowly following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+the other, until they assembled in the centre once more, no wiser than
+when they started.</p>
+
+<p>"Such cunning is not without its deviltry," exclaimed Hawkeye, when he
+met the disappointed looks of his assistants.</p>
+
+<p>"We must get down to it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring, and going
+over the ground by inches. The Huron shall never brag in his tribe that
+he has a foot which leaves no print."</p>
+
+<p>Setting the example himself, the scout engaged in the scrutiny with
+renewed zeal. Not a leaf was left unturned. The sticks were removed, and
+the stones lifted; for Indian cunning was known frequently to adopt
+these objects as covers, laboring with the utmost patience and industry,
+to conceal each footstep as they proceeded. Still no discovery was made.
+At length Uncas, whose activity had enabled him to achieve his portion
+of the task the soonest, raked the earth across the turbid little rill
+which ran from the spring, and diverted its course into another channel.
+So soon as its narrow bed below the dam was dry, he stooped over it with
+keen and curious eyes. A cry of exultation immediately announced the
+success of the young warrior. The whole party crowded to the spot where
+Uncas pointed out the impression of a moccasin in the moist alluvion.</p>
+
+<p>"The lad will be an honor to his people," said Hawkeye, regarding the
+trail with as much admiration as a naturalist would expend on the tusk
+of a mammoth or the rib of a mastodon; "ay, and a thorn in the sides of
+the Hurons. Yet that is not the footstep of an Indian! the weight is too
+much on the heel, and the toes are squared, as though one of the French
+dancers had been in, pigeon-winging his tribe! Run back, Uncas, and
+bring me the size of the singer's foot. You will find a beautiful print
+of it just opposite yon rock, agin the hillside."</p>
+
+<p>While the youth was engaged in this commission, the scout and
+Chingachgook were attentively considering the impressions. The
+measurements agreed, and the former unhesitatingly pronounced that the
+footstep was that of David, who had once more, been made to exchange his
+shoes for moccasins.</p>
+
+<p>"I can now read the whole of it, as plainly as if I had seen the arts of
+Le Subtil," he added; "the singer, being a man whose gifts lay chiefly
+in his throat and feet, was made to go first, and the others have trod
+in his steps, imitating their formation."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Duncan, "I see no signs of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The gentle ones," interrupted the scout; "the varlet has found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> a way to
+carry them, until he supposed he had thrown any followers off the scent.
+My life on it, we see their pretty little feet again, before many rods
+go by."</p>
+
+<p>The whole party now proceeded, following the course of the rill, keeping
+anxious eyes on the regular impressions. The water soon flowed into its
+bed again, but watching the ground on either side, the foresters pursued
+their way content with knowing that the trail lay beneath. More than
+half a mile was passed, before the rill rippled close around the base of
+an extensive and dry rock. Here they paused to make sure that the Hurons
+had not quitted the water.</p>
+
+<p>It was fortunate they did so. For the quick and active Uncas soon found
+the impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it would seem an
+Indian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the direction given by this
+discovery, he entered the neighboring thicket, and struck the trail, as
+fresh and obvious as it had been before they reached the spring. Another
+shout announced the good fortune of the youth to his companions, and at
+once terminated the search.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, it has been planned with Indian judgment," said the scout, when the
+party was assembled around the place; "and would have blinded white
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we proceed?" demanded Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, softly: we know our path; but it is good to examine the
+formation of things. This is my schooling, major; and if one neglects
+the book, there is little chance of learning from the open hand of
+Providence. All is plain but one thing, which is the manner that the
+knave contrived to get the gentle ones along the blind trail. Even a
+Huron would be too proud to let their tender feet touch the water."</p>
+
+<p>"Will this assist in explaining the difficulty?" said Heyward, pointing
+towards the fragments of a sort of handbarrow, that had been rudely
+constructed of boughs, and bound together with withes, and which now
+seemed carelessly cast aside as useless.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis explained!" cried the delighted Hawkeye. "If them varlets have
+passed a minute, they have spent hours in striving to fabricate a lying
+end to their trail! Well, I've known them to waste a day in the same
+manner, to as little purpose. Here we have three pair of moccasins, and
+two of little feet. It is amazing that any mortal beings can journey on
+limbs so small! Pass me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> the thong of buckskin, Uncas, and let me take
+the length of this foot. By the Lord, it is no longer than a child's and
+yet the maidens are tall and comely. That Providence is partial in its
+gifts, for its own wise reasons, the best and most contented of us must
+allow."</p>
+
+<p>"The tender limbs of my daughters are unequal to these hardships," said
+Munro, looking at the light footsteps of his children, with a parent's
+love: "we shall find their fainting forms in this desert."</p>
+
+<p>"Of that there is little cause of fear," returned the scout, slowly
+shaking his head; "this is a firm and straight, though a light step, and
+not over long. See, the heel has hardly touched the ground; and there
+the dark-hair has made a little jump, from root to root. No, no; my
+knowledge for it, neither of them was nigh fainting, hereaway. Now, the
+singer was beginning to be foot-sore and leg-weary as is plain by his
+trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has travelled wide, and
+tottered; and there, again, it looks as though he journeyed on
+snow-shoes. Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly
+give his legs a proper training."</p>
+
+<p>From such undeniable testimony did the practised woodsman arrive at the
+truth, with nearly as much certainty and precision as if he had been a
+witness of all those events which his ingenuity so easily elucidated.
+Cheered by these assurances, and satisfied by a reasoning that was so
+obvious, while it was so simple, the party resumed its course, after
+making a short halt to take a hurried repast.</p>
+
+<p>When the meal was ended, the scout cast a glance upwards at the setting
+sun, and pushed forward with a rapidity which compelled Heyward and the
+still vigorous Munro to exert all their muscles to equal. Their route
+now lay along the bottom which had already been mentioned. As the Hurons
+had made no further efforts to conceal their footsteps, the progress of
+the pursuers was no longer delayed by uncertainty. Before an hour had
+elapsed, however, the speed of Hawkeye sensibly abated, and his head,
+instead of maintaining its former direct and forward look, began to turn
+suspiciously from side to side, as if he were conscious of approaching
+danger. He soon stopped again, and waited for the whole party to come
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"I scent the Hurons," he said, speaking to the Mohicans; "yonder is open
+sky, through the tree-tops, and we are getting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> too nigh their
+encampment. Sagamore, you will take the hillside, to the right; Uncas
+will bend along the brook to the left, while I will try the trail. If
+anything should happen, the call will be three croaks of a crow. I saw
+one of the birds fanning himself in the air, just beyond the dead
+oak&mdash;another sign that we are touching an encampment."</p>
+
+<p>The Indians departed their several ways without reply, while Hawkeye
+cautiously proceeded with the two gentlemen. Heyward soon pressed to the
+side of their guide, eager to catch an early glimpse of those enemies he
+had pursued with so much toil and anxiety. His companion told him to
+steal to the edge of the wood, which, as usual, was fringed with a
+thicket, and wait his coming, for he wished to examine certain
+suspicious signs a little on one side. Duncan obeyed, and soon found
+himself in a situation to command a view which he found as extraordinary
+as it was novel.</p>
+
+<p>The trees of many acres had been felled, and the glow of a mild summer's
+evening had fallen on the clearing, in beautiful contrast to the gray
+light of the forest. A short distance from the place where Duncan stood,
+the stream had seemingly expanded into a little lake, covering most of
+the low land, from mountain to mountain. The water fell out of this wide
+basin, in a cataract so regular and gentle, that it appeared rather to
+be the work of human hands, than fashioned by nature. A hundred earthen
+dwellings stood on the margin of the lake, and even in its water, as
+though the latter had overflowed its usual banks. Their rounded roofs,
+admirably moulded for defence against the weather, denoted more of
+industry and foresight than the natives were wont to bestow on their
+regular habitations, much less on those they occupied for the temporary
+purposes of hunting and war. In short, the whole village or town,
+whichever it might be termed, possessed more of method and neatness of
+execution, than the white men had been accustomed to believe belonged,
+ordinarily, to the Indian habits. It appeared, however, to be deserted.
+At least, so thought Duncan for many minutes; but, at length, he fancied
+he discovered several human forms advancing towards him on all fours,
+and apparently dragging in their train some heavy, and as he was quick
+to apprehend, some formidable engine. Just then a few dark looking heads
+gleamed out of the dwellings, and the place seemed suddenly alive with
+beings, which, however, glided from cover to cover so swiftly, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> to
+allow no opportunity of examining their humors or pursuits. Alarmed at
+these suspicious and inexplicable movements, he was about to attempt the
+signal of the crows, when the rustling of leaves at hand drew his eyes
+in another direction.</p>
+
+<p>The young man started, and recoiled a few paces instinctively, when he
+found himself within a hundred yards of a stranger Indian. Recovering
+his recollection on the instant, instead of sounding an alarm, which
+might prove fatal to himself, he remained stationary, an attentive
+observer of the other's motions.</p>
+
+<p>An instant of calm observation served to assure Duncan that he was
+undiscovered. The native, like himself, seemed occupied in considering
+the low dwellings of the village, and the stolen movements of its
+inhabitants. It was impossible to discover the expression of his
+features, through the grotesque mask of paint under which they were
+concealed; though Duncan fancied it was rather melancholy than savage.
+His head was shaved, as usual, with the exception of the crown, from
+whose tuft three or four faded feathers from a hawk's wing were loosely
+dangling. A ragged calico mantle half-encircled his body, while his
+nether garment was composed of an ordinary shirt, the sleeves of which
+were made to perform the office that is usually executed by a much more
+commodious arrangement. His legs were bare, and sadly cut and torn by
+briers. The feet were, however, covered with a pair of good deer-skin
+moccasins. Altogether, the appearance of the individual was forlorn and
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan was still curiously observing the person of his neighbor, when
+the scout stole silently and cautiously to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"You see we have reached their settlement or encampment," whispered the
+young man; "and here is one of the savages himself, in a very
+embarrassing position for our further movements."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye started, and dropped his rifle, directed by the finger of his
+companion, the stranger came under his view. Then lowering the dangerous
+muzzle, he stretched forward his long neck, as if to assist a scrutiny
+that was already intensely keen.</p>
+
+<p>"The imp is not a Huron," he said, "nor of any of the Canada tribes; and
+yet you see, by his clothes, the knave has been plundering a white. Ay,
+Montcalm has raked the woods for his inroad, and a whooping, murdering
+set of varlets has he gathered together. Can you see where he has put
+his rifle or his bow?"</p>
+
+<p>"He appears to have no arms; nor does he seem to be viciously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> inclined.
+Unless he communicate the alarm to his fellows, who as you see are
+dodging about the water, we have but little to fear from him."</p>
+
+<p>The scout turned to Heyward, and regarded him a moment with unconcealed
+amazement. Then opening wide his mouth, he indulged in unrestrained and
+heartfelt laughter, though in that silent and peculiar manner which
+danger had so long taught him to practise.</p>
+
+<p>Repeating the words, "fellows who are dodging about the water!" he
+added, "so much for schooling and passing a boyhood in the settlements!
+The knave has long legs, though, and shall not be trusted. Do you keep
+him under your rifle while I creep in behind, through the bush, and take
+him alive. Fire on no account."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward had already permitted his companion to bury part of his person
+in the thicket, when, stretching forth an arm, he arrested him, in order
+to ask,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If I see you in danger, may I not risk a shot?"</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye regarded him a moment, like one who knew not how to take the
+question; then nodding his head, he answered, still laughing, though
+inaudibly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fire a whole platoon, major."</p>
+
+<p>In the next moment he was concealed by the leaves. Duncan waited several
+minutes in feverish impatience, before he caught another glimpse of the
+scout. Then he reappeared, creeping along the earth, from which his
+dress was hardly distinguishable, directly in the rear of his intended
+captive. Having reached within a few yards of the latter, he arose to
+his feet, silently and slowly. At that instant, several loud blows were
+struck on the water, and Duncan turned his eyes just in time to perceive
+that a hundred dark forms were plunging, in a body, into the troubled
+little sheet. Grasping his rifle, his looks were again bent on the
+Indian near him. Instead of taking the alarm, the unconscious savage
+stretched forward his neck, as if he also watched the movements about
+the gloomy lake, with a sort of silly curiosity. In the meantime, the
+uplifted hand of Hawkeye was above him. But, without any apparent
+reason, it was withdrawn, and its owner indulged in another long, though
+still silent, fit of merriment. When the peculiar and hearty laughter of
+Hawkeye was ended, instead of grasping his victim by the throat, he
+tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and exclaimed aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><p>"How now, friend! have you a mind to teach the beavers to sing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," was the ready answer. "It would seem that the Being that gave
+them power to improve his gifts so well, would not deny them voices to
+proclaim his praise."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p>
+<i>"Bot.</i>&mdash;Are we all met?"</p>
+<p>
+<i>"Qui.</i>&mdash;Pat&mdash;pat; and here's a marvellous
+Convenient place for our rehearsal."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> reader may better imagine, than we describe, the surprise of
+Heyward. His lurking Indians were suddenly converted into four-footed
+beasts; his lake into a beaver pond; his cataract into a dam,
+constructed by those industrious and ingenious quadrupeds; and a
+suspected enemy into his tried friend, David Gamut, the master of
+psalmody. The presence of the latter created so many unexpected hopes
+relative to the sisters that, without a moment's hesitation, the young
+man broke out of his ambush, and sprang forward to join the two
+principal actors in the scene.</p>
+
+<p>The merriment of Hawkeye was not easily appeased. Without ceremony, and
+with a rough hand, he twirled the supple Gamut around on his heel, and
+more than once affirmed that the Hurons had done themselves great credit
+in the fashion of his costume. Then seizing the hand of the other, he
+squeezed it with a gripe that brought the tears into the eyes of the
+placid David, and wished him joy of his new condition.</p>
+
+<p>"You were about opening your throat-practysings among the beavers, were
+ye?" he said. "The cunning devils know half the trade already, for they
+beat the time with their tails, as you heard just now; and in good time
+it was too, or 'Killdeer' might have sounded the first note among them.
+I have known greater fools, who could read and write, than an
+experienced old beaver; but as for squalling, the animals are born dumb!
+What think you of such a song as this?"</p>
+
+<p>David shut his sensitive ears, and even Heyward, apprised as he was of
+the nature of the cry, looked upwards in quest of the bird, as the
+cawing of a crow rang in the air about them.</p>
+
+<p>"See!" continued the laughing scout, as he pointed towards the remainder
+of the party, who, in obedience to the signal, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> already
+approaching: "this is music which has its natural virtues; it brings two
+good rifles to my elbow, to say nothing of the knives and tomahawks. But
+we see that you are safe; now tell us what has become of the maidens."</p>
+
+<p>"They are captives to the heathen," said David; "and though greatly
+troubled in spirit, enjoying comfort and safety in the body."</p>
+
+<p>"Both?" demanded the breathless Heyward.</p>
+
+<p>"Even so. Though our wayfaring has been sore and our sustenance scanty,
+we have had little other cause for complaint, except the violence done
+our feelings, by being thus led in captivity into a far land."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless ye for these very words!" exclaimed the trembling Munro; "I shall
+then receive my babes spotless and angel-like, as I lost them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not that their delivery is at hand," returned the doubting
+David; "the leader of these savages is possessed of an evil spirit that
+no power short of Omnipotence can tame. I have tried him sleeping and
+waking, but neither sounds nor language seem to touch his soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the knave?" bluntly interrupted the scout.</p>
+
+<p>"He hunts the moose to-day, with his young men; and to-morrow, as I
+hear, they pass farther into these forests, and nigher to the borders of
+Canada. The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighboring people, whose
+lodges are situate beyond yonder black pinnacle of rock; while the
+younger is detained among the women of the Hurons, whose dwellings are
+but two short miles hence, on a table-land, where the fire has done the
+office of the axe, and prepared the place for their reception."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice, my gentle Alice!" murmured Heyward; "she has lost the
+consolation of her sister's presence!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so. But so far as praise and thanksgiving in psalmody can temper
+the spirit in affliction, she has not suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"Has she then a heart for music?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the graver and more solemn character; though it must be acknowledged
+that, in spite of all my endeavors, the maiden weeps oftener than she
+smiles. At such moments I forbear to press the holy songs; but there are
+many sweet and comfortable periods of satisfactory communication, when
+the ears of the savages are astounded with the upliftings of our
+voices."</p>
+
+<p>"And why are you permitted to go at large, unwatched?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p><p>David composed his features into what he intended should express an air
+of modest humility, before he meekly replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Little be the praise to such a worm as I. But, though the power of
+psalmody was suspended in the terrible business of that field of blood
+through which we passed, it has recovered its influence even over the
+souls of the heathen, and I am suffered to go and come at will."</p>
+
+<p>The scout laughed, and tapping his own forehead significantly, he
+perhaps explained the singular indulgence more satisfactorily when he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians never harm a non-composser. But why, when the path lay open
+before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not
+so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings
+to Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>The scout, remembering only his own sturdy and iron nature, had probably
+exacted a task that David, under no circumstances, could have performed.
+But, without entirely losing the meekness of his air, the latter was
+content to answer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Though my soul would rejoice to visit the habitations of Christendom
+once more, my feet would rather follow the tender spirits intrusted to
+my keeping, even into the idolatrous province of the Jesuits, than take
+one step backward, while they pined in captivity and sorrow."</p>
+
+<p>Though the figurative language of David was not very intelligible, the
+sincere and steady expression of his eye, and the glow on his honest
+countenance, were not easily mistaken. Uncas pressed closer to his side,
+and regarded the speaker with a look of commendation, while his father
+expressed his satisfaction by the ordinary pithy exclamation of
+approbation. The scout shook his head as he rejoined&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord never intended that the man should place all his endeavors in
+his throat, to the neglect of other and better gifts! But he has fallen
+into the hands of some silly woman, when he should have been gathering
+his education under a blue sky, among the beauties of the forest. Here,
+friend; I did intend to kindle a fire with this tooting whistle of
+thine; but as you value the thing, take it, and blow your best on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Gamut received his pitch-pipe with as strong an expression of pleasure
+as he believed compatible with the grave functions he exercised. After
+essaying its virtues repeatedly, in contrast with his own voice, and
+satisfying himself that none of its melody was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> lost, he made a very
+serious demonstration towards achieving a few stanzas of one of the
+longest effusions in the little volume so often mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward, however, hastily interrupted his pious purpose, by continuing
+questions concerning the past and present condition of his
+fellow-captives, and in a manner more methodical than had been permitted
+by his feelings in the opening of their interview. David, though he
+regarded his treasure with longing eyes, was constrained to answer:
+especially as the venerable father took a part in the interrogatories,
+with an interest too imposing to be denied. Nor did the scout fail to
+throw in a pertinent inquiry, whenever a fitting occasion presented. In
+this manner, though with frequent interruptions, which were filled with
+certain threatening sounds from the recovered instrument, the pursuers
+were put in possession of such leading circumstances as were likely to
+prove useful in accomplishing their great and engrossing object&mdash;the
+recovery of the sisters. The narrative of David was simple, and the
+facts but few.</p>
+
+<p>Magua had waited on the mountain until a safe moment to retire presented
+itself, when he had descended, and taken the route along the western
+side of the Horican, in the direction of the Canadas. As the subtle
+Huron was familiar with the paths, and well knew there was no immediate
+danger of pursuit, their progress had been moderate, and far from
+fatiguing. It appeared from the unembellished statement of David, that
+his own presence had been rather endured than desired; though even Magua
+had not been entirely exempt from that veneration with which the Indians
+regard those whom the Great Spirit has visited in their intellects. At
+night, the utmost care had been taken of the captives, both to prevent
+injury from the damps of the woods, and to guard against an escape. At
+the spring, the horses were turned loose, as has been seen; and
+notwithstanding the remoteness and length of their trail, the artifices
+already named were resorted to, in order to cut off every clue to their
+place of retreat. On their arrival at the encampment of his people,
+Magua, in obedience to a policy seldom departed from, separated his
+prisoners. Cora had been sent to a tribe that temporarily occupied an
+adjacent valley, though David was too ignorant of the customs and
+history of the natives to be able to declare anything satisfactory
+concerning their name or character. He only knew that they had not
+engaged in the late expedition against William<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Henry; that, like the
+Hurons themselves, they were allies of Montcalm; and that they
+maintained an amicable, though a watchful intercourse with the warlike
+and savage people, whom chance had, for a time, brought in such close
+and disagreeable contact with themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohicans and the scout listened to his interrupted and imperfect
+narrative, with an interest that obviously increased as he proceeded;
+and it was while attempting to explain the pursuits of the community in
+which Cora was detained, that the latter abruptly demanded&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the fashion of their knives? Were they of English or French
+formation?"</p>
+
+<p>"My thoughts were bent on no such vanities, but rather mingled in
+consolation with those of the maidens."</p>
+
+<p>"The time may come when you will not consider the knife of a savage such
+a despisable vanity," returned the scout, with a strong expression of
+contempt for the other's dulness. "Had they held their corn-feast&mdash;or
+can you say anything of the totems of the tribe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of corn, we had many and plentiful feasts; for the grain, being in the
+milk, is both sweet to the mouth and comfortable to the stomach. Of
+totem, I know not the meaning; but if it appertaineth in any wise to the
+art of Indian music, it need not be inquired after at their hands. They
+never join their voices in praise, and it would seem that they are among
+the profanest of the idolatrous."</p>
+
+<p>"Therein you belie the nature of an Indian. Even the Mingo adores but
+the true and living God. 'Tis a wicked fabrication of the whites, and I
+say it to the shame of my color, that would make the warrior bow down
+before images of his own creation. It is true, they endeavor to make
+truces with the wicked one&mdash;as who would not with an enemy he cannot
+conquer!&mdash;but they look up for favor and assistance to the Great and
+Good Spirit only."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so," said David; "but I have seen strange and fantastic
+images drawn in their paint, of which their admiration and care savored
+of spiritual pride; especially one, and that, too, a foul and loathsome
+object."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it a sarpent?" quickly demanded the scout.</p>
+
+<p>"Much the same. It was in the likeness of an abject and creeping
+tortoise."</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" exclaimed both the attentive Mohicans in a breath;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> while the
+scout shook his head with an air of one who had made an important, but
+by no means a pleasing discovery. Then the father spoke, in the language
+of the Delawares, and with a calmness and dignity that instantly
+arrested the attention even of those to whom his words were
+unintelligible. His gestures were impressive, and at times energetic.
+Once he lifted his arm on high; and as it descended, the action threw
+aside the folds of his light mantle, a finger resting on his breast, as
+if he would enforce his meaning by the attitude. Duncan's eyes followed
+the movement, and he perceived that the animal just mentioned was
+beautifully, though faintly, worked in a blue tint, on the swarthy
+breast of the chief. All that he had ever heard of the violent
+separation of the vast tribes of the Delawares rushed across his mind,
+and he awaited the proper moment to speak, with a suspense that was
+rendered nearly intolerable, by his interest in the stake. His wish,
+however, was anticipated by the scout, who turned from his red friend,
+saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We have found that which may be good or evil to us, as Heaven disposes.
+The Sagamore is of the high blood of the Delawares, and is the great
+chief of their Tortoises! That some of this stock are among the people
+of whom the singer tells us, is plain, by his words; and had he but
+spent half the breath in prudent questions, that he has blown away in
+making a trumpet of his throat, we might have known how many warriors
+they numbered. It is, altogether, a dangerous path we move in; for a
+friend whose face is turned from you often bears a bloodier mind than
+the enemy who seeks your scalp."</p>
+
+<p>"Explain," said Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a long and melancholy tradition, and one I little like to think
+of; for it is not to be denied, that the evil has been mainly done by
+men with white skins. But it has ended in turning the tomahawk of
+brother against brother, and brought the Mingo and the Delaware to
+travel in the same path."</p>
+
+<p>"You then suspect it is a portion of that people among whom Cora
+resides?"</p>
+
+<p>The scout nodded his head in assent, though he seemed anxious to waive
+the further discussion of a subject that appeared painful. The impatient
+Duncan now made several hasty and desperate propositions to attempt the
+release of the sisters. Munro seemed to shake off his apathy, and
+listened to the wild schemes of the young man with a deference that his
+gray hairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> and reverend years should have denied. But the scout, after
+suffering the ardor of the lover to expend itself a little, found means
+to convince him of the folly of precipitation, in a matter that would
+require their coolest judgment and utmost fortitude.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be well," he added, "to let this man go in again, as usual,
+and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle ones of
+our approach, until we call him out, by signal, to consult. You know the
+cry of a crow, friend, from the whistle of the whippoorwill?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a pleasing bird," returned David, "and has a soft and melancholy
+note! though the time is rather quick and ill-measured."</p>
+
+<p>"He speaks of the wish-ton-wish," said the scout; "well, since you like
+his whistle, it shall be your signal. Remember, then, when you hear the
+whippoorwill's call three times repeated, you are to come into the
+bushes where the bird might be supposed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop," interrupted Heyward; "I will accompany him."</p>
+
+<p>"You!" exclaimed the astonished Hawkeye; "are you tired of seeing the
+sun rise and set?"</p>
+
+<p>"David is a living proof that the Hurons can be merciful."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but David can use his throat, as no man in his senses would pervert
+the gift."</p>
+
+<p>"I, too, can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or
+everything to rescue her I love. Name your objections no longer; I am
+resolved."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye regarded the young man a moment in speechless amazement. But
+Duncan, who, in deference to the other's skill and services, had
+hitherto submitted somewhat implicitly to his dictation, now assumed the
+superior, with a manner that was not easily resisted. He waved his hand,
+in sign of his dislike to all remonstrance, and then, in more tempered
+language, he continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have the means of disguise; change me; paint me, too, if you will;
+in short, alter me to anything&mdash;a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not for one like me to say that he who is already formed by so
+powerful a hand as Providence, stands in need of a change," muttered the
+discontented scout. "When you send your parties abroad in war, you find
+it prudent, at least, to arrange the marks and places of encampment, in
+order that they who fight on your side may know when and where to expect
+a friend."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p><p>"Listen," interrupted Duncan; "you have heard from this faithful
+follower of the captives, that the Indians are of two tribes, if not of
+different nations. With one, whom you think to be a branch of the
+Delawares, is she you call the 'dark-hair'; the other, and younger of
+the ladies, is undeniably with our declared enemies, the Hurons. It
+becomes my youth and rank to attempt the latter adventure. While you,
+therefore, are negotiating with your friends for the release of one of
+the sisters, I will effect that of the other, or die."</p>
+
+<p>The awakened spirit of the young soldier gleamed in his eyes, and his
+form became imposing under its influence. Hawkeye, though too much
+accustomed to Indian artifices not to foresee the danger of the
+experiment, knew not well how to combat this sudden resolution.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there was something in the proposal that suited his own hardy
+nature, and that secret love of desperate adventure, which had increased
+with his experience, until hazard and danger had become, in some
+measure, necessary to the enjoyment of his existence. Instead of
+continuing to oppose the scheme of Duncan, his humor suddenly altered,
+and he lent himself to its execution.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, with a good-humored smile; "the buck that will take to
+the water must be headed, and not followed. Chingachgook has as many
+different paints as the engineer officer's wife, who takes down natur'
+on scraps of paper, making the mountains look like cocks of rusty hay,
+and placing the blue sky in reach of your hand. The Sagamore can use
+them, too. Seat yourself on the log; and my life on it, he can soon make
+a natural fool of you, and that well to your liking."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan complied; and the Mohican, who had been an attentive listener to
+the discourse, readily undertook the office. Long practised in all the
+subtle arts of his race, he drew, with great dexterity and quickness,
+the fantastic shadow that the natives were accustomed to consider as the
+evidence of a friendly and jocular disposition. Every line that could
+possibly be interpreted into a secret inclination for war, was carefully
+avoided; while, on the other hand, he studied those conceits that might
+be construed into amity.</p>
+
+<p>In short, he entirely sacrificed every appearance of the warrior to the
+masquerade of a buffoon. Such exhibitions were not uncommon among the
+Indians; and as Duncan was already sufficiently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> disguised in his dress,
+there certainly did exist some reason for believing that, with his
+knowledge of French, he might pass for a juggler from Ticonderoga,
+straggling among the allied and friendly tribes.</p>
+
+<p>When he was thought to be sufficiently painted, the scout gave him much
+friendly advice; concerted signals, and appointed the place where they
+should meet, in the event of mutual success. The parting between Munro
+and his young friend was more melancholy; still, the former submitted to
+the separation with an indifference that his warm and honest nature
+would never have permitted in a more healthful state of mind. The scout
+led Heyward aside, and acquainted him with his intention to leave the
+veteran in some safe encampment, in charge of Chingachgook, while he and
+Uncas pursued their inquiries among the people they had reason to
+believe were Delawares. Then renewing his cautions and advice, he
+concluded by saying, with a solemnity and warmth of feeling, with which
+Duncan was deeply touched:</p>
+
+<p>"And now God bless you! You have shown a spirit that I like; for it is
+the gift of youth, more especially one of warm blood and a stout heart.
+But believe the warning of a man who has reason to know all he says to
+be true. You will have occasion for your best manhood, and for a sharper
+wit than what is to be gathered in books, afore you outdo the cunning,
+or get the better of the courage of a Mingo. God bless you! if the
+Hurons master your scalp, rely on the promise of one who has two stout
+warriors to back him. They shall pay for their victory, with a life for
+every hair it holds. I say, young gentleman, may Providence bless your
+undertaking, which is altogether for good; and remember, that to outwit
+the knaves it is lawful to practise things that may not be naturally the
+gift of a white skin."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan shook his worthy and reluctant associate warmly by the hand, once
+more recommended his aged friend to his care, and returning his good
+wishes, he motioned to David to proceed. Hawkeye gazed after the
+high-spirited and adventurous young man for several moments, in open
+admiration; then shaking his head doubtingly, he turned, and led his own
+division of the party into the concealment of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The route taken by Duncan and David lay directly across the clearing of
+the beavers, and along the margin of their pond.</p>
+
+<p>When the former found himself alone with one so simple, and so little
+qualified to render any assistance in desperate emergencies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> he first
+began to be sensible of the difficulties of the task he had undertaken.
+The fading light increased the gloominess of the bleak and savage
+wilderness that stretched so far on every side of him; and there was
+even a fearful character in the stillness of those little huts, that he
+knew were so abundantly peopled. It struck him, as he gazed at the
+admirable structures and the wonderful precautions of their sagacious
+inmates, that even the brutes of these vast wilds were possessed of an
+instinct nearly commensurate with his own reason; and he could not
+reflect, without anxiety, on the unequal contest that he had so rashly
+courted. Then came the glowing image of Alice; her distress; her actual
+danger; and all the peril of his situation was forgotten. Cheering
+David, he moved on with the light and vigorous step of youth and
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>After making nearly a semicircle around the pond, they diverged from the
+water-course, and began to ascend to the level of a slight elevation in
+that bottom land, over which they journeyed. Within half an hour they
+gained the margin of another opening that bore all the signs of having
+been also made by the beavers, and which those sagacious animals had
+probably been induced, by some accident, to abandon, for the more
+eligible position they now occupied. A very natural sensation caused
+Duncan to hesitate a moment, unwilling to leave the cover of their bushy
+path, as a man pauses to collect his energies before he essays any
+hazardous experiment, in which he is secretly conscious they will all be
+needed. He profited by the halt, to gather such information as might be
+obtained from his short and hasty glances.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite side of the clearing, and near the point where the brook
+tumbled over some rocks, from a still higher level, some fifty or sixty
+lodges, rudely fabricated of logs, brush, and earth intermingled, were
+to be discovered. They were arranged without any order, and seemed to be
+constructed with very little attention to neatness or beauty. Indeed, so
+very inferior were they in the two latter particulars to the village
+Duncan had just seen, that he began to expect a second surprise, no less
+astonishing than the former. This expectation was in no degree
+diminished, when, by the doubtful twilight, he beheld twenty or thirty
+forms rising alternately from the cover of the tall, coarse grass, in
+front of the lodges, and then sinking again from the sight, as it were
+to burrow in the earth. By the sudden and hasty glimpses that he caught
+of these figures, they seemed more like dark glancing spectres,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> or some
+other unearthly beings, than creatures fashioned with the ordinary and
+vulgar materials of flesh and blood. A gaunt, naked form was seen, for a
+single instant, tossing its arms wildly in the air, and then the spot it
+had filled was vacant; the figure appearing suddenly in some other and
+distant place, or being succeeded by another, possessing the same
+mysterious character. David, observing that his companion lingered,
+pursued the direction of his gaze, and in some measure recalled the
+recollection of Heyward, by speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"There is much fruitful soil uncultivated here," he said; "and I may
+add, without the sinful leaven of self-commendation, that since my short
+sojourn in these heathenish abodes, much good seed has been scattered by
+the wayside."</p>
+
+<p>"The tribes are fonder of the chase than of the arts of men of labor,"
+returned the unconscious Duncan, still gazing at the objects of his
+wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather joy than labor to the spirit, to lift up the voice in
+praise; but sadly do these boys abuse their gifts. Rarely have I found
+any of their age, on whom nature has so freely bestowed the elements of
+psalmody; and surely, surely, there are none who neglect them more.
+Three nights have I now tarried here, and three several times have I
+assembled the urchins to join in sacred song; and as often have they
+responded to my efforts with whoopings and howlings that have chilled my
+soul!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom speak you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of those children of the devil, who waste the precious moments in
+yonder idle antics. Ah! the wholesome restraint of discipline is but
+little known among this self-abandoned people. In a country of birches,
+a rod is never seen; and it ought not to appear a marvel in my eyes,
+that the choicest blessings of Providence are wasted in such cries as
+these."</p>
+
+<p>David closed his ears against the juvenile pack, whose yell just then
+rang shrilly through the forest; and Duncan, suffering his lip to curl,
+as in mockery of his own superstition, said firmly:</p>
+
+<p>"We will proceed."</p>
+
+<p>Without removing the safeguards from his ears, the master of song
+complied, and together they pursued their way towards what David was
+sometimes wont to call "the tents of the Philistines."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"But though the beast of game<br />
+The privilege of chase may claim;<br />
+Though space and law the stag we lend<br />
+Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend;<br />
+Who ever recked, where, how, or when<br />
+The prowling fox was trapped or slain?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Lady of the Lake.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is unusual to find an encampment of the natives, like those of the
+more instructed whites, guarded by the presence of armed men. Well
+informed of the approach of every danger, while it is yet at a distance,
+the Indian generally rests secure under his knowledge of the signs of
+the forest, and the long and difficult paths that separate him from
+those he has most reason to dread. But the enemy who, by any lucky
+concurrence of accidents, has found means to elude the vigilance of the
+scouts, will seldom meet with sentinels nearer home to sound the alarm.
+In addition to this general usage, the tribes friendly to the French
+knew too well the weight of the blow that had just been struck, to
+apprehend any immediate danger from the hostile nations that were
+tributary to the crown of Britain.</p>
+
+<p>When Duncan and David, therefore, found themselves in the centre of the
+children, who played the antics already mentioned, it was with the least
+previous intimation of their approach. But so soon as they were
+observed, the whole of the juvenile pack raised, by common consent, a
+shrill and warning whoop; and then sank, as it were, by magic, from
+before the sight of their visitors. The naked, tawny bodies of the
+crouching urchins blended so nicely, at that hour, with the withered
+herbage, that at first it seemed as if the earth had, in truth,
+swallowed up their forms; though when surprise permitted Duncan to bend
+his look more curiously about the spot, he found it everywhere met by
+dark, quick, and rolling eyeballs.</p>
+
+<p>Gathering no encouragement from this startling presage of the nature of
+the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of
+the men, there was an instant when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> young soldier would have
+retreated. It was, however, too late to appear to hesitate. The cry of
+the children had drawn a dozen warriors to the door of the nearest
+lodge, where they stood clustered in a dark and savage group, gravely
+awaiting the nearer approach of those who had unexpectedly come among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>David, in some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way with a
+steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert, into this
+very building. It was the principal edifice of the village, though
+roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees; being the lodge
+in which the tribe held its councils and public meetings during their
+temporary residence on the borders of the English province. Duncan found
+it difficult to assume the necessary appearance of unconcern, as he
+brushed the dark and powerful frames of the savages who thronged its
+threshold; but, conscious that his existence depended on his presence of
+mind, he trusted to the discretion of his companion, whose footsteps he
+closely followed, endeavoring, as he proceeded, to rally his thoughts
+for the occasion. His blood curdled when he found himself in absolute
+contact with such fierce and implacable enemies; but he so far mastered
+his feelings as to pursue his way into the centre of the lodge, with an
+exterior that did not betray the weakness. Imitating the example of the
+deliberate Gamut, he drew a bundle of fragrant brush from beneath a pile
+that filled a corner of the hut, and seated himself in silence.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as their visitor had passed, the observant warriors fell back
+from the entrance, and arranging themselves about him, they seemed
+patiently to await the moment when it might comport with the dignity of
+the stranger to speak. By far the greater number stood leaning, in lazy,
+lounging attitudes, against the upright posts that supported the crazy
+building, while three or four of the oldest and most distinguished of
+the chiefs placed themselves on the earth a little more in advance.</p>
+
+<p>A flaring torch was burning in the place, and sent its red glare from
+face to face and figure to figure, as it waved in the currents of air.
+Duncan profited by its light to read the probable character of his
+reception, in the countenances of his hosts. But his ingenuity availed
+him little, against the cold artifices of the people he had encountered.
+The chiefs in front scarce cast a glance at his person, keeping their
+eyes on the ground, with an air that might have been intended for
+respect, but which it was quite easy to construe into distrust. The men
+in shadow were less reserved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> Duncan soon detected their searching, but
+stolen looks, which, in truth, scanned his person and attire inch by
+inch; leaving no emotion of the countenance, no gesture, no line of the
+paint, nor even the fashion of a garment, unheeded, and without comment.</p>
+
+<p>At length one whose hair was beginning to be sprinkled with gray, but
+whose sinewy limbs and firm tread announced that he was still equal to
+the duties of manhood, advanced out of the gloom of a corner, whither he
+had probably posted himself to make his observations unseen, and spoke.
+He used the language of the Wyandots, or Hurons; his words were,
+consequently, unintelligible to Heyward, though they seemed, by the
+gestures that accompanied them, to be uttered more in courtesy than
+anger. The latter shook his head, and made a gesture indicative of his
+inability to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Do none of my brothers speak the French or the English?" he said, in
+the former language, looking about him from countenance to countenance,
+in hopes of finding a nod of assent.</p>
+
+<p>Though more than one had turned, as if to catch the meaning of his
+words, they remained unanswered.</p>
+
+<p>"I should be grieved to think," continued Duncan, speaking slowly, and
+using the simplest French of which he was the master, "to believe, that
+none of this wise and brave nation understand the language that the
+'Grand Monarque' uses when he talks to his children. His heart would be
+heavy did he believe his red warriors paid him so little respect!"</p>
+
+<p>A long and grave pause succeeded, during which no movement of a limb,
+nor any expression of an eye, betrayed the impression produced by his
+remark. Duncan, who knew that silence was a virtue among his hosts,
+gladly had recourse to the custom, in order to arrange his ideas. At
+length the same warrior who had before addressed him replied, by dryly
+demanding, in the language of the Canadas&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When our Great Father speaks to his people, is it with the tongue of a
+Huron?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows no difference in his children, whether the color of the skin
+be red, or black, or white," returned Duncan, evasively; "though chiefly
+is he satisfied with the brave Hurons."</p>
+
+<p>"In what manner will he speak," demanded the wary chief, "when the
+runners count to him the scalps which five nights ago grew on the heads
+of the Yengeese?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were his enemies," said Duncan, shuddering involuntarily;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> "and,
+doubtless, he will say, It is good; my Hurons are very gallant."</p>
+
+<p>"Our Canada father does not think it. Instead of looking forward to
+reward his Indians, his eyes are turned backward. He sees the dead
+Yengeese, but no Huron. What can this mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"A great chief, like him, has more thoughts than tongues. He looks to
+see that no enemies are on his trail."</p>
+
+<p>"The canoe of a dead warrior will not float on the Horican," returned
+the savage, gloomily. "His ears are open to the Delawares, who are not
+our friends, and they fill them with lies."</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be. See; he has bid me, who am a man that knows the art of
+healing, to go to his children, the red Hurons of the great lakes, and
+ask if any are sick!"</p>
+
+<p>Another silence succeeded this annunciation of the character Duncan had
+assumed. Every eye was simultaneously bent on his person, as if to
+inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declaration, with an
+intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of their scrutiny to
+tremble for the result. He was, however, relieved again by the former
+speaker.</p>
+
+<p>"Do the cunning men of the Canadas paint their skins?" the Huron coldly
+continued; "we have heard them boast that their faces were pale."</p>
+
+<p>"When an Indian chief comes among his white fathers," returned Duncan,
+with great steadiness, "he lays aside his buffalo robe, to carry the
+shirt that is offered him. My brothers have given me paint, and I wear
+it."</p>
+
+<p>A low murmur of applause announced that the compliment to the tribe was
+favorably received. The elderly chief made a gesture of commendation,
+which was answered by most of his companions, who each threw forth a
+hand, and uttered a brief exclamation of pleasure. Duncan began to
+breathe more freely, believing that the weight of his examination was
+past; and as he had already prepared a simple and probable tale to
+support his pretended occupation, his hopes of ultimate success grew
+brighter.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence of a few moments, as if adjusting his thoughts, in order
+to make a suitable answer to the declaration their guest had just given,
+another warrior arose, and placed himself in an attitude to speak. While
+his lips were yet in the act of parting, a low but fearful sound arose
+from the forest, and was immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> succeeded by a high, shrill yell,
+that was drawn out, until it equalled the longest and most plaintive
+howl of the wolf. The sudden and terrible interruption caused Duncan to
+start from his seat, unconscious of everything but the effect produced
+by so frightful a cry. At the same moment, the warriors glided in a body
+from the lodge, and the outer air was filled with loud shouts, that
+nearly drowned those awful sounds, which were still ringing beneath the
+arches of the woods. Unable to command himself any longer, the youth
+broke from the place, and presently stood in the centre of a disorderly
+throng, that included nearly everything having life, within the limits
+of the encampment. Men, women, and children; the aged, the infirm, the
+active, and the strong, were alike abroad; some exclaiming aloud, others
+clapping their hands with a joy that seemed frantic, and all expressing
+their savage pleasure in some unexpected event. Though astounded, at
+first, by the uproar, Heyward was soon enabled to find its solution by
+the scene that followed.</p>
+
+<p>There yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit those
+bright openings among the tree-tops, where different paths left the
+clearing to enter the depths of the wilderness. Beneath one of them, a
+line of warriors issued from the woods, and advanced slowly towards the
+dwellings. One in front bore a short pole, on which, as it afterwards
+appeared, were suspended several human scalps. The startling sounds that
+Duncan had heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called
+the "death-halloo;" and each repetition of the cry was intended to
+announce to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of
+Heyward assisted him in the explanation; and as he now knew that the
+interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return of a successful
+war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted in inward
+congratulation, for the opportune relief and insignificance it conferred
+on himself.</p>
+
+<p>When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges, the newly
+arrived warriors halted. Their plaintive and terrific cry, which was
+intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead and the triumph
+of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their number now called
+aloud, in words that were far from appalling, though not more
+intelligible to those for whose ears they were intended, than their
+expressive yells. It would be difficult to convey a suitable idea of the
+savage ecstasy with which the news thus imparted was received. The whole
+encampment, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> a moment, became a scene of the most violent bustle and
+commotion. The warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they
+arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended from the
+war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes, or whatever
+weapon of offence first offered itself to their hands, and rushed
+eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was at hand. Even the
+children would not be excluded; but boys, little able to wield the
+instruments, tore the tomahawks from the belts of their fathers, and
+stole into the ranks, apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited by
+their parents.</p>
+
+<p>Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and a wary and
+aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might serve to light the
+coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its power exceeded that of the
+parting day, and assisted to render objects at the same time more
+distinct and more hideous. The whole scene formed a striking picture,
+whose frame was composed of the dark and tall border of pines. The
+warriors just arrived were the most distant figures. A little in advance
+stood two men, who were apparently selected from the rest, as the
+principal actors in what was to follow. The light was not strong enough
+to render their features distinct, though it was quite evident that they
+were governed by very different emotions. While one stood erect and
+firm, prepared to meet his fate like a hero, the other bowed his head,
+as if palsied by terror or stricken with shame. The high-spirited Duncan
+felt a powerful impulse of admiration and pity towards the former,
+though no opportunity could offer to exhibit his generous emotions. He
+watched his slightest movement, however, with eager eyes; and as he
+traced the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and active frame,
+he endeavored to persuade himself, that if the powers of man, seconded
+by such noble resolution, could bear one harmless through so severe a
+trial, the youthful captive before him might hope for success in the
+hazardous race he was about to run. Insensibly the young man drew nigher
+to the swarthy lines of the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense
+became his interest in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was
+given, and the momentary quiet which had preceded it was broken by a
+burst of cries, that far exceeded any before heard. The most abject of
+the two victims continued motionless; but the other bounded from the
+place at the cry, with the activity and swiftness of a deer. Instead of
+rushing through the hostile lines, as had been expected, he just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+entered the dangerous defile, and before time was given for a single
+blow, turned short, and leaping the heads of a row of children, he
+gained at once the exterior and safer side of the formidable array. The
+artifice was answered by a hundred voices raised in imprecations; and
+the whole of the excited multitude broke from their order, and spread
+themselves about the place in wild confusion.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the place,
+which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena, in which
+malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody and lawless rites.
+The forms in the background looked like unearthly beings, gliding before
+the eye, and cleaving the air with frantic and unmeaning gestures; while
+the savage passions of such as passed the flames, were rendered
+fearfully distinct by the gleams that shot athwart their inflamed
+visages.</p>
+
+<p>It will easily be understood, that amid such a concourse of vindictive
+enemies, no breathing time was allowed the fugitive. There was a single
+moment when it seemed as if he would have reached the forest, but the
+whole body of his captors threw themselves before him, and drove him
+back into the centre of his relentless persecutors. Turning like a
+headed deer, he shot, with the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar
+of forked flame, and passing the whole multitude harmless, he appeared
+on the opposite side of the clearing. Here too he was met and turned by
+a few of the older and more subtle of the Hurons. Once more he tried the
+throng, as if seeking safety in its blindness, and then several moments
+succeeded, during which Duncan believed the active and courageous young
+stranger was lost.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed and
+involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and
+formidable clubs, appeared above them, but the blows were evidently
+given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks
+of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan
+caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate
+bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained
+the command of his astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly the
+multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where he himself
+stood. The heavy body in the rear pressed upon the women and children in
+front, and bore them to the earth. The stranger reappeared in the
+confusion. Human power could not,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> however, much longer endure so severe
+a trial. Of this the captive seemed conscious. Profiting by the
+momentary opening, he darted from among the warriors, and made a
+desperate, and, what seemed to Duncan, a final effort to gain the wood.
+As if aware that no danger was to be apprehended from the young soldier,
+the fugitive nearly brushed his person in his flight. A tall and
+powerful Huron, who had husbanded his forces, pressed close upon his
+heels, and with an uplifted arm menaced a fatal blow. Duncan thrust
+forth a foot, and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many
+feet in advance of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker
+than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage; he
+turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and at
+the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed
+around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against a
+small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal lodge.</p>
+
+<p>Apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might prove fatal
+to himself, Duncan left the place without delay. He followed the crowd,
+which drew nigh the lodges, gloomy and sullen, like any other multitude
+that had been disappointed in an execution. Curiosity, or perhaps a
+better feeling, induced him to approach the stranger. He found him,
+standing with one arm cast about the protecting post, and breathing
+thick and hard, after his exertions, but disdaining to permit a single
+sign of suffering to escape. His person was now protected by immemorial
+and sacred usage, until the tribe in council had deliberated and
+determined on his fate. It was not difficult, however, to foretell the
+result, if any presage could be drawn from the feelings of those who
+crowded the place.</p>
+
+<p>There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary that the
+disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the successful stranger.
+They flouted at his efforts, and told him, with bitter scoffs, that his
+feet were better than his hands; and that he merited wings, while he
+knew not the use of an arrow or a knife. To all this the captive made no
+reply; but was content to preserve an attitude in which dignity was
+singularly blended with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure as
+by his good-fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were
+succeeded by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who had
+taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> through
+the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive. The
+squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained for her
+the character of possessing more than human cunning. Throwing back her
+light vestment, she stretched forth her long skinny arm, in derision,
+and using the language of the Lenape, as more intelligible to the
+subject of her gibes, she commenced aloud&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look you, Delaware!" she said, snapping her fingers in his face; "your
+nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your hands
+than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear, or a
+wild cat, or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The Huron
+girls shall make you petticoats, and we will find you a husband."</p>
+
+<p>A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which the soft
+and musical merriment of the younger females strangely chimed with the
+cracked voice of their older and more malignant companion. But the
+stranger was superior to all their efforts. His head was immovable; nor
+did he betray the slightest consciousness that any were present, except
+when his haughty eye rolled towards the dusky forms of the warriors, who
+stalked in the background, silent and sullen observers of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman placed her arms
+akimbo; and throwing herself into a posture of defiance, she broke out
+anew, in a torrent of words that no art of ours could commit
+successfully to paper. Her breath was, however, expended in vain; for,
+although distinguished in her own nation as a proficient in the art of
+abuse, she was permitted to work herself into such a fury as actually to
+foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless
+figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend
+itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting
+the condition of a boy, to enter the state of manhood, attempted to
+assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim,
+and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the woman. Then, indeed,
+the captive turned his face towards the light, and looked down on the
+stripling with an expression that was superior to contempt. At the next
+moment he resumed his quiet and reclining attitude against the post. But
+the change of posture had permitted Duncan to exchange glances with the
+firm and piercing eyes of Uncas.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_TERMAGANT" id="THE_TERMAGANT"></a>
+<img src="images/illus6.jpg" width="500" height="627" alt="THE TERMAGANT" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE TERMAGANT</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth<br /> her long skinny
+arm, in derision</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed with the critical
+situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled before the look, trembling
+lest its meaning might, in some unknown manner, hasten the prisoner's
+fate. There was not, however, any instant cause for such an
+apprehension. Just then a warrior forced his way into the exasperated
+crowd. Motioning the women and children aside with a stern gesture, he
+took Uncas by the arm, and led him towards the door of the council
+lodge. Thither all the chiefs, and most of the distinguished warriors,
+followed; among whom the anxious Heyward found means to enter without
+attracting any dangerous attention to himself.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present in a manner
+suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe. An order very similar
+to that adopted in the preceding interview was observed; the aged and
+superior chiefs occupying the area of the spacious apartment, within the
+powerful light of a glaring torch, while their juniors and inferiors
+were arranged in the background, presenting a dark outline of swarthy
+and marked visages. In the very centre of the lodge, immediately under
+an opening that admitted the twinkling light of one or two stars, stood
+Uncas, calm, elevated, and collected. His high and haughty carriage was
+not lost on his captors, who often bent their looks on his person, with
+eyes which, while they lost none of their inflexibility of purpose,
+plainly betrayed their admiration of the stranger's daring.</p>
+
+<p>The case was different with the individual whom Duncan had observed to
+stand forth with his friend, previously to the desperate trial of speed;
+and who, instead of joining in the chase, had remained, throughout its
+turbulent uproar, like a cringing statue, expressive of shame and
+disgrace. Though not a hand had been extended to greet him, nor yet an
+eye had condescended to watch his movements, he had also entered the
+lodge, as though impelled by a fate to whose decrees he submitted,
+seemingly, without a struggle. Heyward profited by the first opportunity
+to gaze in his face, secretly apprehensive he might find the features of
+another acquaintance; but they proved to be those of a stranger, and,
+what was still more inexplicable, of one who bore all the distinctive
+marks of a Huron warrior. Instead of mingling with his tribe, however,
+he sat apart, a solitary being in a multitude, his form shrinking into a
+crouching and abject attitude, as if anxious to fill as little space as
+possible. When each individual had taken his proper station, and silence
+reigned in the place, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> gray-haired chief already introduced to the
+reader, spoke aloud, in the language of the Lenni Lenape.</p>
+
+<p>"Delaware," he said, "though one of a nation of women, you have proved
+yourself a man. I would give you food; but he who eats with a Huron
+should become his friend. Rest in peace till the morning sun, when our
+last words shall be spoken."</p>
+
+<p>"Seven nights, and as many summer days, have I fasted on the trail of
+the Hurons," Uncas coldly replied; "the children of the Lenape know how
+to travel the path of the just without lingering to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Two of my young men are in pursuit of your companion," resumed the
+other, without appearing to regard the boast of his captive; "when they
+get back, then will our wise men say to you 'live' or 'die.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Has a Huron no ears?" scornfully exclaimed Uncas; "twice, since he has
+been your prisoner, has the Delaware heard a gun that he knows. Your
+young men will never come back!"</p>
+
+<p>A short and sullen pause succeeded this bold assertion. Duncan, who
+understood the Mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of the scout, bent
+forward in earnest observation of the effect it might produce on the
+conquerors; but the chief was content with simply retorting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If the Lenape are so skilful, why is one of their bravest warriors
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"He followed in the steps of a flying coward, and fell into a snare. The
+cunning beaver may be caught."</p>
+
+<p>As Uncas thus replied, he pointed with his finger toward the solitary
+Huron, but without deigning to bestow any other notice on so unworthy an
+object. The words of the answer and the air of the speaker produced a
+strong sensation among his auditors. Every eye rolled sullenly towards
+the individual indicated by the simple gesture, and a low, threatening
+murmur passed through the crowd. The ominous sounds reached the outer
+door, and the women and children pressing into the throng, no gap had
+been left, between shoulder and shoulder, that was not now filled with
+the dark lineaments of some eager and curious human countenance.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the more aged chiefs, in the centre, communed with each
+other in short and broken sentences. Not a word was uttered that did not
+convey the meaning of the speaker, in the simplest and most energetic
+form. Again, a long and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> deeply solemn pause took place. It was known,
+by all present, to be the grave precursor of a weighty and important
+judgment. They who composed the outer circle of faces were on tiptoe to
+gaze; and even the culprit for an instant forgot his shame in a deeper
+emotion, and exposed his abject features, in order to cast an anxious
+and troubled glance at the dark assemblage of chiefs. The silence was
+finally broken by the aged warrior so often named. He arose from the
+earth, and moving past the immovable form of Uncas, placed himself in a
+dignified attitude before the offender. At that moment, the withered
+squaw already mentioned moved into the circle, in a slow, sideling sort
+of a dance, holding the torch, and muttering the indistinct words of
+what might have been a species of incantation. Though her presence was
+altogether an intrusion, it was unheeded.</p>
+
+<p>Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in such a manner as to
+cast its red glare on his person, and to expose the slightest emotion of
+his countenance. The Mohican maintained his firm and haughty attitude;
+and his eye, so far from deigning to meet her inquisitive look, dwelt
+steadily on the distance, as though it penetrated the obstacles which
+impeded the view, and looked into futurity. Satisfied with her
+examination, she left him, with a slight expression of pleasure, and
+proceeded to practise the same trying experiment on her delinquent
+countryman.</p>
+
+<p>The young Huron was in his war paint, and very little of a finely
+moulded form was concealed by his attire. The light rendered every limb
+and joint discernible, and Duncan turned away in horror when he saw they
+were writhing in irrepressible agony. The woman was commencing a low and
+plaintive howl at the sad and shameful spectacle, when the chief put
+forth his hand and gently pushed her aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by name, and in
+his proper language, "though the Great Spirit has made you pleasant to
+the eyes, it would have been better that you had not been born. Your
+tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my
+young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post&mdash;none of them so
+lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they
+have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on
+you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never
+be mentioned again in your tribe&mdash;it is already forgotten."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p><p>As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between
+each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's
+rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments.
+His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the
+persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for
+an instant predominated. He arose to his feet, and baring his bosom,
+looked steadily on the keen, glittering knife, that was already upheld
+by his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart he
+even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he
+had anticipated, and fell heavily on his face, at the feet of the rigid
+and unyielding form of Uncas.</p>
+
+<p>The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to the earth,
+and buried everything in darkness. The whole shuddering group of
+spectators glided from the lodge, like troubled sprites; and Duncan
+thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an Indian
+judgment had now become its only tenants.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay<br />
+Dissolve the council, and their chief obey."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Pope's</span> <i>Iliad.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A single</span> moment served to convince the youth that he was mistaken. A
+hand was laid, with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and the low voice
+of Uncas muttered in his ears,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Hurons are dogs. The sight of a coward's blood can never make a
+warrior tremble. The 'Gray Head' and the Sagamore are safe, and the
+rifle of Hawkeye is not asleep. Go,&mdash;Uncas and the 'Open Hand' are now
+strangers. It is enough."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a gentle push from his friend
+urged him towards the door, and admonished him of the danger that might
+attend the discovery of their intercourse. Slowly and reluctantly
+yielding to the necessity, he quitted the place, and mingled with the
+throng that hovered nigh. The dying fires in the clearing cast a dim and
+uncertain light on the dusky figures that were silently stalking to and
+fro; and occasionally a brighter gleam than common glanced into the
+lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas still maintaining its upright
+attitude near the dead body of the Huron.</p>
+
+<p>A knot of warriors soon entered the place again, and reissuing, they
+bore the senseless remains into the adjacent woods. After this
+termination of the scene, Duncan wandered among the lodges, unquestioned
+and unnoticed, endeavoring to find some trace of her in whose behalf he
+incurred the risk he ran. In the present temper of the tribe, it would
+have been easy to have fled and rejoined his companions, had such a wish
+crossed his mind. But, in addition to the never-ceasing anxiety on
+account of Alice, a fresher, though feebler interest in the fate of
+Uncas assisted to chain him to the spot. He continued, therefore, to
+stray from hut to hut, looking into each only to encounter additional
+disappointment, until he had made the entire circuit of the village.
+Abandoning a species of inquiry that proved so fruitless, he retraced
+his steps to the council lodge, resolved to seek and question David, in
+order to put an end to his doubts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p><p>On reaching the building which had proved alike the seat of judgment
+and the place of execution, the young man found that the excitement had
+already subsided. The warriors had reassembled, and were now calmly
+smoking, while they conversed gravely on the chief incidents of their
+recent expedition to the head of the Horican. Though the return of
+Duncan was likely to remind them of his character, and the suspicious
+circumstances of his visit, it produced no visible sensation. So far,
+the terrible scene that had just occurred proved favorable to his views,
+and he required no other prompter than his own feelings to convince him
+of the expediency of profiting by so unexpected an advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Without seeming to hesitate, he walked into the lodge, and took his seat
+with a gravity that accorded admirably with the deportment of his hosts.
+A hasty but searching glance sufficed to tell him that, though Uncas
+still remained where he had left him, David had not reappeared. No other
+restraint was imposed on the former than the watchful looks of a young
+Huron, who had placed himself at hand; though an armed warrior leaned
+against the post that formed one side of the narrow door-way. In every
+other respect, the captive seemed at liberty; still he was excluded from
+all participation in the discourse, and possessed much more of the air
+of some finely moulded statue than a man having life and volition.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward had too recently witnessed a frightful instance of the prompt
+punishments of the people into whose hands he had fallen, to hazard an
+exposure by any officious boldness. He would greatly have preferred
+silence and meditation to speech, when a discovery of his real condition
+might prove so instantly fatal. Unfortunately for this prudent
+resolution, his entertainers appeared otherwise disposed. He had not
+long occupied the seat wisely taken a little in the shade, when another
+of the elder warriors, who spoke the French language, addressed him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My Canada father does not forget his children," said the chief; "I
+thank him. An evil spirit lives in the wife of one of my young men. Can
+the cunning stranger frighten him away?"</p>
+
+<p>Heyward possessed some knowledge of the mummery practised among the
+Indians, in the cases of such supposed visitations. He saw, at a glance,
+that the circumstance might possibly be improved to further his own end.
+It would, therefore, have been difficult, just then, to have uttered a
+proposal that would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> given him more satisfaction. Aware of the
+necessity of preserving the dignity of his imaginary character, however,
+he repressed his feelings, and answered with suitable mystery,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Spirits differ; some yield to the power of wisdom, while others are too
+strong."</p>
+
+<p>"My brother is a great medicine," said the cunning savage; "he will
+try?"</p>
+
+<p>A gesture of assent was the answer. The Huron was content with the
+assurance, and resuming his pipe, he awaited the proper moment to move.
+The impatient Heyward, inwardly execrating the cold customs of the
+savages, which required such sacrifices to appearance, was fain to
+assume an air of indifference, equal to that maintained by the chief,
+who was, in truth, a near relative of the afflicted woman. The minutes
+lingered, and the delay had seemed an hour to the adventurer in
+empiricism, when the Huron laid aside his pipe, and drew his robe across
+his breast, as if about to lead the way to the lodge of the invalid.
+Just then, a warrior of powerful frame darkened the door, and stalking
+silently among the attentive group, he seated himself on one end of the
+low pile of brush which sustained Duncan. The latter cast an impatient
+look at his neighbor, and felt his flesh creep with uncontrollable
+horror when he found himself in actual contact with Magua.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden return of this artful and dreaded chief caused a delay in the
+departure of the Huron. Several pipes, that had been extinguished, were
+lighted again; while the newcomer, without speaking a word, drew his
+tomahawk from his girdle, and filling the bowl on its head, began to
+inhale the vapors of the weed through the hollow handle, with as much
+indifference as if he had not been absent two weary days on a long and
+toilsome hunt. Ten minutes, which appeared so many ages to Duncan, might
+have passed in this manner; and the warriors were fairly enveloped in a
+cloud of white smoke before any of them spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome!" one at length uttered; "has my friend found the moose?"</p>
+
+<p>"The young men stagger under their burdens," returned Magua. "Let
+'Reed-that-bends' go on the hunting-path; he will meet them."</p>
+
+<p>A deep and awful silence succeeded the utterance of the forbidden name.
+Each pipe dropped from the lips of its owner as though all had inhaled
+an impurity at the same instant. The smoke wreathed above their heads in
+little eddies, and curling in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> a spiral form, it ascended swiftly
+through the opening in the roof of the lodge, leaving the place beneath
+clear of its fumes, and each dark visage distinctly visible. The looks
+of most of the warriors were riveted on the earth; though a few of the
+younger and less gifted of the party suffered their wild and glaring
+eyeballs to roll in the direction of a white-headed savage, who sat
+between two of the most venerated chiefs of the tribe. There was nothing
+in the air or attire of this Indian that would seem to entitle him to
+such a distinction. The former was rather depressed, than remarkable for
+the bearing of the natives; and the latter was such as was commonly worn
+by the ordinary men of the nation. Like most around him, for more than a
+minute his look too was on the ground; but, trusting his eyes at length
+to steal a glance aside, he perceived that he was becoming an object of
+general attention. Then he arose and lifted his voice in the general
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a lie," he said; "I had no son. He who was called by that name
+is forgotten; his blood was pale; and it came not from the veins of a
+Huron; the wicked Chippewas cheated my squaw. The Great Spirit has said,
+that the family of Wiss-entush should end; he is happy who knows that
+the evil of his race dies with himself. I have done."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker, who was the father of the recreant young Indian, looked
+round and about him, as if seeking commendation of his stoicism in the
+eyes of his auditors. But the stern customs of his people had made too
+severe an exaction of the feeble old man. The expression of his eye
+contradicted his figurative and boastful language, while every muscle in
+his wrinkled visage was working with anguish. Standing a single minute
+to enjoy his bitter triumph, he turned away, as if sickening at the gaze
+of men, and veiling his face in his blanket, he walked from the lodge
+with the noiseless step of an Indian, seeking, in the privacy of his own
+abode, the sympathy of one like himself, aged, forlorn, and childless.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, who believe in the hereditary transmission of virtues and
+defects in character, suffered him to depart in silence. Then, with an
+elevation of breeding that many in a more cultivated state of society
+might profitably emulate, one of the chiefs drew the attention of the
+young men from the weakness they had just witnessed, by saying, in a
+cheerful voice, addressing himself in courtesy to Magua, as the newest
+comer,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Delawares have been like bears after the honey-pots,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> prowling
+around my village. But who has ever found a Huron asleep?"</p>
+
+<p>The darkness of the impending cloud which precedes a burst of thunder
+was not blacker than the brow of Magua as he exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Delawares of the Lakes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so. They who wear the petticoats of squaws, on their own river. One
+of them has been passing the tribe."</p>
+
+<p>"Did my young men take his scalp?"</p>
+
+<p>"His legs were good, though his arm is better for the hoe than the
+tomahawk," returned the other, pointing to the immovable form of Uncas.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of manifesting any womanish curiosity to feast his eyes with the
+sight of a captive from a people he was known to have so much reason to
+hate, Magua continued to smoke, with the meditative air that he usually
+maintained, when there was no immediate call on his cunning or his
+eloquence. Although secretly amazed at the facts communicated by the
+speech of the aged father, he permitted himself to ask no questions,
+reserving his inquiries for a more suitable moment. It was only after a
+sufficient interval that he shook the ashes from his pipe, replaced the
+tomahawk, tightened his girdle, and arose, casting for the first time a
+glance in the direction of the prisoner, who stood a little behind him.
+The wary, though seemingly abstracted Uncas, caught a glimpse of the
+movement, and turning suddenly to the light, their looks met. Near a
+minute these two bold and untamed spirits stood regarding one another
+steadily in the eye, neither quailing in the least before the fierce
+gaze he encountered. The form of Uncas dilated, and his nostrils opened
+like those of a tiger at bay; but so rigid and unyielding was his
+posture, that he might easily have been converted by the imagination
+into an exquisite and faultless representation of the warlike deity of
+his tribe. The lineaments of the quivering features of Magua proved more
+ductile; his countenance gradually lost its character of defiance in an
+expression of ferocious joy, and heaving a breath from the very bottom
+of his chest, he pronounced aloud the very formidable name of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Le Cerf Agile!"</p>
+
+<p>Each warrior sprang upon his feet at the utterance of the well known
+appellation, and there was a short period during which the stoical
+constancy of the natives was completely conquered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> by surprise. The
+hated and yet respected name was repeated as by one voice, carrying the
+sound even beyond the limits of the lodge. The women and children, who
+lingered around the entrance, took up the words in an echo, which was
+succeeded by another shrill and plaintive howl. The latter was not yet
+ended, when the sensation among the men had entirely abated. Each one in
+presence seated himself, as though ashamed of his precipitation; but it
+was many minutes before their meaning eyes ceased to roll towards their
+captive, in curious examination of a warrior who had so often proved his
+prowess on the best and proudest of their nation. Uncas enjoyed his
+victory, but was content with merely exhibiting his triumph by a quiet
+smile&mdash;an emblem of scorn which belongs to all time and every nation.</p>
+
+<p>Magua caught the expression, and raising his arm, he shook it at the
+captive, the light silver ornaments attached to his bracelet rattling
+with the trembling agitation of the limb, as, in a tone of vengeance, he
+exclaimed, in English,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mohican, you die!"</p>
+
+<p>"The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life," returned
+Uncas, in the music of the Delawares; "the tumbling river washes their
+bones; their men are squaws; their women owls. Go! call together the
+Huron dogs, that they may look upon a warrior. My nostrils are offended;
+they scent the blood of a coward."</p>
+
+<p>The latter allusion struck deep, and the injury rankled. Many of the
+Hurons understood the strange tongue in which the captive spoke, among
+which number was Magua. This cunning savage beheld, and instantly
+profited by his advantage. Dropping the light robe of skin from his
+shoulder, he stretched forth his arm, and commenced a burst of his
+dangerous and artful eloquence. However much his influence among his
+people had been impaired by his occasional and besetting weakness, as
+well as by his desertion of the tribe, his courage and his fame as an
+orator were undeniable. He never spoke without auditors, and rarely
+without making converts to his opinions. On the present occasion, his
+native powers were stimulated by the thirst of revenge.</p>
+
+<p>He again recounted the events of the attack on the island at Glenn's,
+the death of his associates, and the escape of their most formidable
+enemies. Then he described the nature and position of the mount whither
+he had led such captives as had fallen into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> their hands. Of his own
+bloody intentions towards the maidens, and of his baffled malice he made
+no mention, but passed rapidly on to the surprise of the party by La
+Longue Carabine, and its fatal termination. Here he paused, and looked
+about him, in affected veneration for the departed, but, in truth, to
+note the effect of his opening narrative. As usual, every eye was
+riveted on his face. Each dusky figure seemed a breathing statue, so
+motionless was the posture, so intense the attention of the individual.</p>
+
+<p>Then Magua dropped his voice, which had hitherto been clear, strong, and
+elevated, and touched upon the merits of the dead. No quality that was
+likely to command the sympathy of an Indian escaped his notice. One had
+never been known to follow the chase in vain; another had been
+indefatigable on the trail of their enemies. This was brave, that
+generous. In short, he so managed his allusions, that in a nation, which
+was composed of so few families, he contrived to strike every chord that
+might find, in its turn, some breast in which to vibrate.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the bones of my young men," he concluded, "in the burial-place of
+the Hurons? You know they are not. Their spirits are gone towards the
+setting sun, and are already crossing the great waters, to the happy
+hunting-grounds. But they departed without food, without guns or knives,
+without moccasins, naked and poor as they were born. Shall this be? Are
+their souls to enter the land of the just like hungry Iroquois or
+unmanly Delawares; or shall they meet their friends with arms in their
+hands and robes on their backs? What will our fathers think the tribes
+of the Wyandots have become? They will look on their children with a
+dark eye, and say, Go! a Chippewa has come hither with the name of a
+Huron. Brothers, we must not forget the dead; a redskin never ceases to
+remember. We will load the back of this Mohican until he staggers under
+our bounty, and despatch him after my young men. They call to us for
+aid, though our ears are not open; they say, Forget us not. When they
+see the spirit of this Mohican toiling after them with his burden, they
+will know we are of that mind. Then will they go on happy; and our
+children will say, 'So did our fathers to their friends, so must we do
+to them.' What is a Yengee? we have slain many, but the earth is still
+pale. A stain on the name of a Huron can only be hid by blood that comes
+from the veins of an Indian. Let this Delaware die."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p><p>The effect of such an harangue, delivered in the nervous language and
+with the emphatic manner of a Huron orator, could scarcely be mistaken.
+Magua had so artfully blended the natural sympathies with the religious
+superstition of his auditors, that their minds, already prepared by
+custom to sacrifice a victim to the <i>manes</i> of their countrymen, lost
+every vestige of humanity in a wish for revenge. One warrior in
+particular, a man of wild and ferocious mien, had been conspicuous for
+the attention he had given to the words of the speaker. His countenance
+had changed with each passing emotion, until it settled into a look of
+deadly malice. As Magua ended he arose, and uttering the yell of a
+demon, his polished little axe was seen glancing in the torch-light as
+he whirled it above his head. The motion and the cry were too sudden for
+words to interrupt his bloody intention. It appeared as if a bright
+gleam shot from his hand, which was crossed at the same moment by a dark
+and powerful line. The former was the tomahawk in its passage; the
+latter the arm that Magua darted forward to divert its aim. The quick
+and ready motion of the chief was not entirely too late. The keen weapon
+cut the war-plume from the scalping-tuft of Uncas, and passed through
+the frail wall of the lodge, as though it were hurled from some
+formidable engine.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan had seen the threatening action, and sprang upon his feet, with a
+heart which while it leaped into his throat, swelled with the most
+generous resolution in behalf of his friend. A glance told him that the
+blow had failed, and terror changed to admiration. Uncas stood still,
+looking his enemy in the eye with features that seemed superior to
+emotion. Marble could not be colder, calmer, or steadier than the
+countenance he put upon this sudden and vindictive attack. Then, as if
+pitying a want of skill which had proved so fortunate to himself, he
+smiled, and muttered a few words of contempt in his own tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Magua, after satisfying himself of the safety of the captive;
+"the sun must shine on his shame; the squaws must see his flesh tremble,
+or our revenge will be like the play of boys. Go! take him where there
+is silence; let us see if a Delaware can sleep at night, and in the
+morning die."</p>
+
+<p>The young men whose duty it was to guard the prisoner instantly passed
+their ligaments of bark across his arms, and led him from the lodge,
+amid a profound and ominous silence. It was only as the figure of Uncas
+stood in the opening of the door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> that his firm step hesitated. There he
+turned, and, in the sweeping and haughty glance that he threw around the
+circle of his enemies, Duncan caught a look which he was glad to
+construe into an expression that he was not entirely deserted by hope.</p>
+
+<p>Magua was content with his success, or too much occupied with his secret
+purposes to push his inquiries any further. Shaking his mantle, and
+folding it on his bosom, he also quitted the place, without pursuing a
+subject which might have proved so fatal to the individual at his elbow.
+Notwithstanding his rising resentment, his natural firmness, and his
+anxiety in behalf of Uncas, Heyward felt sensibly relieved by the
+absence of so dangerous and so subtle a foe. The excitement produced by
+the speech gradually subsided. The warriors resumed their seats, and
+clouds of smoke once more filled the lodge. For near half an hour, not a
+syllable was uttered, or scarcely a look cast aside; a grave and
+meditative silence being the ordinary succession to every scene of
+violence and commotion among those beings, who were alike so impetuous
+and yet so self-restrained.</p>
+
+<p>When the chief who had solicited the aid of Duncan finished his pipe, he
+made a final and successful movement towards departing. A motion of a
+finger was the intimation he gave the supposed physician to follow; and
+passing through the clouds of smoke, Duncan was glad, on more accounts
+than one, to be able, at last, to breathe the pure air of a cool and
+refreshing summer evening.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of pursuing his way among those lodges where Heyward had already
+made his unsuccessful search, his companion turned aside, and proceeded
+directly towards the base of an adjacent mountain, which overhung the
+temporary village. A thicket of brush skirted its foot, and it became
+necessary to proceed through a crooked and narrow path. The boys had
+resumed their sports in the clearing, and were enacting a mimic chase to
+the post among themselves. In order to render their games as like the
+reality as possible, one of the boldest of their number had conveyed a
+few brands into some piles of tree-tops that had hitherto escaped the
+burning. The blaze of one of these fires lighted the way of the chief
+and Duncan, and gave a character of additional wildness to the rude
+scenery. At a little distance from a bald rock, and directly in its
+front, they entered a grassy opening, which they prepared to cross. Just
+then fresh fuel was added to the fire, and a powerful light penetrated
+even to that distant spot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> It fell upon the white surface of the
+mountain, and was reflected downwards upon a dark and mysterious-looking
+being that arose, unexpectedly, in their path.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian paused, as if doubtful whether to proceed, and permitted his
+companion to approach his side. A large black ball, which at first
+seemed stationary, now began to move in a manner that to the latter was
+inexplicable. Again the fire brightened, and its glare fell more
+distinctly on the object. Then even Duncan knew it, by its restless and
+sideling attitudes, which kept the upper part of its form in constant
+motion, while the animal itself appeared seated, to be a bear. Though it
+growled loudly and fiercely, and there were instants when its glistening
+eyeballs might be seen, it gave no other indications of hostility. The
+Huron, at least, seemed assured that the intentions of this singular
+intruder were peaceable, for after giving it an attentive examination,
+he quietly pursued his course.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who knew that the animal was often domesticated among the
+Indians, followed the example of his companion, believing that some
+favorite of the tribe had found its way into the thicket, in search of
+food. They passed it unmolested. Though obliged to come nearly in
+contact with the monster, the Huron, who had at first so warily
+determined the character of his strange visitor, was now content with
+proceeding without wasting a moment in further examination; but Heyward
+was unable to prevent his eyes from looking backward, in salutary
+watchfulness against attacks in the rear. His uneasiness was in no
+degree diminished when he perceived the beast rolling along their path,
+and following their footsteps. He would have spoken, but the Indian at
+that moment shoved aside a door of bark, and entered a cavern in the
+bosom of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Profiting by so easy a method of retreat, Duncan stepped after him, and
+was gladly closing the slight cover to the opening, when he felt it
+drawn from his hand by the beast, whose shaggy form immediately darkened
+the passage. They were now in a straight and long gallery, in a chasm of
+the rocks, where retreat without encountering the animal was impossible.
+Making the best of the circumstances, the young man pressed forward,
+keeping as close as possible to his conductor. The bear growled
+frequently at his heels, and once or twice its enormous paws were laid
+on his person, as if disposed to prevent his further passage into the
+den.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p><p>How long the nerves of Heyward would have sustained him in this
+extraordinary situation, it might be difficult to decide; for, happily,
+he soon found relief. A glimmer of light had constantly been in their
+front, and they now arrived at the place whence it proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>A large cavity in the rock had been rudely fitted to answer the purposes
+of many apartments. The subdivisions were simple but ingenious, being
+composed of stone, sticks, and bark, intermingled. Openings above
+admitted the light by day, and at night fires and torches supplied the
+place of the sun. Hither the Hurons had brought most of their valuables,
+especially those which more particularly pertained to the nation; and
+hither, as it now appeared, the sick woman, who was believed to be the
+victim of supernatural power, had been transported also, under an
+impression that her tormentor would find more difficulty in making his
+assaults through walls of stone than through the leafy coverings of the
+lodges. The apartment into which Duncan and his guide first entered, had
+been exclusively devoted to her accommodation. The latter approached her
+bedside, which was surrounded by females, in the centre of whom Heyward
+was surprised to find his missing friend David.</p>
+
+<p>A single look was sufficient to apprise the pretended leech that the
+invalid was far beyond his powers of healing. She lay in a sort of
+paralysis, indifferent to the objects which crowded before her sight,
+and happily unconscious of suffering. Heyward was far from regretting
+that his mummeries were to be performed on one who was much too ill to
+take an interest in their failure or success. The slight qualm of
+conscience which had been excited by the intended deception was
+instantly appeased, and he began to collect his thoughts, in order to
+enact his part with suitable spirit, when he found he was about to be
+anticipated in his skill by an attempt to prove the power of music.</p>
+
+<p>Gamut, who had stood prepared to pour forth his spirit in song when the
+visitors entered, after delaying a moment, drew a strain from his pipe,
+and commenced a hymn that might have worked a miracle, had faith in its
+efficacy been of much avail. He was allowed to proceed to the close, the
+Indians respecting his imaginary infirmity, and Duncan too glad of the
+delay to hazard the slightest interruption. As the dying cadence of his
+strains was falling on the ears of the latter, he started aside at
+hearing them repeated behind him in a voice half human, half
+sepulchral.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Looking around, he beheld the shaggy monster seated on end
+in a shadow of the cavern, where, while his restless body swung in the
+uneasy manner of the animal, it repeated, in a sort of low growl, sound,
+if not words, which bore some slight resemblance to the melody of the
+singer.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of so strange an echo on David may better be imagined than
+described. His eyes opened as if he doubted their truth; and his voice
+became instantly mute in excess of wonder. A deep-laid scheme, of
+communicating some important intelligence to Heyward, was driven from
+his recollection by an emotion which very nearly resembled fear, but
+which he was fain to believe was admiration. Under its influence, he
+exclaimed aloud&mdash;"She expects you, and is at hand;" and precipitately
+left the cavern.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p>
+<i>"Snug.</i>&mdash;Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give
+it me, for I am slow of study."</p>
+<p>
+<i>"Quince</i>.&mdash;You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was a strange blending of the ridiculous with that which was
+solemn in this scene. The beast still continued its rolling, and
+apparently untiring movements, though its ludicrous attempt to imitate
+the melody of David ceased the instant the latter abandoned the field.
+The words of Gamut were, as has been seen, in his native tongue; and to
+Duncan they seemed pregnant with some hidden meaning, though nothing
+present assisted him in discovering the object of their illusion. A
+speedy end was, however, put to every conjecture on the subject, by the
+manner of the chief, who advanced to the bedside of the invalid, and
+beckoned away the whole group of female attendants that had clustered
+there to witness the skill of the stranger. He was implicitly, though
+reluctantly, obeyed; and when the low echo which rang along the hollow
+natural gallery from the distant closing door had ceased, pointing
+towards his insensible daughter, he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now let my brother show his power."</p>
+
+<p>Thus unequivocally called on to exercise the functions of his assumed
+character, Heyward was apprehensive that the smallest delay might prove
+dangerous. Endeavoring then to collect his ideas, he prepared to perform
+that species of incantation, and those uncouth rites, under which the
+Indian conjurers are accustomed to conceal their ignorance and
+impotency. It is more than probable that, in the disordered state of his
+thoughts, he would soon have fallen into some suspicious, if not fatal
+error, had not his incipient attempts been interrupted by a fierce growl
+from the quadruped. Three several times did he renew his efforts to
+proceed, and as often was he met by the same unaccountable opposition,
+each interruption seeming more savage and threatening than the
+preceding.</p>
+
+<p>"The cunning ones are jealous," said the Huron; "I go. Brother, the
+woman is the wife of one of my bravest young men;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> deal justly by her.
+Peace!" he added, beckoning to the discontented beast to be quiet; "I
+go."</p>
+
+<p>The chief was as good as his word, and Duncan now found himself alone in
+that wild and desolate abode, with the helpless invalid, and the fierce
+and dangerous brute. The latter listened to the movements of the Indian
+with that air of sagacity that a bear is known to possess, until another
+echo announced that he had also left the cavern, when it turned and came
+waddling up to Duncan, before whom it seated itself, in its natural
+attitude, erect like a man. The youth looked anxiously about him for
+some weapon, with which he might make a resistance against the attack he
+now seriously expected.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed, however, as if the humor of the animal had suddenly changed.
+Instead of continuing its discontented growls, or manifesting any
+further signs of anger, the whole of its shaggy body shook violently, as
+if agitated by some strange internal convulsion. The huge and unwieldy
+talons pawed stupidly about the grinning muzzle, and while Heyward kept
+his eyes riveted on its movements with jealous watchfulness, the grim
+head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the honest, sturdy
+countenance of the scout, who was indulging from the bottom of his soul,
+in his own peculiar expression of merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"Hist!" said the wary woodsman, interrupting Heyward's exclamation of
+surprise; "the varlets are about the place, and any sounds that are not
+natural to witchcraft would bring them back upon us in a body."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me the meaning of this masquerade; and why you have attempted so
+desperate an adventure."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! reason and calculation are often outdone by accident," returned the
+scout. "But as a story should always commence at the beginning, I will
+tell you the whole in order. After we parted I placed the commandant and
+the Sagamore in an old beaver lodge, where they are safer from the
+Hurons than they would be in the garrison of Edward, for your high
+northwest Indians, not having as yet got the traders among them,
+continue to venerate the beaver. After which Uncas and I pushed for the
+other encampment, as was agreed; have you seen the lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"To my great grief! he is captive, and condemned to die at the rising of
+the sun."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_MASQUERADER" id="THE_MASQUERADER"></a>
+<img src="images/illus7.jpg" width="500" height="627" alt="THE MASQUERADER" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE MASQUERADER</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared<br /> the honest,
+sturdy countenance of the scout</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p><p>"I had misgivings that such would be his fate," resumed the scout, in a
+less confident and joyous tone. But soon regaining his naturally firm
+voice, he continued: "His bad fortune is the true reason of my being
+here, for it would never do to abandon such a boy to the Hurons. A rare
+time the knaves would have of it, could they tie The Bounding Elk and
+The Long Carabine, as they call me, to the same stake! Though why they
+have given me such a name I never knew, there being as little likeness
+between the gifts of 'Killdeer,' and the performance of one of your real
+Canada carabynes, as there is between the natur' of a pipe-stone and a
+flint!"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep to your tale," said the impatient Heyward; "we know not at what
+moment the Hurons may return."</p>
+
+<p>"No fear of them. A conjurer must have his time, like a straggling
+priest in the settlements. We are as safe from interruption as a
+missionary would be at the beginning of a two hours' discourse. Well,
+Uncas and I fell in with a return party of the varlets; the lad was much
+too forward for a scout; nay, for that matter, being of hot blood, he
+was not so much to blame; and, after all, one of the Hurons proved a
+coward, and in fleeing led him into an ambushment."</p>
+
+<p>"And dearly has he paid for the weakness!"</p>
+
+<p>The scout significantly passed his hand across his own throat, and
+nodded, as if he said, "I comprehend your meaning." After which he
+continued, in a more audible though scarcely more intelligible
+language,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After the loss of the boy I turned upon the Hurons, as you may judge.
+There have been scrimmages atween one or two of their outlyers and
+myself; but that is neither here nor there. So, after I had shot the
+imps, I got in pretty nigh to the lodges without further commotion. Then
+what should luck do in my favor, but lead me to the very spot where one
+of the most famous conjurers of the tribe was dressing himself, as I
+well knew, for some great battle with Satan&mdash;though why should I call
+that luck, which it now seems was an especial ordering of Providence! So
+a judgmatical rap over the head stiffened the lying impostor for a time,
+and leaving him a bit of walnut for his supper, to prevent an uproar,
+and stringing him up atween two sapplings, I made free with his finery,
+and took the part of the bear on myself, in order that the operations
+might proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"And admirably did you enact the character; the animal itself might have
+been shamed by the representation."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, major," returned the flattered woodsman, "I should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> be but a poor
+scholar for one who has studied so long in the wilderness, did I not
+know how to set forth the movements and natur' of such a beast. Had it
+been now a catamount, or even a full-sized panther, I would have
+embellished a performance for you worth regarding. But it is no such
+marvellous feat to exhibit the feats of so dull a beast; though, for
+that matter too, a bear may be overacted. Yes, yes; it is not every
+imitator that knows natur' may be outdone easier than she is equalled.
+But all our work is yet before us: where is the gentle one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven knows; I have examined every lodge in the village, without
+discovering the slightest trace of her presence in the tribe."</p>
+
+<p>"You heard what the singer said, as he left us,&mdash;'She is at hand, and
+expects you'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been compelled to believe he alluded to this unhappy woman."</p>
+
+<p>"The simpleton was frightened, and blundered through his message; but he
+had a deeper meaning. Here are walls enough to separate the whole
+settlement. A bear ought to climb; therefore will I take a look above
+them. There may be honey-pots hid in these rocks, and I am a beast you
+know, that has a hankering for the sweets."</p>
+
+<p>The scout looked behind him, laughing at his own conceit, while he
+clambered up the partition, imitating, as he went, the clumsy motions of
+the beast he represented; but the instant the summit was gained he made
+a gesture for silence, and slid down with the utmost precipitation.</p>
+
+<p>"She is here," he whispered, "and by that door you will find her. I
+would have spoken a word of comfort to the afflicted soul; but the sight
+of such a monster might upset her reason. Though for that matter, major,
+you are none of the most inviting yourself in your paint."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, who had already sprung eagerly forward, drew instantly back on
+hearing these discouraging words.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I, then, so very revolting?" he demanded, with an air of chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"You might not startle a wolf, or turn the Royal Americans from a
+charge; but I have seen the time when you had a better-favored look;
+your streaked countenances are not ill-judged of by the squaws, but
+young women of white blood give the preference to their own color. See,"
+he added, pointing to a place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> where the water trickled from a rock,
+forming a little crystal spring before it found an issue through the
+adjacent crevices; "you may easily get rid of the Sagamore's daub, and
+when you come back I will try my hand at a new embellishment. It's as
+common for a conjurer to alter his paint as for a buck in the
+settlements to change his finery."</p>
+
+<p>The deliberate woodsman had little occasion to hunt for arguments to
+enforce his advice. He was yet speaking when Duncan availed himself of
+the water. In a moment every frightful or offensive mark was
+obliterated, and the youth appeared again in the lineaments with which
+he had been gifted by nature. Thus prepared for an interview with his
+mistress, he took a hasty leave of his companion, and disappeared
+through the indicated passage. The scout witnessed his departure with
+complacency, nodding his head after him, and muttering his good wishes;
+after which he very coolly set about an examination of the state of the
+larder, among the Hurons&mdash;the cavern, among other purposes, being used
+as a receptacle for the fruits of their hunts.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan had no other guide than a distant glimmering light, which served,
+however, the office of a polar star to the lover. By its aid he was
+enabled to enter the haven of his hopes, which was merely another
+apartment of the cavern, that had been solely appropriated to the
+safe-keeping of so important a prisoner as a daughter of the commandant
+of William Henry. It was profusely strewed with the plunder of that
+unlucky fortress. In the midst of this confusion he found her he sought,
+pale, anxious, and terrified, but lovely. David had prepared her for
+such a visit.</p>
+
+<p>"Duncan!" she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to tremble at the sounds
+created by itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Alice" he answered, leaping carelessly among trunks, boxes, arms, and
+furniture, until he stood at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that you would never desert me," she said, looking up with a
+momentary glow on her otherwise dejected countenance. "But you are
+alone! grateful as it is to be thus remembered, I could wish to think
+you are not entirely alone."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, observing that she trembled in a manner which betrayed her
+inability to stand, gently induced her to be seated, while he recounted
+those leading incidents which it has been our task to record. Alice
+listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched
+lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father, taking care, however, not
+to wound the self-love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the
+cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing
+tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her
+emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided attention,
+if not with composure.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Alice," he added, "you will see how much is still expected of
+you. By the assistance of our experienced and invaluable friend, the
+scout, we may find our way from this savage people, but you will have to
+exert your utmost fortitude. Remember that you fly to the arms of your
+venerable parent, and how much his happiness, as well as your own,
+depends on those exertions."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I do otherwise for a father who has done so much for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"And for me too," continued the youth, gently pressing the hand he held
+in both his own.</p>
+
+<p>The look of innocence and surprise which he received in return convinced
+Duncan of the necessity of being more explicit.</p>
+
+<p>"This is neither the place nor the occasion to detain you with selfish
+wishes," he added; "but what heart loaded like mine would not wish to
+cast its burden? They say misery is the closest of all ties; our common
+suffering in your behalf left but little to be explained between your
+father and myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And dearest Cora, Duncan; surely Cora was not forgotten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not forgotten! no; regretted, as woman was seldom mourned before. Your
+venerable father knew no difference between his children; but I&mdash;Alice,
+you will not be offended when I say, that to me her worth was in a
+degree obscured&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knew not the merit of my sister," said Alice, withdrawing her
+hand; "of you she ever speaks as of one who is her nearest friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I would gladly believe her such," returned Duncan, hastily; "I could
+wish her to be even more; but with you, Alice, I have the permission of
+your father to aspire to a still nearer and dearer tie."</p>
+
+<p>Alice trembled violently, and there was an instant during which she bent
+her face aside, yielding to the emotions common to her sex; but they
+quickly passed away, leaving her mistress of her deportment, if not of
+her affections.</p>
+
+<p>"Heyward," she said, looking him full in the face with a touching
+expression of innocence and dependency, "give me the sacred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> presence
+and the holy sanction of that parent before you urge me further."</p>
+
+<p>"Though more I should not, less I could not say," the youth was about to
+answer, when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder. Starting
+to his feet, he turned, and, confronting the intruder, his looks fell on
+the dark form and malignant visage of Magua. The deep guttural laugh of
+the savage sounded, at such a moment, to Duncan like the hellish taunt
+of a demon. Had he pursued the sudden and fierce impulse of the instant,
+he would have cast himself on the Huron, and committed their fortunes to
+the issue of a deadly struggle. But, without arms of any description,
+ignorant of what succor his subtle enemy could command, and charged with
+the safety of one who was just then dearer than ever to his heart, he no
+sooner entertained than he abandoned the desperate intention.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your purpose?" said Alice, meekly folding her arms on her
+bosom, and struggling to conceal an agony of apprehension in behalf of
+Heyward, in the usual cold and distant manner with which she received
+the visits of her captor.</p>
+
+<p>The exulting Indian had resumed his austere countenance, though he drew
+warily back before the menacing glance of the young man's fiery eye. He
+regarded both his captives for a moment with a steady look, and then
+stepping aside, he dropped a log of wood across a door different from
+that by which Duncan had entered. The latter now comprehended the manner
+of his surprise, and believing himself irretrievably lost, he drew Alice
+to his bosom, and stood prepared to meet a fate which he hardly
+regretted, since it was to be suffered in such company. But Magua
+meditated no immediate violence. His first measures were very evidently
+taken to secure his new captive; nor did he even bestow a second glance
+at the motionless forms in the centre of the cavern, until he had
+completely cut off every hope of retreat through the private outlet he
+had himself used. He was watched in all his movements by Heyward, who,
+however, remained firm, still folding the fragile form of Alice to his
+heart, at once too proud and too hopeless to ask favor of an enemy so
+often foiled. When Magua had effected his object he approached his
+prisoners, and said in English,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The pale-faces trap the cunning beavers; but the redskins know how to
+take the Yengeese."</p>
+
+<p>"Huron, do your worst!" exclaimed the excited Heyward,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> forgetful that a
+double stake was involved in his life; "you and your vengeance are alike
+despised."</p>
+
+<p>"Will the white man speak these words at the stake?" asked Magua;
+manifesting, at the same time, how little faith he had in the other's
+resolution by the sneer that accompanied his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Here; singly to your face, or in the presence of your nation."</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief!" returned the Indian; "he will go
+and bring his young men to see how bravely a pale-face can laugh at the
+tortures."</p>
+
+<p>He turned away while speaking, and was about to leave the place through
+the avenue by which Duncan had approached, when a growl caught his ear,
+and caused him to hesitate. The figure of the bear appeared in the door,
+where it sat, rolling from side to side in its customary restlessness.
+Magua, like the father of the sick woman, eyed it keenly for a moment,
+as if to ascertain its character. He was far above the more vulgar
+superstitions of his tribe, and so soon as he recognized the well-known
+attire of the conjurer, he prepared to pass it in cool contempt. But a
+louder and more threatening growl caused him again to pause. Then he
+seemed as if suddenly resolved to trifle no longer, and moved resolutely
+forward. The mimic animal, which had advanced a little, retired slowly
+in his front, until it arrived again at the pass, when rearing on its
+hinder legs it beat the air with its paws, in the manner practised by
+its brutal prototype.</p>
+
+<p>"Fool!" exclaimed the chief, in Huron, "go play with the children and
+squaws; leave men to their wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>He once more endeavored to pass the supposed empiric, scorning even the
+parade of threatening to use the knife, or tomahawk, that was pendent
+from his belt. Suddenly the beast extended its arms, or rather legs, and
+inclosed him in a grasp that might have vied with the far-famed power of
+the "bear's hug" itself. Heyward had watched the whole procedure, on the
+part of Hawkeye, with breathless interest. At first he relinquished his
+hold of Alice; then he caught up a thong of buckskin, which had been
+used around some bundle, and when he beheld his enemy with his two arms
+pinned to his side by the iron muscles of the scout, he rushed upon him,
+and effectually secured them there. Arms, legs, and feet were encircled
+in twenty folds of the thong, in less time than we have taken to record
+the circumstance. When the formidable Huron was completely pinioned, the
+scout released his hold, and Duncan laid his enemy on his back, utterly
+helpless.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole of this sudden and extraordinary operation, Magua,
+though he had struggled violently, until assured he was in the hands of
+one whose nerves were far better strung than his own, had not uttered
+the slightest exclamation. But when Hawkeye, by way of making a summary
+explanation of his conduct, removed the shaggy jaws of the beast, and
+exposed his own rugged and earnest countenance to the gaze of the Huron,
+the philosophy of the latter was so far mastered as to permit him to
+utter the never-failing,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! you've found your tongue," said his undisturbed conqueror; "now, in
+order that you shall not use it to our ruin, I must make free to stop
+your mouth."</p>
+
+<p>As there was no time to be lost, the scout immediately set about
+effecting so necessary a precaution; and when he had gagged the Indian,
+his enemy might safely have been considered as <i>hors de combat</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"By what place did the imp enter?" asked the industrious scout, when his
+work was ended. "Not a soul has passed my way since you left me."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan pointed out the door by which Magua had come, and which now
+presented too many obstacles to a quick retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring on the gentle one, then," continued his friend; "we must make a
+push for the woods by the other outlet."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis impossible!" said Duncan; "fear has overcome her, and she is
+helpless. Alice! my sweet, my own Alice, arouse yourself; now is the
+moment to fly. 'Tis in vain! she hears, but is unable to follow. Go,
+noble and worthy friend; save yourself, and leave me to my fate!"</p>
+
+<p>"Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!"
+returned the scout. "There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all
+of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it
+will betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow.
+Leave the rest to me."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, as may be gathered from the words of his companion, was eagerly
+obeying; and as the other finished speaking, he took the light person of
+Alice in his arms, and followed on the footsteps of the scout. They
+found the sick woman as they had left her, still alone, and passed
+swiftly on, by the natural gallery, to the place of entrance. As they
+approached the little door of bark, a murmur of voices without announced
+that the friends and relatives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of the invalid were gathered about the
+place, patiently awaiting a summons to re-enter.</p>
+
+<p>"If I open my lips to speak," Hawkeye whispered, "my English, which is
+the genuine tongue of a white-skin, will tell the varlets that an enemy
+is among them. You must give 'em your jargon, major; and say that we
+have shut the evil spirit in the cave, and are taking the woman to the
+woods in order to find strengthening roots. Practyse all your cunning,
+for it is a lawful undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened a little, as if one without was listening to the
+proceedings within, and compelled the scout to cease his directions. A
+fierce growl repelled the eavesdropper, and then the scout boldly threw
+open the covering of bark, and left the place, enacting the character of
+the bear as he proceeded. Duncan kept close at his heels, and so found
+himself in the centre of a cluster of twenty anxious relatives and
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd fell back a little, and permitted the father, and one who
+appeared to be the husband of the woman, to approach.</p>
+
+<p>"Has my brother driven away the evil spirit?" demanded the former. "What
+has he in his arms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thy child," returned Duncan, gravely; "the disease has gone out of her;
+it is shut up in the rocks. I take the woman to a distance, where I will
+strengthen her against any further attacks. She shall be in the wigwam
+of the young man when the sun comes again."</p>
+
+<p>When the father had translated the meaning of the stranger's words into
+the Huron language, a suppressed murmur announced the satisfaction with
+which the intelligence was received. The chief himself waved his hand
+for Duncan to proceed, saying aloud, in a firm voice, and with a lofty
+manner,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Go; I am a man, and I will enter the rock and fight the wicked one."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward had gladly obeyed, and was already past the little group, when
+these startling words arrested him.</p>
+
+<p>"Is my brother mad?" he exclaimed; "is he cruel! He will meet the
+disease, and it will enter him; or he will drive out the disease, and it
+will chase his daughter into the woods. No; let my children wait
+without, and if the spirit appears beat him down with clubs. He is
+cunning, and will bury himself in the mountain, when he sees how many
+are ready to fight him."</p>
+
+<p>This singular warning had the desired effect. Instead of entering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> the
+cavern, the father and husband drew their tomahawks, and posted
+themselves in readiness to deal their vengeance on the imaginary
+tormentor of their sick relative, while the women and children broke
+branches from the bushes, or seized fragments of the rock, with a
+similar intention. At this favorable moment the counterfeit conjurers
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye, at the same time that he had presumed so far on the nature of
+the Indian superstitions, was not ignorant that they were rather
+tolerated than relied on by the wisest of the chiefs. He well knew the
+value of time in the present emergency. Whatever might be the extent of
+the self-delusion of his enemies, and however it had tended to assist
+his schemes, the slightest cause of suspicion, acting on the subtle
+nature of an Indian, would be likely to prove fatal. Taking the path,
+therefore, that was most likely to avoid observation, he rather skirted
+than entered the village. The warriors were still to be seen in the
+distance, by the fading light of the fires, stalking from lodge to
+lodge. But the children had abandoned their sports for their beds of
+skins, and the quiet of night was already beginning to prevail over the
+turbulence and excitement of so busy and important an evening.</p>
+
+<p>Alice revived under the renovating influence of the open air, and as her
+physical rather than her mental powers had been the subject of weakness,
+she stood in no need of any explanation of that which had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me make an effort to walk," she said, when they had entered the
+forest, blushing, though unseen, that she had not been sooner able to
+quit the arms of Duncan; "I am indeed restored."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Alice, you are yet too weak."</p>
+
+<p>The maiden struggled gently to release herself, and Heyward was
+compelled to part with his precious burden. The representative of the
+bear had certainly been an entire stranger to the delicious emotions of
+the lover while his arms encircled his mistress; and he was, perhaps, a
+stranger also to the nature of that feeling of ingenuous shame that
+oppressed the trembling Alice. But when he found himself at a suitable
+distance from the lodges he made a halt, and spoke on a subject of which
+he was thoroughly the master.</p>
+
+<p>"This path will lead you to the brook," he said; "follow its northern
+bank until you come to a fall; and mount the hill on your right, and you
+will see the fires of the other people. There you must go and demand
+protection; if they are true Delawares,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> you will be safe. A distant
+flight with that gentle one, just now, is impossible. The Hurons would
+follow up our trail, and master our scalps, before we had got a dozen
+miles. Go, and Providence be with you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you!" demanded Heyward, in surprise; "surely we part not here?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Hurons hold the pride of the Delawares; the last of the high blood
+of the Mohicans is in their power," returned the scout; "I go to see
+what can be done in his favor. Had they mastered your scalp, major, a
+knave should have fallen for every hair it held, as I promised; but if
+the young Sagamore is to be led to the stake, the Indians shall see also
+how a man without a cross can die."</p>
+
+<p>Not in the least offended with the decided preference that the sturdy
+woodsman gave to one who might, in some degree, be called the child of
+his adoption, Duncan still continued to urge such reasons against so
+desperate an effort as presented themselves. He was aided by Alice, who
+mingled her entreaties with those of Heyward that he would abandon a
+resolution that promised so much danger, with so little hope of success.
+Their eloquence and ingenuity were expended in vain. The scout heard
+them attentively, but impatiently, and finally closed the discussion, by
+answering, in a tone that instantly silenced Alice, while it told
+Heyward how fruitless any further remonstrances would be,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard," he said, "that there is a feeling in youth which binds
+man to woman closer than the father is tied to the son. It may be so. I
+have seldom been where women of my color dwell; but such may be the
+gifts of nature in the settlements. You have risked life, and all that
+is dear to you, to bring off this gentle one, and I suppose that some
+such disposition is at the bottom of it all. As for me, I taught the lad
+the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have
+fou't at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could
+hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the
+other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and
+days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish,
+one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that
+Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand&mdash;There is but a single
+Ruler of us all, whatever may be the color of the skin; and Him I call
+to witness, that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a
+friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth, and 'Killdeer' become as
+harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_LOVERS" id="THE_LOVERS"></a>
+<img src="images/illus8.jpg" width="500" height="626" alt="THE LOVERS" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE LOVERS</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the<br /> distant village
+of the Delawares</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p><p>Duncan released his hold on the arm of the scout, who turned, and
+steadily retraced his steps towards the lodges. After pausing a moment
+to gaze at his retiring form, the successful and yet sorrowful Heyward,
+and Alice, took their way together towards the distant village of the
+Delawares.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"<i>Bot.</i>&mdash;Let me play the lion too."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Notwithstanding</span> the high resolution of Hawkeye, he fully comprehended
+all the difficulties and dangers he was about to incur. In his return to
+the camp, his acute and practised intellects were intently engaged in
+devising means to counteract a watchfulness and suspicion on the part of
+his enemies, that he knew were, in no degree, inferior to his own.
+Nothing but the color of his skin had saved the lives of Magua and the
+conjurer, who would have been the first victims sacrificed to his own
+security, had not the scout believed such an act, however congenial it
+might be to the nature of an Indian, utterly unworthy of one who boasted
+a descent from men that knew no cross of blood. Accordingly, he trusted
+to the withes and ligaments with which he had bound his captives, and
+pursued his way directly towards the centre of the lodges.</p>
+
+<p>As he approached the buildings, his steps became more deliberate, and
+his vigilant eye suffered no sign, whether friendly or hostile, to
+escape him. A neglected hut was a little in advance of the others, and
+appeared as if it had been deserted when half completed&mdash;most probably
+on account of failing in some of the more important requisites; such as
+food or water. A faint light glimmered through its cracks, however, and
+announced that, notwithstanding its imperfect structure, it was not
+without a tenant. Thither, then, the scout proceeded, like a prudent
+general, who was about to feel the advanced positions of his enemy,
+before he hazarded the main attack.</p>
+
+<p>Throwing himself into a suitable posture for the beast he represented,
+Hawkeye crawled to a little opening, where he might command a view of
+the interior. It proved to be the abiding-place of David Gamut. Hither
+the faithful singing-master had now brought himself, together with all
+his sorrows, his apprehensions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> and his meek dependence on the
+protection of Providence. At the precise moment when his ungainly person
+came under the observation of the scout, in the manner just mentioned,
+the woodsman himself, though in his assumed character, was the subject
+of the solitary being's profoundest reflections.</p>
+
+<p>However implicit the faith of David was in the performance of ancient
+miracles, he eschewed the belief of any direct supernatural agency in
+the management of modern morality. In other words, while he had implicit
+faith in the ability of Balsam's ass to speak, he was somewhat skeptical
+on the subject of a bear's singing; and yet he had been assured of the
+latter, on the testimony of his own exquisite organs. There was
+something in his air and manner that betrayed to the scout the utter
+confusion of the state of his mind. He was seated on a pile of brush, a
+few twigs from which occasionally fed his low fire, with his head
+leaning on his arm, in a posture of melancholy musing. The costume of
+the votary of music had undergone no other alteration from that so
+lately described, except that he had covered his bald head with the
+triangular beaver, which had not proved sufficiently alluring to excite
+the cupidity of any of his captors.</p>
+
+<p>The ingenious Hawkeye, who recalled the hasty manner in which the other
+had abandoned his post at the bedside of the sick woman, was not without
+his suspicions concerning the subject of so much solemn deliberation.
+First making the circuit of the hut, and ascertaining that it stood
+quite alone, and that the character of its inmate was likely to protect
+it from visitors, he ventured through its low door, into the very
+presence of Gamut. The position of the latter brought the fire between
+them; and when Hawkeye had seated himself on end, near a minute elapsed,
+during which the two remained regarding each other without speaking. The
+suddenness and the nature of the surprise had nearly proved too much
+for&mdash;we will not say the philosophy&mdash;but for the faith and resolution of
+David. He fumbled for his pitch-pipe, and arose with a confused
+intention of attempting a musical exorcism.</p>
+
+<p>"Dark and mysterious monster!" he exclaimed, while with trembling hands
+he disposed of his auxiliary eyes, and sought his never-failing resource
+in trouble, the gifted version of the Psalms: "I know not your nature
+nor intents; but if aught you meditate against the person and rights of
+one of the humblest servants of the temple, listen to the inspired
+language of the youth of Israel, and repent."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>The bear shook his shaggy sides, and then a well-known voice replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Put up the tooting we'pon, and teach your throat modesty. Five words of
+plain and comprehensible English are worth, just now, an hour of
+squalling."</p>
+
+<p>"What art thou!" demanded David, utterly disqualified to pursue his
+original intention, and nearly gasping for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"A man like yourself; and one whose blood is as little tainted by the
+cross of a bear, or an Indian, as your own. Have you so soon forgotten
+from whom you received the foolish instrument you hold in your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can these things be?" returned David, breathing more freely, as the
+truth began to dawn upon him. "I have found many marvels during my
+sojourn with the heathen, but surely nothing to excel this!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come," returned Hawkeye, uncasing his honest countenance, the
+better to assure the wavering confidence of his companion; "you may see
+a skin, which, if it be not as white as one of the gentle ones, has no
+tinge of red to it that the winds of heaven and the sun have not
+bestowed. Now let us to business."</p>
+
+<p>"First tell me of the maiden, and of the youth who so bravely sought
+her," interrupted David.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, they are happily freed from the tomahawks of these varlets. But can
+you put me on the scent of Uncas?"</p>
+
+<p>"The young man is in bondage, and much I fear his death is decreed. I
+greatly mourn that one so well disposed should die in his ignorance, and
+I have sought a goodly hymn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you lead me to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"The task will not be difficult," returned David, hesitating; "though I
+greatly fear your presence would rather increase than mitigate his
+unhappy fortunes."</p>
+
+<p>"No more words, but lead on," returned Hawkeye, concealing his face
+again, and setting the example in his own person, by instantly quitting
+the lodge.</p>
+
+<p>As they proceeded, the scout ascertained that his companion found access
+to Uncas, under privilege of his imaginary infirmity, aided by the favor
+he had acquired with one of the guards, who, in consequence of speaking
+a little English, had been selected by David as the subject of a
+religious conversation. How far the Huron comprehended the intentions of
+his new friend, may well be doubted; but as exclusive attention is as
+flattering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> to a savage as to a more civilized individual, it had
+produced the effect we have mentioned. It is unnecessary to repeat the
+shrewd manner with which the scout extracted these particulars from the
+simple David; neither shall we dwell in this place on the nature of the
+instructions he delivered, when completely master of all the necessary
+facts; as the whole will be sufficiently explained to the reader in the
+course of the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>The lodge in which Uncas was confined was in the very centre of the
+village, and in a situation, perhaps, more difficult than any other to
+approach, or leave, without observation. But it was not the policy of
+Hawkeye to affect the least concealment. Presuming on his disguise, and
+his ability to sustain the character he had assumed, he took the most
+plain and direct route to the place. The hour, however, afforded him
+some little of that protection which he appeared so much to despise. The
+boys were already buried in sleep, and all the women, and most of the
+warriors, had retired to their lodges for the night. Four or five of the
+latter only lingered about the door of the prison of Uncas, wary but
+close observers of the manner of their captive.</p>
+
+<p>At the sight of Gamut, accompanied by one in the well known masquerade
+of their most distinguished conjurer, they readily made way for them
+both. Still they betrayed no intention to depart. On the other hand,
+they were evidently disposed to remain bound to the place by an
+additional interest in the mysterious mummeries that they of course
+expected from such a visit.</p>
+
+<p>From the total inability of the scout to address the Hurons in their own
+language, he was compelled to trust the conversation entirely to David.
+Notwithstanding the simplicity of the latter, he did ample justice to
+the instructions he had received, more than fulfilling the strongest
+hopes of his teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"The Delawares are women!" he exclaimed, addressing himself to the
+savage who had a slight understanding of the language in which he spoke;
+"the Yengeese, my foolish countrymen, have told them to take up the
+tomahawk, and strike their fathers in the Canadas, and they have
+forgotten their sex. Does my brother wish to hear Le Cerf Agile ask for
+his petticoats, and see him weep before the Hurons, at the stake?"</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation "Hugh!" delivered in a strong tone of assent, announced
+the gratification the savage would receive in witnessing such an
+exhibition of weakness in an enemy so long hated and so much feared.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p><p>"Then let him step aside, and the cunning man will blow upon the dog!
+Tell it to my brothers."</p>
+
+<p>The Huron explained the meaning of David to his fellows, who, in their
+turn, listened to the project with that sort of satisfaction that their
+untamed spirits might be expected to find in such a refinement in
+cruelty. They drew back a little from the entrance, and motioned to the
+supposed conjurer to enter. But the bear, instead of obeying, maintained
+the seat it had taken, and growled.</p>
+
+<p>"The cunning man is afraid that his breath will blow upon his brothers,
+and take away their courage too," continued David, improving the hint he
+received; "they must stand farther off."</p>
+
+<p>The Hurons, who would have deemed such a misfortune the heaviest
+calamity that could befall them, fell back in a body, taking a position
+where they were out of ear-shot, though at the same time they could
+command a view of the entrance to the lodge. Then, as if satisfied of
+their safety, the scout left his position, and slowly entered the place.
+It was silent and gloomy, being tenanted solely by the captive, and
+lighted by the dying embers of a fire, which had been used for the
+purposes of cookery.</p>
+
+<p>Uncas occupied a distant corner, in a reclining attitude, being rigidly
+bound, both hands and feet, by strong and painful withes. When the
+frightful object first presented itself to the young Mohican, he did not
+deign to bestow a single glance on the animal. The scout, who had left
+David at the door, to ascertain they were not observed, thought it
+prudent to preserve his disguise until assured of their privacy. Instead
+of speaking, therefore, he exerted himself to enact one of the antics of
+the animal he represented. The young Mohican, who at first believed his
+enemies had sent in a real beast to torment him, and try his nerves,
+detected, in those performances that to Heyward had appeared so
+accurate, certain blemishes, that at once betrayed the counterfeit. Had
+Hawkeye been aware of the low estimation in which the more skilful Uncas
+held his representations, he would probably have prolonged the
+entertainment a little in pique. But the scornful expression of the
+young man's eye admitted of so many constructions, that the worthy scout
+was spared the mortification of such a discovery. As soon, therefore, as
+David gave the pre-concerted signal, a low hissing sound was heard in
+the lodge, in place of the fierce growlings of the bear.</p>
+
+<p>Uncas had cast his body back against the wall of the hut, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> closed
+his eyes, as if willing to exclude so contemptible and disagreeable an
+object from his sight. But the moment the noise of the serpent was
+heard, he arose, and cast his looks on each side of him, bending his
+head low, and turning it inquiringly in every direction, until his keen
+eye rested on the shaggy monster, where it remained riveted, as though
+fixed by the power of a charm. Again the same sounds were repeated,
+evidently proceeding from the mouth of the beast. Once more the eyes of
+the youth roamed over the interior of the lodge, and returning to their
+former resting place, he uttered, in a deep, suppressed voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hawkeye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cut his bands," said Hawkeye to David, who just then approached them.</p>
+
+<p>The singer did as he was ordered, and Uncas found his limbs released. At
+the same moment the dried skin of the animal rattled, and presently the
+scout arose to his feet, in proper person. The Mohican appeared to
+comprehend the nature of the attempt his friend had made, intuitively;
+neither tongue nor feature betraying another symptom of surprise. When
+Hawkeye had cast his shaggy vestment, which was done by simply loosing
+certain thongs of skin, he drew a long glittering knife, and put it in
+the hands of Uncas.</p>
+
+<p>"The red Hurons are without," he said; "let us be ready."</p>
+
+<p>At the same time he laid his finger significantly on another similar
+weapon, both being the fruits of his prowess among their enemies during
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"We will go," said Uncas.</p>
+
+<p>"Whither?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the Tortoises; they are the children of my grandfathers."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad," said the scout in English&mdash;a language he was apt to use when
+a little abstracted in mind; "the same blood runs in your veins, I
+believe; but time and distance have a little changed its color. What
+shall we do with the Mingos at the door? They count six, and this singer
+is as good as nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"The Hurons are boasters," said Uncas scornfully; "their 'totem' is a
+moose, and they run like snails. The Delawares are children of the
+tortoise, and they outstrip the deer."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad, there is truth in what you say; and I doubt not, on a rush,
+you would pass the whole nation; and, in a straight race of two miles,
+would be in, and get your breath again, afore a knave of them all was
+within hearing of the other village. But the gift<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> of a white man lies
+more in his arms than in his legs. As for myself, I can brain a Huron as
+well as a better man; but when it comes to a race, the knaves would
+prove too much for me."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas, who had already approached the door, in readiness to lead the
+way, now recoiled; and placed himself, once more, in the bottom of the
+lodge. But Hawkeye, who was too much occupied with his own thoughts to
+note the movement, continued speaking more to himself than to his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," he said, "it is unreasonable to keep one man in bondage to
+the gifts of another. So, Uncas, you had better take the leap, while I
+put on the skin again, and trust to cunning for want of speed."</p>
+
+<p>The young Mohican made no reply, but quietly folded his arms, and leaned
+his body against one of the upright posts that supported the wall of the
+hut.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the scout, looking up at him, "why do you tarry? There will
+be time enough for me, as the knaves will give chase to you at first."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas will stay," was the calm reply.</p>
+
+<p>"For what?"</p>
+
+<p>"To fight with his father's brother, and die with the friend of the
+Delawares."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad," returned Hawkeye, squeezing the hand of Uncas between his own
+iron fingers; "'twould have been more like a Mingo than a Mohican had
+you left me. But I thought I would make the offer, seeing that youth
+commonly loves life. Well, what can't be done by main courage, in war,
+must be done by circumvention. Put on the skin; I doubt not you can play
+the bear nearly as well as myself."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever might have been the private opinion of Uncas of their
+respective abilities in this particular, his grave countenance
+manifested no opinion of his own superiority. He silently and
+expeditiously encased himself in the covering of the beast, and then
+awaited such other movements as his more aged companion saw fit to
+dictate.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, friend," said Hawkeye, addressing David, "an exchange of garments
+will be a great convenience to you, inasmuch as you are but little
+accustomed to the make-shifts of the wilderness. Here, take my hunting
+shirt and cap, and give me your blanket and hat. You must trust me with
+the book and spectacles, as well as the tooter, too; if we ever meet
+again, in better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> times, you shall have all back again, with many thanks
+into the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>David parted with the several articles named with a readiness that would
+have done great credit to his liberality, had he not certainly profited,
+in many particulars, by the exchange. Hawkeye was not long in assuming
+his borrowed garments; and when his restless eyes were hid behind the
+glasses, and his head was surmounted by the triangular beaver, as their
+statures were not dissimilar, he might readily have passed for the
+singer by star-light. As soon as these dispositions were made, the scout
+turned to David, and gave him his parting instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you much given to cowardice?" he bluntly asked, by way of obtaining
+a suitable understanding of the whole case before he ventured a
+prescription.</p>
+
+<p>"My pursuits are peaceful, and my temper, I humbly trust, is greatly
+given to mercy and love," returned David, a little nettled at so direct
+an attack on his manhood; "but there are none who can say that I have
+ever forgotten my faith in the Lord, even in the greatest straits."</p>
+
+<p>"Your chiefest danger will be at the moment when the savages find out
+that they have been deceived. If you are not then knocked in the head,
+your being a non-composser will protect you; and you'll then have good
+reason to expect to die in your bed. If you stay, it must be to sit down
+here in the shadow, and take the part of Uncas, until such times as the
+cunning of the Indians discover the cheat, when, as I have already said,
+your time of trial will come. So choose for yourself,&mdash;to make a rush or
+tarry here."</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," said David, firmly; "I will abide in the place of the
+Delaware. Bravely and generously has he battled in my behalf; and this,
+and more, will I dare in his service."</p>
+
+<p>"You have spoken as a man, and like one who, under wiser schooling,
+would have been brought to better things. Hold your head down, and draw
+in your legs; their formation might tell the truth too early. Keep
+silent as long as may be; and it would be wise, when you do speak, to
+break out suddenly in one of your shoutings, which will serve to remind
+the Indians that you are not altogether as responsible as men should be.
+If, however, they take your scalp, as I trust and believe they will not,
+depend on it, Uncas and I will not forget the deed, but revenge it as
+becomes true warriors and trusty friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" said David, perceiving that with this assurance they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> were about
+to leave him; "I am an unworthy and humble follower of One who taught
+not the damnable principle of revenge. Should I fall, therefore, seek no
+victims to my manes, but rather forgive my destroyers; and if you
+remember them at all, let it be in prayers for the enlightening of their
+minds, and for their eternal welfare."</p>
+
+<p>The scout hesitated, and appeared to muse.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a principle in that," he said, "different from the law of the
+woods; and yet it is fair and noble to reflect upon." Then, heaving a
+heavy sigh, probably among the last he ever drew in pining for a
+condition he had so long abandoned, he added, "It is what I would wish
+to practise, myself, as one without a cross of blood, though it is not
+always easy to deal with an Indian as you would with a fellow Christian.
+God bless you, friend; I do believe your scent is not greatly wrong,
+when the matter is duly considered, and keeping eternity before the
+eyes, though much depends on the natural gifts, and the force of
+temptation."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the scout returned and shook David cordially by the hand;
+after which act of friendship he immediately left the lodge, attended by
+the new representative of the beast.</p>
+
+<p>The instant Hawkeye found himself under the observation of the Hurons,
+he drew up his tall form in the rigid manner of David, threw out his arm
+in the act of keeping time, and commenced what he intended for an
+imitation of his psalmody. Happily for the success of this delicate
+adventure, he had to deal with ears but little practised in the concord
+of sweet sounds, or the miserable effort would infallibly have been
+detected. It was necessary to pass within a dangerous proximity of the
+dark group of the savages, and the voice of the scout grew louder as
+they drew nigher. When at the nearest point, the Huron who spoke the
+English thrust out an arm, and stopped the supposed singing-master.</p>
+
+<p>"The Delaware dog!" he said, leaning forward, and peering through the
+dim light to catch the expression of the other's features; "is he
+afraid? will the Hurons hear his groans?"</p>
+
+<p>A growl so exceedingly fierce and natural proceeded from the beast, that
+the young Indian released his hold and started aside, as if to assure
+himself that it was not a veritable bear, and no counterfeit, that was
+rolling before him. Hawkeye, who feared his voice would betray him to
+his subtle enemies, gladly profited by the interruption, to break out
+anew in such a burst of musical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> expression as would, probably, in a
+more refined state of society have been termed "a grand crash." Among
+his actual auditors, however, it merely gave him an additional claim to
+that respect which they never withhold from such as are believed to be
+the subjects of mental alienation. The little knot of Indians drew back
+in a body, and suffered, as they thought, the conjurer and his inspired
+assistant to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>It required no common exercise of fortitude in Uncas and the scout, to
+continue the dignified and deliberate pace they had assumed in passing
+the lodges; especially as they immediately perceived that curiosity had
+so far mastered fear, as to induce the watchers to approach the hut, in
+order to witness the effect of the incantations. The least injudicious
+or impatient movement on the part of David might betray them, and time
+was absolutely necessary to insure the safety of the scout. The loud
+noise the latter conceived it politic to continue, drew many curious
+gazers to the doors of the different huts as they passed; and once or
+twice a dark-looking warrior stepped across their path, led to the act
+by superstition or watchfulness. They were not, however, interrupted;
+the darkness of the hour, and the coldness of the attempt, proving their
+principal friends.</p>
+
+<p>The adventurers had got clear of the village, and were now swiftly
+approaching the shelter of the woods, when a loud and long cry arose
+from the lodge where Uncas had been confined. The Mohican started on his
+feet, and shook his shaggy covering, as though the animal he
+counterfeited was about to make some desperate effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold!" said the scout, grasping his friend by the shoulder, "let them
+yell again! 'Twas nothing but wonderment."</p>
+
+<p>He had no occasion to delay, for the next instant a burst of cries
+filled the outer air, and ran along the whole extent of the village.
+Uncas cast his skin, and stepped forth in his own beautiful proportions.
+Hawkeye tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and glided ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let the devils strike our scent!" said the scout, tearing two
+rifles, with all their attendant accoutrements, from beneath a bush, and
+flourishing "Killdeer" as he handed Uncas his weapon; "two, at least,
+will find it to their deaths."</p>
+
+<p>Then throwing their pieces to a low trail, like sportsmen in readiness
+for their game, they dashed forward, and were soon buried in the sombre
+darkness of the forest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"<i>Ant.</i> I shall remember:<br />
+When Caesar says <i>Do this</i>, it is performed."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Julius Caesar.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> impatience of the savages who lingered about the prison of Uncas, as
+has been seen, had overcome their dread of the conjurer's breath. They
+stole cautiously, and with beating hearts, to a crevice, through which
+the faint light of the fire was glimmering. For several minutes they
+mistook the form of David for that of their prisoner; but the very
+accident which Hawkeye had foreseen occurred. Tired of keeping the
+extremities of his long person so near together, the singer gradually
+suffered the lower limbs to extend themselves, until one of his
+misshapen feet actually came in contact with and shoved aside the embers
+of the fire. At first the Hurons believed the Delaware had been thus
+deformed by witchcraft. But when David, unconscious of being observed,
+turned his head, and exposed his simple, mild countenance, in place of
+the haughty lineaments of their prisoner, it would have exceeded the
+credulity of even a native to have doubted any longer. They rushed
+together into the lodge, and laying their hands, with but little
+ceremony, on their captive, immediately detected the imposition. Then
+arose the cry first heard by the fugitives. It was succeeded by the most
+frantic and angry demonstrations of vengeance. David, however firm in
+his determination to cover the retreat of his friends, was compelled to
+believe that his own final hour had come. Deprived of his book and his
+pipe, he was fain to trust to a memory that rarely failed him on such
+subjects; and breaking forth in a loud and impassioned strain, he
+endeavored to soothe his passage into the other world, by singing the
+opening verse of a funeral anthem. The Indians were seasonably reminded
+of his infirmity, and rushing into the open air, they aroused the
+village in the manner described.</p>
+
+<p>A native warrior fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything
+defensive. The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered,
+before two hundred men were afoot, and ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> for the battle or the
+chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known; and the
+whole tribe crowded, in a body, around the council-lodge, impatiently
+awaiting the instruction of their chiefs. In such a sudden demand on
+their wisdom, the presence of the cunning Magua could scarcely fail of
+being needed. His name was mentioned, and all looked round in wonder
+that he did not appear. Messengers were then despatched to his lodge,
+requiring his presence.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, some of the swiftest and most discreet of the young men
+were ordered to make the circuit of the clearing, under cover of the
+woods, in order to ascertain that their suspected neighbors, the
+Delawares, designed no mischief. Women and children ran to and fro; and
+in short, the whole encampment exhibited another scene of wild and
+savage confusion. Gradually, however, these symptoms of disorder
+diminished; and in a few minutes the oldest and most distinguished
+chiefs were assembled in the lodge, in grave consultation.</p>
+
+<p>The clamor of many voices soon announced that a party approached, who
+might be expected to communicate some intelligence that would explain
+the mystery of the novel surprise. The crowd without gave way, and
+several warriors entered the place, bringing with them the hapless
+conjurer, who had been left so long by the scout in duress.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this man was held in very unequal estimation among the
+Hurons, some believing implicitly in his power, and others deeming him
+an impostor, he was now listened to by all with the deepest attention.
+When his brief story was ended, the father of the sick woman stepped
+forth, and, in a few pithy expressions, related, in his turn, what he
+knew. These two narratives gave a proper direction to the subsequent
+inquiries, which were now made with the characteristic cunning of
+savages.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of rushing in a confused and disorderly throng to the cavern,
+ten of the wisest and firmest among the chiefs were selected to
+prosecute the investigation. As no time was to be lost, the instant the
+choice was made the individuals appointed rose in a body, and left the
+place without speaking. On reaching the entrance, the younger men in
+advance made way for their seniors; and the whole proceeded along the
+low, dark gallery, with the firmness of warriors ready to devote
+themselves to the public good, though, at the same time, secretly
+doubting the nature of the power with which they were about to contend.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p><p>The outer apartment of the cavern was silent and gloomy. The woman lay
+in her usual place and posture, though there were those present who
+affirmed they had seen her borne to the woods, by the supposed "medicine
+of the white men." Such a direct and palpable contradiction of the tale
+related by the father, caused all eyes to be turned on him. Chafed by
+the silent imputation, and inwardly troubled by so unaccountable a
+circumstance, the chief advanced to the side of the bed, and stooping,
+cast an incredulous look at the features, as if distrusting their
+reality. His daughter was dead.</p>
+
+<p>The unerring feeling of nature, for a moment prevailed, and the old
+warrior hid his eyes in sorrow. Then recovering his self-possession, he
+faced his companions, and pointing towards the corpse, he said, in the
+language of his people,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The wife of my young man has left us! the Great Spirit is angry with
+his children."</p>
+
+<p>The mournful intelligence was received in solemn silence. After a short
+pause, one of the elder Indians was about to speak, when a dark-looking
+object was seen rolling out of an adjoining apartment, into the very
+centre of the room where they stood. Ignorant of the nature of the
+beings they had to deal with, the whole party drew back a little, and
+gazed in admiration, until the object fronted the light, and rising on
+end, exhibited the distorted, but still fierce and sullen features of
+Magua. The discovery was succeeded by a general exclamation of
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>As soon, however, as the true situation of the chief was understood,
+several ready knives appeared, and his limbs and tongue were quickly
+released. The Huron arose, and shook himself like a lion quitting his
+lair. Not a word escaped him, though his hand played convulsively with
+the handle of his knife, while his lowering eyes scanned the whole
+party, as if they sought an object suited to the first burst of his
+vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>It was happy for Uncas and the scout, and even David, that they were all
+beyond the reach of his arm at such a moment; for, assuredly, no
+refinement in cruelty would then have deferred their deaths, in
+opposition to the promptings of the fierce temper that nearly choked
+him. Meeting everywhere faces that he knew as friends, the savage grated
+his teeth together like rasps of iron, and swallowed his passion for
+want of a victim on whom to vent it. This exhibition of anger was noted
+by all present; and, from an apprehension of exasperating a temper that
+was already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> chafed nearly to madness, several minutes were suffered to
+pass before another word was uttered. When, however, suitable time had
+elapsed, the oldest of the party spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend has found an enemy," he said. "Is he nigh, that the Hurons
+may take revenge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let the Delaware die!" exclaimed Magua, in a voice of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Another long and expressive silence was observed, and was broken, as
+before, with due precaution, by the same individual.</p>
+
+<p>"The Mohican is swift of foot, and leaps far," he said; "but my young
+men are on his trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he gone?" demanded Magua, in tones so deep and guttural, that they
+seemed to proceed from his inmost chest.</p>
+
+<p>"An evil spirit has been among us, and the Delaware has blinded our
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"An evil spirit!" repeated the other, mockingly; "'tis the spirit that
+has taken the lives of so many Hurons; the spirit that slew my young men
+at 'the tumbling river'; that took their scalps at the 'healing spring';
+and who has now bound the arms of Le Renard Subtil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom does my friend speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the dog who carries the heart and cunning of a Huron under a pale
+skin&mdash;La Longue Carabine."</p>
+
+<p>The pronunciation of so terrible a name produced the usual effect among
+his auditors. But when time was given for reflection, and the warriors
+remembered that their formidable and daring enemy had even been in the
+bosom of their encampment, working injury, fearful rage took the place
+of wonder, and all those fierce passions with which the bosom of Magua
+had just been struggling were suddenly transferred to his companions.
+Some among them gnashed their teeth in anger, others vented their
+feelings in yells, and some, again beat the air as frantically as if the
+object of their resentment were suffering under their blows. But this
+sudden outbreaking of temper as quickly subsided in the still and sullen
+restraint they most affected, in their moments of inaction.</p>
+
+<p>Magua who had in his turn found leisure for reflection, now changed his
+manner, and assumed the air of one who knew how to think and act with a
+dignity worthy of so grave a subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to my people," he said; "they wait for us."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p><p>His companions consented in silence, and the whole of the savage party
+left the cavern and returned to the council-lodge. When they were
+seated, all eyes turned on Magua, who understood, from such an
+indication, that, by common consent, they had devolved the duty of
+relating what had passed on him. He arose, and told his tale without
+duplicity or reservation. The whole deception practised by both Duncan
+and Hawkeye was, of course, laid naked; and no room was found, even for
+the most superstitious of the tribe, any longer to affix a doubt on the
+character of the occurrences. It was but too apparent that they had been
+insultingly, shamefully, disgracefully deceived. When he had ended, and
+resumed his seat, the collected tribe&mdash;for his auditors, in substance,
+included all the fighting men of the party&mdash;sat regarding each other
+like men astonished equally at the audacity and the success of their
+enemies. The next consideration, however, was the means and
+opportunities for revenge.</p>
+
+<p>Additional pursuers were sent on the trail of the fugitives; and then
+the chiefs applied themselves, in earnest, to the business of
+consultation. Many different expedients were proposed by the elder
+warriors, in succession, to all of which Magua was a silent and
+respectful listener. That subtle savage had recovered his artifice and
+self-command, and now proceeded towards his object with his customary
+caution and skill. It was only when each one disposed to speak had
+uttered his sentiments, that he prepared to advance his own opinions.
+They were given with additional weight from the circumstance that some
+of the runners had already returned, and reported that their enemies had
+been traced so far as to leave no doubt of their having sought safety in
+the neighboring camp of their suspected allies, the Delawares. With the
+advantage of possessing this important intelligence, the chief warily
+laid his plans before his fellows, and, as might have been anticipated
+from his eloquence and cunning, they were adopted without a dissenting
+voice. They were, briefly, as follows, both in opinions and in motives.</p>
+
+<p>It has been already stated that, in obedience to a policy rarely
+departed from, the sisters were separated so soon as they reached the
+Huron village. Magua had early discovered that in retaining the person
+of Alice, he possessed the most effectual check on Cora. When they
+parted, therefore, he kept the former within reach of his hand,
+consigning the one he most valued to the keeping of their allies. The
+arrangement was understood to be merely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> temporary, and was made as much
+with a view to flatter his neighbors as in obedience to the invariable
+rule of Indian policy.</p>
+
+<p>While goaded incessantly by those revengeful impulses that in a savage
+seldom slumber, the chief was still attentive to his more permanent
+personal interests. The follies and disloyalty committed in his youth
+were to be expiated by a long and painful penance, ere he could be
+restored to the full enjoyment of the confidence of his ancient people;
+and without confidence, there could be no authority in an Indian tribe.
+In this delicate and arduous situation, the crafty native had neglected
+no means of increasing his influence; and one of the happiest of his
+expedients had been the success with which he had cultivated the favor
+of their powerful and dangerous neighbors. The result of his experiment
+had answered all the expectations of his policy; for the Hurons were in
+no degree exempt from that governing principle of nature, which induces
+man to value his gifts precisely in the degree that they are appreciated
+by others.</p>
+
+<p>But, while he was making this ostensible sacrifice to general
+considerations, Magua never lost sight of his individual motives. The
+latter had been frustrated by the unlooked-for events which had placed
+all his prisoners beyond his control; and he now found himself reduced
+to the necessity of suing for favors to those whom it had so lately been
+his policy to oblige.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the chiefs had proposed deep and treacherous schemes to
+surprise the Delawares, and, by gaining possession of their camp, to
+recover their prisoners by the same blow; for all agreed that their
+honor, their interests, and the peace and happiness of their dead
+countrymen, imperiously required them speedily to immolate some victims
+to their revenge. But plans so dangerous to attempt, and of such
+doubtful issue, Magua found little difficulty in defeating. He exposed
+their risk and fallacy with his usual skill; and it was only after he
+had removed every impediment, in the shape of opposing advice, that he
+ventured to propose his own projects.</p>
+
+<p>He commenced by flattering the self-love of his auditors; a
+never-failing method of commanding attention. When he had enumerated the
+many different occasions on which the Hurons had exhibited their courage
+and prowess, in the punishment of insults, he digressed in a high
+encomium on the virtue of wisdom. He painted the quality, as forming the
+great point of difference between the beaver and other brutes; between
+brutes and men;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and, finally, between the Hurons, in particular, and
+the rest of the human race. After he had sufficiently extolled the
+property of discretion, he undertook to exhibit in what manner its use
+was applicable to the present situation of their tribe. On the one hand,
+he said, was their great pale father, the governor of the Canadas, who
+had looked upon his children with a hard eye since their tomahawks had
+been so red; on the other, a people as numerous as themselves, who spoke
+a different language, possessed different interests, and loved them not,
+and who would be glad of any pretence to bring them in disgrace with the
+great white chief. Then he spoke of their necessities; of the gifts they
+had a right to expect for their past services; of their distance from
+their proper hunting-grounds and native villages; and of the necessity
+of consulting prudence more, and inclination less, in so critical
+circumstances. When he perceived that, while the old men applauded his
+moderation, many of the fiercest and most distinguished of the warriors
+listened to these politic plans with lowering looks, he cunningly led
+them back to the subject which they most loved. He spoke openly of the
+fruits of their wisdom, which he boldly pronounced would be a complete
+and final triumph over their enemies. He even darkly hinted that their
+success might be extended, with proper caution, in such a manner as to
+include the destruction of all whom they had reason to hate. In short,
+he so blended the warlike with the artful, the obvious with the obscure,
+as to flatter the propensities of both parties, and to leave to each
+subject of hope, while neither could say it clearly comprehended his
+intentions.</p>
+
+<p>The orator, or the politician, who can produce such a state of things,
+is commonly popular with his contemporaries, however he may be treated
+by posterity. All perceived that more was meant than was uttered, and
+each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own
+faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to
+anticipate.</p>
+
+<p>In this happy state of things, it is not surprising that the management
+of Magua prevailed. The tribe consented to act with deliberation, and
+with one voice they committed the direction of the whole affair to the
+government of the chief who had suggested such wise and intelligible
+expedients.</p>
+
+<p>Magua had now attained one great object of all his cunning and
+enterprise. The ground he had lost in the favor of his people was
+completely regained, and he found himself even placed at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the head of
+affairs. He was, in truth, their ruler; and, so long as he could
+maintain his popularity, no monarch could be more despotic, especially
+while the tribe continued in a hostile country. Throwing off, therefore,
+the appearance of consultation, he assumed the grave air of authority
+necessary to support the dignity of his office.</p>
+
+<p>Runners were despatched for intelligence in different directions; spies
+were ordered to approach and feel the encampment of the Delawares; the
+warriors were dismissed to their lodges, with an intimation that their
+services would soon be needed; and the women and children were ordered
+to retire, with a warning that it was their province to be silent. When
+these several arrangements were made, Magua passed through the village,
+stopping here and there to pay a visit where he thought his presence
+might be flattering to the individual. He confirmed his friends in their
+confidence, fixed the wavering, and gratified all. Then he sought his
+own lodge. The wife the Huron chief had abandoned, when he was chased
+from among his people, was dead. Children he had none; and he now
+occupied a hut, without companion of any sort. It was, in fact, the
+dilapidated and solitary structure in which David had been discovered,
+and whom he had tolerated in his presence, on those few occasions when
+they met, with the contemptuous indifference of a haughty superiority.</p>
+
+<p>Hither, then, Magua retired, when his labors of policy were ended. While
+others slept, however, he neither knew nor sought repose. Had there been
+one sufficiently curious to have watched the movements of the newly
+elected chief, he would have seen him seated in a corner of his lodge,
+musing on the subject of his future plans, from the hour of his
+retirement to the time he had appointed for the warriors to assemble
+again. Occasionally the air breathed through the crevices of the hut,
+and the low flames that fluttered about the embers of the fire threw
+their wavering light on the person of the sullen recluse. At such
+moments it would not have been difficult to have fancied the dusky
+savage the Prince of Darkness, brooding on his own fancied wrongs, and
+plotting evil.</p>
+
+<p>Long before the day dawned, however, warrior after warrior entered the
+solitary hut of Magua, until they had collected to the number of twenty.
+Each bore his rifle, and all the other accoutrements of war, though the
+paint was uniformly peaceful. The entrance of these fierce-looking
+beings was unnoticed; some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> seating themselves in the shadows of the
+place, and others standing like motionless statues, until the whole of
+the designated band was collected.</p>
+
+<p>Then Magua arose and gave the signal to proceed, marching himself in
+advance. They followed their leader singly, and in that well-known order
+which has obtained the distinguishing appellation of "Indian file."
+Unlike other men engaged in the spirit-stirring business of war, they
+stole from their camp unostentatiously and unobserved, resembling a band
+of gliding spectres, more than warriors seeking the bubble reputation by
+deeds of desperate daring.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of taking the path which led directly towards the camp of the
+Delawares, Magua led his party for some distance down the windings of
+the stream, and along the little artificial lake of the beavers. The day
+began to dawn as they entered the clearing which had been formed by
+those sagacious and industrious animals. Though Magua, who had resumed
+his ancient garb, bore the outline of a fox on the dressed skin which
+formed his robe, there was one chief of his party who carried the beaver
+as his peculiar symbol, or "totem." There would have been a species of
+profanity in the omission, had this man passed so powerful a community
+of his fancied kindred, without bestowing some evidence of his regard.
+Accordingly, he paused, and spoke in words as kind and friendly as if he
+were addressing more intelligent beings. He called the animals his
+cousins, and reminded them that his protecting influence was the reason
+they remained unharmed, while so many avaricious traders were prompting
+the Indians to take their lives. He promised a continuance of his
+favors, and admonished them to be grateful. After which, he spoke of the
+expedition in which he was himself engaged, and intimated, though with
+sufficient delicacy and circumlocution, the expediency of bestowing on
+their relative a portion of that wisdom for which they were so
+renowned.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>During the utterance of this extraordinary address, the companions of
+the speaker were as grave and as attentive to his language as though
+they were all equally impressed with its propriety. Once or twice black
+objects were seen rising to the surface of the water, and the Huron
+expressed pleasure, conceiving that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> his words were not bestowed in
+vain. Just as he had ended his address, the head of a large beaver was
+thrust from the door of a lodge, whose earthen walls had been much
+injured, and which the party had believed, from its situation, to be
+uninhabited. Such an extraordinary sign of confidence was received by
+the orator as a highly favorable omen; and though the animal retreated a
+little precipitately, he was lavish of his thanks and commendations.</p>
+
+<p>When Magua thought sufficient time had been lost in gratifying the
+family affection of the warrior, he again made the signal to proceed. As
+the Indians moved away in a body, and with a step that would have been
+inaudible to the ears of any common man, the same venerable-looking
+beaver once more ventured his head from its cover. Had any of the Hurons
+turned to look behind them, they would have seen the animal watching
+their movements with an interest and sagacity that might easily have
+been mistaken for reason. Indeed, so very distinct and intelligible were
+the devices of the quadruped, that even the most experienced observer
+would have been at a loss to account for its actions, until the moment
+when the party entered the forest, when the whole would have been
+explained, by seeing the entire animal issue from the lodge, uncasing,
+by the act, the grave features of Chingachgook from his mask of fur.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"Brief, I pray you; for you see, 'tis a busy time with me."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Much Ado About Nothing.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> tribe, or rather half tribe, of Delawares, which has been so often
+mentioned, and whose present place of encampment was so nigh the
+temporary village of the Hurons, could assemble about an equal number of
+warriors with the latter people. Like their neighbors, they had followed
+Montcalm into the territories of the English crown, and were making
+heavy and serious inroads on the hunting-grounds of the Mohawks; though
+they had seen fit, with the mysterious reserve so common among the
+natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most
+required. The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the
+part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion,
+however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient
+treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Six Nations for
+military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their
+former masters. As for the tribe itself, it had been content to announce
+to Montcalm, through his emissaries, with Indian brevity, that their
+hatchets were dull, and time was necessary to sharpen them. The politic
+captain of the Canadas had deemed it wiser to submit to entertain a
+passive friend, than by any acts of ill-judged severity to convert him
+into an open enemy.</p>
+
+<p>On that morning when Magua led his silent party from the settlement of
+the beavers into the forest, in the manner described, the sun rose upon
+the Delaware encampment as if it had suddenly burst upon a busy people,
+actively employed in all the customary avocations of high noon. The
+women ran from lodge to lodge, some engaged in preparing their morning's
+meal, a few earnestly bent on seeking the comforts necessary to their
+habits, but more pausing to exchange hasty and whispered sentences with
+their friends. The warriors were lounging in groups, musing more than
+they conversed; and when a few words were uttered, speaking like men who
+deeply weighed their opinions. The instruments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> of the chase were to be
+seen in abundance among the lodges; but none departed. Here and there a
+warrior was examining his arms, with an attention that is rarely
+bestowed on the implements, when no other enemy than the beasts of the
+forest is expected to be encountered. And, occasionally, the eyes of a
+whole group were turned simultaneously towards a large and silent lodge
+in the centre of the village, as if it contained the subject of their
+common thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>During the existence of this scene, a man suddenly appeared at the
+farthest extremity of a platform of rock which formed the level of the
+village. He was without arms, and his paint tended rather to soften than
+increase the natural sternness of his austere countenance. When in full
+view of the Delawares he stopped, and made a gesture of amity, by
+throwing his arm upward towards heaven, and then letting it fall
+impressively on his breast. The inhabitants of the village answered his
+salute by a low murmur of welcome, and encouraged him to advance by
+similar indications of friendship. Fortified by these assurances, the
+dark figure left the brow of the natural rocky terrace, where it had
+stood a moment, drawn in a strong outline against the blushing morning
+sky, and moved with dignity into the very centre of the huts. As he
+approached, nothing was audible but the rattling of the light silver
+ornaments that loaded his arms and neck, and the tinkling of the little
+bells that fringed his deer-skin moccasins. He made, as he advanced,
+many courteous signs of greeting to the men he passed, neglecting to
+notice the women, however, like one who deemed their favor, in the
+present enterprise, of no importance. When he had reached the group in
+which it was evident, by the haughtiness of their common mien, that the
+principal chiefs were collected, the stranger paused, and then the
+Delawares saw that the active and erect form that stood before them was
+that of the well-known Huron chief, Le Renard Subtil.</p>
+
+<p>His reception was grave, silent, and wary. The warriors in front stepped
+aside, opening the way to their most approved orator by the action; one
+who spoke all those languages that were cultivated among the northern
+aborigines.</p>
+
+<p>"The wise Huron is welcome," said the Delaware, in the language of the
+Maquas; "he is come to eat his 'succotash,'<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> with his brothers of the
+lakes."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p><p>"He is come," repeated Magua, bending his head with the dignity of an
+Eastern prince.</p>
+
+<p>The chief extended his arm, and taking the other by the wrist, they once
+more exchanged friendly salutations. Then the Delaware invited his guest
+to enter his own lodge, and share his morning meal. The invitation was
+accepted; and the two warriors, attended by three or four of the old
+men, walked calmly away, leaving the rest of the tribe devoured by a
+desire to understand the reasons of so unusual a visit, and yet not
+betraying the least impatience by sign or word.</p>
+
+<p>During the short and frugal repast that followed, the conversation was
+extremely circumspect, and related entirely to the events of the hunt in
+which Magua had so lately been engaged. It would have been impossible
+for the most finished breeding to wear more of the appearance of
+considering the visit as a matter of course, than did his hosts,
+notwithstanding every individual present was perfectly aware that it
+must be connected with some secret object, and that probably of
+importance to themselves. When the appetites of the whole were appeased,
+the squaws removed the trenchers and gourd, and the two parties began to
+prepare themselves for a subtle trial of their wits.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the face of my great Canada father turned again towards his Huron
+children?" demanded the orator of the Delawares.</p>
+
+<p>"When was it ever otherwise?" returned Magua. "He calls my people 'most
+beloved.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Delaware gravely bowed his acquiescence to what he knew to be false,
+and continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The tomahawks of your young men have been very red."</p>
+
+<p>"It is so; but they are now bright and dull; for the Yengeese are dead,
+and the Delawares are our neighbors."</p>
+
+<p>The other acknowledged the pacific compliment by a gesture of the hand,
+and remained silent. Then Magua, as if recalled to such a recollection,
+by the allusion to the massacre, demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Does my prisoner give trouble to my brothers?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"The path between the Hurons and the Delawares is short, and it is open;
+let her be sent to my squaws, if she gives trouble to my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"She is welcome," returned the chief of the latter nation, still more
+emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>The baffled Magua continued silent several minutes, apparently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+indifferent, however, to the repulse he had received in this his open
+effort to gain possession of Cora.</p>
+
+<p>"Do my young men leave the Delawares room on the mountains for their
+hunts?" he at length continued.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lenape are rulers of their own hills," returned the other, a little
+haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well. Justice is the master of a redskin! Why should they
+brighten their tomahawks, and sharpen their knives against each other?
+Are not the pale-faces thicker than the swallows in the season of
+flowers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" exclaimed two or three of his auditors at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Magua waited a little, to permit his words to soften the feelings of the
+Delawares, before he added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Have there not been strange moccasins in the woods? Have not my
+brothers scented the feet of white men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let my Canada father come," returned the other evasively; "his children
+are ready to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"When the great chief comes, it is to smoke with the Indians in their
+wigwams. The Hurons say, too, he is welcome. But the Yengeese have long
+arms, and legs that never tire! My young men dreamed they had seen the
+trail of the Yengeese nigh the village of the Delawares?"</p>
+
+<p>"They will not find the Lenape asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"It is well. The warrior whose eye is open can see his enemy," said
+Magua, once more shifting his ground, when he found himself unable to
+penetrate the caution of his companion. "I have brought gifts to my
+brother. His nation would not go on the war-path because they did not
+think it well; but their friends have remembered where they lived."</p>
+
+<p>When he had thus announced his liberal intention, the crafty chief
+arose, and gravely spread his presents before the dazzled eyes of his
+hosts. They consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered
+from the slaughtered females of William Henry. In the division of the
+baubles the cunning Huron discovered no less art than in their
+selection. While he bestowed those of greater value on the two most
+distinguished warriors, one of whom was his host, he seasoned his
+offerings to their inferiors with such well-timed and apposite
+compliments, as left them no grounds of complaint. In short, the whole
+ceremony contained such a happy blending of the profitable with the
+flattering, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> it was not difficult for the donor immediately to read
+the effect of a generosity so aptly mingled with praise, in the eyes of
+those he addressed.</p>
+
+<p>This well-judged and politic stroke on the part of Magua was not without
+instantaneous results. The Delawares lost their gravity in a much more
+cordial expression; and the host, in particular, after contemplating his
+own liberal share of the spoil for some moments with peculiar
+gratification, repeated with strong emphasis, the words,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My brother is a wise chief. He is welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Hurons love their friends the Delawares," returned Magua. "Why
+should they not? they are colored by the same sun, and their just men
+will hunt in the same grounds after death. The redskins should be
+friends, and look with open eyes on the white men. Has not my brother
+scented spies in the woods?"</p>
+
+<p>The Delaware, whose name in English signified "Hard Heart," an
+appellation that the French had translated into "Le C&#339;ur-dur," forgot
+the obduracy of purpose, which had probably obtained him so significant
+a title. His countenance grew very sensibly less stern, and now deigned
+to answer more directly.</p>
+
+<p>"There have been strange moccasins about my camp. They have been tracked
+into my lodges."</p>
+
+<p>"Did my brother beat out the dogs?" asked Magua, without adverting in
+any manner to the former equivocation of the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"It would not do. The stranger is always welcome to the children of the
+Lenape."</p>
+
+<p>"The stranger, but not the spy."</p>
+
+<p>"Would the Yengeese send their women as spies? Did not the Huron chief
+say he took women in the battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told no lie. The Yengeese have sent out their scouts. They have been
+in my wigwams, but they found there no one to say welcome. Then they
+fled to the Delawares&mdash;for, say they, the Delawares are our friends;
+their minds are turned from their Canada father!"</p>
+
+<p>This insinuation was a home thrust, and one that in a more advanced
+state of society, would have entitled Magua to the reputation of a
+skilful diplomatist. The recent defection of the tribe had, as they well
+knew themselves, subjected the Delawares to much reproach among their
+French allies; and they were now made to feel that their future actions
+were to be regarded with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> jealousy and distrust. There was no deep
+insight into causes and effects necessary to foresee that such a
+situation of things was likely to prove highly prejudicial to their
+future movements. Their distant villages, their hunting-grounds, and
+hundreds of their women and children, together with a material part of
+their physical force, were actually within the limits of the French
+territory. Accordingly, this alarming annunciation was received, as
+Magua intended, with manifest disapprobation, if not with alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let my father look in my face," said Le C&#339;ur-dur; "he will see no
+change. It is true, my young men did not go out on the war-path; they
+had dreams for not doing so. But they love and venerate the great white
+chief."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he think so when he hears that his greatest enemy is fed in the
+camp of his children? When he is told a bloody Yengee smokes at your
+fire? That the pale-face who has slain so many of his friends goes in
+and out among the Delawares? Go! my great Canada father is not a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Yengee that the Delawares fear?" returned the other; "who
+has slain my young men? who is the mortal enemy of my Great Father!"</p>
+
+<p>"La Longue Carabine."</p>
+
+<p>The Delaware warriors started at the well-known name, betraying, by
+their amazement, that they now learnt, for the first time, one so famous
+among the Indian allies of France was within their power.</p>
+
+<p>"What does my brother mean?" demanded Le C&#339;ur-dur, in a tone that, by
+its wonder, far exceeded the usual apathy of his race.</p>
+
+<p>"A Huron never lies!" returned Magua coldly, leaning his head against
+the side of the lodge, and drawing his slight robe across his tawny
+breast. "Let the Delawares count their prisoners; they will find one
+whose skin is neither red nor pale."</p>
+
+<p>A long and musing pause succeeded. The chief consulted apart with his
+companions, and messengers were despatched to collect certain others of
+the most distinguished men of the tribe.</p>
+
+<p>As warrior after warrior dropped in, they were each made acquainted, in
+turn, with the important intelligence that Magua had just communicated.
+The air of surprise, and the usual low, deep, guttural exclamation, were
+common to them all. The news spread from mouth to mouth, until the whole
+encampment became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> powerfully agitated. The women suspended their
+labors, to catch such syllables as unguardedly fell from the lips of the
+consulting warriors. The boys deserted their sports, and walking
+fearlessly among their fathers, looked up in curious admiration, as they
+heard the brief exclamations of wonder they so freely expressed at the
+temerity of their hated foe. In short, every occupation was abandoned
+for the time, and all other pursuits seemed discarded, in order that the
+tribe might freely indulge, after their own peculiar manner, in an open
+expression of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>When the excitement had a little abated, the old men disposed themselves
+seriously to consider that which it became the honor and safety of their
+tribe to perform, under circumstances of so much delicacy and
+embarrassment. During all these movements, and in the midst of the
+general commotion, Magua had not only maintained his seat, but the very
+attitude he had originally taken, against the side of the lodge, where
+he continued as immovable, and, apparently, as unconcerned, as if he had
+no interest in the result. Not a single indication of the future
+intentions of his hosts, however, escaped his vigilant eyes. With his
+consummate knowledge of the nature of the people with whom he had to
+deal, he anticipated every measure on which they decided; and it might
+almost be said, that, in many instances, he knew their intentions, even
+before they became known to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The council of the Delawares was short. When it was ended, a general
+bustle announced that it was to be immediately succeeded by a solemn and
+formal assemblage of the nation. As such meetings were rare, and only
+called on occasions of the last importance, the subtle Huron, who still
+sat apart, a wily and dark observer of the proceedings, now knew that
+all his projects must be brought to their final issue. He therefore left
+the lodge, and walked silently forth to the place in front of the
+encampment whither the warriors were already beginning to collect.</p>
+
+<p>It might have been half an hour before each individual, including even
+the women and children, was in his place. The delay had been created by
+the grave preparations that were deemed necessary to so solemn and
+unusual a conference. But when the sun was seen climbing above the tops
+of that mountain against whose bosom the Delawares had constructed their
+encampment, most were seated; and as his bright rays darted from behind
+the outline of trees that fringed the eminence, they fell upon as grave,
+as attentive, and as deeply interested a multitude,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> as was probably
+ever before lighted by his morning beams. Its number somewhat exceeded a
+thousand souls.</p>
+
+<p>In a collection of such serious savages, there is never to be found any
+impatient aspirant after premature distinction, standing ready to move
+his auditors to some hasty, and, perhaps, injudicious discussion, in
+order that his own reputation may be the gainer. An act of so much
+precipitancy and presumption would seal the downfall of precocious
+intellect forever. It rested solely with the oldest and most experienced
+of the men to lay the subject of the conference before the people. Until
+such a one chose to make some movement, no deeds in arms, no natural
+gifts, nor any renown as an orator, would have justified the slightest
+interruption. On the present occasion, the aged warrior whose privilege
+it was to speak, was silent, seemingly oppressed with the magnitude of
+his subject. The delay had already continued long beyond the usual
+deliberative pause that always precedes a conference; but no sign of
+impatience or surprise escaped even the youngest boy. Occasionally, an
+eye was raised from the earth, where the looks of most were riveted, and
+strayed towards a particular lodge, that was, however, in no manner
+distinguished from those around it, except in the peculiar care that had
+been taken to protect it against the assaults of the weather.</p>
+
+<p>At length, one of those low murmurs that are so apt to disturb a
+multitude, was heard, and the whole nation arose to their feet by a
+common impulse. At that the door of the lodge in question opened, and
+three men, issuing from it, slowly approached the place of consultation.
+They were all aged, even beyond that period to which the oldest present
+had reached; but one in the centre, who leaned on his companions for
+support, had numbered an amount of years to which the human race is
+seldom permitted to attain. His frame, which had once been tall and
+erect, like the cedar, was now bending under the pressure of more than a
+century. The elastic, light step of an Indian was gone, and in its place
+he was compelled to toil his tardy way over the ground, inch by inch.
+His dark, wrinkled countenance was in singular and wild contrast with
+the long white locks which floated on his shoulders in such thickness as
+to announce that generations had probably passed away since they had
+last been shorn.</p>
+
+<p>The dress of this patriarch&mdash;for such, considering his vast age, in
+conjunction with his affinity and influence with his people, he might
+very properly be termed&mdash;was rich and imposing, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> strictly after
+the simple fashions of the tribe. His robe was of the finest skins,
+which had been deprived of their fur, in order to admit of a
+hieroglyphical representation of various deeds in arms, done in former
+ages. His bosom was loaded with medals, some in massive silver, and one
+or two even in gold, the gifts of various Christian potentates during
+the long period of his life. He also wore armlets, and cinctures above
+the ankles, of the latter precious metal. His head, on the whole of
+which the hair had been permitted to grow, the pursuits of war having so
+long been abandoned, was encircled by a sort of plated diadem, which, in
+its turn, bore lesser and more glittering ornaments, that sparkled amid
+the glossy hues of three drooping ostrich feathers, dyed a deep black,
+in touching contrast to the color of his snow-white locks. His tomahawk
+was nearly hid in silver, and the handle of his knife shone like a horn
+of solid gold.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the first hum of emotion and pleasure, which the sudden
+appearance of this venerated individual created, had a little subsided,
+the name of "Tamenund" was whispered from mouth to mouth. Magua had
+often heard the fame of this wise and just Delaware; a reputation that
+even proceeded so far as to bestow on him the rare gift of holding
+secret communion with the Great Spirit, and which has since transmitted
+his name, with some slight alteration, to the white usurpers of his
+ancient territory, as the imaginary tutelar saint of a vast empire. The
+Huron chief, therefore, stepped eagerly out a little from the throng, to
+a spot whence he might catch a nearer glimpse of the features of the
+man, whose decision was likely to produce so deep an influence on his
+own fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the old man were closed, as though the organs were wearied
+with having so long witnessed the selfish workings of the human
+passions. The color of his skin differed from that of most around him,
+being richer and darker, the latter hue having been produced by certain
+delicate and mazy lines of complicated and yet beautiful figures, which
+had been traced over most of his person by the operation of tattooing.
+Notwithstanding the position of the Huron, he passed the observant and
+silent Magua without notice, and leaning on his two venerable supporters
+proceeded to the high place of the multitude, where he seated himself in
+the centre of his nation, with the dignity of a monarch and the air of a
+father.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could surpass the reverence and affection with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> this
+unexpected visit from one who belonged rather to another world than to
+this, was received by his people. After a suitable and decent pause, the
+principal chiefs arose; and approaching the patriarch, they placed his
+hands reverently on their heads, seeming to entreat a blessing. The
+younger men were content with touching his robe, or even drawing nigh
+his person, in order to breathe in the atmosphere of one so aged, so
+just, and so valiant. None but the most distinguished among the youthful
+warriors even presumed so far as to perform the latter ceremony; the
+great mass of the multitude deeming it a sufficient happiness to look
+upon a form so deeply venerated, and so well beloved. When these acts of
+affection and respect were performed, the chiefs drew back again to
+their several places, and silence reigned in the whole encampment.</p>
+
+<p>After a short delay, a few of the young men, to whom instructions had
+been whispered by one of the aged attendants of Tamenund, arose, left
+the crowd, and entered the lodge which has already been noted as the
+object of so much attention throughout that morning. In a few minutes
+they reappeared, escorting the individuals who had caused all these
+solemn preparations towards the seat of judgment. The crowd opened in a
+lane; and when the party had re-entered, it closed in again, forming a
+large and dense belt of human bodies, arranged in an open circle.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,<br />
+Achilles thus the king of men addressed."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Pope's</span> <i>Iliad.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Cora</span> stood foremost among the prisoners, entwining her arms in those of
+Alice, in the tenderness of sisterly love. Notwithstanding the fearful
+and menacing array of savages on every side of her, no apprehension on
+her own account could prevent the noble-minded maiden from keeping her
+eyes fastened on the pale and anxious features of the trembling Alice.
+Close at their side stood Heyward, with an interest in both, that, at
+such a moment of intense uncertainty, scarcely knew a preponderance in
+favor of her whom he most loved. Hawkeye had placed himself a little in
+the rear, with a deference to the superior rank of his companions, that
+no similarity in the state of their present fortunes could induce him to
+forget. Uncas was not there.</p>
+
+<p>When perfect silence was again restored, and after the usual long,
+impressive pause, one of the two aged chiefs who sat at the side of the
+patriarch arose, and demanded aloud, in very intelligible English,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Which of my prisoners is La Longue Carabine?"</p>
+
+<p>Neither Duncan nor the scout answered. The former, however, glanced his
+eyes around the dark and silent assembly, and recoiled a pace, when they
+fell on the malignant visage of Magua. He saw, at once, that this wily
+savage had some secret agency in their present arraignment before the
+nation, and determined to throw every possible impediment in the way of
+the execution of his sinister plans. He had witnessed one instance of
+the summary punishments of the Indians, and now dreaded that his
+companion was to be selected for a second. In this dilemma, with little
+or no time for reflection, he suddenly determined to cloak his
+invaluable friend, at any or every hazard to himself. Before he had
+time, however, to speak, the question was repeated in a louder voice,
+and with a clearer utterance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p><p>"Give us arms," the young man haughtily replied, "and place us in
+yonder woods. Our deeds shall speak for us!"</p>
+
+<p>"This is the warrior whose name has filled our ears!" returned the
+chief, regarding Heyward with that sort of curious interest which seems
+inseparable from man, when first beholding one of his fellows to whom
+merit or accident, virtue or crime, has given notoriety. "What has
+brought the white man into the camp of the Delawares?"</p>
+
+<p>"My necessities. I come for food, shelter and friends."</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be. The woods are full of game. The head of a warrior needs
+no other shelter than a sky without clouds; and the Delawares are the
+enemies, and not the friends, of the Yengeese. Go! the mouth has spoken,
+while the heart said nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, a little at a loss in what manner to proceed, remained silent;
+but the scout, who had listened attentively to all that passed, now
+advanced steadily to the front.</p>
+
+<p>"That I did not answer to the call for La Longue Carabine, was not owing
+either to shame or fear," he said; "for neither one nor the other is the
+gift of an honest man. But I do not admit the right of the Mingos to
+bestow a name on one whose friends have been mindful of his gifts, in
+this particular; especially as their title is a lie, 'Killdeer' being a
+grooved barrel and no carabyne. I am the man, however, that got the name
+of Nathaniel from my kin; the compliment of Hawkeye from the Delawares,
+who live on their own river; and whom the Iroquois have presumed to
+style the 'Long Rifle,' without any warranty from him who is most
+concerned in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of all present, which had hitherto been gravely scanning the
+person of Duncan, were now turned, on the instant, towards the upright
+iron frame of this new pretender to the distinguished appellation. It
+was in no degree remarkable that there should be found two who were
+willing to claim so great an honor, for impostors, though rare, were not
+unknown amongst the natives; but it was altogether material to the just
+and severe intentions of the Delawares, that there should be no mistake
+in the matter. Some of their old men consulted together in private, and
+then, as it would seem, they determined to interrogate their visitor on
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother has said that a snake crept into my camp," said the chief to
+Magua; "which is he?"</p>
+
+<p>The Huron pointed to the scout.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p><p>"Will a wise Delaware believe the barking of a wolf?" exclaimed Duncan,
+still more confirmed in the evil intentions of his ancient enemy: "a dog
+never lies, but when was a wolf known to speak the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Magua flashed fire; but, suddenly recollecting the necessity
+of maintaining his presence of mind, he turned away in silent disdain,
+well assured that the sagacity of the Indians would not fail to extract
+the real merits of the point in controversy. He was not deceived; for,
+after another short consultation, the wary Delaware turned to him again,
+and expressed the determination of the chiefs, though in the most
+considerate language.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother has been called a liar," he said, "and his friends are
+angry. They will show that he has spoken the truth. Give my prisoners
+guns, and let them prove which is the man."</p>
+
+<p>Magua affected to consider the expedient, which he well knew proceeded
+from distrust of himself, as a compliment, and made a gesture of
+acquiescence, well content that his veracity should be supported by so
+skilful a marksman as the scout. The weapons were instantly placed in
+the hands of the friendly opponents, and they were bid to fire over the
+heads of the seated multitude at an earthen vessel, which lay, by
+accident, on a stump some fifty yards from the place where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>Heyward smiled to himself at the idea of a competition with the scout,
+though he determined to persevere in the deception, until apprised of
+the real designs of Magua. Raising his rifle with the utmost care, and
+renewing his aim three several times, he fired. The bullet cut the wood
+within a few inches of the vessel; and a general exclamation of
+satisfaction announced that the shot was considered a proof of great
+skill in the use of the weapon. Even Hawkeye nodded his head, as if he
+would say, it was better than he had expected. But, instead of
+manifesting an intention to contend with the successful marksman, he
+stood leaning on his rifle for more than a minute, like a man who was
+completely buried in thought. From this reverie he was, however,
+awakened by one of the young Indians who had furnished the arms, and who
+now touched his shoulder, saying, in exceedingly broken English,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Can the pale-face beat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Huron!" exclaimed the scout, raising the short rifle in his right
+hand, and shaking it at Magua, with as much apparent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> ease as if it were
+a reed; "yes, Huron, I could strike you now, and no power of earth could
+prevent the deed! The soaring hawk is not more certain of the dove than
+I am this moment of you, did I choose to send a bullet to your heart!
+Why should I not? Why!&mdash;because the gifts of my color forbid it, and I
+might draw down evil on tender and innocent heads. If you know such a
+being as God, thank Him, therefore, in your inward soul; for you have
+reason."</p>
+
+<p>The flushed countenance, angry eye, and swelling figure of the scout,
+produced a sensation of secret awe in all that heard him. The Delawares
+held their breath in expectation; but Magua himself, even while he
+distrusted the forbearance of his enemy, remained immovable and calm,
+where he stood wedged in by the crowd, as one who grew to the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Beat it," replied the young Delaware at the elbow of the scout.</p>
+
+<p>"Beat what, fool!&mdash;what!" exclaimed Hawkeye, still flourishing the
+weapon angrily above his head, though his eye no longer sought the
+person of Magua.</p>
+
+<p>"If the white man is the warrior he pretends," said the aged chief, "let
+him strike nigher to the mark."</p>
+
+<p>The scout laughed aloud&mdash;a noise that produced the startling effect of
+an unnatural sound on Heyward; then dropping the piece heavily into his
+extended left hand, it was discharged, apparently by the shock, driving
+the fragments of the vessel into the air, and scattering them on every
+side. Almost at the same instant, the rattling sound of the rifle was
+heard, as he suffered it to fall, contemptuously, to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The first impression of so strange a scene was engrossing admiration.
+Then a low, but increasing murmur, ran through the multitude, and
+finally swelled into sounds that denoted a lively opposition in the
+sentiments of the spectators. While some openly testified their
+satisfaction at so unexampled dexterity, by far the larger portion of
+the tribe were inclined to believe the success of the shot was the
+result of accident. Heyward was not slow to confirm an opinion that was
+so favorable to his own pretentions.</p>
+
+<p>"It was chance!" he exclaimed; "none can shoot without an aim!"</p>
+
+<p>"Chance!" echoed the excited woodsman, who was now stubbornly bent on
+maintaining his identity at every hazard, and on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> whom the secret hints
+of Heyward to acquiesce in the deception were entirely lost. "Does
+yonder lying Huron, too, think it chance? Give him another gun, and
+place us face to face, without cover or dodge, and let Providence, and
+our own eyes, decide the matter atween us! I do not make the offer to
+you, major; for our blood is of a color, and we serve the same master."</p>
+
+<p>"That the Huron is a liar, is very evident," returned Heyward, coolly;
+"you have yourself heard him assert you to be La Longue Carabine."</p>
+
+<p>It were impossible to say what violent assertion the stubborn Hawkeye
+would have next made, in his headlong wish to vindicate his identity,
+had not the aged Delaware once more interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"The hawk which comes from the clouds can return when he will," he said;
+"give them the guns."</p>
+
+<p>This time the scout seized the rifle with avidity; nor had Magua, though
+he watched the movement of the marksman with jealous eyes, any further
+cause for apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let it be proved, in the face of this tribe of Delawares, which is
+the better man," cried the scout, tapping the butt of his piece with
+that finger which had pulled so many fatal triggers. "You see the gourd
+hanging against yonder tree, major; if you are a marksman fit for the
+borders, let me see you break its shell!"</p>
+
+<p>Duncan noted the object, and prepared himself to renew the trial. The
+gourd was one of the usual little vessels used by the Indians, and it
+was suspended from a dead branch of a small pine, by a thong of
+deer-skin, at the full distance of a hundred yards. So strangely
+compounded is the feeling of self-love, that the young soldier, while he
+knew the utter worthlessness of the suffrages of his savage umpires,
+forgot the sudden motives of the contest in a wish to excel. It has been
+seen, already, that his skill was far from being contemptible, and he
+now resolved to put forth its nicest qualities. Had his life depended on
+the issue, the aim of Duncan could not have been more deliberate or
+guarded. He fired; and three or four young Indians, who sprang forward
+at the report, announced with a shout, that the ball was in the tree, a
+very little on one side of the proper object. The warriors uttered a
+common ejaculation of pleasure, and then turned their eyes inquiringly
+on the movements of his rival.</p>
+
+<p>"It may do for the Royal Americans!" said Hawkeye, laughing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> once more
+in his own silent, heartfelt manner; "but had my gun often turned so
+much from the true line, many a marten, whose skin is now in a lady's
+muff, would still be in the woods; ay, and many a bloody Mingo, who has
+departed to his final account, would be acting his deviltries at this
+very day, atween the provinces. I hope the squaw who owns the gourd has
+more of them in her wigwam, for this will never hold water again!"</p>
+
+<p>The scout had shook his priming, and cocked his piece, while speaking;
+and, as he ended, he threw back a foot, and slowly raised the muzzle
+from the earth: the motion was steady, uniform, and in one direction.
+When on a perfect level, it remained for a single moment, without tremor
+or variation, as though both man and rifle were carved in stone. During
+that stationary instant, it poured forth its contents, in a bright,
+glancing sheet of flame. Again the young Indians bounded forward; but
+their hurried search and disappointed looks announced that no traces of
+the bullet were to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Go!" said the old chief to the scout, in a tone of strong disgust;
+"thou art a wolf in the skin of a dog. I will talk to the 'Long Rifle'
+of the Yengeese."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! had I that piece which furnished the name you use, I would obligate
+myself to cut the thong, and drop the gourd without breaking it!"
+returned Hawkeye, perfectly undisturbed by the other's manner, "Fools,
+if you would find the bullet of a sharpshooter of these woods, you must
+look in the object and not around it!"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian youths instantly comprehended his meaning&mdash;for this time he
+spoke in the Delaware tongue&mdash;and tearing the gourd from the tree, they
+held it on high with an exulting shout, displaying a hole in its bottom,
+which had been cut by the bullet, after passing through the usual
+orifice in the centre of its upper side. At this unexpected exhibition,
+a loud and vehement expression of pleasure burst from the mouth of every
+warrior present. It decided the question, and effectually established
+Hawkeye in the possession of his dangerous reputation. Those curious and
+admiring eyes which had been turned again on Heyward, were finally
+directed to the weather-beaten form of the scout, who immediately became
+the principal object of attention to the simple and unsophisticated
+beings by whom he was surrounded. When the sudden and noisy commotion
+had a little subsided, the aged chief resumed his examination.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p><p>"Why did you wish to stop my ears?" he said, addressing Duncan; "are
+the Delawares fools, that they could not know the young panther from the
+cat?"</p>
+
+<p>"They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird," said Duncan, endeavoring
+to adopt the figurative language of the natives.</p>
+
+<p>"It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother," added
+the chief, turning his eyes on Magua, "the Delawares listen."</p>
+
+<p>Thus singled, and directly called on to declare his object, the Huron
+arose; and advancing with great deliberation and dignity into the very
+centre of the circle, where he stood confronted to the prisoners, he
+placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth,
+however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of
+earnest faces as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his
+audience. On Hawkeye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan, a
+look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice he
+scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm,
+commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with
+an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled
+with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a
+tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.</p>
+
+<p>"The Spirit that made men colored them differently," commenced the
+subtle Huron. "Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These He said
+would be slaves; and He ordered them to work forever, like the beaver.
+You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the
+lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt lake, where the big
+canoes come and go with them in droves. Some He made with faces paler
+than the ermine of the forests: and these He ordered to be traders; dogs
+to their women, and wolves to their slaves. He gave this people the
+nature of the pigeon: wings that never tire; young, more plentiful than
+the leaves on the trees, and appetites to devour the earth. He gave them
+tongues like the false call of the wild-cat; hearts like rabbits; the
+cunning of the hog (but none of the fox), and arms longer than the legs
+of the moose. With his tongue, he stops the ears of the Indians; his
+heart teaches him to pay warriors to fight his battles; his cunning
+tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms
+inclose the land from the shores of the salt-water to the islands of the
+great lake. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> gluttony makes him sick. God gave him enough, and yet
+he wants all. Such are the pale-faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Some the Great Spirit made with skins brighter and redder than yonder
+sun," continued Magua, pointing impressively upwards to the lurid
+luminary, which was struggling through the misty atmosphere of the
+horizon; "and these did He fashion to His own mind. He gave them this
+island as He had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game. The
+wind made their clearings; the sun and rains ripened their fruits; and
+the snows came to tell them to be thankful. What need had they of roads
+to journey by! They saw through the hills. When the beavers worked, they
+lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in
+winter, skins kept them warm. If they fought among themselves, it was to
+prove that they were men. They were brave; they were just; they were
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>Here the speaker paused, and again looked around him, to discover if his
+legend had touched the sympathies of his listeners. He met everywhere
+with eyes riveted on his own, heads erect, and nostrils expanded, as if
+each individual present felt himself able and willing, singly, to
+redress the wrongs of his race.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Great Spirit gave different tongues to his red children," he
+continued, in a low, still, melancholy voice, "it was that all animals
+might understand them. Some He placed among the snows, with their cousin
+the bear. Some he placed near the setting sun, on the road to the happy
+hunting-grounds. Some on the lands around the great fresh waters; but to
+his greatest, and most beloved, He gave the sands of the salt lake. Do
+my brothers know the name of this favored people?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was the Lenape!" exclaimed twenty eager voices, in a breath.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the Lenni Lenape," returned Magua, affecting to bend his head in
+reverence to their former greatness. "It was the tribes of the Lenape!
+The sun rose from water that was salt, and set in water that was sweet,
+and never hid himself from their eyes. But why should I, a Huron of the
+woods, tell a wise people their own traditions? Why remind them of their
+injuries; their ancient greatness; their deeds; their glory; their
+happiness,&mdash;their losses; their defeats; their misery? Is there not one
+among them who has seen it all, and who knows it to be true? I have
+done. My tongue is still, for my heart is of lead. I listen."</p>
+
+<p>As the voice of the speaker suddenly ceased, every face and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> all eyes
+turned, by a common movement, towards the venerable Tamenund. From the
+moment that he took his seat, until the present instant, the lips of the
+patriarch had not severed, and scarcely a sign of life had escaped him.
+He sat bent in feebleness, and apparently unconscious of the presence he
+was in, during the whole of that opening scene, in which the skill of
+the scout had been so clearly established. At the nicely graduated sound
+of Magua's voice, however, he betrayed some evidence of consciousness,
+and once or twice he even raised his head, as if to listen. But when the
+crafty Huron spoke of his nation by name, the eyelids of the old man
+raised themselves, and he looked out upon the multitude with that sort
+of dull unmeaning expression which might be supposed to belong to the
+countenance of a spectre. Then he made an effort to rise, and being
+upheld by his supporters, he gained his feet, in a posture commanding by
+its dignity, while he tottered with weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"Who calls upon the children of the Lenape!" he said, in a deep,
+guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless
+silence of the multitude: "who speaks of things gone! Does not the egg
+become a worm&mdash;the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of
+good that is past? Better thank the Manitou for that which remains."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a Wyandot," said Magua, stepping nigher to the rude platform on
+which the other stood; "a friend of Tamenund."</p>
+
+<p>"A friend!" repeated the sage, on whose brow a dark frown settled,
+imparting a portion of that severity which had rendered his eye so
+terrible in middle age. "Are the Mingos rulers of the earth? What brings
+a Huron here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Justice. His prisoners are with his brothers, and he comes for his
+own."</p>
+
+<p>Tamenund turned his head towards one of his supporters, and listened to
+the short explanation the man gave. Then facing the applicant, he
+regarded him a moment with deep attention; after which he said, in a low
+and reluctant voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Justice is the law of the great Manitou. My children, give the stranger
+food. Then, Huron, take thine own and depart."</p>
+
+<p>On the delivery of this solemn judgment, the patriarch seated himself,
+and closed his eyes again, as if better pleased with the images of his
+own ripened experience than with the visible objects of the world.
+Against such a decree there was no Delaware sufficiently hardy to
+murmur, much less oppose himself. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> words were barely uttered when
+four or five of the younger warriors, stepping behind Heyward and the
+scout, passed thongs so dexterously and rapidly around their arms, as to
+hold them both in instant bondage. The former was too much engrossed
+with his precious and nearly insensible burden, to be aware of their
+intentions before they were executed; and the latter, who considered
+even the hostile tribes of the Delawares a superior race of beings,
+submitted without resistance. Perhaps, however, the manner of the scout
+would not have been so passive, had he fully comprehended the language
+in which the preceding dialogue had been conducted.</p>
+
+<p>Magua cast a look of triumph around the whole assembly before he
+proceeded to the execution of his purpose. Perceiving that the men were
+unable to offer any resistance, he turned his looks on her he valued
+most. Cora met his gaze with an eye so calm and firm, that his
+resolution wavered. Then recollecting his former artifice, he raised
+Alice from the arms of the warrior against whom she leaned, and
+beckoning Heyward to follow, he motioned for the encircling crowd to
+open. But Cora, instead of obeying the impulse he had expected, rushed
+to the feet of the patriarch, and raising her voice, exclaimed aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Just and venerable Delaware, on thy wisdom and power we lean for mercy!
+Be deaf to yonder artful and remorseless monster, who poisons thy ears
+with falsehoods to feed his thirst for blood. Thou that hast lived long,
+and that hast seen the evil of the world, should know how to temper its
+calamities to the miserable."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the old man opened heavily, and he once more looked upwards
+at the multitude. As the piercing tones of the supplicant swelled on his
+ears, they moved slowly in the direction of her person, and finally
+settled there in a steady gaze. Cora had cast herself to her knees; and,
+with hands clenched in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she
+remained like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in
+his faded, but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence.
+Gradually the expression of Tamenund's features changed, and losing
+their vacancy in admiration, they lighted with a portion of that
+intelligence which a century before had been wont to communicate his
+youthful fire to the extensive bands of the Delawares. Rising without
+assistance, and seemingly without an effort, he demanded, in a voice
+that startled its auditors by its firmness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p><p>"What art thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"A woman. One of a hated race, if thou wilt&mdash;a Yengee. But one who has
+never harmed thee, and who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who
+asks for succor."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, my children," continued the patriarch, hoarsely, motioning to
+those around him, though his eyes still dwelt upon the kneeling form of
+Cora, "where have the Delawares camped?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the mountains of the Iroquois, beyond the clear springs of the
+Horican."</p>
+
+<p>"Many parching summers are come and gone," continued the sage, "since I
+drank of the water of my own rivers. The children of Minquon<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> are the
+justest white men; but they were thirsty, and they took it to
+themselves. Do they follow us so far?"</p>
+
+<p>"We follow none; we covet nothing," answered Cora. "Captives against our
+wills, have we been brought among you; and we ask but permission to
+depart to our own in peace. Art thou not Tamenund&mdash;the father, the
+judge, I had almost said, the prophet&mdash;of this people?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Tamenund of many days."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis now some seven years that one of thy people was at the mercy of a
+white chief on the borders of this province. He claimed to be of the
+blood of the good and just Tamenund. 'Go,' said the white man, 'for thy
+parent's sake thou art free.' Dost thou remember the name of that
+English warrior?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember, that when a laughing boy," returned the patriarch, with the
+peculiar recollection of vast age, "I stood upon the sands of the
+sea-shore, and saw a big canoe, with wings whiter than the swan's, and
+wider than many eagles, come from the rising sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant, but of favor shown to
+thy kindred by one of mine, within the memory of thy youngest warrior."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchmanne fought for the
+hunting-grounds of the Delawares? Then Tamenund was a chief, and first
+laid aside the bow for the lightning of the pale faces&mdash;"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="THE_SUPPLICANT" id="THE_SUPPLICANT"></a>
+<img src="images/illus9.jpg" width="500" height="626" alt="THE SUPPLICANT" title="" />
+<div class="caption1"><i>Copyright by Charles Scribner&#39;s Sons</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="caption">THE SUPPLICANT</div>
+
+<div class="caption2"><i>Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched<br /> in each
+other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like<br /> a beauteous and
+breathing model of her sex</i></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p><p>"Nor yet then," interrupted Cora, "by many ages; I speak of a thing of
+yesterday. Surely, surely, you forget it not."</p>
+
+<p>"It was but yesterday," rejoined the aged man, with touching pathos,
+"that the children of the Lenape were masters of the world. The fishes
+of the salt lake, the birds, the beasts, and the Mengwe of the woods,
+owned them for sagamores."</p>
+
+<p>Cora bowed her head in disappointment, and, for a bitter moment,
+struggled with her chagrin. Then elevating her rich features and beaming
+eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
+unearthly voice of the patriarch himself,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, is Tamenund a father?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked down upon her from his elevated stand, with a
+benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes
+slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of a nation."</p>
+
+<p>"For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief," she
+continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering
+her head to droop until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the
+maze of dark glossy tresses that fell in disorder upon her shoulders,
+"the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child. But yonder
+is one who has never known the weight of Heaven's displeasure until now.
+She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their
+close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she
+is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that the pale-faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that
+they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their
+color is better than the sachems of the redman. The dogs and crows of
+their tribes," continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the
+wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the
+earth in shame, as he proceeded, "would bark and caw before they would
+take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow.
+But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They
+entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun. I
+have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the
+season of blossoms has always come again."</p>
+
+<p>"It is so," said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a
+trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with a
+kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> of her
+countenance; "but why&mdash;it is not permitted us to inquire. There is yet
+one of thine own people who has not been brought before thee; before
+thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak."</p>
+
+<p>Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly, one of his companions
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a snake&mdash;a redskin in the pay of the Yengeese. We keep him for
+the torture."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him come," returned the sage.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tamenund once more sank into his seat, and a silence so deep
+prevailed, while the young men prepared to obey his simple mandate, that
+the leaves, which fluttered in the draught of the light morning air,
+were distinctly heard rustling in the surrounding forest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"If you deny me, fie upon your law!<br />
+There is no force in the decrees of Venice:<br />
+I stand for judgment; answer, shall I have it?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Merchant of Venice.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes.
+Then the waving multitude opened and shut again, and Uncas stood in the
+living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the
+lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned
+on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect,
+agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in
+which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted,
+in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He
+cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting the
+settled expression of hostility that lowered in the visages of the
+chiefs, with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive
+children. But when, last in his haughty scrutiny, the person of Tamenund
+came under his glance, his eye became fixed, as though all other objects
+were already forgotten. Then advancing with a slow and noiseless step up
+the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the
+sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one
+of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.</p>
+
+<p>"With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou?" demanded the
+patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Like his fathers," Uncas replied; "with the tongue of a Delaware."</p>
+
+<p>At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran
+through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl
+of the lion, as his choler is first awakened&mdash;a fearful omen of the
+weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage,
+though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to
+exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he
+repeated, in his low, guttural tones, the words he had just heard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p><p>"A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from
+their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the
+hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strange people
+sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven had spared! The
+beasts that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the
+trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I
+found a Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the
+camps of his nation."</p>
+
+<p>"The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the
+softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has heard their
+song."</p>
+
+<p>The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting
+sounds of some passing melody.</p>
+
+<p>"Does Tamenund dream!" he exclaimed. "What voice is at his ear! Have the
+winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the
+Lenape!"</p>
+
+<p>A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from the
+lips of the Delaware prophet. His people steadily construed his
+unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was
+believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence, and they
+awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause,
+however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the
+recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of
+the presence of the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,"
+he said. "'Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail."</p>
+
+<p>"And ye," returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, "are dogs that
+whine, when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!"</p>
+
+<p>Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their
+feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one
+of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored
+the appearance of quiet. The task might probably have been more
+difficult, had not a movement made by Tamenund indicated that he was
+again about to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Delaware!" resumed the sage, "little art thou worthy of thy name. My
+people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who
+deserts his tribe when hid in clouds is doubly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> a traitor. The law of
+the Manitou is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains
+stand, while the blossoms come and go on the trees, it must be so. He is
+thine, my children; deal justly by him."</p>
+
+<p>Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than
+common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the
+lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be,
+from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their ruthless
+intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief
+proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure
+the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and
+screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of preparation.
+Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawkeye
+began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness;
+and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a
+suppliant for mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved
+his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when
+the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright
+attitude. One among them, if possible, more fierce and savage than his
+fellows, seized the hunting-shirt of the young warrior, and at a single
+effort tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure, he
+leaped towards his unresisting victim, and prepared to lead him to the
+stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the
+feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly
+as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The
+eyeballs of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth
+opened, and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement.
+Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a
+finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him in
+wonder, and every eye was, like his own, fastened intently on the figure
+of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner,
+in a bright blue tint.</p>
+
+<p>For a single instant Uncas enjoyed his triumph, smiling calmly on the
+scene. Then motioning the crowd away with a high and haughty sweep of
+his arm, he advanced in front of the nation with the air of a king, and
+spoke in a voice louder than the murmur of admiration that ran through
+the multitude.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p><p>"Men of the Lenni Lenape!" he said, "my race upholds the earth! Your
+feeble tribe stands on my shell!<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> What fire that a Delaware can light
+would burn the child of my fathers," he added, pointing proudly to the
+simple blazonry on his skin; "the blood that came from such a stock
+would smother your flames! My race is the grandfather of nations!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who art thou?" demanded Tamenund, rising at the startling tones he
+heard, more than at any meaning conveyed by the language of the
+prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas, the son of Chingachgook," answered the captive modestly, turning
+from the nation, and bending his head in reverence to the other's
+character and years; "a son of the great Unamis."</p>
+
+<p>"The hour of Tamenund is nigh!" exclaimed the sage; "the day is come, at
+last, to the night! I thank the Manitou, that one is here to fill my
+place at the council-fire. Uncas, the child of Uncas, is found! Let the
+eyes of a dying eagle gaze on the rising sun."</p>
+
+<p>The youth stepped lightly, but proudly, on the platform, where he became
+visible to the whole agitated and wondering multitude. Tamenund held him
+long at the length of his arm, and read every turn in the fine
+lineaments of his countenance, with the untiring gaze of one who
+recalled days of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Tamenund a boy?" at length the bewildered prophet exclaimed. "Have I
+dreamt of so many snows&mdash;that my people were scattered like floating
+sands&mdash;of Yengeese, more plenty than the leaves on the trees! The arrow
+of Tamenund would not frighten the fawn; his arm is withered like the
+branch of a dead oak; the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is
+Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale-faces! Uncas,
+the panther of his tribe, the eldest son of the Lenape, the wisest
+Sagamore of the Mohicans! Tell me, ye Delawares, has Tamenund been a
+sleeper for a hundred winters?"</p>
+
+<p>The calm and deep silence which succeeded these words, sufficiently
+announced the awful reverence with which his people received the
+communication of the patriarch. None dared to answer, though all
+listened in breathless expectation of what might follow. Uncas, however,
+looking in his face with the fondness and veneration of a favored child,
+presumed on his own high and acknowledged rank, to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Four warriors of his race have lived, and died," he said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> "since the
+friend of Tamenund led his people in battle. The blood of the turtle has
+been in many chiefs, but all have gone back into the earth from whence
+they came except Chingachgook and his son."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true&mdash;it is true," returned the sage; a flash of recollection
+destroying all his pleasing fancies, and restoring him at once to a
+consciousness of the true history of his nation. "Our wise men have
+often said that two warriors of the unchanged race were in the hills of
+the Yengeese; why have their seats at the council-fires of the Delawares
+been so long empty?"</p>
+
+<p>At these words the young man raised his head, which he had still kept
+bowed a little, in reverence; and lifting his voice so as to be heard by
+the multitude, as if to explain at once and forever the policy of his
+family, he said aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Once we slept where we could hear the salt lake speak in its anger.
+Then we were rulers and sagamores over the land. But when a pale-face
+was seen on every brook, we followed the deer back to the river of our
+nation. The Delawares were gone. Few warriors of them all stayed to
+drink of the stream they loved. Then said my fathers, 'Here will we
+hunt. The waters of the river go into the salt lake. If we go towards
+the setting sun, we shall find streams that run into the great lakes of
+sweet water; there would a Mohican die, like fishes of the sea, in the
+clear springs. When the Manitou is ready, and shall say "Come," we will
+follow the river to the sea, and take our own again.' Such, Delawares,
+is the belief of the children of the Turtle. Our eyes are on the rising,
+and not towards the setting sun. We know whence he comes, but we know
+not whither he goes. It is enough."</p>
+
+<p>The men of the Lenape listened to his words with all the respect that
+superstition could lend, finding a secret charm even in the figurative
+language with which the young Sagamore imparted his ideas. Uncas himself
+watched the effect of his brief explanation with intelligent eyes, and
+gradually dropped the air of authority he had assumed, as he perceived
+that his auditors were content. Then permitting his looks to wander over
+the silent throng that crowded around the elevated seat of Tamenund, he
+first perceived Hawkeye in his bonds. Stepping eagerly from his stand,
+he made way for himself to the side of his friend; and cutting his
+thongs with a quick and angry stroke of his own knife, he motioned to
+the crowd to divide. The Indians silently obeyed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> and once more they
+stood ranged in their circle, as before his appearance among them. Uncas
+took the scout by the hand, and led him to the feet of the patriarch.</p>
+
+<p>"Father," he said, "look at this pale-face; a just man, and the friend
+of the Delawares."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a son of Minquon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and feared by the Maquas."</p>
+
+<p>"What name has he gained by his deeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"We call him Hawkeye," Uncas replied, using the Delaware phrase; "for
+his sight never fails. The Mingos know him better by the death he gives
+their warriors; with them he is 'The Long Rifle.'"</p>
+
+<p>"La Longue Carabine!" exclaimed Tamenund, opening his eyes, and
+regarding the scout sternly. "My son has not done well to call him
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I call him so who proves himself such," returned the young chief, with
+great calmness, but with a steady mien. "If Uncas is welcome among the
+Delawares, then is Hawkeye with his friends."</p>
+
+<p>"The pale-face has slain my young men; his name is great for the blows
+he has struck the Lenape."</p>
+
+<p>"If a Mingo has whispered that much in the ear of the Delaware, he has
+only shown that he is a singing-bird," said the scout, who now believed
+that it was time to vindicate himself from such offensive charges, and
+who spoke in the tongue of the man he addressed, modifying his Indian
+figures, however, with his own peculiar notions. "That I have slain the
+Maquas I am not the man to deny, even at their own council-fires; but
+that, knowingly, my hand has ever harmed a Delaware, is opposed to the
+reason of my gifts, which is friendly to them, and all that belongs to
+their nation."</p>
+
+<p>A low exclamation of applause passed among the warriors, who exchanged
+looks with each other like men that first began to perceive their error.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Huron?" demanded Tamenund. "Has he stopped my ears?"</p>
+
+<p>Magua, whose feelings during that scene in which Uncas had triumphed may
+be much better imagined than described, answered to the call by stepping
+boldly in front of the patriarch.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p><p>"The just Tamenund," he said, "will not keep what a Huron has lent."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, son of my brother," returned the sage, avoiding the dark
+countenance of Le Subtil, and turning gladly to the more ingenuous
+features of Uncas, "has the stranger a conqueror's right over you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has none. The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he
+is strong, and knows how to leap through them."</p>
+
+<p>"La Longue Carabine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Laughs at the Mingoes. Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear."</p>
+
+<p>"The stranger and the white maiden that came into my camp together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Should journey on an open path."</p>
+
+<p>"And the woman that Huron left with my warriors?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncas made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"And the woman that the Mingo has brought into my camp," repeated
+Tamenund, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"She is mine," cried Magua, shaking his hand in triumph at Uncas.
+"Mohican, you know that she is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"My son is silent," said Tamenund, endeavoring to read the expression of
+the face that the youth turned from him in sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"It is so," was the low answer.</p>
+
+<p>A short and impressive pause succeeded, during which it was very
+apparent with what reluctance the multitude admitted the justice of the
+Mingo's claim. At length the sage, in whom alone the decision depended,
+said, in a firm voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Huron, depart."</p>
+
+<p>"As he came, just Tamenund," demanded the wily Magua; "or with hands
+filled with the faith of the Delawares? The wigwam of Le Renard Subtil
+is empty. Make him strong with his own."</p>
+
+<p>The aged man mused with himself for a time; and then bending his head
+towards one of his venerable companions, he asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are my ears open?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this Mingo a chief?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first in his nation."</p>
+
+<p>"Girl, what wouldst thou? A great warrior takes thee to wife. Go! thy
+race will not end."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p><p>"Better, a thousand times, it should," exclaimed the horror-struck
+Cora, "than meet with such a degradation!"</p>
+
+<p>"Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers. An unwilling maiden
+makes an unhappy wigwam."</p>
+
+<p>"She speaks with the tongue of her people," returned Magua, regarding
+his victim with a look of bitter irony. "She is of a race of traders,
+and will bargain for a bright look. Let Tamenund speak the words."</p>
+
+<p>"Take you the wampum, and our love."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing hence but what Magua brought hither."</p>
+
+<p>"Then depart with thine own. The great Manitou forbids that a Delaware
+should be unjust."</p>
+
+<p>Magua advanced, and seized his captive strongly by the arm; the
+Delawares fell back, in silence; and Cora, as if conscious that
+remonstrance would be useless, prepared to submit to her fate without
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold, hold!" cried Duncan, springing forward; "Huron, have mercy! her
+ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known
+to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Magua is a redskin; he wants not the beads of the pale-faces."</p>
+
+<p>"Gold, silver, powder, lead&mdash;all that a warrior needs shall be in thy
+wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief."</p>
+
+<p>"Le Subtil is very strong," cried Magua, violently shaking the hand
+which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; "he has his revenge!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty ruler of providence!" exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands
+together in agony, "can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I
+appeal for mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"The words of the Delaware are said," returned the sage, closing his
+eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and
+his bodily exertion. "Men speak not twice."</p>
+
+<p>"That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what had once
+been spoken, is wise and reasonable," said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan
+to be silent; "but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well
+before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I
+love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor
+at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end,
+many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your
+judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would
+greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Will 'The Long Rifle' give his life for the woman?" demanded Magua,
+hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion towards quitting the
+place with his victim.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; I have not said so much as that," returned Hawkeye, drawing
+back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which
+Magua listened to his proposal. "It would be an unequal exchange, to
+give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best
+woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter-quarters,
+now&mdash;at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn&mdash;on condition you
+will release the maiden."</p>
+
+<p>Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not
+half made up his mind, "I will throw 'Killdeer' into the bargain. Take
+the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween
+the provinces."</p>
+
+<p>Magua still disdained to reply, continuing his efforts to disperse the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness, exactly in
+proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, "if
+I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the
+we'pon, it would smooth the little differences in our judgments."</p>
+
+<p>Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an
+impenetrable belt around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable
+proposal, to open his path, threatening, by the glance of his eye,
+another appeal to the infallible justice of their "prophet."</p>
+
+<p>"What is ordered must sooner or later arrive," continued Hawkeye,
+turning with a sad and humbled look to Uncas. "The varlet knows his
+advantage, and will keep it! God bless you, boy; you have found friends
+among your natural kin and I hope they will prove as true as some you
+have met who had no Indian cross. As for me, sooner or later, I must
+die; it is therefore fortunate there are but few to make my death-howl.
+After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp,
+so a day or two will make no great difference in the everlasting
+reckoning of time. God bless you," added the rugged woodsman, bending
+his head aside, and then instantly changing its direction again,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> with a
+wistful look towards the youth; "I loved both you and your father,
+Uncas, though our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are
+somewhat different. Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my
+greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky
+trail; and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there
+is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together
+again. You'll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep
+it for my sake; and harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don't deny you
+the use of vengeance, use it a little freely on the Mingos; it may
+unburden grief at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept your
+offer; release the woman. I am your prisoner!"</p>
+
+<p>A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation, ran through the
+crowd at this generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware
+warriors manifesting pleasure at the manliness of the intended
+sacrifice. Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he
+doubted; then casting his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which
+ferocity and admiration were strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his
+head, and said, in a steady and settled voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind. Come," he
+added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive to
+urge her onward; "a Huron is no tattler; we will go."</p>
+
+<p>The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled,
+while the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into
+her very temples, at the indignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I am your prisoner, and at a fitting time shall be ready to follow,
+even to my death. But violence is unnecessary," she coldly said; and
+immediately turning to Hawkeye, added, "Generous hunter! from my soul I
+thank you. Your offer is in vain, neither could it be accepted; but
+still you may serve me, even more than in your own noble intention. Look
+at that drooping, humbled child! Abandon her not until you leave her in
+the habitation of civilized men. I will not say," wringing the hard hand
+of the scout, "that her father will reward you&mdash;for such as you are
+above the rewards of men&mdash;but he will thank you, and bless you. And,
+believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight
+of Heaven. Would to God, I could hear one from his lips at this awful
+moment!" Her voice became choked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> and, for an instant, she was silent;
+then advancing a step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her
+unconscious sister, she continued, in more subdued tones, but in which
+feeling and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle,&mdash;"I
+need not tell you to cherish the treasure you will possess. You love
+her, Heyward; that would conceal a thousand faults, though she had them.
+She is kind, gentle, sweet, good, as mortal may be. There is not a
+blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken.
+She is fair&mdash;O! how surpassingly fair!" laying her own beautiful, but
+less brilliant hand, in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead
+of Alice, and parting the golden hair which clustered about her brows;
+"and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin! I could say
+much&mdash;more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will spare
+you and myself"&mdash;Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over
+the form of her sister. After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and
+with features of the hue of death, but without even a tear in her
+feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage, with all her
+former elevation of manner,&mdash;"Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will
+follow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, go," cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl;
+"go, Magua, go. These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to
+detain you; but I&mdash;I have no such obligation. Go, malignant monster&mdash;why
+do you delay?"</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua
+listened to this threat to follow. There was at first a fierce and
+manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly subdued in a look of
+cunning coldness.</p>
+
+<p>"The woods are open," he was content with answering. "'The Open Hand'
+can come."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold," cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by
+violence; "you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an
+ambushment, and your death&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Huron," interrupted Uncas, who, submissive to the stern customs of his
+people, had been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed;
+"Huron, the justice of the Delawares comes from the Manitou. Look at the
+sun. He is now in the upper branches of the hemlock. Your path is short
+and open. When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your
+trail."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear a crow!" exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh. "Go!" he added,
+shaking his hand at the crowd, which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> slowly opened to admit his
+passage,&mdash;"Where are the petticoats of the Delawares! Let them send
+their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to
+eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves&mdash;I spit on you!"</p>
+
+<p>His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with
+these biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested
+into the forest, followed by his passive captive, and protected by the
+inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p>
+<i>"Flue.</i>&mdash;Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
+law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be
+offered in the world."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>King Henry V.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> long as their enemy and his victim continued in sight, the multitude
+remained motionless as beings charmed to the place by some power that
+was friendly to the Huron; but the instant he disappeared, it became
+tossed and agitated by fierce and powerful passion. Uncas maintained his
+elevated stand, keeping his eyes on the form of Cora, until the colors
+of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest; when he
+descended, and moving silently through the throng, he disappeared in
+that lodge from which he had so recently issued. A few of the graver and
+more attentive warriors, who caught the gleams of anger that shot from
+the eyes of the young chief in passing, followed him to the place he had
+selected for his meditations. After which, Tamenund and Alice were
+removed, and the women and children were ordered to disperse. During the
+momentous hour that succeeded, the encampment resembled a hive of
+troubled bees, who only awaited the appearance and example of their
+leader to take some distant and momentous flight.</p>
+
+<p>A young warrior at length issued from the lodge of Uncas; and moving
+deliberately, with a sort of grave march, towards a dwarf pine that grew
+in the crevices of the rocky terrace, he tore the bark from its body,
+and then returned whence he came without speaking. He was soon followed
+by another, who stripped the sapling of its branches, leaving it a naked
+and blazed<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> trunk. A third colored the posts with stripes of a dark
+red paint; all which indications of a hostile design in the leaders of
+the nation were received by the men without in a gloomy and ominous
+silence. Finally, the Mohican himself reappeared, divested of all his
+attire except his girdle and leggings, and with one-half of his fine
+features hid under a cloud of threatening black.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p><p>Uncas moved with a slow and dignified tread towards the post, which he
+immediately commenced encircling with a measured step, not unlike an
+ancient dance, raising his voice, at the same time, in the wild and
+irregular chant of his war-song. The notes were in the extremes of human
+sounds; being sometimes melancholy and exquisitely plaintive, even
+rivalling the melody of birds&mdash;and then, by sudden and startling
+transitions, causing the auditors to tremble by their depth and energy.
+The words were few and often repeated, proceeding gradually from a sort
+of invocation, or hymn to the Deity, to an intimation of the warrior's
+object, and terminating as they commenced with an acknowledgment of his
+own dependence on the Great Spirit. If it were possible to translate the
+comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might
+read something like the following:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!<br />
+Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise:<br />
+Manitou! Manitou!<br />
+Thou art just.<br />
+<br />
+"In the heavens, in the clouds, O, I see<br />
+Many spots&mdash;many dark, many red:<br />
+In the heavens, O, I see<br />
+Many clouds.<br />
+<br />
+"In the woods, in the air, O, I hear<br />
+The whoop, the long yell, and the cry:<br />
+In the woods, O, I hear<br />
+The loud whoop!<br />
+<br />
+"Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!<br />
+Thou art weak&mdash;thou art strong; I am slow:<br />
+Manitou! Manitou!<br />
+Give me aid."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>At the end of what might be called each verse he made a pause, by
+raising a note louder and longer than common, that was peculiarly suited
+to the sentiment just expressed. The first close was solemn, and
+intended to convey the idea of veneration; the second descriptive,
+bordering on the alarming; and the third was the well known and terrific
+war-whoop, which burst from the lips of the young warrior, like a
+combination of all the frightful sounds of battle. The last was like the
+first, humble and imploring. Three times did he repeat this song, and as
+often did he encircle the post in his dance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p><p>At the close of the first turn, a grave and highly esteemed chief of
+the Lenape followed his example, singing words of his own, however, to
+music of a similar character. Warrior after warrior enlisted in the
+dance, until all of any renown and authority were numbered in its mazes.
+The spectacle now became wildly terrific; the fierce-looking and
+menacing visages of the chiefs receiving additional power from the
+appalling strains in which they mingled their guttural tones. Just then
+Uncas struck his tomahawk deep into the post, and raised his voice in a
+shout, which might be termed his own battle-cry. The act announced that
+he had assumed the chief authority in the intended expedition.</p>
+
+<p>It was a signal that awakened all the slumbering passions of a nation. A
+hundred youths, who had hitherto been restrained by the diffidence of
+their years, rushed in a frantic body on the fancied emblem of their
+enemy, and severed it asunder, splinter by splinter, until nothing
+remained of the trunk but its roots in the earth. During this moment of
+tumult, the most ruthless deeds of war were performed on the fragments
+of the tree, with as much apparent ferocity as if they were the living
+victims of their cruelty. Some were scalped; some received the keen and
+trembling axe; and others suffered by thrusts from the fatal knife. In
+short, the manifestations of zeal and fierce delight were so great and
+unequivocal, that the expedition was declared to be a war of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The instant Uncas had struck the blow, he moved out of the circle, and
+cast his eyes up to the sun, which was just gaining the point, when the
+truce with Magua was to end. The fact was soon announced by a
+significant gesture, accompanied by a corresponding cry; and the whole
+of the excited multitude abandoned their mimic warfare, with shrill
+yells of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment of the
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>The whole face of the encampment was instantly changed. The warriors,
+who were already armed and painted, became as still as if they were
+incapable of any uncommon burst of emotion. On the other hand, the women
+broke out of the lodges, with the songs of joy and those of lamentation,
+so strangely mingled, that it might have been difficult to have said
+which passion preponderated. None, however, were idle. Some bore their
+choicest articles, others their young, and some their aged and infirm,
+into the forest, which spread itself like a verdant carpet of bright
+green against the side of the mountain. Thither Tamenund also retired,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+with calm composure, after a short and touching interview with Uncas;
+from whom the sage separated with the reluctance that a parent would
+quit a long lost and just recovered child. In the meantime, Duncan saw
+Alice to a place of safety, and then sought the scout, with a
+countenance that denoted how eagerly he also panted for the approaching
+contest.</p>
+
+<p>But Hawkeye was too much accustomed to the war-song and the enlistments
+of the natives, to betray any interest in the passing scene. He merely
+cast an occasional look at the number and quality of the warriors, who,
+from time to time, signified their readiness to accompany Uncas to the
+field. In this particular he was soon satisfied; for, as has been
+already seen, the power of the young chief quickly embraced every
+fighting man in the nation. After this material point was so
+satisfactorily decided, he despatched an Indian boy in quest of
+"Killdeer" and the rifle of Uncas, to the place where they had deposited
+the weapons on approaching the camp of the Delawares; a measure of
+double policy, inasmuch as it protected the arms from their own fate, if
+detained as prisoners, and gave them the advantage of appearing among
+the strangers rather as sufferers than as men provided with the means of
+defence and subsistence. In selecting another to perform the office of
+reclaiming his highly prized rifle, the scout had lost sight of none of
+his habitual caution. He knew that Magua had not come unattended, and he
+also knew that Huron spies watched the movements of their new enemies,
+along the whole boundary of the woods. It would, therefore, have been
+fatal to himself to have attempted the experiment; a warrior would have
+fared no better; but the danger of a boy would not be likely to commence
+until after his object was discovered. When Heyward joined him, the
+scout was coolly awaiting the result of this experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, who had been well instructed, and was sufficiently crafty,
+proceeded, with a bosom that was swelling with the pride of such a
+confidence, and all the hopes of young ambition, carelessly across the
+clearing to the wood, which he entered at a point at some little
+distance from the place where the guns were secreted. The instant,
+however, he was concealed by the foliage of the bushes, his dusky form
+was to be seen gliding, like that of a serpent, towards the desired
+treasure. He was successful; and in another moment he appeared flying
+across the narrow opening that skirted the base of the terrace on which
+the village stood, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> the velocity of an arrow, and bearing a prize
+in each hand. He had actually gained the crags, and was leaping up their
+sides with incredible activity, when a shot from the woods showed how
+accurate had been the judgment of the scout. The boy answered it with a
+feeble but contemptuous shout; and immediately a second bullet was sent
+after him from another part of the cover. At the next instant he
+appeared on the level above, elevating his guns in triumph, while he
+moved with the air of a conqueror towards the renowned hunter who had
+honored him by so glorious a commission.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the lively interest Hawkeye had taken in the fate of his
+messenger, he received "Killdeer" with a satisfaction that, momentarily,
+drove all other recollections from his mind. After examining the piece
+with an intelligent eye, and opening and shutting the pan some ten or
+fifteen times, and trying sundry other equally important experiments on
+the lock, he turned to the boy, and demanded with great manifestations
+of kindness, if he was hurt. The urchin looked proudly up in his face,
+but made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I see, lad, the knaves have barked your arm!" added the scout,
+taking up the limb of the patient sufferer, across which a deep flesh
+wound had been made by one of the bullets; "but a little bruised alder
+will act like a charm. In the meantime I will wrap it in a badge of
+wampum! You have commenced the business of a warrior early, my brave
+boy, and are likely to bear a plenty of honorable scars to your grave. I
+know many young men that have taken scalps who cannot show such a mark
+as this. Go!" having bound up the arm; "you will be a chief!"</p>
+
+<p>The lad departed, prouder of his flowing blood than the vainest courtier
+could be of his blushing ribbon; and stalked among the fellows of his
+age, an object of general admiration and envy.</p>
+
+<p>But in a moment of so many serious and important duties, this single act
+of juvenile fortitude did not attract the general notice and
+commendation it would have received under milder auspices. It had,
+however, served to apprise the Delawares of the position and the
+intentions of their enemies. Accordingly a party of adventurers, better
+suited to the task than the weak though spirited boy, was ordered to
+dislodge the skulkers. The duty was soon performed; for most of the
+Hurons retired of themselves when they found they had been discovered.
+The Delawares followed to a sufficient distance from their own
+encampment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> and then halted for orders, apprehensive of being led into
+an ambush. As both parties secreted themselves, the woods were again as
+still and quiet as a mild summer morning and deep solitude could render
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The calm but still impatient Uncas now collected his chiefs, and divided
+his power. He presented Hawkeye as a warrior, often tried, and always
+found deserving of confidence. When he found his friend met with a
+favorable reception, he bestowed on him the command of twenty men, like
+himself, active, skilful, and resolute. He gave the Delawares to
+understand the rank of Heyward among the troops of the Yengeese, and
+then tendered to him a trust of equal authority. But Duncan declined the
+charge, professing his readiness to serve as a volunteer by the side of
+the scout. After this disposition, the young Mohican appointed various
+native chiefs to fill the different situations of responsibility, and
+the time pressing, he gave forth the word to march. He was cheerfully,
+but silently, obeyed by more than two hundred men.</p>
+
+<p>Their entrance into the forest was perfectly unmolested; nor did they
+encounter any living objects, that could either give the alarm, or
+furnish the intelligence they needed, until they came upon the lairs of
+their own scouts. Here a halt was ordered, and the chiefs were assembled
+to hold a "whispering council."</p>
+
+<p>At this meeting divers plans of operation were suggested, though none of
+a character to meet the wishes of their ardent leader. Had Uncas
+followed the promptings of his own inclinations, he would have led his
+followers to the charge without a moment's delay, and put the conflict
+to the hazard of an instant issue; but such a course would have been in
+opposition to all the received practices and opinions of his countrymen.
+He was, therefore, fain to adopt a caution that in the present temper of
+his mind he execrated, and to listen to advice at which his fiery spirit
+chafed, under the vivid recollection of Cora's danger and Magua's
+insolence.</p>
+
+<p>After an unsatisfactory conference of many minutes, a solitary
+individual was seen advancing from the side of the enemy, with such
+apparent haste, as to induce the belief he might be a messenger charged
+with pacific overtures. When within a hundred yards, however, of the
+cover behind which the Delaware council had assembled, the stranger
+hesitated, appeared uncertain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> what course to take, and finally halted.
+All eyes were now turned on Uncas, as if seeking directions how to
+proceed.</p>
+
+<p>"Hawkeye," said the young chief, in a low voice, "he must never speak to
+the Hurons again."</p>
+
+<p>"His time has come," said the laconic scout, thrusting the long barrel
+of his rifle through the leaves, and taking his deliberate and fatal
+aim. But, instead of pulling the trigger he lowered the muzzle again,
+and indulged himself in a fit of his peculiar mirth. "I took the imp for
+a Mingo, as I'm a miserable sinner!" he said; "but when my eye ranged
+along his ribs for a place to get the bullet in&mdash;would you think it,
+Uncas&mdash;I saw the musicianer's blower; and so, after all, it is the man
+they call Gamut, whose death can profit no one, and whose life, if his
+tongue can do anything but sing, may be made serviceable to our own
+ends. If sounds have not lost their virtue, I'll soon have a discourse
+with the honest fellow, and that in a voice he'll find more agreeable
+than the speech of 'Killdeer.'"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Hawkeye laid aside his rifle; and crawling through the bushes
+until within hearing of David, he attempted to repeat the musical
+effort, which had conducted himself, with so much safety and <i>&eacute;clat</i>,
+through the Huron encampment. The exquisite organs of Gamut could not
+readily be deceived (and, to say the truth, it would have been difficult
+for any other than Hawkeye to produce a similar noise), and
+consequently, having once before heard the sounds, he now knew whence
+they proceeded. The poor fellow appeared relieved from a state of great
+embarrassment; for pursuing the direction of the voice&mdash;a task that to
+him was not much less arduous than it would have been to have gone up in
+the face of a battery&mdash;he soon discovered the hidden songster.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what the Hurons will think of that!" said the scout, laughing,
+as he took his companion by the arm, and urged him towards the rear. "If
+the knaves lie within ear-shot, they will say there are two
+non-compossers instead of one! But here we are safe," he added, pointing
+to Uncas and his associates. "Now give us the history of the Mingo
+inventions in natural English, and without any ups and downs of voice."</p>
+
+<p>David gazed about him, at the fierce and wild-looking chiefs, in mute
+wonder; but assured by the presence of faces that he knew, he soon
+rallied his faculties so far as to make an intelligent reply.</p>
+
+<p>"The heathen are abroad in goodly numbers," said David,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> "and, I fear,
+with evil intent. There has been much howling and ungodly revelry,
+together with such sounds as it is profanity to utter, in their
+habitations within the past hour; so much so, in truth, that I have fled
+to the Delawares in search of peace."</p>
+
+<p>"Your ears might not have profited much by the exchange, had you been
+quicker of foot," returned the scout, a little dryly. "But let that be
+as it may; where are the Hurons?"</p>
+
+<p>"They lie hid in the forest, between this spot and their village, in
+such force, that prudence would teach you instantly to return."</p>
+
+<p>Uncas cast a glance along the range of trees which concealed his own
+band and mentioned the name of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Magua?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is among them. He brought in the maiden that had sojourned with the
+Delawares, and leaving her in the cave, has put himself, like a raging
+wolf, at the head of his savages. I know not what has troubled his
+spirit so greatly!"</p>
+
+<p>"He has left her, you say, in the cave!" interrupted Heyward; "'tis well
+that we know its situation! May not something be done for her instant
+relief?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncas looked earnestly at the scout, before he asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What says Hawkeye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me twenty rifles, and I will turn to the right, along the stream;
+and passing by the huts of the beaver, will join the Sagamore and the
+colonel. You shall then hear the whoop from that quarter; with this wind
+one may easily send it a mile. Then, Uncas, do you drive in their front;
+when they come within range of our pieces, we will give them a blow
+that, I pledge the good name of an old frontiersman, shall make their
+line bend like an ashen bow. After which, we will carry their village,
+and take the woman from the cave; when the affair may be finished with
+the tribe, according to a white man's battle, by a blow and a victory;
+or, in the Indian fashion, with dodge and cover. There may be no great
+learning, major, in this plan, but with courage and patience it can all
+be done."</p>
+
+<p>"I like it much," cried Duncan, who saw the release of Cora was the
+primary object in the mind of the scout; "I like it much. Let it be
+instantly attempted."</p>
+
+<p>After a short conference, the plan was matured, and rendered more
+intelligible to the several parties; the different signals were
+appointed, and the chiefs separated, each to his allotted station.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,<br />
+Till the great king, without a ransom paid,<br />
+To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Pope.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the time Uncas was making this disposition of his forces, the
+woods were still, and, with the exception of those who had met in
+council, apparently as much untenanted, as when they came fresh from the
+hands of their Almighty Creator. The eye could range, in every
+direction, through the long and shadowed vistas of the trees; but
+nowhere was any object to be seen that did not properly belong to the
+peaceful and slumbering scenery. Here and there a bird was heard
+fluttering among the branches of the beeches, and occasionally a
+squirrel dropped a nut, drawing the startled looks of the party, for a
+moment, to the place; but the instant the casual interruption ceased,
+the passing air was heard murmuring above their heads, along that
+verdant and undulating surface of forest, which spread itself unbroken,
+unless by stream or lake, over such a vast region of country. Across the
+tract of wilderness, which lay between the Delawares and the village of
+their enemies, it seemed as if the foot of man had never trodden, so
+breathing and deep was the silence in which it lay. But Hawkeye, whose
+duty led him foremost in the adventure, knew the character of those with
+whom he was about to contend too well to trust the treacherous quiet.</p>
+
+<p>When he saw his little band collected, the scout threw "Killdeer" into
+the hollow of his arm, and making a silent signal that he would be
+followed, he led them many rods towards the rear, into the bed of a
+little brook which they had crossed in advancing. Here he halted; and
+after waiting for the whole of his grave and attentive warriors to close
+about him, he spoke in Delaware, demanding&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do any of my young men know whither this run will lead us?"</p>
+
+<p>A Delaware stretched forth a hand, with the two fingers separated, and
+indicating the manner in which they were joined at the root, he
+answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p><p>"Before the sun could go his own length, the little water will be in
+the big." Then he added, pointing in the direction of the place he
+mentioned, "the two make enough for the beavers."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought as much," returned the scout, glancing his eye upwards at the
+opening in the tree-tops, "from the course it takes, and the bearings of
+the mountains. Men, we will keep within the cover of its banks till we
+scent the Hurons."</p>
+
+<p>His companions gave the usual brief exclamation of assent, but
+perceiving that their leader was about to lead the way in person, one or
+two made signs that all was not as it should be. Hawkeye, who
+comprehended their meaning glances, turned, and perceived that his party
+had been followed thus far by the singing-master.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, friend," asked the scout gravely, and perhaps with a
+little of the pride of conscious deserving in his manner, "that this is
+a band of rangers chosen for the most desperate service, and put under
+the command of one who, though another might say it with a better face,
+will not be apt to leave them idle. It may not be five, it cannot be
+thirty minutes before we tread on the body of a Huron, living or dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Though not admonished of your intentions in words," returned David,
+whose face was a little flushed, and whose ordinarily quiet and
+unmeaning eyes glimmered with an expression of unusual fire, "your men
+have reminded me of the children of Jacob going out to battle against
+the Shechemites, for wickedly aspiring to wedlock with a woman of a race
+that was favored of the Lord. Now, I have journeyed far, and sojourned
+much in good and evil with the maiden ye seek; and though not a man of
+war, with my loins girded and my sword sharpened, yet would I gladly
+strike a blow in her behalf."</p>
+
+<p>The scout hesitated, as if weighing the chances of such a strange
+enlistment in his mind before he answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know not the use of any we'pon. You carry no rifle; and believe me,
+what the Mingos take they will freely give again."</p>
+
+<p>"Though not a vaunting and bloodily disposed Goliath," returned David,
+drawing a sling from beneath his parti-colored and uncouth attire, "I
+have not forgotten the example of the Jewish boy. With this ancient
+instrument of war have I practised much in my youth, and peradventure
+the skill has not entirely departed from me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" said Hawkeye, considering the deer-skin thong and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> apron, with a
+cold and discouraging eye; "the thing might do its work among arrows, or
+even knives; but these Mengwe have been furnished by the Frenchers with
+a good grooved barrel a man. However, it seems to be your gift to go
+unharmed amid fire; and as you have hitherto been favored&mdash;major, you
+have left your rifle at a cock; a single shot before the time would be
+just twenty scalps lost to no purpose&mdash;singer, you can follow; we may
+find use for you in the shoutings."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, friend," returned David, supplying himself, like his royal
+namesake, from among the pebbles of the brook; "though not given to the
+desire to kill, had you sent me away my spirit would have been
+troubled."</p>
+
+<p>"Remember," added the scout, tapping his own head significantly on that
+spot where Gamut was yet sore, "we come to fight, and not to musickate.
+Until the general whoop is given, nothing speaks but the rifle."</p>
+
+<p>David nodded, as much as to signify his acquiescence with the terms; and
+then Hawkeye, casting another observant glance over his followers, made
+the signal to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Their route lay, for the distance of a mile, along the bed of the
+water-course. Though protected from any great danger of observation by
+the precipitous banks, and the thick shrubbery which skirted the stream,
+no precaution known to an Indian attack was neglected. A warrior rather
+crawled than walked on each flank, so as to catch occasional glimpses
+into the forest; and every few minutes the band came to a halt, and
+listened for hostile sounds, with an acuteness of organs that would be
+scarcely conceivable to a man in a less natural state. Their march was,
+however, unmolested, and they reached the point where the lesser stream
+was lost in the greater, without the smallest evidence that their
+progress had been noted. Here the scout again halted, to consult the
+signs of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"We are likely to have a good day for a fight," he said, in English,
+addressing Heyward, and glancing his eye upwards at the clouds, which
+began to move in broad sheets across the firmament; "a bright sun and a
+glittering barrel are no friends to true sight. Everything is favorable;
+they have the wind, which will bring down their noises and their smoke
+too, no little matter in itself; whereas, with us it will be first a
+shot, and then a clear view. But here is an end of our cover; the
+beavers have had the range of this stream for hundreds of years, and
+what atween their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> food and their dams, there is, as you see, many a
+girdled stub, but few living trees."</p>
+
+<p>Hawkeye had, in truth, in these few words, given no bad description of
+the prospect that now lay in their front. The brook was irregular in its
+width, sometimes shooting through narrow fissures in the rocks, and at
+others spreading over acres of bottom land, forming little areas that
+might be termed ponds. Everywhere along its banks were the mouldering
+relics of dead trees, in all the stages of decay, from those that
+groaned on their tottering trunks to such as had recently been robbed of
+those rugged coats that so mysteriously contain their principle of life.
+A few long, low, and moss-covered piles were scattered among them, like
+the memorials of a former and long-departed generation.</p>
+
+<p>All these minute particulars were noted by the scout, with a gravity and
+interest that they probably had never before attracted. He knew that the
+Huron encampment lay a short half mile up the brook; and, with the
+characteristic anxiety of one who dreaded a hidden danger, he was
+greatly troubled at not finding the smallest trace of the presence of
+his enemy. Once or twice he felt induced to give the order for a rush,
+and to attempt the village by surprise; but his experience quickly
+admonished him of the danger of so useless an experiment. Then he
+listened intently, and with painful uncertainty, for the sounds of
+hostility in the quarter where Uncas was left; but nothing was audible
+except the sighing of the wind, that began to sweep over the bosom of
+the forest in gusts which threatened a tempest. At length, yielding
+rather to his unusual impatience than taking counsel from his knowledge,
+he determined to bring matters to an issue, by unmasking his force, and
+proceeding cautiously, but steadily, up the stream.</p>
+
+<p>The scout had stood, while making his observations, sheltered by a
+brake, and his companions still lay in the bed of the ravine, through
+which the smaller stream debouched; but on hearing his low, though
+intelligible signal, the whole party stole up the bank, like so many
+dark spectres, and silently arranged themselves around him. Pointing in
+the direction he wished to proceed, Hawkeye advanced, the band breaking
+off in single files, and following so accurately in his footsteps, as if
+to leave it, if we except Heyward and David, the trail of but a single
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The party was, however, scarcely uncovered before a volley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> from a dozen
+rifles was heard in their rear; and a Delaware leaping high into the
+air, like a wounded deer, fell at his whole length, perfectly dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I feared some deviltry like this!" exclaimed the scout, in English;
+adding, with the quickness of thought, in his adopted tongue, "To cover,
+men, and charge!"</p>
+
+<p>The band dispersed at the word, and before Heyward had well recovered
+from his surprise, he found himself standing alone with David. Luckily,
+the Hurons had already fallen back, and he was safe from their fire. But
+this state of things was evidently to be of short continuance; for the
+scout set the example of pressing on their retreat, by discharging his
+rifle, and darting from tree to tree, as his enemy slowly yielded
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that the assault had been made by a very small party of
+the Hurons, which, however, continued to increase in numbers, as it
+retired on its friends, until the return fire was very nearly, if not
+quite, equal to that maintained by the advancing Delawares. Heyward
+threw himself among the combatants, and imitating the necessary caution
+of his companions, he made quick discharges with his own rifle. The
+contest now grew warm and stationary. Few were injured, as both parties
+kept their bodies as much protected as possible by the trees; never,
+indeed, exposing any part of their persons except in the act of taking
+aim. But the chances were gradually growing unfavorable to Hawkeye and
+his band. The quick-sighted scout perceived his danger, without knowing
+how to remedy it. He saw it was more dangerous to retreat than to
+maintain his ground; while he found his enemy throwing out men on his
+flank, which rendered the task of keeping themselves covered so very
+difficult to the Delawares, as nearly to silence their fire. At this
+embarrassing moment, when they began to think the whole of the hostile
+tribe was gradually encircling them, they heard the yell of combatants,
+and the rattling of arms, echoing under the arches of the wood, at the
+place where Uncas was posted; a bottom which, in a manner, lay beneath
+the ground on which Hawkeye and his party were contending.</p>
+
+<p>The effects of this attack were instantaneous, and to the scout and his
+friends greatly relieving. It would seem that, while his own surprise
+had been anticipated, and had consequently failed, the enemy, in their
+turn, having been deceived in its object and in his numbers, had left
+too small a force to resist the impetuous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> onset of the young Mohican.
+This fact was doubly apparent, by the rapid manner in which the battle
+in the forest rolled upwards towards the village, and by an instant
+falling off in the number of their assailants, who rushed to assist in
+maintaining the front, and, as it now proved to be, the principal point
+of defence.</p>
+
+<p>Animating his followers by his voice, and his own example, Hawkeye then
+gave the word to bear down upon their foes. The charge, in that rude
+species of warfare, consisted merely in pushing from cover to cover,
+nigher to the enemy; and in this man&#339;uvre he was instantly and
+successfully obeyed. The Hurons were compelled to withdraw, and the
+scene of the contest rapidly changed from the more open ground on which
+it had commenced, to a spot where the assailed found a thicket to rest
+upon. Here the struggle was protracted, arduous, and seemingly of
+doubtful issue; the Delawares, though none of them fell, beginning to
+bleed freely, in consequence of the disadvantage at which they were
+held.</p>
+
+<p>In this crisis, Hawkeye found means to get behind the same tree as that
+which served for a cover to Heyward; most of his own combatants being
+within call, a little on his right, where they maintained rapid, though
+fruitless, discharges on their sheltered enemies.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a young man, major," said the scout, dropping the butt of
+"Killdeer" to the earth, and leaning on the barrel, a little fatigued
+with his previous industry; "and it may be your gift to lead armies at
+some future day ag'in these imps the Mingos, You may here see the
+philosophy of an Indian fight. It consists mainly in a ready hand, a
+quick eye, and a good cover. Now, if you had a company of the Royal
+Americans here, in what manner would you set them to work in this
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"The bayonet would make a road."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, there is white reason in what you say; but a man must ask himself,
+in this wilderness, how many lives he can spare. No&mdash;horse,"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>
+continued the scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; "horse, I am
+ashamed to say, must, sooner or later, decide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> these scrimmages. The
+brutes are better than men, and to horse must we come at last. Put a
+shodden hoof on the moccasin of a redskin; and if his rifle be once
+emptied, he will never stop to load it again."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a subject that might better be discussed at another time,"
+returned Heyward; "shall we charge?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see no contradiction to the gifts of any man, in passing his
+breathing spells in useful reflections," the scout replied. "As to a
+rush, I little relish such a measure; for a scalp or two must be thrown
+away in the attempt. And yet," he added, bending his head aside, to
+catch the sounds of the distant combat, "if we are to be of use to
+Uncas, these knaves in our front must be got rid of!"</p>
+
+<p>Then turning, with a prompt and decided air, he called aloud to his
+Indians, in their own language. His words were answered by a shout; and,
+at a given signal, each warrior made a swift movement around his
+particular tree. The sight of so many dark bodies, glancing before their
+eyes at the same instant, drew a hasty, and consequently an ineffectual
+fire from the Hurons. Without stopping to breathe, the Delawares leaped,
+in long bounds, towards the wood, like so many panthers springing upon
+their prey. Hawkeye was in front, brandishing his terrible rifle, and
+animating his followers by his example. A few of the older and more
+cunning Hurons, who had not been deceived by the artifice which had been
+practised to draw their fire, now made a close and deadly discharge of
+their pieces, and justified the apprehensions of the scout, by felling
+three of his foremost warriors. But the shock was insufficient to repel
+the impetus of the charge. The Delawares broke into the cover with the
+ferocity of their natures, and swept away every trace of resistance by
+the fury of the onset.</p>
+
+<p>The combat endured only for an instant, hand to hand, and then the
+assailed yielded ground rapidly, until they reached the opposite margin
+of the thicket, where they clung to the cover, with the sort of
+obstinacy that is so often witnessed in hunted brutes. At this critical
+moment, when the success of the struggle was again becoming doubtful,
+the crack of the rifle was heard behind the Hurons, and a bullet came
+whizzing from among some beaver lodges, which were situated in the
+clearing, in their rear, and was followed by the fierce and appalling
+yell of the war-whoop.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p><p>"There speaks the Sagamore!" shouted Hawkeye, answering the cry with
+his own stentorian voice; "we have them now in face and back!"</p>
+
+<p>The effect on the Hurons was instantaneous. Discouraged by an assault
+from a quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, their warriors
+uttered a common yell of disappointment, and breaking off in a body,
+they spread themselves across the opening, heedless of every
+consideration but flight. Many fell, in making the experiment, under the
+bullets and the blows of the pursuing Delawares.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not pause to detail the meeting between the scout and
+Chingachgook, or the more touching interview that Duncan held with
+Munro. A few brief and hurried words served to explain the state of
+things to both parties; and then Hawkeye pointing out the Sagamore to
+his band, resigned the chief authority into the hands of the Mohican
+chief. Chingachgook assumed the station to which his birth and
+experience gave him so distinguished a claim, with the grave dignity
+that always gives force to the mandates of a native warrior. Following
+the footsteps of the scout, he led the party back through the thicket,
+his men scalping the fallen Hurons, and secreting the bodies of their
+own dead as they proceeded, until they gained a point where the former
+was content to make a halt.</p>
+
+<p>The warriors, who had breathed themselves freely in the preceding
+struggle, were now posted on a bit of level ground, sprinkled with trees
+in sufficient numbers to conceal them. The land fell away rather
+precipitately in front, and beneath their eyes stretched, for several
+miles, a narrow, dark, and wooded vale. It was through this dense and
+dark forest that Uncas was still contending with the main body of the
+Hurons.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican and his friends advanced to the brow of the hill, and
+listened, with practised ears, to the sounds of the combat. A few birds
+hovered over the leafy bosom of the valley, frightened from their
+secluded nests; and here and there a light vapory cloud, which seemed
+already blending with the atmosphere, arose above the trees, and
+indicated some spot where the struggle had been fierce and stationary.</p>
+
+<p>"The fight is coming up the ascent," said Duncan, pointing in the
+direction of a new explosion of fire-arms; "we are too much in the
+centre of their line to be effective."</p>
+
+<p>"They will incline into the hollow, where the cover is thicker,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> said
+the scout, "and that will leave us well on their flank. Go, Sagamore;
+you will hardly be in time to give the whoop, and lead on the young men.
+I will fight this scrimmage with warriors of my own color. You know me,
+Mohican; not a Huron of them all shall cross the swell, into your rear,
+without the notice of 'Killdeer.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian chief paused another moment to consider the signs of the
+contest, which was now rolling rapidly up the ascent, a certain evidence
+that the Delawares triumphed; nor did he actually quit the place until
+admonished of the proximity of his friends, as well as enemies, by the
+bullets of the former, which began to patter among the dried leaves on
+the ground, like the bits of falling hail which precede the bursting of
+the tempest. Hawkeye and his three companions withdrew a few paces to a
+shelter, and awaited the issue with calmness, that nothing but great
+practice could impart in such a scene.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before the reports of the rifles began to lose the
+echoes of the woods, and to sound like weapons discharged in the open
+air. Then a warrior appeared, here and there, driven to the skirts of
+the forest, and rallying as he entered the clearing, as at the place
+where the final stand was to be made. These were soon joined by the
+others, until a long line of swarthy figures was to be seen clinging to
+the cover with the obstinacy of desperation. Heyward began to grow
+impatient, and turned his eyes anxiously in the direction of
+Chingachgook. The chief was seated on a rock, with nothing visible but
+his calm visage, considering the spectacle with an eye as deliberate as
+if he were posted there merely to view the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>"The time is come for the Delawares to strike!" said Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, not so," returned the scout; "when he scents his friends, he
+will let them know that he is here. See, see; the knaves are getting in
+that clump of pines, like bees settling after their flight. By the Lord,
+a squaw might put a bullet into the centre of such a knot of dark
+skins!"</p>
+
+<p>At that instant the whoop was given, and a dozen Hurons fell by a
+discharge from Chingachgook and his band. The shout that followed was
+answered by a single war-cry from the forest, and a yell passed through
+the air that sounded as if a thousand throats were united in a common
+effort. The Hurons staggered, deserting the centre of their line, and
+Uncas issued from the forest through the opening they left, at the head
+of a hundred warriors.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p><p>Waving his hands right and left, the young chief pointed out the enemy
+to his followers, who separated in pursuit. The war now divided, both
+wings of the broken Hurons seeking protection in the woods again, hotly
+pressed by the victorious warriors of the Lenape. A minute might have
+passed, but the sounds were already receding in different directions,
+and gradually losing their distinctness beneath the echoing arches of
+the woods. One little knot of Hurons, however, had disdained to seek a
+cover, and were retiring, like lions at bay, slowly and sullenly up the
+acclivity which Chingachgook and his band had just deserted, to mingle
+more closely in the fray. Magua was conspicuous in this party, both by
+his fierce and savage mien, and by the air of haughty authority he yet
+maintained.</p>
+
+<p>In his eagerness to expedite the pursuit, Uncas had left himself nearly
+alone; but the moment his eyes caught the figure of Le Subtil, every
+other consideration was forgotten. Raising his cry of battle, which
+recalled some six or seven warriors, and reckless of the disparity of
+their numbers, he rushed upon his enemy. Le Renard, who watched the
+movement, paused to receive him with secret joy. But at the moment when
+he thought the rashness of his impetuous young assailant had left him at
+his mercy, another shout was given, and La Longue Carabine was seen
+rushing to the rescue, attended by all his white associates. The Huron
+instantly turned, and commenced a rapid retreat up the ascent.</p>
+
+<p>There was no time for greetings or congratulations; for Uncas, though
+unconscious of the presence of his friends, continued the pursuit with
+the velocity of the wind. In vain Hawkeye called to him to respect the
+covers; the young Mohican braved the dangerous fire of his enemies, and
+soon compelled them to a flight as swift as his own headlong speed. It
+was fortunate that the race was of short continuance, and that the white
+men were much favored by their position, or the Delaware would soon have
+outstripped all his companions, and fallen a victim to his own temerity.
+But ere such a calamity could happen, the pursuers and pursued entered
+the Wyandot village, within striking distance of each other.</p>
+
+<p>Excited by the presence of their dwellings, and tired of the chase, the
+Hurons now made a stand, and fought around their council-lodge with the
+fury of despair. The onset and the issue were like the passage and
+destruction of a whirlwind. The tomahawk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> of Uncas, the blows of
+Hawkeye, and even the still nervous arm of Munro, were all busy for that
+passing moment, and the ground was quickly strewed with their enemies.
+Still Magua, though daring and much exposed, escaped from every effort
+against his life, with that sort of fabled protection that was made to
+overlook the fortunes of favored heroes in the legends of ancient
+poetry. Raising a yell that spoke volumes of anger and disappointment,
+the subtle chief, when he saw his comrades fallen, darted away from the
+place, attended by his two only surviving friends, leaving the Delawares
+engaged in stripping the dead of the bloody trophies of their victory.</p>
+
+<p>But Uncas, who had vainly sought him in the <i>m&eacute;l&eacute;e</i> bounded forward in
+pursuit; Hawkeye, Heyward, and David still pressing on his footsteps.
+The utmost that the scout could effect, was to keep the muzzle of his
+rifle a little in advance of his friend, to whom, however, it answered
+every purpose of a charmed shield. Once Magua appeared disposed to make
+another and a final effort to revenge his losses; but, abandoning his
+intention as soon as demonstrated, he leaped into a thicket of bushes,
+through which he was followed by his enemies, and suddenly entered the
+mouth of the cave already known to the reader. Hawkeye, who had only
+forborne to fire in tenderness to Uncas, raised a shout of success, and
+proclaimed aloud, that now they were certain of their game. The pursuers
+dashed into the long and narrow entrance, in time to catch a glimpse of
+the retreating forms of the Hurons. Their passage through the natural
+galleries and subterraneous apartments of the cavern was preceded by the
+shrieks and cries of hundreds of women and children. The place, seen by
+its dim and uncertain light, appeared like the shades of the infernal
+regions, across which unhappy ghosts and savage demons were flitting in
+multitudes.</p>
+
+<p>Still Uncas kept his eye on Magua, as if life to him possessed but a
+single object. Heyward and the scout still pressed on his rear,
+actuated, though possibly in a less degree, by a common feeling. But
+their way was becoming intricate, in those dark and gloomy passages, and
+the glimpses of the retiring warriors less distinct and frequent; and
+for a moment the trace was believed to be lost, when a white robe was
+seen fluttering in the farther extremity of a passage that seemed to
+lead up the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis Cora!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice in which horror and delight
+were wildly mingled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p><p>"Cora! Cora!" echoed Uncas, bending forward like a deer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the maiden!" shouted the scout, "Courage, lady; we come!&mdash;we
+come!"</p>
+
+<p>The chase was renewed with a diligence rendered tenfold encouraging by
+this glimpse of the captive. But the way was rugged, broken, and in
+spots nearly impassable. Uncas abandoned his rifle, and leaped forward
+with headlong precipitation. Heyward rashly imitated his example, though
+both were, a moment afterwards, admonished of its madness, by hearing
+the bellowing of a piece, that the Hurons found time to discharge down
+the passage in the rocks, the bullet from which even gave the young
+Mohican a slight wound.</p>
+
+<p>"We must close!" said the scout, passing his friends by a desperate
+leap; "the knaves will pick us all off at this distance; and see, they
+hold the maiden so as to shield themselves!"</p>
+
+<p>Though his words were unheeded, or rather unheard, his example was
+followed by his companions, who, by incredible exertions, got near
+enough to the fugitives to perceive that Cora was borne along between
+the two warriors, while Magua prescribed the direction and manner of
+their flight. At this moment the forms of all four were strongly drawn
+against an opening in the sky, and they disappeared. Nearly frantic with
+disappointment, Uncas and Heyward increased efforts that already seemed
+super-human, and they issued from the cavern on the side of the
+mountain, in time to note the route of the pursued. The course lay up
+the ascent, and still continued hazardous and laborious.</p>
+
+<p>Encumbered by his rifle, and, perhaps, not sustained by so deep an
+interest in the captive as his companions, the scout suffered the latter
+to precede him a little, Uncas, in his turn, taking the lead of Heyward.
+In this manner, rocks, precipices, and difficulties were surmounted in
+an incredibly short space, that at another time, and under other
+circumstances, would have been deemed almost insuperable. But the
+impetuous young men were rewarded, by finding that, encumbered with
+Cora, the Hurons were losing ground in the race.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay, dog of the Wyandots!" exclaimed Uncas, shaking his bright
+tomahawk at Magua; "a Delaware girl calls stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will go no farther," cried Cora, stepping unexpectedly on a ledge of
+rocks, that overhung a deep precipice, at no great distance from the
+summit of the mountain. "Kill me if thou wilt, detestable Huron; I will
+go no farther."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p><p>The supporters of the maiden raised their ready tomahawks with the
+impious joy that fiends are thought to take in mischief, but Magua
+stayed the uplifted arms. The Huron chief, after casting the weapons he
+had wrested from his companions over the rock, drew his knife, and
+turned to his captive, with a look in which conflicting passions
+fiercely contended.</p>
+
+<p>"Woman," he said, "choose; the wigwam or the knife of Le Subtil!"</p>
+
+<p>Cora regarded him not, but dropping on her knees, she raised her eyes
+and stretched her arms towards heaven, saying, in a meek and yet
+confiding voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am thine! do with me as thou seest best!"</p>
+
+<p>"Woman," repeated Magua, hoarsely, and endeavoring in vain to catch a
+glance from her serene and beaming eye, "choose!"</p>
+
+<p>But Cora neither heard nor heeded his demand. The form of the Huron
+trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on high, but dropped it
+again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted. Once more he
+struggled with himself and lifted the keen weapon again; but just then a
+piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping
+frantically, from a fearful height, upon the ledge. Magua recoiled a
+step; and one of his assistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his
+own knife in the bosom of Cora.</p>
+
+<p>The Huron sprang like a tiger on his offending and already retreating
+countryman, but the falling form of Uncas separated the unnatural
+combatants. Diverted from his object by this interruption, and maddened
+by the murder he had just witnessed, Magua buried his weapon in the back
+of the prostrate Delaware, uttering an unearthly shout as he committed
+the dastardly deed. But Uncas arose from the blow, as the wounded
+panther turns upon his foe, and struck the murderer of Cora to his feet,
+by an effort in which the last of his failing strength was expended.
+Then, with a stern and steady look, he turned to Le Subtil, and
+indicated by the expression of his eye, all that he would do, had not
+the power deserted him. The latter seized the nerveless arm of the
+unresisting Delaware, and passed his knife into his bosom three several
+times, before his victim, still keeping his gaze riveted on his enemy
+with a look of inextinguishable scorn, fell dead at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy! mercy! Huron," cried Heyward, from above, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> tones nearly
+choked by horror; "give mercy, and thou shalt receive it!"</p>
+
+<p>Whirling the bloody knife up at the imploring youth, the victorious
+Magua uttered a cry so fierce, so wild, and yet so joyous, that it
+conveyed the sounds of savage triumph to the ears of those who fought in
+the valley, a thousand feet below. He was answered by a burst from the
+lips of the scout, whose tall person was just then seen moving swiftly
+towards him, along those dangerous crags, with steps as bold and
+reckless as if he possessed the power to move in air. But when the
+hunter reached the scene of the ruthless massacre, the ledge was
+tenanted only by the dead.</p>
+
+<p>His keen eye took a single look at the victims, and then shot its
+glances over the difficulties of the ascent in his front. A form stood
+at the brow of the mountain, on the very edge of the giddy height, with
+uplifted arms, in an awful attitude of menace. Without stopping to
+consider his person, the rifle of Hawkeye was raised; but a rock, which
+fell on the head of one of the fugitives below exposed the indignant and
+glowing countenance of the honest Gamut. Then Magua issued from a
+crevice, and stepping with calm indifference over the body of the last
+of his associates, he leaped a wide fissure, and ascended the rocks at a
+point where the arm of David could not reach him. A single bound would
+carry him to the brow of the precipice, and assure his safety. Before
+taking the leap, however, the Huron paused, and shaking his hand at the
+scout, he shouted,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The pale-faces are dogs! the Delawares women! Magua leaves them on the
+rocks, for the crows!"</p>
+
+<p>Laughing hoarsely, he made a desperate leap, and fell short of his mark;
+though his hand grasped a shrub on the verge of the height. The form of
+Hawkeye had crouched like a beast about to take its spring, and his
+frame trembled so violently with eagerness, that the muzzle of the
+half-raised rifle played like a leaf fluttering in the wind. Without
+exhausting himself with fruitless efforts, the cunning Magua suffered
+his body to drop to the length of his arms, and found a fragment for his
+feet to rest on. Then summoning all his powers, he renewed the attempt,
+and so far succeeded, as to draw his knees on the edge of the mountain.
+It was now, when the body of his enemy was most collected together, that
+the agitated weapon of the scout was drawn to his shoulder. The
+surrounding rocks themselves were not steadier than the piece became,
+for the single instant that it poured out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> its contents. The arms of the
+Huron relaxed, and his body fell back a little, while his knees still
+kept their position. Turning a relentless look on his enemy, he shook a
+hand in grim defiance. But his hold loosened, and his dark person was
+seen cutting the air with its head downwards, for a fleeting instant,
+until it glided past the fringe of shrubbery which clung to the
+mountain, in its rapid flight to destruction.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p>
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h3>
+
+<div class="chapter"><p class="noin">
+"They fought, like brave men, long and well,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They piled that ground with Moslem slain,</span><br />
+They conquered&mdash;but Bozzaris fell,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bleeding at every vein.</span><br />
+His few surviving comrades saw<br />
+His smile when rang their proud hurrah,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the red field was won;</span><br />
+Then saw in death his eyelids close<br />
+Calmly, as to a night's repose,<br />
+Like flowers at set of sun."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Halleck.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sun found the Lenape, on the succeeding day, a nation of mourners.
+The sounds of the battle were over, and they had fed fat their ancient
+grudge, and had avenged their recent quarrel with the Mengwe, by the
+destruction of a whole community. The black and murky atmosphere that
+floated around the spot where the Hurons had encamped, sufficiently
+announced, of itself, the fate of that wandering tribe; while hundreds
+of ravens, that struggled above the bleak summits of the mountains, or
+swept, in noisy flocks, across the wide ranges of the woods, furnished a
+frightful direction to the scene of the combat. In short, any eye, at
+all practised in the signs of a frontier warfare, might easily have
+traced all those unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attend
+an Indian vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners. No shouts of
+success, no songs of triumph, were heard, in rejoicings for their
+victory. The latest straggler had returned from his fell employment,
+only to strip himself of the terrific emblems of his bloody calling, and
+to join in the lamentations of his countrymen, as a stricken people.
+Pride and exultation were supplanted by humility, and the fiercest of
+human passions was already succeeded by the most profound and
+unequivocal demonstrations of grief.</p>
+
+<p>The lodges were deserted; but a broad belt of earnest faces encircled a
+spot in their vicinity, whither everything possessing life had repaired,
+and where all were now collected, in deep and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> awful silence. Though
+beings of every rank and age, of both sexes, and of all pursuits, had
+united to form this breathing wall of bodies, they were influenced by a
+single emotion. Each eye was riveted on the centre of that ring, which
+contained the objects of so much, and of so common, an interest.</p>
+
+<p>Six Delaware girls, with their long, dark, flowing tresses falling
+loosely across their bosoms, stood apart, and only gave proofs of their
+existence as they occasionally strewed sweet-scented herbs and forest
+flowers on a litter of fragrant plants, that, under a pall of Indian
+robes, supported all that now remained of the ardent, high-souled, and
+generous Cora. Her form was concealed in many wrappers of the same
+simple manufacture, and her face was shut forever from the gaze of men.
+At her feet was seated the desolate Munro. His aged head was bowed
+nearly to the earth, in compelled submission to the stroke of
+Providence; but a hidden anguish struggled about his furrowed brow, that
+was only partially concealed by the careless locks of gray that had
+fallen, neglected, on his temples. Gamut stood at his side, his meek
+head bared to the rays of the sun, while his eyes, wandering and
+concerned, seemed to be equally divided between that little volume,
+which contained so many quaint but holy maxims, and the being in whose
+behalf his soul yearned to administer consolation. Heyward was also
+nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavoring to keep down
+those sudden risings of sorrow that it required his utmost manhood to
+subdue.</p>
+
+<p>But sad and melancholy as this group may easily be imagined, it was far
+less touching than another, that occupied the opposite space of the same
+area. Seated, as in life, with his form and limbs arranged in grave and
+decent composure, Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments
+that the wealth of the tribe could furnish. Rich plumes nodded above his
+head; wampum, gorgets, bracelets, and medals, adorned his person in
+profusion; though his dull eye and vacant lineaments too strongly
+contradicted the idle tale of pride they would convey.</p>
+
+<p>Directly in front of the corpse Chingachgook was placed, without arms,
+paint, or adornment of any sort, except the bright blue blazonry of his
+race, that was indelibly impressed on his naked bosom. During the long
+period that the tribe had been thus collected, the Mohican warrior had
+kept a steady, anxious look on the cold and senseless countenance of his
+son. So riveted and intense had been that gaze, and so changeless his
+attitude,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> that a stranger might not have told the living from the dead,
+but for the occasional gleamings of a troubled spirit that shot athwart
+the dark visage of one, and the death-like calm that had forever settled
+on the lineaments of the other.</p>
+
+<p>The scout was hard by, leaning in a pensive posture on his own fatal and
+avenging weapon; while Tamenund, supported by the elders of his nation,
+occupied a high place at hand, whence he might look down on the mute and
+sorrowful assemblage of his people.</p>
+
+<p>Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the
+military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his war-horse,
+in the centre of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in
+readiness to undertake some distant journey. The vestments of the
+stranger announced him to be one who held a responsible situation near
+the person of the captain of the Canadas; and who, as it would now seem,
+finding his errand of peace frustrated by the fierce impetuosity of his
+allies, was content to become a silent and sad spectator of the fruits
+of a contest that he had arrived too late to anticipate.</p>
+
+<p>The day was drawing to the close of its first quarter, and yet had the
+multitude maintained its breathing stillness since its dawn. No sound
+louder than a stifled sob had been heard among them, nor had even a limb
+been moved throughout that long and painful period, except to perform
+the simple and touching offerings that were made, from time to time, in
+commemoration of the dead. The patience and forbearance of Indian
+fortitude could alone support such an appearance of abstraction, as
+seemed now to have turned each dark and motionless figure into stone.</p>
+
+<p>At length, the sage of the Delawares stretched forth an arm, and leaning
+on the shoulders of his attendants, he arose with an air as feeble as if
+another age had already intervened between the man who had met his
+nation the preceding day, and him who now tottered on his elevated
+stand.</p>
+
+<p>"Men of the Lenape!" he said, in hollow tones that sounded like a voice
+charged with some prophetic mission; "the face of the Manitou is behind
+a cloud! His eye is turned from you; His ears are shut; His tongue gives
+no answer. You see Him not; yet His judgments are before you. Let your
+hearts be open and your spirits tell no lie. Men of the Lenape! the face
+of the Manitou is behind a cloud."</p>
+
+<p>As this simple and yet terrible annunciation stole on the ears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> of the
+multitude, a stillness as deep and awful succeeded as if the venerated
+spirit they worshipped had uttered the words without the aid of human
+organs; and even the inanimate Uncas appeared a being of life, compared
+with the humbled and submissive throng by whom he was surrounded. As the
+immediate effect, however, gradually passed away, a low murmur of voices
+commenced a sort of chant in honor of the dead. The sounds were those of
+females, and were thrillingly soft and wailing. The words were connected
+by no regular continuation, but as one ceased another took up the
+eulogy, or lamentation, whichever it might be called, and gave vent to
+her emotions in such language as was suggested by her feelings and the
+occasion. At intervals the speaker was interrupted by general and loud
+bursts of sorrow, during which the girls around the bier of Cora plucked
+the plants and flowers blindly from her body, as if bewildered with
+grief. But, in the milder moments of their plaint, these emblems of
+purity and sweetness were cast back to their places, with every sign of
+tenderness and regret. Though rendered less connected by many and
+general interruptions and outbreakings, a translation of their language
+would have contained a regular descant, which, in substance, might have
+proved to possess a train of consecutive ideas.</p>
+
+<p>A girl, selected for the task by her rank and qualifications, commenced
+by modest allusions to the qualities of the deceased warrior,
+embellishing her expressions with those oriental images that the Indians
+have probably brought with them from the extremes of the other
+continent, and which form of themselves a link to connect the ancient
+histories of the two worlds. She called him the "panther of his tribe";
+and described him as one whose moccasin left no trail on the dews; whose
+bound was like the leap of the young fawn; whose eye was brighter than a
+star in the dark night; and whose voice, in battle, was loud as the
+thunder of the Manitou. She reminded him of the mother who bore him, and
+dwelt forcibly on the happiness she must feel in possessing such a son.
+She bade him tell her, when they met in the world of spirits, that the
+Delaware girls had shed tears above the grave of her child, and had
+called her blessed.</p>
+
+<p>Then, they who succeeded, changing their tones to a milder and still
+more tender strain, alluded, with the delicacy and sensitiveness of
+woman, to the stranger maiden, who had left the upper earth at a time so
+near his own departure, as to render the will of the Great Spirit too
+manifest to be disregarded. They admonished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> him to be kind to her, and
+to have consideration for her ignorance of those arts which were so
+necessary to the comfort of a warrior like himself. They dwelt upon her
+matchless beauty, and on her noble resolution, without the taint of
+envy, and as angels may be thought to delight in a superior excellence;
+adding, that these endowments should prove more than equivalent for any
+little imperfections in her education.</p>
+
+<p>After which, others again, in due succession, spoke to the maiden
+herself, in the low, soft language of tenderness and love. They exhorted
+her to be of cheerful mind, and to fear nothing for future welfare. A
+hunter would be her companion, who knew how to provide for her smallest
+wants; and a warrior was at her side who was able to protect her against
+every danger. They promised that her path should be pleasant, and her
+burden light. They cautioned her against unavailing regrets for the
+friends of her youth, and the scenes where her fathers had dwelt;
+assuring her that the "blessed hunting-grounds of the Lenape" contained
+vales as pleasant, streams as pure, and flowers as sweet, as the "heaven
+of the pale-faces." They advised her to be attentive to the wants of her
+companion, and never to forget the distinction which the Manitou had so
+wisely established between them. Then, in a wild burst of their chant,
+they sang with united voices the temper of the Mohican's mind. They
+pronounced him noble, manly and generous; all that became a warrior, and
+all that a maid might love. Clothing their ideas in the most remote and
+subtle images, they betrayed, that, in the short period of their
+intercourse, they had discovered, with the intuitive perception of their
+sex, the truant disposition of his inclinations. The Delaware girls had
+found no favor in his eyes! He was of a race that had once been lords on
+the shores of the salt lake, and his wishes had led him back to a people
+who dwelt about the graves of his fathers. Why should not such a
+predilection be encouraged! That she was of a blood purer and richer
+than the rest of her nation, any eye might have seen; that she was equal
+to the dangers and daring of a life in the woods, her conduct had
+proved; and now, they added, the "wise one of the earth" had
+transplanted her to a place where she would find congenial spirits, and
+might be forever happy.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with another transition in voice and subject, allusions were made
+to the virgin who wept in the adjacent lodge. They compared her to
+flakes of snow; as pure, as white, as brilliant, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> as liable to melt
+in the fierce heats of summer, or congeal in the frosts of winter. They
+doubted not that she was lovely in the eyes of the young chief, whose
+skin and whose sorrow seemed so like her own; but, though far from
+expressing such a preference, it was evident they deemed her less
+excellent than the maid they mourned. Still they denied her no meed her
+rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the
+exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of the
+heavens, and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun,
+was admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.</p>
+
+<p>During these and similar songs nothing was audible but the murmurs of
+the music; relieved, as it was, or rather rendered terrible, by those
+occasional bursts of grief which might be called its choruses. The
+Delawares themselves listened like charmed men; and it was very
+apparent, by the variations of their speaking countenances, how deep and
+true was their sympathy. Even David was not reluctant to lend his ears
+to tones of voices so sweet; and long ere the chant was ended, his gaze
+announced that his soul was enthralled.</p>
+
+<p>The scout, to whom alone, of all the white men, the words were
+intelligible, suffered himself to be a little aroused from his
+meditative posture, and bent his face aside, to catch their meaning, as
+the girls proceeded. But when they spoke of the future prospects of Cora
+and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their
+simple creed, and resuming his reclining attitude, he maintained it
+until the ceremony&mdash;if that might be called a ceremony, in which feeling
+was so deeply imbued&mdash;was finished. Happily for the self-command of both
+Heyward and Munro, they knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook was a solitary exception to the interest manifested by the
+native part of the audience. His look never changed throughout the whole
+of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at
+the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and
+senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but
+that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their
+final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now
+about to be closed forever from his view.</p>
+
+<p>In this stage of the funeral obsequies, a warrior much renowned for
+deeds in arms, and more especially for services in the recent combat, a
+man of stern and grave demeanor, advanced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> slowly from the crowd, and
+placed himself nigh the person of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?" he said, addressing
+himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
+faculties of the animated man; "thy time has been like that of the sun
+when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
+art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
+briers from thy path to the world of spirits. Who that saw thee in
+battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
+shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
+eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and thy
+voice like the Manitou when he speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
+Uttawa is weak," he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
+"and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
+left us?"</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by others, in due order, until most of the high and
+gifted men of the nation had sung or spoken their tribute of praise over
+the <i>manes</i> of the deceased chief. When each had ended, another deep and
+breathing silence reigned in all the place.</p>
+
+<p>Then a low, deep sound was heard, like the suppressed accompaniment of
+distant music, rising just high enough on the air to be audible, and yet
+so indistinctly, as to leave its character, and the place whence it
+proceeded, alike matters of conjecture. It was, however, succeeded by
+another and another strain, each in a higher key, until they grew on the
+ear, first in long drawn and often repeated interjections, and finally
+in words. The lips of Chingachgook had so far parted, as to announce
+that it was the monody of the father. Though not an eye was turned
+towards him, nor the smallest sign of impatience exhibited, it was
+apparent, by the manner in which the multitude elevated their heads to
+listen, that they drank in the sounds with an intenseness of attention,
+that none but Tamenund himself had ever before commanded. But they
+listened in vain. The strains rose just so loud as to become
+intelligible, and then grew fainter and more trembling, until they
+finally sank on the ear, as if borne away by a passing breath of wind.
+The lips of the Sagamore closed, and he remained silent in his seat,
+looking, with his riveted eye and motionless form, like some creature
+that had been turned from the Almighty hand with the form but without
+the spirit of a man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> The Delawares, who knew by these symptoms that the
+mind of their friend was not prepared for so mighty an effort of
+fortitude, relaxed in their attention; and, with an innate delicacy,
+seemed to bestow all their thoughts on the obsequies of the stranger
+maiden.</p>
+
+<p>A signal was given, by one of the elder chiefs, to the women who crowded
+that part of the circle near which the body of Cora lay. Obedient to the
+sign, the girls raised the bier to the elevation of their heads, and
+advanced with slow and regulated steps, chanting, as they proceeded,
+another wailing song in praise of the deceased. Gamut, who had been a
+close observer of rites he deemed so heathenish, now bent his head over
+the shoulder of the unconscious father, whispering,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They move with the remains of thy child; shall we not follow, and see
+them interred with Christian burial?"</p>
+
+<p>Munro started, as if the last trumpet had sounded in his ear, and
+bestowing one anxious and hurried glance around him, he arose and
+followed in the simple train, with the mien of a soldier, but bearing
+the full burden of a parent's suffering. His friends pressed around him
+with a sorrow that was too strong to be termed sympathy&mdash;even the young
+Frenchman joining in the procession, with the air of a man who was
+sensibly touched at the early and melancholy fate of one so lovely. But
+when the last and humblest female of the tribe had joined in the wild,
+and yet ordered array, the men of the Lenape contracted their circle,
+and formed again around the person of Uncas, as silent, as grave, and as
+motionless as before.</p>
+
+<p>The place which had been chosen for the grave of Cora was a little
+knoll, where a cluster of young and healthful pines had taken root,
+forming of themselves a melancholy and appropriate shade over the spot.
+On reaching it the girls deposited their burden, and continued for many
+minutes waiting, with characteristic patience, and native timidity, for
+some evidence that they whose feelings were most concerned were content
+with the arrangement. At length the scout, who alone understood their
+habits, said, in their own language,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My daughters have done well; the white men thank them."</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied with this testimony in their favor, the girls proceeded to
+deposit the body in a shell, ingeniously, and not inelegantly,
+fabricated of the bark of the birch; after which they lowered it into
+its dark and final abode. The ceremony of covering the remains, and
+concealing the marks of the fresh earth, by leaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> and other natural
+and customary objects, was conducted with the same simple and silent
+forms. But when the labors of the kind beings who had performed these
+sad and friendly offices were so far completed, they hesitated, in a way
+to show that they knew not how much further they might proceed. It was
+in this stage of the rites that the scout again addressed them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My young women have done enough," he said; "the spirit of a pale-face
+has no need of food or raiment, their gifts being according to the
+heaven of their color. I see," he added, glancing an eye at David, who
+was preparing his book in a manner that indicated an intention to lead
+the way in sacred song, "that one who better knows the Christian
+fashions is about to speak."</p>
+
+<p>The females stood modestly aside, and, from having been the principal
+actors in the scene, they now became the meek and attentive observers of
+that which followed. During the time David was occupied in pouring out
+the pious feelings of his spirit in this manner, not a sign of surprise,
+nor a look of impatience, escaped them. They listened like those who
+knew the meaning of the strange words, and appeared as if they felt the
+mingled emotions of sorrow, hope, and resignation, they were intended to
+convey.</p>
+
+<p>Excited by the scene he had just witnessed, and perhaps influenced by
+his own secret emotions, the master of song exceeded his usual efforts.
+His full, rich voice was not found to suffer by a comparison with the
+soft tones of the girls; and his more modulated strains possessed, at
+least for the ears of those to whom they were peculiarly addressed, the
+additional power of intelligence. He ended the anthem, as he had
+commenced it, in the midst of a grave and solemn stillness.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the closing cadence had fallen on the ears of his
+auditors, the secret, timorous glances of the eyes, and the general, and
+yet subdued movement of the assemblage, betrayed that something was
+expected from the father of the deceased. Munro seemed sensible that the
+time was come for him to exert what is, perhaps, the greatest effort of
+which human nature is capable. He bared his gray locks, and looked
+around the timid and quiet throng by which he was encircled with a firm
+and collected countenance. Then motioning with his hand for the scout to
+listen, he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Say to these kind and gentle females, that a heartbroken and failing
+man returns them his thanks. Tell them, that the Being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> we all worship,
+under different names, will be mindful of their charity; and that the
+time shall not be distant when we may assemble around his throne without
+distinction of sex, or rank, or color."</p>
+
+<p>The scout listened to the tremulous voice in which the veteran delivered
+these words, and shook his head slowly when they were ended, as one who
+doubted their efficacy.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell them this," he said, "would be to tell them that the snows come
+not in the winter, or that the sun shines fiercest when the trees are
+stripped of their leaves."</p>
+
+<p>Then turning to the women, he made such a communication of the other's
+gratitude as he deemed most suited to the capacities of his listeners.
+The head of Munro had already sunk upon his chest, and he was again fast
+relapsing into melancholy, when the young Frenchman before named
+ventured to touch him lightly on the elbow. As soon as he had gained the
+attention of the mourning old man, he pointed towards a group of young
+Indians, who approached with a light but closely covered litter, and
+then pointed upward towards the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand you, sir," returned Munro, with a voice of forced
+firmness; "I understand you. It is the will of Heaven, and I submit.
+Cora, my child! if the prayers of a heartbroken father could avail thee
+now, how blessed shouldst thou be! Come, gentlemen," he added, looking
+about him with an air of lofty composure, though the anguish that
+quivered in his faded countenance was far too powerful to be concealed,
+"our duty here is ended; let us depart."</p>
+
+<p>Heyward gladly obeyed a summons that took them from a spot where, each
+instant, he felt his self-control was about to desert him. While his
+companions were mounting, however, he found time to press the hand of
+the scout, and to repeat the terms of an engagement they had made, to
+meet again within the posts of the British army. Then gladly throwing
+himself into the saddle, he spurred his charger to the side of the
+litter, whence low and stifled sobs alone announced the presence of
+Alice. In this manner, the head of Munro again dropping on his bosom,
+with Heyward and David following in sorrowing silence, and attended by
+the aide of Montcalm with his guard, all the white men, with the
+exception of Hawkeye, passed from before the eyes of the Delawares, and
+were soon buried in the vast forests of that region.</p>
+
+<p>But the tie which, through their common calamity, had united<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> the
+feelings of these simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who
+had thus transiently visited them, was not so easily broken. Years
+passed away before the traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the
+young warrior of the Mohicans, ceased to beguile the long nights and
+tedious marches, or to animate their youthful and brave with a desire
+for vengeance. Neither were the secondary actors in these momentous
+incidents forgotten. Through the medium of the scout, who served for
+years afterwards as a link between them and civilized life, they
+learned, in answer to their inquiries, that the "Gray Head" was speedily
+gathered to his fathers&mdash;borne down, as was erroneously believed, by his
+military misfortunes; and that the "Open Hand" had conveyed his
+surviving daughter far into the settlements of the "pale-faces," where
+her tears had at last ceased to flow, and had been succeeded by the
+bright smiles which were better suited to her joyous nature.</p>
+
+<p>But these were events of a time later than that which concerns our tale.
+Deserted by all of his color, Hawkeye returned to the spot where his own
+sympathies led him, with a force that no ideal bond of union could
+bestow. He was just in time to catch a parting look of the features of
+Uncas, whom the Delawares were already inclosing in his last vestments
+of skins. They paused to permit the longing and lingering gaze of the
+sturdy woodsman, and when it was ended, the body was enveloped, never to
+be unclosed again. Then came a procession like the other, and the whole
+nation was collected about the temporary grave of the chief&mdash;temporary,
+because it was proper that, at some future day, his bones should rest
+among those of his own people.</p>
+
+<p>The movement, like the feeling, had been simultaneous and general. The
+same grave expression of grief, the same rigid silence, and the same
+deference to the principal mourner, were observed around the place of
+interment as have been already described. The body was deposited in an
+attitude of repose, facing the rising sun, with the implements of war
+and of the chase at hand, in readiness for the final journey. An opening
+was left in the shell, by which it was protected from the soil, for the
+spirit to communicate with its earthly tenement, when necessary; and the
+whole was concealed from the instinct, and protected from the ravages of
+the beasts of prey, with an ingenuity peculiar to the natives. The
+manual rites then ceased, and all present reverted to the more spiritual
+part of the ceremonies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p><p>Chingachgook became once more the object of the common attention. He
+had not yet spoken, and something consolatory and instructive was
+expected from so renowned a chief on an occasion of such interest.
+Conscious of the wishes of the people, the stern and self-restrained
+warrior raised his face, which had latterly been buried in his robe, and
+looked about him with a steady eye. His firmly compressed and expressive
+lips then severed, and for the first time during the long ceremonies his
+voice was distinctly audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do my brothers mourn!" he said, regarding the dark race of dejected
+warriors by whom he was environed; "why do my daughters weep! that a
+young man has gone to the happy hunting-grounds; that a chief has filled
+his time with honor! He was good; he was dutiful; he was brave. Who can
+deny it? The Manitou had need of such a warrior, and He has called him
+away. As for me, the son and the father of Uncas, I am a blazed pine, in
+a clearing of the pale-faces. My race has gone from the shores of the
+salt lake, and the hills of the Delawares. But who can say that the
+Serpent of his tribe has forgotten his wisdom? I am alone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," cried Hawkeye, who had been gazing with a yearning look at the
+rigid features of his friend, with something like his own self-command,
+but whose philosophy could endure no longer; "no, Sagamore, not alone.
+The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to
+journey in the same path. I have no kin, and I may also say, like you,
+no people. He was your son, and a redskin by nature; and it may be that
+your blood was nearer&mdash;but if ever I forget the lad who has so often
+fou't at my side in war, and slept at my side in peace, may He who made
+us all, whatever may be our color or our gifts, forget me! The boy has
+left us for a time; but, Sagamore, you are not alone."</p>
+
+<p>Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout
+had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship
+these two sturdy and intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while
+scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like
+drops of falling rain.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the awful stillness with which such a burst of feeling,
+coming, as it did, from the two most renowned warriors of that region,
+was received, Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the multitude.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p><p>"It is enough," he said. "Go, children of the Lenape, the anger of the
+Manitou is not done. Why should Tamenund stay? The pale-faces are
+masters of the earth, and the time of the redmen has not yet come again.
+My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy
+and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the
+last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans."</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> As each nation of the Indians had either its language or
+its dialect, they usually gave different names to the same places,
+though nearly all of their appellations were descriptive of the object.
+Thus, a literal translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of
+water, used by the tribe that dwelt on its banks would be "The Tail of
+the Lake." Lake George, as it is vulgarly, and now indeed legally
+called, forms a sort of tail to Lake Champlain, when viewed on the map.
+Hence the name.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Washington: who, after uselessly admonishing the European
+general of the danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the
+remnants of the British army, on this occasion, by his decision and
+courage. The reputation earned by Washington in this battle was the
+principal cause of his being selected to command the American armies at
+a later day. It is a circumstance worthy of observation, that, while all
+America rang with his well-merited reputation, his name does not occur
+in any European account of the battle; at least, the author has searched
+for it without success. In this manner does the mother country absorb
+even the fame, under that system of rule.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> There existed for a long time a confederation among the
+Indian tribes which occupied the northwestern part of the colony of New
+York, which was at first known as the "Five Nations." At a later day it
+admitted another tribe, when the appellation was changed to that of the
+"Six Nations." The original confederation consisted of the Mohawks, the
+Oneidas, the Senecas, the Cayugas, and the Onondagas. The sixth tribe
+was the Tuscaroras. There are remnants of all these people still living
+on lands secured to them by the State; but they are daily disappearing,
+either by deaths or by removals to scenes more congenial to their
+habits. In a short time there will be no remains of these extraordinary
+people, in those regions in which they dwelt for centuries, but their
+names. The State of New York has counties named after all of them but
+the Mohawks and the Tuscaroras. The second river of that State is called
+the Mohawk.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> In the State of Rhode Island there is a bay called
+Narragansett, so named after a powerful tribe of Indians, which formerly
+dwelt on its banks. Accident, or one of those unaccountable freaks which
+nature sometimes plays in the animal world, gave rise to a breed of
+horses which were once well known in America by the name of the
+Narragansetts. They were small, commonly of the color called sorrel in
+America, and distinguished by their habit of pacing. Horses of this race
+were, and are still, in much request as saddle-horses, on account of
+their hardiness and the ease of their movements. As they were also sure
+of foot, the Narragansetts were greatly sought for by females who were
+obliged to travel over the roots and holes in the "new countries."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The North American warrior caused the hair to be plucked
+from his whole body; a small tuft, only, was left on the crown of his
+head in order that his enemy might avail himself of it, in wrenching off
+the scalp in the event of his fall. The scalp was the only admissible
+trophy of victory. Thus, it was deemed more important to obtain the
+scalp than to kill the man. Some tribes lay great stress on the honor of
+striking a dead body. These practices have nearly disappeared among the
+Indians of the Atlantic States.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The hunting-shirt is a picturesque smock frock, being
+shorter, and ornamented with fringes and tassels. The colors are
+intended to imitate the hues of the wood with a view to concealment.
+Many corps of American riflemen have been thus attired; and the dress is
+one of the most striking of modern times. The hunting-shirt is
+frequently white.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The rifle of the army is short; that of the hunter is
+always long.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The Mississippi. The scout alludes to a tradition which is
+very popular among the tribes of the Atlantic States. Evidence of their
+Asiatic origin is deduced from the circumstances, though great
+uncertainty hangs over the whole history of the Indians.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The scene of this tale was in the 42d degree of latitude,
+where the twilight is never of long continuance.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The reader will remember that New York was originally a
+colony of the Dutch.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The principal villages of the Indians are still called
+"castles" by the whites of New York. "Oneida castle" is no more than a
+scattered hamlet; but the name is in general use.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> In vulgar parlance the condiments of a repast are called
+by the American "a relish," substituting the thing for its effect. These
+provincial terms are frequently put in the mouths of the speakers,
+according to their several conditions in life. Most of them are of local
+use, and others quite peculiar to the particular class of men to which
+the character belongs. In the present instance, the scout uses the word
+with immediate reference to the salt, with which his own party was so
+fortunate as to be provided.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Glenn's Falls are on the Hudson, some forty or fifty miles
+above the head of tide, or the place where that river becomes navigable
+for sloops. The description of this picturesque and remarkable little
+cataract, as given by the scout, is sufficiently correct, though the
+application of the water to the uses of civilized life has materially
+injured its beauties. The rocky island and the two caverns are well
+known to every traveller, since the former sustains a pier of a bridge,
+which is now thrown across the river, immediately above the fall. In
+explanation of the taste of Hawkeye, it should be remembered that men
+always prize that most which is least enjoyed. Thus, in a new country,
+the woods and other objects, which in an old country would be maintained
+at great cost, are got rid of, simply with a view of "improving," as it
+is called.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The meaning of Indian words is much governed by the
+emphasis and tones.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Mingo was the Delaware term for the Five Nations. Maquas
+was the name given them by the Dutch. The French, from their first
+intercourse with them, called them Iroquois.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> It has long been a practice with the whites to conciliate
+the important men of the Indians, by presenting medals, which are worn
+in the place of their own rude ornaments. Those given by the English
+generally bear the impression of the reigning king, and those given by
+the Americans that of the president.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Many of the animals of the American forests resort to
+those spots where salt springs are found. These are called "licks" or
+"salt licks," in the language of the country, from the circumstance that
+the quadruped is often obliged to lick the earth, in order to obtain the
+saline particles. These licks are great places of resort with the
+hunters, who waylay their game near the paths that lead to them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where
+the village of Ballston now stands; one of the two principal
+watering-places of America.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Some years since, the writer was shooting in the vicinity
+of the ruins of Fort Oswego, which stands on the shores of Lake Ontario.
+His game was deer, and his chase a forest that stretched with little
+interruption, fifty miles inland. Unexpectedly he came upon six or eight
+ladders lying in the woods within a short distance of each other. They
+were rudely made, and much decayed. Wondering what could have assembled
+so many of these instruments in such a place, he sought an old man who
+resided near for the explanation.
+</p><p>
+During the war of 1776 Fort Oswego was held by the British. An
+expedition had been sent two hundred miles through the wilderness to
+surprise the fort. It appears that the Americans, on reaching the spot
+named, which was within a mile or two of the fort, first learned that
+they were expected, and in great danger of being cut off. They threw
+away their scaling-ladders, and made a rapid retreat. These ladders had
+lain unmolested thirty years, in the spot where they had thus been
+cast.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Baron Dieskau, a German, in the service of France. A few
+years previous to the period of the tale, this officer was defeated by
+Sir William Johnson of Johnstown, New York, on the shores of Lake
+George. See Appendix, Note H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of
+New York in 1828.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The powers of the American mocking-bird are generally
+known. But the true mocking-bird is not found so far north as the State
+of New York, where it has, however, two substitutes of inferior
+excellence; the catbird, so often named by the scout, and the bird
+vulgarly called ground-thresher. Either of these two last birds is
+superior to the nightingale, or the lark, though, in general, the
+American birds are less musical than those of Europe.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The beauties of Lake George are well known to every
+American tourist. In the height of the mountains which surround it, and
+in artificial accessories, it is inferior to the finest of the Swiss and
+Italian lakes, while in outline and purity of water it is fully their
+equal; and in the number and disposition of its isles and islets much
+superior to them all together. There are said to be some hundreds of
+islands in a sheet of water less than thirty miles long. The narrows
+which connect what may be called, in truth, two lakes, are crowded with
+islands to such a degree as to leave passages between them frequently of
+only a few feet in width. The lake itself varies in breadth from one to
+three miles.
+</p><p>
+The State of New York is remarkable for the number and beauty of its
+lakes. One of its frontiers lies on the vast sheet of Ontario, while
+Champlain stretches nearly a hundred miles along another. Oneida,
+Cayuga, Canandaigua, Seneca, and George, are all lakes of thirty miles
+in length, while those of a size smaller are without number. On most of
+these lakes there are now beautiful villages, and on many of them
+steamboats.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> These harangues of the beasts are frequent among the
+Indians. They often address their victims in this way, reproaching them
+for cowardice, or commending their resolution, as they may happen to
+exhibit fortitude, or the reverse in suffering.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> A dish composed of cracked corn and beans. It is much used
+also by the whites. By corn is meant maize.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> William Penn was termed Minquon by the Delawares, and, as
+he never used violence or injustice in his dealings with them, his
+reputation for probity passed into a proverb. The American is justly
+proud of the origin of his nation, which is perhaps unequalled in the
+history of the world; but the Pennsylvanian and Jerseyman have more
+reason to value themselves in their ancestors than the natives of any
+other State, since no wrong was done the original owners of the soil.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Turtle.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> A tree which has been partially or entirely stripped of
+its bark is said, in the language of the country, to be "blazed." The
+term is strictly English; for a horse is said to be blazed when it has a
+white mark.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The American forest admits of the passage of horse, there
+being little underbush, and few tangled brakes. The plan of Hawkeye is
+the one which has always proved the most successful in the battles
+between the whites and the Indians. Wayne, in his celebrated campaign on
+the Miami, received the fire of his enemies in line; and then causing
+his dragoons to wheel round his flanks, the Indians were driven from
+their covers before they had time to load. One of the most conspicuous
+of the chiefs who fought in the battle of Miami assured the writer, that
+the redmen could not fight the warriors with "long knives and
+leather-stockings"; meaning the dragoons with their sabres and boots.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><br /><br />
+<img src="images/endpaper.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="End Pages (Illustration)" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
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+Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Last of the Mohicans
+       A Narrative of 1757
+
+Author: James Fenimore Cooper
+
+Illustrator: N. C. Wyeth
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2009 [EBook #27681]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Greg Bergquist and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
+preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+ _The_ LAST _of the_ MOHICANS
+
+ A NARRATIVE OF 1757
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ _by_ JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
+
+ _Illustrated by_ N.C. Wyeth
+
+
+ "_Mislike me not for my complexion,
+ The shadowed livery of the burnished sun._"
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+ 1933
+
+ _Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                  FACING PAGE
+
+ UNCAS SLAYS A DEER                        26
+
+ Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to
+ his side, and passed his knife across the throat
+
+ THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS                 66
+
+ Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that effort,
+ and the result was, that both tottered on the brink of the
+ precipice
+
+ THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST                  114
+
+ The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception
+ of the protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le
+ Gros Serpent
+
+ THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS              166
+
+ As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm moved
+ towards them with a quick but graceful step, baring his head
+ to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly to the
+ earth in courtesy
+
+ THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE               214
+
+ The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were
+ sufficient of themselves to maintain the requisite distance,
+ deliberately laid aside his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle
+
+ THE TERMAGANT                            250
+
+ Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth her
+ long skinny arm, in derision
+
+ THE MASQUERADER                          268
+
+ The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the
+ honest, sturdy countenance of the scout
+
+ THE LOVERS                               278
+
+ Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the
+ distant village of the Delawares
+
+ THE SUPPLICANT                           320
+
+ Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched
+ in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a
+ beauteous and breathing model of her sex
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  "Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:
+  The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:
+  Say, is my kingdom lost?"
+
+  SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that
+the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before
+the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious
+boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
+France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who
+fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the
+rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
+mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
+martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the
+practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
+and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so
+dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from
+the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their
+vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant
+monarchs of Europe.
+
+Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate
+frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness
+of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies
+between the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.
+
+The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the
+combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the
+Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the
+borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural
+passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to
+master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,
+it received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so
+limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries
+to perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the
+title of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought
+they conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they
+bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of
+Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded
+scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of
+"Horican."[1]
+
+Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the
+"holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With
+the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of
+the water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the
+adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual
+obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the
+language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
+
+While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
+enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges
+of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial
+acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we
+have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which
+most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.
+Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities
+of the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory
+alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from
+the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient
+settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the
+sceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these
+forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
+haggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were
+unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its
+shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes
+of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of
+many a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the
+noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
+
+It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
+attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which
+England and France last waged for the possession of a country that
+neither was destined to retain.
+
+The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of
+energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
+Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed, by the
+talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer
+dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of
+self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though
+innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her
+blunders, were but the natural participators.
+
+They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which,
+reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army
+led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors,
+for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of
+French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and
+spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself,
+with the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of
+Christendom.[2] A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected
+disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand
+fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the
+yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
+from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of
+their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of
+warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their
+recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
+have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of
+midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal
+and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveller related the
+hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled
+with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children
+which slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the
+magnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of
+reason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood,
+the slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the
+stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming
+doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who
+thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America
+subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
+relentless allies.
+
+When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered
+the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the
+lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army
+"numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more
+of the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior
+should feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had
+been brought, towards the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian
+runner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of a
+work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful
+reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between
+these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which
+originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the
+passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the
+son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
+of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting
+of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to
+one of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the
+other that of Fort Edward; calling each after a favorite prince of the
+reigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a
+regiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far too
+small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was
+leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay
+General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern
+provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the
+several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
+nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising
+Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army
+but little superior in numbers.
+
+But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and
+men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable
+antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their
+march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du
+Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance.
+
+After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a
+rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the
+margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the
+fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to
+depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern
+extremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor, soon
+became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the
+commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
+service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the
+intention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps
+and anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from
+point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his
+violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practised veteran
+made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance
+of haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently
+betrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the as yet
+untried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in
+a flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew
+its veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished;
+the last light finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer;
+the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling
+stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which
+reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.
+
+According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the
+army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling
+echoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista
+of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall
+pines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and cloudless
+eastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest
+soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his
+comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The
+simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
+and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right
+of the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position
+on its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The
+scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering
+vehicles that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning
+was mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants
+wheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high
+military bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of
+many a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While
+in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered
+array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter in
+distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass
+which had slowly entered its bosom.
+
+The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be
+borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had
+already disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of
+another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and
+accommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,
+who were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot
+were gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which
+showed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females,
+of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the
+country. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff;
+while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling
+mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the
+reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the
+pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this
+unusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some
+admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and
+others gazing at the preparations, with dull wonder of vulgar curiosity.
+There was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions, formed
+a marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,
+being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.
+
+The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without
+being in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints
+of other men, without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature
+surpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the
+ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed
+to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders
+narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not
+delicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of
+extraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered
+tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on
+which this false superstructure of the blended human orders was so
+profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the
+individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A
+sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long
+thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of
+the evil disposed. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely
+fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of
+white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and
+shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the
+costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of
+which was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,
+through the vanity or simplicity of its owner. From beneath the flap of
+an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk, heavily ornamented
+with tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which, from being
+seen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for some
+mischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon
+engine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp,
+though several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only
+without fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked
+hat, like those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years,
+surmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat
+vacant countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to
+support the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.
+
+While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb,
+the figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics,
+freely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the
+horses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.
+
+"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
+from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the
+blue water?" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and
+sweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: "I
+may speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at
+both havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named
+after the capital of Old England, and that which is called 'Haven,' with
+the addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the snows and brigantines
+collecting their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward
+bound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in
+four-footed animals; but never before have I beheld a beast which
+verified the true Scripture war-horse like this: 'He paweth in the
+valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed
+men. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle
+afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.' It would seem
+that the stock of the horse of Israel has descended to our own time;
+would it not, friend?"
+
+Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it
+was delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some
+sort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book
+turned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed
+himself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in the
+object that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still, upright,
+and rigid form of the "Indian runner," who had borne to the camp the
+unwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a state of
+perfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with characteristic
+stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a sullen
+fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to
+arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now
+scanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk
+and knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that
+of a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his
+person, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent
+exertion, which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The colors of
+the war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce
+countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and
+repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus
+produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star
+amid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness.
+For a single instant, his searching and yet wary glance met the
+wondering look of the other, and then changing its direction, partly in
+cunning, and partly in disdain, it remained fixed, as if penetrating the
+distant air.
+
+It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
+communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from
+the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other
+objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of
+gentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was
+wanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the
+war-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that
+was unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by; where,
+leaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology for a
+saddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was quietly
+making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same animal.
+
+A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two
+females, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to
+encounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the
+most juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted
+glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue
+eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow
+aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. The flush
+which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more
+bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day
+more cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth,
+as he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share
+equally in the attentions of the young officer, concealed her charms
+from the gaze of the soldiery, with a care that seemed better fitted to
+the experience of four or five additional years. It could be seen,
+however, that her person, though moulded with the same exquisite
+proportions, of which none of the graces were lost by the travelling
+dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than that of her
+companion.
+
+No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly
+into the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb,
+who, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin,
+and turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble,
+followed by their train, towards the northern entrance of the
+encampment. As they traversed that short distance, not a voice was
+heard amongst them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger
+of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and
+led the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and
+startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in
+the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed
+an indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye
+followed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were
+shining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not
+brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,
+that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither
+coarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely
+regular and dignified, and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in
+pity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of
+teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil,
+she bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were
+abstracted from the scene around her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  "Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!"
+
+  SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+While one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the
+reader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the
+alarm which induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness,
+she inquired of the youth who rode by her side,--
+
+"Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an
+especial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must
+close our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to
+draw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even
+before we are made to encounter the redoubtable Montcalm."
+
+"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his
+people, he may be accounted a hero," returned the officer. "He has
+volunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known, sooner
+than if we followed the tardy movements of the column: and, by
+consequence, more agreeably."
+
+"I like him not," said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more
+in real terror. "You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself
+so freely to his keeping?"
+
+"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he
+would not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He is
+said to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the
+Mohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations.[3] He was
+brought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which
+your father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt
+by--but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our
+friend."
+
+"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the
+now really anxious girl. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that
+I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me
+avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"
+
+"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.
+Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be
+ignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak
+it, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he
+stops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at
+hand."
+
+The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot
+where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the
+military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little
+inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.
+
+"Here, then, lies our way," said the young man, in a low voice.
+"Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to
+apprehend."
+
+"Cora, what think you?" asked the reluctant fair one. "If we journey
+with the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not
+feel better assurance of our safety?"
+
+"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you
+mistake the place of real danger," said Heyward. "If enemies have
+reached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts
+are abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps
+abound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours,
+having been determined within the hour, must still be secret."
+
+"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and
+that his skin is dark?" coldly asked Cora.
+
+Alice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett[4] a smart cut
+of the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the
+bushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The
+young man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even
+permitted her fairer though certainly not more beautiful companion to
+proceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the
+passage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the
+domestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating
+the thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which
+Heyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in
+order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian
+savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many
+minutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue;
+after which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew
+along the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark
+arches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted, and the
+instant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds,
+he moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which
+kept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode, at a fast yet easy
+amble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the
+distant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken
+way in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions
+drew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in
+order to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption.
+
+In a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, among the
+straight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the
+ungainly man described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as
+much rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without
+coming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the
+observation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any
+wandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his
+equestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention.
+Notwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the
+flanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was
+a Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward
+assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a
+loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces
+to the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the
+powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a
+true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost
+ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his
+sinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.
+
+The industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than
+those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the
+former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this
+manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and
+diminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be
+made as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in
+consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the
+mare appeared to journey faster than the other; and that the aggrieved
+flank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail,
+we finish the picture of both horse and man.
+
+The frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow
+of Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile,
+as he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to
+control her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted
+with a humor that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of
+its mistress repressed.
+
+"Seek you any here?" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived
+sufficiently nigh to abate his speed; "I trust you are no messenger of
+evil tidings?"
+
+"Even so," replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular
+castor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and
+leaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he
+responded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his
+breath, he continued, "I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am
+journeying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem
+consistent to the wishes of both parties."
+
+"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote," returned
+Heyward; "we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself."
+
+"Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once
+sure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next
+is, to act up to the decision. I have endeavored to do both, and here I
+am."
+
+"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route," said
+Heyward, haughtily; "the highway thither is at least half a mile behind
+you."
+
+"Even so," returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold
+reception; "I have tarried at 'Edward' a week, and I should be dumb not
+to have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be
+an end to my calling." After simpering in a small way, like one whose
+modesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a
+witticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he
+continued: "It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too
+familiar with those he is to instruct; for which reason I follow not the
+line of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your
+character has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have
+therefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made
+agreeable, and partake of social communion."
+
+"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!" exclaimed Heyward,
+undecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the
+other's face. "But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are
+you an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science
+of defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and
+angles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?"
+
+The stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then,
+losing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn
+humility, he answered:--
+
+"Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make
+none--by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last
+entreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about
+lines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called
+and set apart for that holy office. I lay claim to no higher gift than a
+small insight into the glorious art of petitioning and thanksgiving, as
+practised in psalmody."
+
+"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo," cried the amused
+Alice, "and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw
+aside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to
+journey in our train. Besides," she added, in a low and hurried voice,
+casting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps
+of their silent but sullen guide, "it may be a friend added to our
+strength, in time of need."
+
+"Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path,
+did I imagine such need could happen?"
+
+"Nay, nay, I think not of it now; but this strange man amuses me; and if
+he 'hath music in his soul,' let us not churlishly reject his company."
+She pointed persuasively along the path with her riding-whip, while
+their eyes met in a look which the young man lingered a moment to
+prolong; then yielding to her gentle influence, he clapped his spurs
+into his charger, and in a few bounds was again at the side of Cora.
+
+"I am glad to encounter thee, friend," continued the maiden, waving her
+hand to the stranger to proceed, as she urged her Narragansett to renew
+its amble. "Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not
+entirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by
+indulging in our favorite pursuit. It might be of signal advantage to
+one, ignorant as I, to hear the opinions and experience of a master in
+the art."
+
+"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in
+psalmody, in befitting seasons," returned the master of song,
+unhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow; "and nothing
+would relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four
+parts are altogether necessary to the perfection of melody. You have all
+the manifestations of a soft and rich treble; I can, by especial aid,
+carry a full tenor to the highest letter; but we lack counter and bass!
+Yon officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might
+fill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in
+common dialogue."
+
+"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances," said the
+lady, smiling; "though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on
+occasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow
+tenor than the bass you heard."
+
+"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?" demanded her
+simple companion.
+
+Alice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her
+merriment, ere she answered,--
+
+"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of
+a soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more
+sober inclinations."
+
+"Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and
+not to be abused. None can say they have ever known me neglect my gifts!
+I am thankful that, though my boyhood may be said to have been set
+apart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no
+syllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips."
+
+"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?"
+
+"Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the
+psalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the
+land, surpass all vain poetry. Happily, I may say that I utter nothing
+but the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for
+though the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version
+which we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other
+versions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual
+simplicity, it approacheth, as near as may be, to the great work of the
+inspired writer. I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without
+an example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition,
+promulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, _The Psalms,
+Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully
+translated into English Metre, for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of
+the Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England_."
+
+During this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the
+stranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of
+iron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and
+veneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution
+or apology, first pronouncing the word "Standish," and placing the
+unknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a
+high, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own
+voice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and
+melodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy
+motion of his ill-trained beast at defiance:--
+
+  "How good it is, O see,
+    And how it pleaseth well,
+  Together, e'en in unity,
+    For brethren so to dwell.
+  It's like the choice ointment,
+    From the head to the beard did go:
+  Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,
+    His garment's skirts unto."
+
+The delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the
+stranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which
+terminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on
+the leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish
+of the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate. It
+would seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment
+necessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had
+selected for the close of his verse, had been duly delivered like a word
+of two syllables.
+
+Such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not
+fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in
+advance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,
+who, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for
+the time, closing his musical efforts.
+
+"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey
+through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will,
+then, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting
+this gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity."
+
+"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl, "for never did
+I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that
+to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry
+into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you
+broke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!"
+
+"I know not what you call my bass," said Heyward, piqued at her remark,
+"but I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than
+could be any orchestra of Handel's music." He paused and turned his head
+quickly towards a thicket, and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their
+guide, who continued his steady pace, in undisturbed gravity. The young
+man smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining
+berry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage, and
+he rode forward, continuing the conversation which had been interrupted
+by the passing thought.
+
+Major Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous
+pride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long
+passed, before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were
+cautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage
+art and unbridled passions could make it, peered out on the retiring
+footsteps of the travellers. A gleam of exultation shot across the
+darkly painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced
+the route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward; the
+light and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the
+curvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of
+Heyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing-master was
+concealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark
+lines, in the intermediate space.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  "Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
+    Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
+  The melody of waters filled
+    The fresh and boundless wood;
+  And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,
+    And fountains spouted in the shade."
+
+  BRYANT.
+
+
+Leaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to
+penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous
+inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few
+miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.
+
+On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid
+stream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those
+who awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some
+expected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of
+the river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a
+deeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and
+the intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the
+springs and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the
+atmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy
+sultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,
+interrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy
+tap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling
+on the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.
+
+These feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the
+foresters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of
+their dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and
+wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,
+through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,
+though sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent
+from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy
+log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his
+earnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian
+engaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a
+terrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and
+black. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well
+known and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without
+ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,
+that crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk
+and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a
+short military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites
+armed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy
+knee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of
+this warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days,
+though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood.
+
+The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed
+by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and
+exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was
+rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung
+and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt
+of forest green, fringed with faded yellow[6], and a summer cap of skins
+which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of
+wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but
+no tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the
+natives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the
+hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides,
+and which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A
+pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of
+great length[7], which the theory of the more ingenious whites had
+taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a
+neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might
+be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on
+every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden
+approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual
+suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment
+at which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy
+honesty.
+
+"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook," he said,
+speaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly
+inhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac, and of which
+we shall give a free translation for the benefit of the reader;
+endeavoring, at the same time, to preserve some of the peculiarities,
+both of the individual and of the language. "Your fathers came from the
+setting sun, crossed the big river,[8] fought the people of the country,
+and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over
+the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been
+set them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends
+spare their words!"
+
+"My fathers fought with the naked redmen!" returned the Indian sternly,
+in the same language. "Is there no difference, Hawkeye, between the
+stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you
+kill?"
+
+"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red
+skin!" said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an
+appeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to
+be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again,
+he answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his
+limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who
+knows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel
+hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their
+grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head
+might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye."
+
+"You have the story told by your fathers," returned the other, coldly
+waving his hand. "What say your old men? do they tell the young
+warriors, that the pale-faces met the redmen, painted for war and armed
+with the stone hatchet and wooden gun?"
+
+"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural
+privileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an
+Iroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white," the scout replied,
+surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and
+sinewy hand; "and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of
+which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to
+write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in
+their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly
+boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for
+the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man who is
+too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the
+names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor
+feel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the
+Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must
+have been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy
+commandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I
+should be loth to answer for other people in such a matter. But every
+story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed,
+according to the traditions of the redmen, when our fathers first met?"
+
+A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then,
+full of the dignity of his office, he commenced his brief tale, with a
+solemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth.
+
+"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers
+have said, and what the Mohicans have done." He hesitated a single
+instant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he
+continued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and
+assertion, "Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer,
+until its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?"
+
+"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these
+matters," said the white man; "for I have been there, and have seen
+them; though, why water, which is so sweet in the shade, should become
+bitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to
+account."
+
+"And the current!" demanded the Indian, who expected his reply with that
+sort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at
+which he marvels even while he respects it; "the fathers of Chingachgook
+have not lied!"
+
+"The Holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in
+nature. They call this up-stream current the tide, which is a thing soon
+explained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours
+they run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the
+sea than in the river, they run in, until the river gets to be highest,
+and then it runs out again."
+
+"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until
+they lie like my hand," said the Indian, stretching the limb
+horizontally before him, "and then they run no more."
+
+"No honest man will deny it," said the scout, a little nettled at the
+implied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; "and I
+grant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level.
+But everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the
+small scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In
+this manner, pools and ponds, and even the great fresh-water lake, may
+be stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when
+you come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the
+earth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well
+expect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile
+above us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at
+this very moment!"
+
+If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far
+too dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was
+convinced, and resumed his narrative in his former solemn manner.
+
+"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, over great plains
+where the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we
+fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the
+banks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to
+meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should
+be ours from the place where the water runs up no longer on this stream,
+to a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken
+like warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with
+the bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from
+the great lake; we threw them the bones."
+
+"All this I have heard and believe," said the white man, observing that
+the Indian paused: "but it was long before the English came into the
+country."
+
+"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale-faces
+who came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my
+fathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then,
+Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion only by permitting
+his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which rendered his
+language, as spoken at times, so very musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were
+one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood
+its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we
+worshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of
+our songs of triumph!"
+
+"Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white.
+"But you are a just man, for an Indian! and, as I suppose you hold their
+gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the
+council fire."
+
+"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The
+blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch
+landed, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens
+and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found
+the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they
+were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a
+sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have
+never visited the graves of, my fathers!"
+
+"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned the scout, a good
+deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; "and they often aid
+a man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my
+own bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the
+wolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their
+kin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?"
+
+"Where are the blossoms of those summers!--fallen, one by one: so all of
+my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on
+the hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows
+in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the
+sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans."
+
+"Uncas is here!" said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,
+near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?"
+
+The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an
+involuntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden
+interruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head
+at the unexpected sounds.
+
+At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a
+noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No
+exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked,
+or reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment
+when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish
+impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs,
+and, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and
+reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son,
+and demanded,--
+
+"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these
+woods?"
+
+"I have been on their trail," replied the young Indian, "and know that
+they number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid,
+like cowards."
+
+"The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!" said the white man,
+whom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. "That
+bushy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but
+he will know what road we travel!"
+
+"Tis enough!" returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting
+sun; "they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us
+eat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow."
+
+"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois
+'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get
+the game--talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the
+biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the
+hill! Now, Uncas," he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a
+kind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, "I will
+bet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum,
+that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the
+left."
+
+"It cannot be!" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with
+youthful eagerness; "all but the tips of his horns are hid!"
+
+"He's a boy!" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and
+addressing the father. "Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the
+creatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be!"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+UNCAS SLAYS A DEER
+
+_Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side,
+and passed his knife across the throat_]
+
+Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill,
+on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece
+with his hand, saying--
+
+"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?"
+
+"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by
+instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like
+a man who was convinced of his error. "I must leave the buck to your
+arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to
+eat."
+
+The instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture
+of the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the
+animal with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he
+fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers
+moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another
+moment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing
+into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the
+very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated
+animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the
+throat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the
+waters with its blood.
+
+"'Twas done with Indian skill," said the scout, laughing inwardly, but
+with vast satisfaction; "and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an
+arrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work."
+
+"Hugh!" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who
+scented game.
+
+"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes
+began to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; "if they come
+within range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations
+should be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to
+my ears the woods are dumb."
+
+"There is but one deer, and he is dead," said the Indian, bending his
+body till his ear nearly touched the earth. "I hear the sounds of feet!"
+
+"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following
+on his trail."
+
+"No. The horses of white men are coming!" returned the other, raising
+himself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former
+composure. "Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them."
+
+"That will I, and in English that the king needn't be ashamed to
+answer," returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he
+boasted; "but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast;
+'tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a
+man who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although
+he may have lived with the redskins long enough to be suspected! Ha!
+there goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too--now I hear
+the bushes move--yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the
+falls--and--but here they come themselves; God keep them from the
+Iroquois!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  "Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
+  Till I torment thee for this injury."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the
+party, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the
+Indian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the
+periodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great
+distance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his
+red companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers,
+who had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest,
+advanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates,
+in readiness to receive them.
+
+"Who comes?" demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across
+his left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the
+trigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act, "Who
+comes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?"
+
+"Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,"
+returned he who rode foremost. "Men who have journeyed since the rising
+sun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly
+tired of their wayfaring."
+
+"You are, then, lost," interrupted the hunter, "and have found how
+helpless 'tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?"
+
+"Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them
+than we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the
+stature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of
+the crown called William Henry?"
+
+"Hoot!" shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though,
+instantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at
+less risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies. "You are as much
+off the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer!
+William Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business
+with the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to
+Edward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of
+pushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across
+Champlain, into his den again."
+
+Before the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition,
+another horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into
+the pathway, in front of his companion.
+
+"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?" demanded a new
+speaker; "the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our
+destination is the head of the lake."
+
+"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the
+road across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a
+path, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the
+palace of the king himself."
+
+"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage," returned
+Heyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. "It is
+enough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us
+by a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his
+knowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are."
+
+"An Indian lost in the woods!" said the scout, shaking his head
+doubtingly; "when the sun is scorching the tree-tops, and the
+water-courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees, will tell
+him in which quarter the north star will shine at night! The woods are
+full of deer paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known
+to everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters
+altogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican
+and the bend in the river. Is he a Mohawk?"
+
+"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was
+farther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued,
+until this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently
+indifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an
+activity and interest that had evidently got the better of their
+reserve, by surprise.
+
+"A Huron!" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open
+distrust; "they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are
+adopted; you can never make anything of them but skulks and vagabonds.
+Since you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only
+wonder that you have not fallen in with more."
+
+"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles in
+our front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,
+and that he serves with our forces as a friend."
+
+"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo," returned
+the other, positively. "A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican
+for honesty; and when they will fight, which they won't all do, having
+suffered their cunning enemies, the Maquas, to make them women--but when
+they will fight at all, look to a Delaware, or a Mohican, for a
+warrior!"
+
+"Enough of this," said Heyward, impatiently; "I wish not to inquire into
+the character of a man that I know, and to whom you must be a stranger.
+You have not yet answered my question: what is our distance from the
+main army at Edward?"
+
+"It seems that may depend on who is your guide. One would think such a
+horse as that might get over a good deal of ground atwixt sun-up and
+sun-down."
+
+"I wish no contention of idle words with you, friend," said Heyward,
+curbing his dissatisfied manner, and speaking in a more gentle voice;
+"if you will tell me the distance to Fort Edward, and conduct me
+thither, your labor shall not go without its reward."
+
+"And in so doing, how know I that I don't guide an enemy, and a spy of
+Montcalm, to the works of the army? It is not every man who can speak
+the English tongue that is an honest subject."
+
+"If you serve with the troops, of whom I judge you to be a scout, you
+should know of such a regiment of the king as the 60th."
+
+"The 60th! you can tell me little of the Royal Americans that I don't
+know, though I do wear a hunting-shirt instead of a scarlet jacket."
+
+"Well, then, among the other things, you may know the name of its
+major?"
+
+"Its major!" interrupted the hunter, elevating his body like one who was
+proud of his trust. "If there is a man in the country who knows Major
+Effingham, he stands before you."
+
+"It is a corps which has many majors; the gentleman you name is the
+senior, but I speak of the junior of them all; he who commands the
+companies in garrison at William Henry."
+
+"Yes, yes, I have heard that a young gentleman of vast riches, from one
+of the provinces far south, has got the place. He is over young, too, to
+hold such rank, and to be put above men whose heads are beginning to
+bleach; and yet they say he is a soldier in his knowledge, and a gallant
+gentleman!"
+
+"Whatever he may be, or however he may be qualified for his rank, he now
+speaks to you, and of course can be no enemy to dread."
+
+The scout regarded Heyward in surprise, and then lifting his cap, he
+answered, in a tone less confident than before, though still expressing
+doubt,--
+
+"I have heard a party was to leave the encampment this morning, for the
+lake shore."
+
+"You have heard the truth; but I preferred a nearer route, trusting to
+the knowledge of the Indian I mentioned."
+
+"And he deceived you, and then deserted?"
+
+"Neither, as I believe; certainly not the latter, for he is to be found
+in the rear."
+
+"I should like to look at the creatur'; if it is a true Iroquois I can
+tell him by his knavish look, and by his paint," said the scout,
+stepping past the charger of Heyward, and entering the path behind the
+mare of the singing-master, whose foal had taken advantage of the halt
+to exact the maternal contribution. After shoving aside the bushes, and
+proceeding a few paces, he encountered the females, who awaited the
+result of the conference with anxiety, and not entirely without
+apprehension. Behind these, the runner leaned against a tree, where he
+stood the close examination of the scout with an air unmoved, though
+with a look so dark and savage, that it might in itself excite fear.
+Satisfied with his scrutiny, the hunter soon left him. As he repassed
+the females, he paused a moment to gaze upon their beauty, answering to
+the smile and nod of Alice with a look of open pleasure. Thence he went
+to the side of the motherly animal, and spending a minute in a fruitless
+inquiry into the character of her rider, he shook his head and returned
+to Heyward.
+
+"A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor
+any other tribe can alter him," he said, when he had regained his former
+position. "If we were alone, and you would leave that noble horse at the
+mercy of the wolves to-night, I could show you the way to Edward,
+myself, within an hour, for it lies only about an hour's journey hence;
+but with such ladies in your company 'tis impossible!"
+
+"And why? they are fatigued, but they are quite equal to a ride of a few
+more miles."
+
+"'Tis a natural impossibility!" repeated the scout; "I wouldn't walk a
+mile in these woods after night gets into them, in company with that
+runner, for the best rifle in the colonies. They are full of outlying
+Iroquois, and your mongrel Mohawk knows where to find them too well, to
+be my companion."
+
+"Think you so?" said Heyward, leaning forward in the saddle, and
+dropping his voice nearly to a whisper; "I confess I have not been
+without my own suspicions, though I have endeavored to conceal them, and
+affected a confidence I have not always felt, on account of my
+companions. It was because I suspected him that I would follow no
+longer; making him, as you see, follow me."
+
+"I knew he was one of the cheats as soon as I laid eyes on him!"
+returned the scout, placing a finger on his nose, in sign of caution.
+"The thief is leaning against the foot of the sugar sapling, that you
+can see over them bushes; his right leg is in a line with the bark of
+the tree, and," tapping his rifle, "I can take him from where I stand,
+between the ankle and the knee, with a single shot, putting an end to
+his tramping through the woods, for at least a month to come. If I
+should go back to him, the cunning varmint would suspect something, and
+be dodging through the trees like a frightened deer."
+
+"It will not do. He may be innocent, and I dislike the act. Though, if I
+felt confident of his treachery--"
+
+"'Tis a safe thing to calculate on the knavery of an Iroquois," said the
+scout, throwing his rifle forward, by a sort of instinctive movement.
+
+"Hold!" interrupted Heyward, "it will not do--we must think of some
+other scheme; and yet, I have much reason to believe the rascal has
+deceived me."
+
+The hunter, who had already abandoned his intention of maiming the
+runner, mused a moment, and then made a gesture, which instantly brought
+his two red companions to his side. They spoke together earnestly in the
+Delaware language, though in an undertone; and by the gestures of the
+white man, which were frequently directed towards the top of the
+sapling, it was evident he pointed out the situation of their hidden
+enemy. His companions were not long in comprehending his wishes, and
+laying aside their fire-arms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the
+path, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious
+movements, that their steps were inaudible.
+
+"Now, go you back," said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward, "and
+hold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without breaking
+his paint."
+
+"Nay," said Heyward, proudly, "I will seize him myself."
+
+"Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the bushes?"
+
+"I will dismount."
+
+"And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he
+would wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to
+deal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to
+prosper in his undertakings. Go, then, talk openly to the miscreant, and
+seem to believe him the truest friend you have on 'arth."
+
+Heyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of
+the office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed
+upon him a conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered
+his invaluable trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun
+had already disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his
+light,[9] were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the
+hour the savage usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless
+acts of vengeance or hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by
+apprehension, he left the scout, who immediately entered into a loud
+conversation with the stranger that had so unceremoniously enlisted
+himself in the party of travellers that morning. In passing his gentler
+companions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement, and was pleased
+to find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day, they
+appeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was
+other than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was
+merely employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he
+spurred his charger, and drew the reins again, when the animal had
+carried him within a few yards of the place where the sullen runner
+still stood, leaning against the tree.
+
+"You may see, Magua," he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom
+and confidence, "that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no
+nearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with
+the rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate.
+But, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking
+to the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the
+woods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely
+till the morning."
+
+The Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his
+imperfect English, "Is he alone?"
+
+"Alone!" hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to
+be assumed without embarrassment. "O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you
+know that we are with him."
+
+"Then Le Renard Subtil will go," returned the runner, coolly raising his
+little wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; "and the
+pale-faces will see none but their own color."
+
+"Go! Whom call you Le Renard?"
+
+"'Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua," returned the
+runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. "Night
+is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him."
+
+"And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry
+concerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman
+that his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be
+one?"
+
+"Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will
+not hear him, or feel him, in the woods."
+
+"But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid
+him stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted
+with the business of a man."
+
+"Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones
+of his fathers," was the answer of the unmoved runner.
+
+"Enough, Magua," said Heyward; "are we not friends? Why should there be
+bitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services
+when performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary
+limbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to
+spare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the
+ladies are refreshed we will proceed."
+
+"The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women," muttered the
+Indian, in his native language, "and when they want to eat, their
+warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness."
+
+"What say you, Renard?"
+
+"Le Subtil says it is good."
+
+The Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of
+Heyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and
+seating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of
+some former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending
+his looks slowly and cautiously around him.
+
+"This is well," continued Heyward; "and Le Renard will have strength and
+sight to find the path in the morning;" he paused, for sounds like the
+snapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the
+adjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,--"we
+must be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path,
+and shut us out from the fortress."
+
+The hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his
+eyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his
+nostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than
+usual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to
+represent intense attention.
+
+Heyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly
+extricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand
+towards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect
+the point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the
+tremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single
+instant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be
+hardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil
+cautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and
+guarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change.
+Heyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg
+over the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and
+seize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood.
+In order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an
+air of calmness and friendship.
+
+"Le Renard Subtil does not eat," he said, using the appellation he had
+found most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. "His corn is not well
+parched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be
+found among my own provisions that will help his appetite."
+
+Magua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered
+their hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his
+riveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward
+moving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the
+young man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged,
+at a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the
+form of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in
+its paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed
+the shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that
+was accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter's rifle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+                      "In such a night
+  Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;
+  And saw the lion's shadow ere himself."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the
+pursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive
+surprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he
+dashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend
+his aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards,
+he met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful
+pursuit.
+
+"Why so soon disheartened!" he exclaimed; "the scoundrel must be
+concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not
+safe while he goes at large."
+
+"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed
+scout; "I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black
+snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I
+pulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a
+reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should
+call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in
+these matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its
+leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow
+blossom, in the month of July!"
+
+"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!"
+
+"No, no," returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,
+"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the
+longer for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks
+him, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens
+motion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But
+when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,
+a stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!"
+
+"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!"
+
+"Is life grievous to you?" interrupted the scout. "Yonder red devils
+would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you
+were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so
+often slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece
+within sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!
+'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such
+a fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent,
+or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,
+ag'in this hour to-morrow."
+
+This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool
+assurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face
+the danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge
+with which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with
+a vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy
+arches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid, his
+unresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those
+barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the
+gathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His
+awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each
+waving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and
+twenty times he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his
+lurking foes, peering from their hiding-places, in never-ceasing
+watchfulness of the movements of his party. Looking upward, he found
+that the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on the blue sky,
+were already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the
+imbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he stood, was to be
+traced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.
+
+"What is to be done?" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt
+in such a pressing strait; "desert me not, for God's sake! remain to
+defend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!"
+
+His companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe,
+heeded not this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was
+maintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a whisper,
+Heyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones
+of the younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.
+It was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure that
+nearly concerned the welfare of the travellers. Yielding to his
+powerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that seemed
+fraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the
+dusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more
+definite, when the white man, motioning, with his hand, as if he
+conceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,
+and in the English tongue,--
+
+"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless
+things to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place
+forever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the
+worst of serpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor
+resolution to throw away!"
+
+"How can such a wish be doubted! have I not already offered--"
+
+"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the
+cunning of the devils who fill these woods," calmly interrupted the
+scout, "but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to
+realize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man's
+thoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were
+never made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any
+other recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.
+First, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your
+friends, or without serving you, we shall only injure ourselves!"
+
+"Name them."
+
+"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen;
+and the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a
+secret from all mortal men."
+
+"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled."
+
+"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the
+heart's blood to a stricken deer!"
+
+Heyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through
+the increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps,
+swiftly, towards the place where he had left the remainder of his party.
+When they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly
+acquainted them with the conditions of their new guide, and with the
+necessity that existed for their hushing every apprehension, in instant
+and serious exertions. Although his alarming communication was not
+received without much secret terror by the listeners, his earnest and
+impressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the danger, succeeded
+in bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.
+Silently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist
+them from their saddles, when they descended quickly to the water's
+edge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more by the
+agency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.
+
+"What to do with these dumb creatures!" muttered the white man, on whom
+the sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; "it
+would be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river;
+and to leave them here, would be to tell the Mingos that they have not
+far to seek to find their owners!"
+
+"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods," Heyward
+ventured to suggest.
+
+"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they
+must equal a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will
+blind their fire-balls of eyes! Chingach--Hist? what stirs the bush?"
+
+"The colt."
+
+"That colt, at least, must die," muttered the scout, grasping the mane
+of the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; "Uncas, your arrows!"
+
+"Hold!" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without
+regard to the whispering tones used by the others; "spare the foal of
+Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would
+willingly injure naught."
+
+"When men struggle for the single life God has given them," said the
+scout sternly, "even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the
+wood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
+Draw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows."
+
+The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,
+when the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward
+to its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its
+throat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the
+struggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it
+glided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed
+of apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the
+travellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,
+heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors
+in the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,
+while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had
+just drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge
+and those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before
+the bosom of the forest.
+
+The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,
+they led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.
+
+At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed
+by the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a
+direction opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the
+scout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some
+low bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,
+into which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied
+without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown
+behind them towards the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark
+barrier along the margin of the stream.
+
+So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the
+element, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and
+posting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,
+followed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they
+proceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only interrupted by the
+rippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the low dash
+made by their own cautious footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of
+the canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or receded from the
+shore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the river,
+with a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.
+Occasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness,
+that the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render
+more impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any
+sounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that
+all was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practised
+senses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume
+his slow and unguarded progress. At length they reached a point in the
+river, where the roving eye of Heyward became riveted on a cluster of
+black objects, collected at a spot where the high bank threw a deeper
+shadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating to advance, he pointed
+out the place to the attention of his companion.
+
+"Ay," returned the composed scout, "the Indians have hid the beasts
+with the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes
+would be blinded by the darkness of such a hole."
+
+The whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held
+between the scout and his new comrades, during which, they whose fates
+depended on the faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a
+little leisure to observe their situation more minutely.
+
+The river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which
+impended above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were
+surmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the
+precipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep
+and narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree-tops,
+which were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay
+alike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks
+soon bounded the view, by the same dark and wooded outline; but in
+front, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled
+against the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued
+those sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,
+in truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a
+soothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic, though
+not unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors,
+however, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that
+night had assisted to lend the place, to a painful sense of their real
+peril.
+
+The horses had been secured to some scattered shrubs that grew in the
+fissures of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to
+pass the night. The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate
+fellow-travellers to seat themselves in the forward end of the canoe,
+and took possession of the other himself, as erect and steady as if he
+floated in a vessel of much firmer materials. The Indians warily
+retraced their steps towards the place they had left, when the scout,
+placing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail
+bark directly into the centre of the turbulent stream. For many minutes
+the struggle between the light bubble in which they floated, and the
+swift current, was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand,
+and almost afraid to breathe, lest they should expose the frail fabric
+to the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters in
+feverish suspense. Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were
+sweeping them to destruction, when the master-hand of their pilot would
+bring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid. A long, a vigorous, and,
+as it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the struggle.
+Just as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they
+were about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract,
+the canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a
+level with the water.
+
+"Where are we? and what is next to be done?" demanded Heyward,
+perceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.
+
+"You are at the foot of Glenn's," returned the other, speaking aloud,
+without fear of consequences, within the roar of the cataract; "and the
+next thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and you
+should go down again the hard road we have travelled, faster than you
+came up; 'tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;
+and five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in the hurry-skurry, with a
+little birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will
+bring up the Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without
+his scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty."
+
+His passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot
+touched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form
+of the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before
+it disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of
+the river. Left by their guide, the travellers remained a few minutes in
+helpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a
+false step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and
+roaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of
+them. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for aided by the skill
+of the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at
+the side of the low rock before they thought the scout had even time to
+rejoin his companions.
+
+"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned," cried Heyward,
+cheerfully, "and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,
+my vigilant sentinel, can you see anything of those you call the
+Iroquois, on the mainland?"
+
+"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign
+tongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!
+If Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the
+tribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and
+Oneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,
+among the French!"
+
+"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard
+that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
+called women!"
+
+"Ay, shame on the Hollanders[10] and Iroquois, who circumvented them by
+their deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty
+years, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins
+of a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and
+would now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night
+upon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign
+tongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle[11] of his tribe be in Canada,
+or be in New York."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the
+cause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches
+of the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,
+changed the subject.
+
+"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are
+brave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our
+enemies?"
+
+"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen," returned the scout,
+ascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. "I trust to
+other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the
+trail of the Mingos."
+
+"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?"
+
+"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout
+courage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but
+the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the
+wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian
+ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."
+
+"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the
+dead colt? Ha! what noise is that?"
+
+"Poor Miriam!" murmured the stranger; "thy foal was foreordained to
+become a prey to ravenous beasts!" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,
+amid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,--
+
+  "First born of Egypt, smite did He,
+  Of mankind, and of beast also;
+  O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,
+  On Pharaoh and his servants too!"
+
+"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner," said the
+scout; "but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.
+He has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will
+happen; and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits
+to the rationality of killing a four-footed beast, to save the lives of
+human men. It may be as you say," he continued, reverting to the purport
+of Heyward's last remark; "and the greater the reason why we should cut
+our steaks, and let the carcase drive down the stream, or we shall have
+the pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.
+Besides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the
+Iroquois, the cunning varlets are quick enough at understanding the
+reason of a wolf's howl."
+
+The scout, whilst making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain
+necessary implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of
+travellers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his
+intentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared
+in succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a
+perpendicular rock, that rose to the height of a few yards within as
+many feet of the water's edge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  "Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;
+  He wales a portion with judicious care;
+  And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air."
+
+  BURNS.
+
+
+Heyward, and his female companions, witnessed this mysterious movement
+with secret uneasiness; for, though the conduct of the white man had
+hitherto been above reproach, his rude equipments, blunt address, and
+strong antipathies, together with the character of his silent
+associates, were all causes for exciting distrust in minds that had been
+so recently alarmed by Indian treachery.
+
+The stranger alone disregarded the passing incidents. He seated himself
+on a projection of the rocks, whence he gave no other signs of
+consciousness than by the struggles of his spirit, as manifested in
+frequent and heavy sighs. Smothered voices were next heard, as though
+men called to each other in the bowels of the earth, when a sudden light
+flashed upon those without, and laid bare the much-prized secret of the
+place.
+
+At the farther extremity of a narrow, deep cavern in the rock, whose
+length appeared much extended by the perspective and the nature of the
+light by which it was seen, was seated the scout, holding a blazing knot
+of pine. The strong glare of the fire fell full upon his sturdy,
+weather-beaten countenance and forest attire, lending an air of romantic
+wildness to the aspect of an individual, who, seen by the sober light of
+day, would have exhibited the peculiarities of a man remarkable for the
+strangeness of his dress, the iron-like inflexibility of his frame, and
+the singular compound of quick, vigilant sagacity, and of exquisite
+simplicity, that by turns usurped the possession of his muscular
+features. At a little distance in advance stood Uncas, his whole person
+thrown powerfully into view. The travellers anxiously regarded the
+upright, flexible figure of the young Mohican, graceful and unrestrained
+in the attitudes and movements of nature. Though his person was more
+than usually screened by a green and fringed hunting-shirt, like that of
+the white man, there was no concealment to his dark, glancing, fearless
+eye, alike terrible and calm; the bold outline of his high, haughty
+features, pure in their native red; or to the dignified elevation of his
+receding forehead, together with all the finest proportions of a noble
+head, bared to the generous scalping tuft. It was the first opportunity
+possessed by Duncan and his companions, to view the marked lineaments of
+either of their Indian attendants, and each individual of the party felt
+relieved from a burden of doubt, as the proud and determined, though
+wild expression of the features of the young warrior forced itself on
+their notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the
+vale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote
+his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The
+ingenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would
+have looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which
+life had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward,
+though accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the
+uncorrupted natives, openly expressed his admiration at such an
+unblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man.
+
+"I could sleep in peace," whispered Alice, in reply, "with such a
+fearless and generous looking youth for my sentinel. Surely, Duncan,
+those cruel murders, those terrific scenes of torture, of which we read
+and hear so much, are never acted in the presence of such as he!"
+
+"This, certainly, is a rare and brilliant instance of those natural
+qualities, in which these peculiar people are said to excel," he
+answered. "I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and
+eye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not
+practise a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition
+of what we esteem virtue than according to the fashion of a savage. As
+bright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among
+Christians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though,
+for the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing
+them. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes,
+but prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant
+friend."
+
+"Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should," said Cora; "who,
+that looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!"
+
+A short, and apparently an embarrassed silence succeeded this remark,
+which was interrupted by the scout calling to them, aloud, to enter.
+
+"This fire begins to show too bright a flame," he continued, as they
+complied, "and might light the Mingos to our undoing. Uncas, drop the
+blanket, and show the knaves its dark side. This is not such a supper as
+a major of the Royal Americans has a right to expect, but I've known
+stout detachments of the corps glad to eat their venison raw, and
+without a relish too.[12] Here, you see, we have plenty of salt, and can
+make a quick broil. There's fresh sassafras boughs for the ladies to sit
+on, which may not be as proud as their my-hog-guinea chairs, but which
+sends up a sweeter flavor than the skin of any hog can do, be it of
+Guinea, or be it of any other land. Come, friend, don't be mournful for
+the colt; 'twas an innocent thing, and had not seen much hardship. Its
+death will save the creature many a sore back and weary foot!"
+
+Uncas did as the other had directed, and when the voice of Hawkeye
+ceased, the roar of the cataract sounded like the rumbling of distant
+thunder.
+
+"Are we quite safe in this cavern?" demanded Heyward. "Is there no
+danger of surprise? A single armed man, at its entrance, would hold us
+at his mercy."
+
+A spectral-looking figure stalked from out the darkness behind the
+scout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it towards the farther
+extremity of their place of retreat. Alice uttered a faint shriek, and
+even Cora rose to her feet, as this appalling object moved into the
+light; but a single word from Heyward calmed them, with the assurance it
+was only their attendant, Chingachgook, who, lifting another blanket,
+discovered that the cavern had two outlets. Then, holding the brand, he
+crossed a deep, narrow chasm in the rocks, which ran at right angles
+with the passage they were in, but which, unlike that, was open to the
+heavens, and entered another cave, answering to the description of the
+first, in every essential particular.
+
+"Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often caught in a
+burrow with one hole," said Hawkeye, laughing; "you can easily see the
+cunning of the place--the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows
+is soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is
+scarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say
+was, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any
+along the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these
+sweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These
+rocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at
+othersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until
+it has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing
+there, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency."
+
+"In what part of them are we?" asked Heyward.
+
+"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but
+where, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved
+softer on each side of us, and so they left the centre of the river bare
+and dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in."
+
+"We are then on an island?"
+
+"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and
+below. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up on
+the height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It
+falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;
+there, it skips; here, it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and
+in another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep
+hollows, that rumble and quake the 'arth; and hereaway, it ripples and
+sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gulleys in the old stone,
+as it 'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river
+seems disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the
+descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the
+shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if
+unwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt! Ay, lady,
+the fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat, is coarse, and
+like a fish-net, to little spots I can show you, where the river
+fabricates all sorts of images, as if, having broke loose from order, it
+would try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After
+the water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a
+headstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a
+few rods below you may see it all, flowing on steadily towards the sea,
+as was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!"
+
+While his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of
+their place of concealment, from this untutored description of
+Glenn's,[13] they were much inclined to judge differently from Hawkeye,
+of its wild beauties. But they were not in a situation to suffer their
+thoughts to dwell on the charms of natural objects; and, as the scout
+had not found it necessary to cease his culinary labors while he spoke,
+unless to point out, with a broken fork, the direction of some
+particularly obnoxious point in the rebellious stream, they now suffered
+their attention to be drawn to the necessary, though more vulgar
+consideration of their supper.
+
+The repast, which was greatly aided by the addition of a few delicacies
+that Heyward had the precaution to bring with him when they left their
+horses, was exceedingly refreshing to the wearied party. Uncas acted as
+attendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his
+power, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse
+Heyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian
+customs, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial
+employment, especially in favor of their women. As the rites of
+hospitality were, however, considered sacred among them, this little
+departure from the dignity of manhood excited no audible comment. Had
+there been one there sufficiently disengaged to become a close observer,
+he might have fancied that the services of the young chief were not
+entirely impartial. That while he tendered to Alice the gourd of sweet
+water and the venison in a trencher, neatly carved from the knot of the
+pepperidge, with sufficient courtesy, in performing the same offices to
+her sister, his dark eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance.
+Once or twice he was compelled to speak, to command the attention of
+those he served. In such cases, he made use of English, broken and
+imperfect, but sufficiently intelligible, and which he rendered so mild
+and musical, by his deep,[14] guttural voice, that it never failed to
+cause both ladies to look up in admiration and astonishment. In the
+course of these civilities, a few sentences were exchanged, that served
+to establish the appearance of an amicable intercourse between the
+parties.
+
+In the meanwhile, the gravity of Chingachgook remained immovable. He had
+seated himself more within the circle of light, where the frequent
+uneasy glances of his guests were better enabled to separate the natural
+expression of his face from the artificial terrors of the war-paint.
+They found a strong resemblance between father and son, with the
+difference that might be expected from age and hardships. The fierceness
+of his countenance now seemed to slumber, and in its place was to be
+seen the quiet, vacant composure, which distinguishes an Indian warrior,
+when his faculties are not required for any of the greater purposes of
+his existence. It was, however, easy to be seen, by the occasional
+gleams that shot across his swarthy visage, that it was only necessary
+to arouse his passions, in order to give full effect to the terrific
+device which he had adopted to intimidate his enemies. On the other
+hand, the quick, roving eye of the scout seldom rested. He ate and drank
+with an appetite that no sense of danger could disturb, but his
+vigilance seemed never to desert him. Twenty times the gourd or the
+venison was suspended before his lips, while his head was turned aside,
+as though he listened to some distant and distrusted sounds--a movement
+that never failed to recall his guests from regarding the novelties of
+their situation, to a recollection of the alarming reasons that had
+driven them to seek it. As these frequent pauses were never followed by
+any remark, the momentary uneasiness they created quickly passed away,
+and for a time was forgotten.
+
+"Come, friend," said Hawkeye, drawing out a keg from beneath a cover of
+leaves, towards the close of the repast, and addressing the stranger who
+sat at his elbow, doing great justice to his culinary skill, "try a
+little spruce; 'twill wash away all thoughts of the colt, and quicken
+the life in your bosom. I drink to our better friendship, hoping that a
+little horse-flesh may leave no heartburnings atween us. How do you name
+yourself?"
+
+"Gamut--David Gamut," returned the singing-master, preparing to wash
+down his sorrows in a powerful draught of the woodman's high-flavored
+and well-laced compound.
+
+"A very good name, and, I dare say, handed down from honest
+forefathers. I'm an admirator of names, though the Christian fashions
+fall far below savage customs in this particular. The biggest coward I
+ever knew was called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out
+of hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod. With an
+Indian 'tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally
+is--not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a
+snake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings
+of human natur', and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least
+expect him. What may be your calling?"
+
+"I am an unworthy instructor in the art of psalmody."
+
+"Anan!"
+
+"I teach singing to the youths, of the Connecticut levy."
+
+"You might be better employed. The young hounds go laughing and singing
+too much already through the woods, when they ought not to breathe
+louder than a fox in his cover. Can you use the smooth bore, or handle
+the rifle?"
+
+"Praised be God, I have never had occasion to meddle with murderous
+implements!"
+
+"Perhaps you understand the compass, and lay down the water-courses and
+mountains of the wilderness on paper, in order that they who follow may
+find places by their given names?"
+
+"I practise no such employment."
+
+"You have a pair of legs that might make a long path seem short! you
+journey sometimes, I fancy, with tidings for the general."
+
+"Never; I follow no other than my own high vocation, which is
+instruction in sacred music!"
+
+"'Tis a strange calling!" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, "to go
+through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may
+happen to come out of other men's throats. Well, friend, I suppose it is
+your gift, and mustn't be denied any more than if 'twas shooting, or
+some other better inclination. Let us hear what you can do in that way;
+'twill be a friendly manner of saying good-night, for 'tis time that
+these ladies should be getting strength for a hard and a long push, in
+the pride of the morning, afore the Maquas are stirring!"
+
+"With joyful pleasure do I consent," said David, adjusting his
+iron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which
+he immediately tendered to Alice. "What can be more fitting and
+consolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such
+exceeding jeopardy!"
+
+Alice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.
+
+"Indulge yourself," he whispered: "ought not the suggestion of the
+worthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?"
+
+Encouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her
+keen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book
+was open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the
+poet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of
+Israel, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora
+betrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song
+proceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and
+the tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.
+
+The air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of
+the rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy
+excitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran
+through their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and
+true ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined
+cavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling
+notes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the
+rocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into
+stone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an
+expression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features
+to relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature
+subdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his
+ears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the
+settlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before
+the hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long
+seemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener
+felt the storms of heaven than any testimonials of weakness. The singers
+were dwelling on one of those low, dying chords, which the ear devours
+with such greedy rapture, as if conscious that it is about to lose them,
+when a cry, that seemed neither human nor earthly, rose in the outward
+air, penetrating not only the recesses of the cavern, but to the inmost
+hearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a stillness apparently as
+deep as if the waters had been checked in their furious progress, at
+such a horrid and unusual interruption.
+
+"What is it?" murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible suspense.
+
+"What is it?" repeated Heyward aloud.
+
+Neither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if
+expecting the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed
+their own astonishment. At length they spoke together earnestly, in the
+Delaware language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed
+aperture, cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first
+spoke in English.
+
+"What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell; though two of us
+have ranged the woods for more than thirty years! I did believe there
+was no cry that Indians or beast could make, that my ears had not heard;
+but this has proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal!"
+
+"Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to
+intimidate their enemies?" asked Cora, who stood drawing her veil about
+her person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.
+
+"No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound;
+but when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for
+anything else! Well, Uncas!" speaking in Delaware to the young chief as
+he re-entered, "what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?"
+
+The answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same
+tongue.
+
+"There is nothing to be seen without," continued Hawkeye, shaking his
+head in discontent; "and our hiding-place is still in darkness! Pass
+into the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be
+afoot long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to
+Edward, while the Mingos are taking their morning nap."
+
+Cora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the
+more timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place,
+however, she whispered a request to Duncan that he would follow. Uncas
+raised the blanket for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank
+him for this act of attention, they saw the scout seated again before
+the dying embers, with his face resting on his hands, in a manner which
+showed how deeply he brooded on the unaccountable interruption which
+had broken up their evening devotions.
+
+Heyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through
+the narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable
+position, he joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him
+for the first time since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort
+Edward.
+
+"Leave us not, Duncan," said Alice; "we cannot sleep in such a place as
+this, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears!"
+
+"First let us examine into the security of your fortress," he answered,
+"and then we will speak of rest."
+
+He approached the farther end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like
+the others, was concealed by blankets, and removing the thick screen,
+breathed the fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the
+river flowed through a deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn
+in the soft rock, directly beneath his feet, forming an effectual
+defence, as he believed, against any danger from that quarter; the
+water, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing, and sweeping along, in
+its most violent and broken manner.
+
+"Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side," he continued,
+pointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current, before
+he dropped the blanket; "and as you know that good men and true are on
+guard in front, I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should
+be disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is
+necessary to you both."
+
+"Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion, though she cannot put
+it in practise," returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by
+the side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; "there would be other causes
+to chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this
+mysterious noise. Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the
+anxiety a father must endure, whose children lodge, he knows not where
+or how, in such a wilderness, and in the midst of so many perils?"
+
+"He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the woods."
+
+"He is a father, and cannot deny his nature."
+
+"How kind has he ever been to all my follies! how tender and indulgent
+to all my wishes!" sobbed Alice. "We have been selfish, sister, in
+urging our visit at such hazard!"
+
+"I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much
+embarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might
+neglect him in his strait, his children at least were faithful!"
+
+"When he heard of your arrival at Edward," said Heyward, kindly, "there
+was a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though the
+latter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly
+prevailed. 'It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them,
+Duncan,' he said, 'and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he who
+holds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but
+half her firmness!'"
+
+"And did he not speak of me, Heyward?" demanded Alice, with jealous
+affection. "Surely, he forgot not altogether his little Elsie?"
+
+"That was impossible," returned the young man; "he called you by a
+thousand endearing epithets, that I may not presume to use, but to the
+justice of which I can warmly testify. Once, indeed, he said--"
+
+Duncan ceased speaking; for while his eyes were riveted on those of
+Alice, who had turned towards him with the eagerness of filial
+affection, to catch his words, the same strong horrid cry, as before,
+filled the air, and rendered him mute. A long, breathless silence
+succeeded, during which each looked at the others in fearful expectation
+of hearing the sound repeated. At length the blanket was slowly raised,
+and the scout stood in the aperture with a countenance whose firmness
+evidently began to give way, before a mystery that seemed to threaten
+some danger, against which all his cunning and experience might prove of
+no avail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+                  "They do not sleep.
+  On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
+  I see them sit."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+"'Twould be neglecting a warning that is given for our good, to lie hid
+any longer," said Hawkeye, "when such sounds are raised in the forest!
+The gentle ones may keep close, but the Mohicans and I will watch upon
+the rock, where I suppose a major of the 60th would wish to keep us
+company."
+
+"Is then our danger so pressing?" asked Cora.
+
+"He who makes strange sounds, and gives them out for man's information,
+alone knows our danger. I should think myself wicked, unto rebellion
+against his will, was I to burrow with such warnings in the air! Even
+the weak soul who passes his days in singing, is stirred by the cry,
+and, as he says, is 'ready to go forth to the battle.' If 'twere only a
+battle, it would be a thing understood by us all, and easily managed;
+but I have heard that when such shrieks are atween heaven and 'arth, it
+betokens another sort of warfare!"
+
+"If all our reasons for fear, my friend, are confined to such as proceed
+from supernatural causes, we have but little occasion to be alarmed,"
+continued the undisturbed Cora; "are you certain that our enemies have
+not invented some new and ingenious method to strike us with terror,
+that their conquest may become more easy?"
+
+"Lady," returned the scout, solemnly, "I have listened to all the sounds
+of the woods for thirty years, as a man will listen, whose life and
+death depend on the quickness of his ears. There is no whine of the
+panther, no whistle of the catbird, nor any invention of the devilish
+Mingos, that can cheat me! I have heard the forest moan like mortal men
+in their affliction; often, and again, have I listened to the wind
+playing its music in the branches of the girdled trees; and I have heard
+the lightning cracking in the air, like the snapping of blazing brush,
+as it spitted forth sparks and forked flames; but never have I thought
+that I heard more than the pleasure of Him who sported with the things
+of his hand. But neither the Mohicans, nor I, who am a white man without
+a cross, can explain the cry just heard. We, therefore, believe it a
+sign given for our good."
+
+"It is extraordinary!" said Heyward, taking his pistols from the place
+where he had laid them on entering; "be it a sign of peace or a signal
+of war, it must be looked to. Lead the way, my friend; I follow."
+
+On issuing from their place of confinement, the whole party instantly
+experienced a grateful renovation of spirits, by exchanging the pent air
+of the hiding-place for the cool and invigorating atmosphere, which
+played around the whirlpools and pitches of the cataract. A heavy
+evening breeze swept along the surface of the river, and seemed to drive
+the roar of the falls into the recesses of their own caverns, whence it
+issued heavily and constant, like thunder rumbling beyond the distant
+hills. The moon had risen, and its light was already glancing here and
+there on the waters above them; but the extremity of the rock where they
+stood still lay in shadow. With the exception of the sounds produced by
+the rushing waters, and an occasional breathing of the air, as it
+murmured past them in fitful currents, the scene was as still as night
+and solitude could make it. In vain were the eyes of each individual
+bent along the opposite shores, in quest of some signs of life, that
+might explain the nature of the interruption they had heard. Their
+anxious and eager looks were baffled by the deceptive light, or rested
+only on naked rocks, and straight and immovable trees.
+
+"There is nothing to be seen but the gloom and quiet of a lovely
+evening," whispered Duncan: "how much should we prize such a scene, and
+all this breathing solitude, at any other moment, Cora! Fancy yourselves
+in security and what now, perhaps, increases your terror, may be made
+conducive to enjoyment--"
+
+"Listen!" interrupted Alice.
+
+The caution was unnecessary. Once more the same sound arose, as if from
+the bed of the river, and having broken out of the narrow bounds of the
+cliffs, was heard undulating through the forest, in distant and dying
+cadences.
+
+"Can any here give a name to such a cry?" demanded Hawkeye, when the
+last echo was lost in the woods; "if so, let him speak; for myself, I
+judge it not to belong to 'arth!"
+
+"Here, then, is one who can undeceive you," said Duncan; "I know the
+sound full well, for often have I heard it on the field of battle, and
+in situations which are frequent in a soldier's life. 'Tis the horrid
+shriek that a horse will give in his agony; oftener drawn from him in
+pain, though sometimes in terror. My charger is either a prey to the
+beasts of the forest, or he sees his danger, without the power to avoid
+it. The sound might deceive me in the cavern, but in the open air I know
+it too well to be wrong."
+
+The scout and his companions listened to this simple explanation with
+the interest of men who imbibe new ideas, at the same time that they get
+rid of old ones, which had proved disagreeable inmates. The two latter
+uttered their usual and expressive exclamation, "Hugh!" as the truth
+first glanced upon their minds, while the former, after a short musing
+pause, took upon himself to reply.
+
+"I cannot deny your words," he said; "for I am little skilled in horses,
+though born where they abound. The wolves must be hovering above their
+heads on the bank, and the timorsome creatures are calling on man for
+help, in the best manner they are able. Uncas,"--he spoke in
+Delaware--"Uncas, drop down in the canoe, and whirl a brand among the
+pack; or fear may do what the wolves can't get at to perform, and leave
+us without horses in the morning, when we shall have so much need to
+journey swiftly!"
+
+The young native had already descended to the water, to comply, when a
+long howl was raised on the edge of the river, and was borne swiftly off
+into the depths of the forest, as though the beasts, of their own
+accord, were abandoning their prey in sudden terror. Uncas, with
+instinctive quickness, receded, and the three foresters held another of
+their low, earnest conferences.
+
+"We have been like hunters who have lost the points of the heavens, and
+from whom the sun has been hid for days," said Hawkeye, turning away
+from his companions; "now we begin again to know the signs of our
+course, and the paths are cleared from briers! Seat yourselves in the
+shade which the moon throws from yonder beech--'tis thicker than that of
+the pines--and let us wait for that which the Lord may choose to send
+next. Let all your conversation be in whispers; though it would be
+better, and perhaps, in the end, wiser, if each one held discourse with
+his own thoughts, for a time."
+
+The manner of the scout was seriously impressive, though no longer
+distinguished by any signs of unmanly apprehension. It was evident that
+his momentary weakness had vanished with the explanation of a mystery
+which his own experience had not served to fathom; and though he now
+felt all the realities of their actual condition, that he was prepared
+to meet them with the energy of his hardy nature. This feeling seemed
+also common to the natives, who placed themselves in positions which
+commanded a full view of both shores, while their own persons were
+effectually concealed from observation. In such circumstances, common
+prudence dictated that Heyward and his companions should imitate a
+caution that proceeded from so intelligent a source. The young man drew
+a pile of the sassafras from the cave, and placing it in the chasm which
+separated the two caverns, it was occupied by the sisters, who were thus
+protected by the rocks from any missiles, while their anxiety was
+relieved by the assurance that no danger could approach without a
+warning. Heyward himself was posted at hand, so near that he might
+communicate with his companions without raising his voice to a dangerous
+elevation, while David, in imitation of the woodsmen, bestowed his
+person in such a manner among the fissures of the rocks, that his
+ungainly limbs were no longer offensive to the eye.
+
+In this manner, hours passed by without further interruption. The moon
+reached the zenith, and shed its mild light perpendicularly on the
+lovely sight of the sisters slumbering peacefully in each other's arms.
+Duncan cast the wide shawl of Cora before a spectacle he so much loved
+to contemplate, and then suffered his own head to seek a pillow on the
+rock. David began to utter sounds that would have shocked his delicate
+organs in more wakeful moments; in short, all but Hawkeye and the
+Mohicans lost every idea of consciousness, in uncontrollable drowsiness.
+But the watchfulness of these vigilant protectors neither tired nor
+slumbered. Immovable as that rock, of which each appeared to form a
+part, they lay, with their eyes roving, without intermission, along the
+dark margin of trees that bounded the adjacent shores of the narrow
+stream. Not a sound escaped them; the most subtle examination could not
+have told they breathed. It was evident that this excess of caution
+proceeded from an experience that no subtlety on the part of their
+enemies could deceive. It was, however, continued without any apparent
+consequences, until the moon had set, and a pale streak above the
+tree-tops, at the bend of the river a little below, announced the
+approach of day.
+
+Then, for the first time, Hawkeye was seen to stir. He crawled along
+the rock, and shook Duncan from his heavy slumbers.
+
+"Now is the time to journey," he whispered; "awake the gentle ones, and
+be ready to get into the canoe when I bring it to the landing-place."
+
+"Have you had a quiet night?" said Heyward; "for myself, I believe sleep
+has got the better of my vigilance."
+
+"All is yet still as midnight. Be silent, but be quick."
+
+By this time Duncan was thoroughly awake, and he immediately lifted the
+shawl from the sleeping females. The motion caused Cora to raise her
+hand as if to repulse him, while Alice murmured, in her soft, gentle
+voice, "No, no, dear father, we were not deserted; Duncan was with us!"
+
+"Yes, sweet innocence," whispered the youth; "Duncan is here, and while
+life continues or danger remains, he will never quit thee. Cora! Alice!
+awake! The hour has come to move!"
+
+A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the form of the other
+standing upright before him, in bewildered horror, was the unexpected
+answer he received. While the words were still on the lips of Heyward,
+there had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries as served to drive the
+swift currents of his own blood back from its bounding course into the
+fountains of his heart. It seemed, for near a minute, as if demons of
+hell had possessed themselves of the air about them, and were venting
+their savage humors in barbarous sounds. The cries came from no
+particular direction, though it was evident they filled the woods, and
+as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the caverns of the falls, the
+rocks, the bed of the river, and the upper air. David raised his tall
+person in the midst of the infernal din, with a hand on either ear,
+exclaiming--
+
+"Whence comes this discord! Has hell broke loose, that man should utter
+sounds like these!"
+
+The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles, from the
+opposite banks of the stream, followed this incautious exposure of his
+person, and left the unfortunate singing-master senseless on that rock
+where he had been so long slumbering. The Mohicans boldly sent back the
+intimidating yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of savage triumph
+at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then quick and close
+between them, but either party was too well skilled to leave even a limb
+exposed to the hostile aim. Duncan listened with intense anxiety for
+the strokes of the paddle, believing that flight was now their only
+refuge. The river glanced by with its ordinary velocity, but the canoe
+was nowhere to be seen on its dark waters. He had just fancied they were
+cruelly deserted by the scout, as a stream of flame issued from the rock
+beneath him, and a fierce yell, blended with a shriek of agony,
+announced that the messenger of death, sent from the fatal weapon of
+Hawkeye, had found a victim. At this slight repulse the assailants
+instantly withdrew, and gradually the place became as still as before
+the sudden tumult.
+
+Duncan seized the favorable moment to spring to the body of Gamut, which
+he bore within the shelter of the narrow chasm that protected the
+sisters. In another minute the whole party was collected in this spot of
+comparative safety.
+
+"The poor fellow has saved his scalp," said Hawkeye, coolly passing his
+hand over the head of David; "but he is a proof that a man may be born
+with too long a tongue! 'Twas downright madness to show six feet of
+flesh and blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages. I only wonder
+he has escaped with life."
+
+"Is he not dead!" demanded Cora, in a voice whose husky tones showed how
+powerfully natural horror struggled with her assumed firmness. "Can we
+do aught to assist the wretched man?"
+
+"No, no! the life is in his heart yet, and after he has slept awhile he
+will come to himself, and be a wiser man for it, till the hour of his
+real time shall come," returned Hawkeye, casting another oblique glance
+at the insensible body, while he filled his charger with admirable
+nicety. "Carry him in, Uncas, and lay him on the sassafras. The longer
+his nap lasts the better it will be for him, as I doubt whether he can
+find a proper cover for such a shape on these rocks; and singing won't
+do any good with the Iroquois."
+
+"You believe, then, the attack will be renewed?" asked Heyward.
+
+"Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouthful!
+They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, when they meet a loss, and
+fail in the surprise, to fall back; but we shall have them on again,
+with new expedients to circumvent us, and master our scalps. Our main
+hope," he continued, raising his rugged countenance, across which a
+shade of anxiety just then passed like a darkening cloud, "will be to
+keep the rock until Munro can send a party to our help! God send it may
+be soon, and under a leader that knows the Indian customs!"
+
+"You hear our probable fortunes, Cora," said Duncan, "and you know we
+have everything to hope from the anxiety and experience of your father.
+Come, then, with Alice, into this cavern, where you, at least, will be
+safe from the murderous rifles of our enemies and where you may bestow a
+care suited to your gentle natures on our unfortunate comrade."
+
+The sisters followed him into the outer cave, where David was beginning,
+by his sighs, to give symptoms of returning consciousness; and then
+commending the wounded man to their attention, he immediately prepared
+to leave them.
+
+"Duncan!" said the tremulous voice of Cora, when he had reached the
+mouth of the cavern. He turned, and beheld the speaker, whose color had
+changed to a deadly paleness, and whose lip quivered, gazing after him,
+with an expression of interest which immediately recalled him to her
+side. "Remember, Duncan, how necessary your safety is to our own--how
+you bear a father's sacred trust--how much depends on your discretion
+and care--in short," she added, while the tell-tale blood stole over her
+features, crimsoning her very temples, "how very deservedly dear you are
+to all of the name of Munro."
+
+"If anything could add to my own base love of life," said Heyward,
+suffering his unconscious eyes to wander to the youthful form of the
+silent Alice, "it would be so kind an assurance. As major of the 60th,
+our honest host will tell you I must take my share of the fray; but our
+task will be easy; it is merely to keep these blood-hounds at bay for a
+few hours."
+
+Without waiting for reply, he tore himself from the presence of the
+sisters, and joined the scout and his companions, who still lay within
+the protection of the little chasm between the two caves.
+
+"I tell you, Uncas," said the former, as Heyward joined them, "you are
+wasteful of your powder, and the kick of the rifle disconcerts your aim!
+Little powder, light lead, and a long arm, seldom fail of bringing the
+death screech from a Mingo! At least, such has been my experience with
+the creatur's. Come, friends; let us to our covers, for no man can tell
+when or where a Maqua[15] will strike his blow."
+
+The Indians silently repaired to their appointed stations, which were
+fissures in the rocks, whence they could command the approaches to the
+foot of the falls. In the centre of the little island, a few short and
+stunted pines had found root, forming a thicket, into which Hawkeye
+darted with the swiftness of a deer, followed by the active Duncan. Here
+they secured themselves, as well as circumstances would permit, among
+the shrubs and fragments of stone that were scattered about the place.
+Above them was a bare, rounded rock, on each side of which the water
+played its gambols, and plunged into the abysses beneath, in the manner
+already described. As the day had now dawned, the opposite shores no
+longer presented a confused outline, but they were able to look into the
+woods, and distinguish objects beneath the canopy of gloomy pines.
+
+A long and anxious watch succeeded, but without any further evidences of
+a renewed attack; and Duncan began to hope that their fire had proved
+more fatal than was supposed, and that their enemies had been
+effectually repulsed. When he ventured to utter this impression to his
+companion, it was met by Hawkeye with an incredulous shake of the head.
+
+"You know not the nature of a Maqua, if you think he is so easily beaten
+back without a scalp!" he answered. "If there was one of the imps
+yelling this morning, there were forty! and they know our number and
+quality too well to give up the chase so soon. Hist! look into the water
+above, just where it breaks over the rocks. I am no mortal, if the risky
+devils haven't swam down upon the very pitch, and, as bad luck would
+have it, they have hit the head of the island. Hist! man, keep close! or
+the hair will be off your crown in the turning of a knife!"
+
+Heyward lifted his head from the cover, and beheld what he justly
+considered a prodigy of rashness and skill. The river had worn away the
+edge of the soft rock in such a manner, as to render its first pitch
+less abrupt and perpendicular than is usual at waterfalls. With no other
+guide than the ripple of the stream where it met the head of the island,
+a party of their insatiable foes had ventured into the current, and swam
+down upon this point, knowing the ready access it would give, if
+successful, to their intended victims. As Hawkeye ceased speaking, four
+human heads could be seen peering above a few logs of drift-wood that
+had lodged on these naked rocks, and which had probably suggested the
+idea of the practicability of the hazardous undertaking. At the next
+moment, a fifth form was seen floating over the green edge of the fall,
+a little from the line of the island. The savage struggled powerfully to
+gain the point of safety, and, favored by the glancing water, he was
+already stretching forth an arm to meet the grasp of his companions,
+when he shot away again with the whirling current, appeared to rise into
+the air, with uplifted arms and starting eyeballs, and fell, with a
+sullen plunge, into that deep and yawning abyss over which he hovered. A
+single, wild, despairing shriek rose from the cavern, and all was hushed
+again, as the grave.
+
+The first generous impulse of Duncan was to rush to the rescue of the
+hapless wretch; but he felt himself bound to the spot by the iron grasp
+of the immovable scout.
+
+"Would ye bring certain death upon us, by telling the Mingos where we
+lie?" demanded Hawkeye, sternly; "'tis a charge of powder saved, and
+ammunition is as precious now as breath to a worried deer! Freshen the
+priming of your pistols--the mist of the falls is apt to dampen the
+brimstone--and stand firm for a close struggle, while I fire on their
+rush."
+
+He placed his finger in his mouth, and drew a long, shrill whistle,
+which was answered from the rocks that were guarded by the Mohicans.
+Duncan caught glimpses of heads above the scattered drift-wood, as this
+signal rose on the air, but they disappeared again as suddenly as they
+had glanced upon his sight. A low, rustling sound next drew his
+attention behind him, and turning his head, he beheld Uncas within a few
+feet, creeping to his side. Hawkeye spoke to him in Delaware, when the
+young chief took his position with singular caution and undisturbed
+coolness. To Heyward this was a moment of feverish and impatient
+suspense; though the scout saw fit to select it as a fit occasion to
+read a lecture to his more youthful associates on the art of using
+fire-arms with discretion.
+
+"Of all we'pons," he commenced, "the long-barrelled, true-grooved,
+soft-metalled rifle is the most dangerous in skilful hands, though it
+wants a strong arm, a quick eye, and great judgment in charging, to put
+forth all its beauties. The gunsmiths can have but little insight into
+their trade, when they make their fowling-pieces and short horsemen's--"
+
+He was interrupted by the low but expressive "Hugh!" of Uncas.
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE BATTLE AT GLENS FALLS
+
+_Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that effort, and the
+result was, that both tottered on the brink of the precipice_]
+
+"I see them, boy, I see them!" continued Hawkeye; "they are gathering
+for the rush, or they would keep their dingy backs below the logs. Well,
+let them," he added, examining his flint; "the leading man certainly
+comes on to his death, though it should be Montcalm himself!"
+
+At that moment the woods were filled with another burst of cries, and at
+the signal four savages sprang from the cover of the drift-wood. Heyward
+felt a burning desire to rush forward to meet them, so intense was the
+delirious anxiety of the moment; but he was restrained by the deliberate
+examples of the scout and Uncas. When their foes who leaped over the
+black rock that divided them, with long bounds, uttering the wildest
+yells, were within a few rods, the rifle of Hawkeye slowly rose among
+the shrubs, and poured out its fatal contents. The foremost Indian
+bounded like a stricken deer, and fell headlong among the clefts of the
+island.
+
+"Now, Uncas!" cried the scout, drawing his long knife, while his quick
+eyes began to flash with ardor, "take the last of the screeching imps;
+of the other two we are sartain!"
+
+He was obeyed; and but two enemies remained to be overcome. Heyward had
+given one of his pistols to Hawkeye, and together they rushed down a
+little declivity towards their foes; they discharged their weapons at
+the same instant, and equally without success.
+
+"I know'd it! and I said it!" muttered the scout, whirling the despised
+little implement over the falls with bitter disdain. "Come on, ye bloody
+minded hell-hounds! ye meet a man without a cross!"
+
+The words were barely uttered, when he encountered a savage of gigantic
+stature, and of the fiercest mien. At the same moment, Duncan found
+himself engaged with the other, in a similar contest of hand to hand.
+With ready skill, Hawkeye and his antagonist each grasped that uplifted
+arm of the other which held the dangerous knife. For near a minute they
+stood looking one another in the eye, and gradually exerting the power
+of their muscles for the mastery. At length, the toughened sinews of the
+white man prevailed over the less practised limbs of the native. The arm
+of the latter slowly gave way before the increasing force of the scout,
+who suddenly wresting his armed hand from the grasp of the foe, drove
+the sharp weapon through his naked bosom to the heart. In the meantime
+Heyward had been pressed in a more deadly struggle. His slight sword was
+snapped in the first encounter. As he was destitute of any other means
+of defence, his safety now depended entirely on bodily strength and
+resolution. Though deficient in neither of these qualities, he had met
+an enemy every way his equal. Happily, he soon succeeded in disarming
+his adversary, whose knife fell on the rock at their feet; and from this
+moment it became a fierce struggle, who should cast the other over the
+dizzy height into a neighboring cavern of the falls. Every successive
+struggle brought them nearer to the verge, where Duncan perceived the
+final and conquering effort must be made. Each of the combatants threw
+all his energies into that effort, and the result was, that both
+tottered on the brink of the precipice. Heyward felt the grasp of the
+other at his throat, and saw the grim smile the savage gave, under the
+revengeful hope that he hurried his enemy to a fate similar to his own,
+as he felt his body slowly yielding to a resistless power, and the young
+man experienced the passing agony of such a moment in all its horrors.
+At that instant of extreme danger, a dark hand and glancing knife
+appeared before him; the Indian released his hold, as the blood flowed
+freely from around the several tendons of the wrist; and while Duncan
+was drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, his charmed eyes were
+still riveted on the fierce and disappointed countenance of his foe, who
+fell sullenly and disappointed down the irrecoverable precipice.
+
+"To cover! to cover!" cried Hawkeye, who just then had despatched the
+enemy; "to cover, for your lives! the work is but half ended!"
+
+The young Mohican gave a shout of triumph, and, followed by Duncan, he
+glided up the acclivity they had descended to the combat, and sought the
+friendly shelter of the rocks and shrubs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+      "They linger yet,
+  Avengers of their native land."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+The warning call of the scout was not uttered without occasion. During
+the occurrence of the deadly encounter just related, the roar of the
+falls was unbroken by any human sound whatever. It would seem that
+interest in the result had kept the natives on the opposite shores in
+breathless suspense, while the quick evolutions and swift changes in the
+position of the combatants, effectually prevented a fire that might
+prove dangerous alike to friend and enemy. But the moment the struggle
+was decided, a yell arose as fierce and savage as wild and revengful
+passions could throw into the air. It was followed by the swift flashes
+of the rifles, which sent their leaden messengers across the rock in
+volleys, as though the assailants would pour out their impotent fury on
+the insensible scene of the fatal contest.
+
+A steady, though deliberate return was made from the rifle of
+Chingachgook, who had maintained his post throughout the fray with
+unmoved resolution. When the triumphant shout of Uncas was borne to his
+ears, the gratified father raised his voice in a single responsive cry,
+after which his busy piece alone proved that he still guarded his pass
+with unwearied diligence. In this manner many minutes flew by with the
+swiftness of thought: the rifles of the assailants speaking, at times,
+in rattling volleys, and at others, in occasional, scattering shots.
+Though the rock, the trees, and the shrubs, were cut and torn in a
+hundred places around the besieged, their cover was so close, and so
+rigidly maintained, that, as yet, David had been the only sufferer in
+their little band.
+
+"Let them burn their powder," said the deliberate scout, while bullet
+after bullet whizzed by the place where he securely lay; "there will be
+a fine gathering of lead when it is over, and I fancy the imps will tire
+of the sport, afore these old stones cry out for mercy! Uncas, boy, you
+waste the kernels by overcharging: and a kicking rifle never carries a
+true bullet. I told you to take that loping miscreant under the line of
+white paint; now, if your bullet went a hair's breadth, it went two
+inches above it. The life lies low in a Mingo, and humanity teaches us
+to make a quick end of the sarpents."
+
+A quiet smile lighted the haughty features of the young Mohican,
+betraying his knowledge of the English language, as well as of the
+other's meaning; but he suffered it to pass away without vindication or
+reply.
+
+"I cannot permit you to accuse Uncas of want of judgment or of skill,"
+said Duncan; "he saved my life in the coolest and readiest manner, and
+he has made a friend who never will require to be reminded of the debt
+he owes."
+
+Uncas partly raised his body, and offered his hand to the grasp of
+Heyward. During this act of friendship, the two young men exchanged
+looks of intelligence which caused Duncan to forget the character and
+condition of his wild associate. In the meanwhile, Hawkeye, who looked
+on this burst of youthful feeling with a cool but kind regard, made the
+following reply:--
+
+"Life is an obligation which friends often owe each other in the
+wilderness. I dare say I may have served Uncas some such turn myself
+before now; and I very well remember that he has stood between me and
+death five different times: three times from the Mingos, once in
+crossing Horican, and--"
+
+"That bullet was better aimed than common!" exclaimed Duncan,
+involuntarily shrinking from a shot which struck the rock at his side
+with a smart rebound.
+
+Hawkeye laid his hand on the shapeless metal, and shook his head, as he
+examined it, saying, "Falling lead is never flattened! had it come from
+the clouds this might have happened!"
+
+But the rifle of Uncas was deliberately raised towards the heavens,
+directing his companions to a point, where the mystery was immediately
+explained. A ragged oak grew on the right bank of the river, nearly
+opposite to their position, which, seeking the freedom of the open
+space, had inclined so far forward, that its upper branches overhung
+that arm of the stream which flowed nearest to its own shore. Among the
+topmost leaves, which scantily concealed the gnarled and stunted limbs,
+a savage was nestled, partly concealed by the trunk of the tree, and
+partly exposed, as though looking down upon them to ascertain the effect
+produced by his treacherous aim.
+
+"These devils will scale heaven to circumvent us to our ruin," said
+Hawkeye; "keep him in play, boy, until I can bring 'Killdeer' to bear,
+when we will try his metal on each side of the tree at once."
+
+Uncas delayed his fire until the scout uttered the word. The rifles
+flashed, the leaves and the bark of the oak flew into the air, and were
+scattered by the wind, but the Indian answered their assault by a
+taunting laugh, sending down upon them another bullet in return, that
+struck the cap of Hawkeye from his head. Once more the savage yells
+burst out of the woods, and the leaden hail whistled above the heads of
+the besieged, as if to confine them to a place where they might become
+easy victims to the enterprise of the warrior who had mounted the tree.
+
+"This must be looked to!" said the scout, glancing about him with an
+anxious eye. "Uncas, call up your father; we have need of all our
+we'pons to bring the cunning varmint from his roost."
+
+The signal was instantly given; and, before Hawkeye had reloaded his
+rifle, they were joined by Chingachgook. When his son pointed out to the
+experienced warrior the situation of their dangerous enemy, the usual
+exclamatory "Hugh!" burst from his lips; after which, no further
+expression of surprise or alarm was suffered to escape him. Hawkeye and
+the Mohicans conversed earnestly together in Delaware for a few moments,
+when each quietly took his post, in order to execute the plan they had
+speedily devised.
+
+The warrior in the oak had maintained a quick, though ineffectual fire,
+from the moment of his discovery. But his aim was interrupted by the
+vigilance of his enemies, whose rifles instantaneously bore on any part
+of his person that was left exposed. Still his bullets fell in the
+centre of the crouching party. The clothes of Heyward, which rendered
+him peculiarly conspicuous, were repeatedly cut, and once blood was
+drawn from a slight wound in his arm.
+
+At length, emboldened by the long and patient watchfulness of his
+enemies, the Huron attempted a better and more fatal aim. The quick eye
+of the Mohicans caught the dark line of his lower limbs incautiously
+exposed through the thin foliage, a few inches from the trunk of the
+tree. Their rifles made a common report, when, sinking on his wounded
+limb, part of the body of the savage came into view. Swift as thought,
+Hawkeye seized the advantage and discharged his fatal weapon into the
+top of the oak. The leaves were unusually agitated; the dangerous rifle
+fell from its commanding elevation, and after a few moments of vain
+struggling, the form of the savage was seen swinging in the wind, while
+he still grasped a ragged and naked branch of the tree, with hands
+clenched in desperation.
+
+"Give him, in pity give him--the contents of another rifle!" cried
+Duncan, turning away his eyes in horror from the spectacle of a
+fellow-creature in such awful jeopardy.
+
+"Not a karnel!" exclaimed the obdurate Hawkeye; "his death is certain,
+and we have no powder to spare, for Indian fights sometimes last for
+days; 'tis their scalps or ours!--and God, who made us, has put into our
+natures the craving to keep the skin on the head!"
+
+Against this stern and unyielding morality, supported as it was by such
+visible policy, there was no appeal. From that moment the yells in the
+forest once more ceased, the fire was suffered to decline, and all eyes,
+those of friends as well as enemies, became fixed on the hopeless
+condition of the wretch who was dangling between heaven and earth. The
+body yielded to the currents of air, and though no murmur or groan
+escaped the victim, there were instants when he grimly faced his foes,
+and the anguish of cold despair might be traced, through the intervening
+distance, in possession of his swarthy lineaments. Three several times
+the scout raised his piece in mercy, and as often prudence getting the
+better of his intention, it was again silently lowered. At length one
+hand of the Huron lost its hold, and dropped exhausted to his side. A
+desperate and fruitless struggle to recover the branch succeeded, and
+then the savage was seen for a fleeting instant, grasping wildly at the
+empty air. The lightning is not quicker than was the flame from the
+rifle of Hawkeye; the limbs of the victim trembled and contracted, the
+head fell to the bosom, and the body parted the foaming waters like
+lead, when the element closed above it, in its ceaseless velocity, and
+every vestige of the unhappy Huron was lost forever.
+
+No shout of triumph succeeded this important advantage, but even the
+Mohicans gazed at each other in silent horror. A single yell burst from
+the woods, and all was again still. Hawkeye, who alone appeared to
+reason on the occasion, shook his head at his own momentary weakness,
+even uttering his self-disapprobation aloud.
+
+"'Twas the last charge in my horn, and the last bullet in my pouch, and
+'twas the act of a boy!" he said; "what mattered it whether he struck
+the rock living or dead: feeling would soon be over. Uncas, lad, go down
+to the canoe, and bring up the big horn; it is all the powder we have
+left, and we shall need it to the last grain, or I am ignorant of the
+Mingo nature."
+
+The young Mohican complied, leaving the scout turning over the useless
+contents of his pouch, and shaking the empty horn with renewed
+discontent. From this unsatisfactory examination, however, he was soon
+called by a loud and piercing exclamation from Uncas, that sounded, even
+to the unpractised ears of Duncan, as the signal of some new and
+unexpected calamity. Every thought filled with apprehension for the
+precious treasure he had concealed in the cavern, the young man started
+to his feet, totally regardless of the hazard he incurred by such an
+exposure. As if actuated by a common impulse, his movement was imitated
+by his companions, and, together, they rushed down the pass to the
+friendly chasm, with a rapidity that rendered the scattering fire of
+their enemies perfectly harmless. The unwonted cry had brought the
+sisters, together with the wounded David, from their place of refuge;
+and the whole party, at a single glance, was made acquainted with the
+nature of the disaster that had disturbed even the practised stoicism of
+their youthful Indian protector.
+
+At a short distance from the rock, their little bark was to be seen
+floating across the eddy, towards the swift current of the river, in a
+manner which proved that its course was directed by some hidden agent.
+The instant this unwelcome sight caught the eye of the scout, his rifle
+was levelled as by instinct, but the barrel gave no answer to the bright
+sparks of the flint.
+
+"'Tis too late, 'tis too late!" Hawkeye exclaimed, dropping the useless
+piece in bitter disappointment; "the miscreant has struck the rapid; and
+had we powder, it could hardly send the lead swifter than he now goes!"
+
+The adventurous Huron raised his head above the shelter of the canoe,
+and while it glided swiftly down the stream, he waved his hand, and gave
+forth the shout, which was the known signal of success. His cry was
+answered by a yell and a laugh from the woods, as tauntingly exulting as
+if fifty demons were uttering their blasphemies at the fall of some
+Christian soul.
+
+"Well may you laugh, ye children of the devil!" said the scout, seating
+himself on a projection of the rock, and suffering his gun to fall
+neglected at his feet, "for the three quickest and surest rifles in
+these woods are no better than so many stalks of mullein, or the last
+year's horns of a buck!"
+
+"What is to be done?" demanded Duncan, losing the first feeling of
+disappointment in a more manly desire for exertion; "what will become of
+us?"
+
+Hawkeye made no other reply than by passing his finger around the crown
+of his head, in a manner so significant, that none who witnessed the
+action could mistake its meaning.
+
+"Surely, surely, our case is not so desperate!" exclaimed the youth;
+"the Hurons are not here; we may make good the caverns; we may oppose
+their landing."
+
+"With what?" coolly demanded the scout. "The arrows of Uncas, or such
+tears as women shed! No, no; you are young, and rich, and have friends,
+and at such an age I know it is hard to die! But," glancing his eyes at
+the Mohicans, "let us remember we are men without a cross, and let us
+teach these natives of the forest that white blood can run as freely as
+red, when the appointed hour is come."
+
+Duncan turned quickly in the direction indicated by the other's eyes,
+and read a confirmation of his worst apprehensions in the conduct of the
+Indians. Chingachgook, placing himself in a dignified posture on another
+fragment of the rock, had already laid aside his knife and tomahawk, and
+was in the act of taking the eagle's plume from his head, and smoothing
+the solitary tuft of hair in readiness to perform its last and revolting
+office. His countenance was composed, though thoughtful, while his dark
+gleaming eyes were gradually losing the fierceness of the combat in an
+expression better suited to the change he expected momentarily to
+undergo.
+
+"Our case is not, cannot be so hopeless!" said Duncan; "even at this
+moment succor may be at hand. I see no enemies! they have sickened of a
+struggle in which they risk so much with so little prospect of gain!"
+
+"It may be a minute, or it may be an hour, afore the wily sarpents steal
+upon us, and it is quite in natur' for them to be lying within hearing
+at this very moment," said Hawkeye; "but come they will, and in such a
+fashion as will leave us nothing to hope! Chingachgook"--he spoke in
+Delaware--"my brother, we have fought our last battle together, and the
+Maquas will triumph in the death of the sage man of the Mohicans, and of
+the pale-face, whose eyes can make night as day, and level the clouds
+to the mists of the springs!"
+
+"Let the Mingo women go weep over their slain!" returned the Indian,
+with characteristic pride and unmoved firmness; "the Great Snake of the
+Mohicans has coiled himself in their wigwams, and has poisoned their
+triumph with the wailings of children whose fathers have not returned!
+Eleven warriors lie hid from the graves of their tribes since the snows
+have melted, and none will tell where to find them when the tongue of
+Chingachgook shall be silent! Let them draw the sharpest knife, and
+whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their
+hands. Uncas, topmost branch of a noble trunk, call on the cowards to
+hasten or their hearts will soften, and they will change to women!"
+
+"They look among the fishes for their dead!" returned the low, soft
+voice of the youthful chieftain; "the Hurons float with the slimy eels!
+They drop from the oaks like fruit that is ready to be eaten! and the
+Delawares laugh!"
+
+"Ay, ay," muttered the scout, who had listened to this peculiar burst of
+the natives with deep attention; "they have warmed their Indian
+feelings, and they'll soon provoke the Maquas to give them a speedy end.
+As for me, who am of the whole blood of the whites, it is befitting that
+I should die as becomes my color, with no words of scoffing in my mouth,
+and without bitterness at the heart!"
+
+"Why die at all!" said Cora, advancing from the place where natural
+horror had, until this moment, held her riveted to the rock; "the path
+is open on every side; fly, then, to the woods, and call on God for
+succor. Go, brave men, we owe you too much already; let us no longer
+involve you in our hapless fortunes!"
+
+"You but little know the craft of the Iroquois, lady, if you judge they
+have left the path open to the woods!" returned Hawkeye, who, however,
+immediately added in his simplicity, "the down stream current, it is
+certain, might soon sweep us beyond the reach of their rifles or the
+sounds of their voices."
+
+"Then try the river. Why linger to add to the number of the victims of
+our merciless enemies?"
+
+"Why," repeated the scout, looking about him proudly, "because it is
+better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an
+evil conscience! What answer could we give Munro, when he asked us where
+and how we left his children?"
+
+"Go to him, and say, that you left them with a message to hasten to
+their aid," returned Cora, advancing nigher to the scout, in her
+generous ardor; "that the Hurons bear them into the northern wilds, but
+that by vigilance and speed they may yet be rescued; and if, after all,
+it should please heaven that his assistance come too late, bear to him,"
+she continued, her voice gradually lowering, until it seemed nearly
+choked, "the love, the blessings, the final prayers of his daughters,
+and bid him not mourn their early fate, but to look forward with humble
+confidence to the Christian's goal to meet his children."
+
+The hard, weather-beaten features of the scout began to work, and when
+she had ended, he dropped his chin to his hand, like a man musing
+profoundly on the nature of the proposal.
+
+"There is reason in her words!" at length broke from his compressed and
+trembling lips; "ay, and they bear the spirit of Christianity; what
+might be right and proper in a redskin, may be sinful in a man who has
+not even a cross in blood to plead for his ignorance. Chingachgook!
+Uncas! hear you the talk of the dark-eyed woman!"
+
+He now spoke in Delaware to his companions, and his address, though calm
+and deliberate, seemed very decided. The elder Mohican heard him with
+deep gravity, and appeared to ponder on his words, as though he felt the
+importance of their import. After a moment of hesitation, he waved his
+hand in assent, and uttered the English word "Good!" with the peculiar
+emphasis of his people. Then, replacing his knife and tomahawk in his
+girdle, the warrior moved silently to the edge of the rock which was
+most concealed from the banks of the river. Here he paused a moment,
+pointed significantly to the woods below, and saying a few words in his
+own language, as if indicating his intended route, he dropped into the
+water, and sank from before the eyes of the witnesses of his movements.
+
+The scout delayed his departure to speak to the generous girl, whose
+breathing became lighter as she saw the success of her remonstrance.
+
+"Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old," he
+said; "and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better
+word. If you are led into the woods, that is such of you as may be
+spared for a while, break the twigs on the bushes as you pass, and make
+the marks of your trail as broad as you can, when, if mortal eyes can
+see them, depend on having a friend who will follow to the ends of 'arth
+afore he desarts you."
+
+He gave Cora an affectionate shake of the hand, lifted his rifle, and
+after regarding it a moment with melancholy solicitude, laid it
+carefully aside, and descended to the place where Chingachgook had just
+disappeared. For an instant he hung suspended by the rock; and looking
+about him, with a countenance of peculiar care, he added, bitterly, "Had
+the powder held out, this disgrace could never have befallen!" then,
+loosening his hold, the water closed above his head, and he also became
+lost to view.
+
+All eyes were now turned on Uncas, who stood leaning against the ragged
+rock, in immovable composure. After waiting a short time, Cora pointed
+down the river, and said:--
+
+"Your friends have not been seen, and are now, most probably, in safety;
+is it not time for you to follow?"
+
+"Uncas will stay," the young Mohican calmly answered in English.
+
+"To increase the horror of our capture, and to diminish the chances of
+our release! Go, generous young man," Cora continued, lowering her eyes
+under the gaze of the Mohican, and, perhaps, with an intuitive
+consciousness of her power; "go to my father, as I have said, and be the
+most confidential of my messengers. Tell him to trust you with the means
+to buy the freedom of his daughters. Go! 'tis my wish, 'tis my prayer,
+that you will go!"
+
+The settled, calm look of the young chief changed to an expression of
+gloom, but he no longer hesitated. With a noiseless step he crossed the
+rock, and dropped into the troubled stream. Hardly a breath was drawn by
+those he left behind, until they caught a glimpse of his head emerging
+for air, far down the current, when he again sank, and was seen no more.
+
+These sudden and apparently successful experiments had all taken place
+in a few minutes of that time which had now become so precious. After
+the last look at Uncas, Cora turned, and, with a quivering lip,
+addressed herself to Heyward:--
+
+"I have heard of your boasted skill in the water, too, Duncan," she
+said; "follow, then, the wise example set you by these simple and
+faithful beings."
+
+"Is such the faith that Cora Munro would exact from her protector?" said
+the young man, smiling mournfully, but with bitterness.
+
+"This is not a time for idle subtleties and false opinions," she
+answered; "but a moment when every duty should be equally considered.
+To us you can be of no further service here, but your precious life may
+be saved for other and nearer friends."
+
+He made no reply, though his eyes fell wistfully on the beautiful form
+of Alice, who was clinging to his arm with the dependency of an infant.
+
+"Consider," continued Cora, after a pause, during which she seemed to
+struggle with a pang even more acute than any that her fears had
+excited, "that the worst to us can be but death; a tribute that all must
+pay at the good time of God's appointment."
+
+"There are evils worse than death," said Duncan, speaking hoarsely, and
+as if fretful at her importunity, "but which the presence of one who
+would die in your behalf may avert."
+
+Cora ceased her entreaties; and, veiling her face in her shawl, drew the
+nearly insensible Alice after her into the deepest recess of the inner
+cavern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+                            "Be gay securely;
+  Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous clouds,
+  That hang on thy clear brow."
+
+  _Death of Agrippina._
+
+
+The sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the
+combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated
+imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images
+and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he
+felt a difficulty in persuading himself of their truth. Still ignorant
+of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he
+at first listened intently to any signal, or sounds of alarm, which
+might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking.
+His attention was, however, bestowed in vain; for, with the
+disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost,
+leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.
+
+In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look about
+him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before
+had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect
+the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies, was as
+fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of
+the rivers seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life.
+The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest
+was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the
+currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk,
+which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant
+spectator of the fray, now stooped from his high and ragged perch, and
+soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice
+had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to
+open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed
+possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural
+accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began
+to rally his faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a
+reviving confidence of success.
+
+"The Hurons are not to be seen," he said, addressing David, who had by
+no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had
+received; "let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to
+Providence."
+
+"I remember to have united with two comely maidens, in lifting up our
+voices in praise and thanksgiving," returned the bewildered
+singing-master; "since which time I have been visited by a heavy
+judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep,
+while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the
+fulness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony."
+
+"Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment!
+But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but
+those of your own psalmody shall be excluded."
+
+"There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many
+waters is sweet to the senses!" said David, pressing his hand confusedly
+on his brow. "Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as
+though the departed spirits of the damned--"
+
+"Not now, not now," interrupted the impatient Heyward, "they have
+ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone too!
+everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may
+create those sounds you love so well to hear."
+
+David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at
+this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led
+to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied
+senses; and, leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow
+mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew
+before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an
+aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned
+by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its
+outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which
+one arm of the river rushed, to form the junction with its sister
+branch, a few rods below.
+
+"I like not that principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit
+without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate," he said,
+while busied in this employment; "our own maxim, which says, 'while life
+remains there is hope,' is more consoling, and better suited to a
+soldier's temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle
+encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you
+all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that
+trembling weeper on your bosom?"
+
+"I am calmer, Duncan," said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her
+sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; "much
+calmer, now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret,
+free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who
+have risked so much already in our behalf."
+
+"Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!" said
+Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed towards the outer
+entrance of the cavern. "With two such examples of courage before him, a
+man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero." He then seated himself
+in the centre of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand
+convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced
+the sullen desperation of his purpose. "The Hurons, if they come, may
+not gain our position so easily as they think," he lowly muttered; and
+dropping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result
+in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to
+their place of retreat.
+
+With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless
+silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the
+recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its
+inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed
+security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining
+possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give
+utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully
+destroy.
+
+David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of
+light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the
+pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in
+turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition
+than any that had yet met his eye. He was, most probably, acting all
+this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of
+Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward;
+for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words "Isle
+of Wight," drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran
+through the preliminary modulations of the air, whose name he had just
+mentioned with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.
+
+"May not this prove dangerous?" asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at
+Major Heyward.
+
+"Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard amid the din of the
+falls," was the answer; "besides, the cavern will prove his friend. Let
+him indulge his passion, since it may be done without hazard."
+
+"Isle of Wight!" repeated David, looking about him with that dignity
+with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his
+school; "'tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words; let it be sung with
+meet respect!"
+
+After allowing a moment of stillness, to enforce his discipline, the
+voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually
+stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds
+rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced
+by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually
+wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even
+prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the
+singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the
+sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice
+unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid
+features of Gamut with an expression of chastened delight that she
+neither affected nor wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile
+on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward
+soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to
+fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the
+wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice.
+The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of
+music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that
+touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated
+powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with
+long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that
+instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as
+though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.
+
+"We are lost!" exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora.
+
+"Not yet, not yet," returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward; "the
+sound came from the centre of the island, and it has been produced by
+the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there
+is still hope."
+
+Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of
+Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters
+in such a manner that they awaited the result in silence. A second yell
+soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down
+the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached
+the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage
+triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as
+man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest
+barbarity.
+
+The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to
+their fellows from the water's edge, and were answered from the heights
+above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between
+the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the
+abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds
+diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for
+the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in
+truth they were above and on every side of them.
+
+In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few
+yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope,
+with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the
+impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot
+where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the
+jargon of the Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to
+distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the _patois_ of the
+Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, "La Longue
+Carabine!" causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which,
+Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated
+hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learnt for the
+first time, had been his late companion.
+
+"La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!" passed from mouth to mouth,
+until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which
+would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a
+vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of
+savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a
+foe, whose body, Heyward could collect from their expressions, they
+hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island.
+
+"Now," he whispered to the trembling sisters, "now is the moment of
+uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are still
+safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our
+enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may
+look for succor from Webb."
+
+There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward
+well knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance
+and method. More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they
+brushed the sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the
+branches to snap. At length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of the
+blanket fell, and a faint ray of light gleamed into the inner part of
+the cave. Cora folded Alice to her bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to
+his feet. A shout was at that moment heard, as if issuing from the
+centre of the rock, announcing that the neighboring cavern had at length
+been entered. In a minute, the number and loudness of the voices
+indicated that the whole party was collected in and around that secret
+place.
+
+As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other,
+Duncan, believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and
+the sisters, to place himself between the latter and the first onset of
+the terrible meeting. Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the
+slight barrier which separated him only by a few feet from his
+relentless pursuers, and placing his face to the casual opening, he even
+looked out, with a sort of desperate indifference, on their movements.
+
+Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian,
+whose deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the
+proceedings of his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the
+vault opposite, which was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the
+humble furniture of the scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of
+sassafras with a color that the natives well knew was anticipating the
+season. Over this sign of their success, they set up a howl, like an
+opening from so many hounds who had recovered a lost trail. After this
+yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant bed of the cavern, and bore
+the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs, as if they suspected
+them of concealing the person of the man they had so long hated and
+feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached the chief
+bearing a load of the brush, and pointing, exultingly, to the deep red
+stains with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells,
+whose meaning Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent
+repetition of the name of "La Longue Carabine!" When his triumph had
+ceased, he cast the brush on the slight heap that Duncan had made before
+the entrance of the second cavern, and closed the view. His example was
+followed by others, who, as they drew the branches from the cave of the
+scout, threw them into one pile, adding, unconsciously, to the security
+of those they sought. The very slightness of the defence was its chief
+merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush, which all of
+them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been
+accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.
+
+As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches
+settled in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a
+compact body, Duncan once more breathed freely. With a light step, and
+lighter heart, he returned to the centre of the cave, and took the place
+he had left, where he could command a view of the opening next the
+river. While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as
+if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the
+cavern in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, towards
+the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry
+betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead
+comrades.
+
+Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most
+critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the
+anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to
+those who were so little able to sustain it.
+
+"They are gone, Cora!" he whispered; "Alice, they are returned whence
+they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone delivered us from
+the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!"
+
+"Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!" exclaimed the younger sister,
+rising from the encircling arms of Cora, and casting herself with
+enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; "to that Heaven who has spared
+the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so
+much love--"
+
+Both Heyward, and the more tempered Cora, witnessed the act of
+involuntary emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly
+believing that piety had never worn a form so lovely as it had now
+assumed in the youthful person of Alice. Her eyes radiant with the glow
+of grateful feelings; the flush of her beauty was again seated on her
+cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and anxious to pour out its
+thanksgivings, through the medium of her eloquent features. But when her
+lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared frozen by some
+new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her
+soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror;
+while those hands which she had raised, clasped in each other, towards
+heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed
+forward in convulsed motion. Heyward turned, the instant she gave a
+direction to his suspicions, and, peering just above the ledge which
+formed the threshold of the open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the
+malignant, fierce, and savage features of Le Renard Subtil.
+
+In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not
+desert him. He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian's
+countenance, that his eye, accustomed to the open air, had not yet been
+able to penetrate the dusky light which pervaded the depth of the
+cavern. He had even thought of retreating beyond a curvature in the
+natural wall, which might still conceal him and his companions, when, by
+the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot across the features of the
+savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were betrayed.
+
+The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible
+truth was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the
+impulses of his hot blood, Duncan levelled his pistol and fired. The
+report of the weapon made the cavern bellow like an eruption from a
+volcano; and when the smoke it vomited had been driven away before the
+current of air which issued from the ravine, the place so lately
+occupied by the features of his treacherous guide was vacant. Rushing to
+the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure, stealing around
+a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.
+
+Among the savages, a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which
+had just been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le
+Renard raised his voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was
+answered by a spontaneous yell from the mouth of every Indian within
+hearing of the sound. The clamorous noises again rushed down the
+island; and before Duncan had time to recover from the shock, his feeble
+barrier of brush was scattered to the winds, the cavern was entered at
+both its extremities, and he and his companions were dragged from their
+shelter and borne into the day, where they stood surrounded by the whole
+band of the triumphant Hurons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  "I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
+  As much as we this night have overwatched!"
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The instant the shock of this sudden misfortune had abated, Duncan began
+to make his observations on the appearance and proceedings of their
+captors. Contrary to the usages of the natives in the wantonness of
+their success, they had respected, not only the persons of the trembling
+sisters, but his own. The rich ornaments of his military attire had
+indeed been repeatedly handled by different individuals of the tribe
+with eyes expressing a savage longing to possess the baubles; but before
+the customary violence could be resorted to, a mandate in the
+authoritative voice of the large warrior already mentioned, stayed the
+uplifted hand, and convinced Heyward that they were to be reserved for
+some object of particular moment.
+
+While, however, these manifestations of weakness were exhibited by the
+young and vain of the party, the more experienced warriors continued
+their search throughout both caverns, with an activity that denoted they
+were far from being satisfied with those fruits of their conquest which
+had already been brought to light. Unable to discover any new victim,
+these diligent workers of vengeance soon approached their male
+prisoners, pronouncing the name of "La Longue Carabine," with a
+fierceness that could not easily be mistaken. Duncan affected not to
+comprehend the meaning of their repeated and violent interrogatories,
+while his companion was spared the effort of a similar deception by his
+ignorance of French. Wearied, at length, by their importunities, and
+apprehensive of irritating his captors by too stubborn a silence, the
+former looked about him in quest of Magua; who might interpret his
+answers to questions which were at each moment becoming more earnest and
+threatening.
+
+The conduct of this savage had formed a solitary exception to that of
+all his fellows. While the others were busily occupied in seeking to
+gratify their childish passion for finery, by plundering even the
+miserable effects of the scout, or had been searching, with such
+bloodthirsty vengeance in their looks, for their absent owner, Le Renard
+had stood at a little distance from the prisoners, with a demeanor so
+quiet and satisfied, as to betray that he had already effected the grand
+purpose of this treachery. When the eyes of Heyward first met those of
+his recent guide, he turned them away in horror at the sinister though
+calm look he encountered. Conquering his disgust, however, he was able,
+with an averted face, to address his successful enemy.
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is too much of a warrior," said the reluctant Heyward,
+"to refuse telling an unarmed man what his conquerors say."
+
+"They ask for the hunter who knows the paths through the woods,"
+returned Magua, in his broken English, laying his hand, at the same
+time, with a ferocious smile, on the bundle of leaves with which a wound
+on his own shoulder was bandaged. "La Longue Carabine! his rifle is
+good, and his eye never shut; but, like the short gun of the white
+chief, it is nothing against the life of Le Subtil!"
+
+"Le Renard is too brave to remember the hurts received in war, or the
+hands that gave them!"
+
+"Was it war, when the tired Indian rested at the sugar-tree to taste his
+corn! who filled the bushes with creeping enemies! who drew the knife!
+whose tongue was peace, while his heart was colored with blood! Did
+Magua say that the hatchet was out of the ground, and that his hand had
+dug it up?"
+
+As Duncan dared not retort upon his accuser by reminding him of his own
+premeditated treachery, and disdained to deprecate his resentment by any
+words of apology, he remained silent. Magua seemed also content to rest
+the controversy as well as all further communication there, for he
+resumed the leaning attitude against the rock, from which, in momentary
+energy, he had arisen. But the cry of "La Longue Carabine" was renewed
+the instant the impatient savages perceived that the short dialogue was
+ended.
+
+"You hear," said Magua, with stubborn indifference; "the red Hurons call
+for the life of 'The Long Rifle,' or they will have the blood of them
+that keep him hid!"
+
+"He is gone--escaped; he is far beyond their reach."
+
+Renard smiled with cold contempt, as he answered,--
+
+"When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace; but the redmen know
+how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies. Where is his body? Let
+the Hurons see his scalp!"
+
+"He is not dead, but escaped."
+
+Magua shook his head incredulously.
+
+"Is he a bird, to spread his wings; or is he a fish, to swim without
+air! The white chief reads in his books, and he believes the Hurons are
+fools!"
+
+"Though no fish, The Long Rifle can swim. He floated down the stream
+when the powder was all burnt, and when the eyes of the Hurons were
+behind a cloud."
+
+"And why did the white chief stay?" demanded the still incredulous
+Indian. "Is he a stone that goes to the bottom, or does the scalp burn
+his head?"
+
+"That I am not a stone, your dead comrade, who fell into the falls,
+might answer, were the life still in him," said the provoked young man,
+using, in his anger, that boastful language which was most likely to
+excite the admiration of an Indian. "The white man thinks none but
+cowards desert their women."
+
+Magua muttered a few words, inaudibly, between his teeth, before he
+continued, aloud,--
+
+"Can the Delawares swim, too, as well as crawl in the bushes? Where is
+Le Gros Serpent?"
+
+Duncan, who perceived by the use of these Canadian appellations, that
+his late companions were much better known to his enemies than to
+himself, answered, reluctantly, "He also is gone down with the water."
+
+"Le Cerf Agile is not here?"
+
+"I know not whom you call 'The Nimble Deer,'" said Duncan, gladly
+profiting by any excuse to create delay.
+
+"Uncas," returned Magua, pronouncing the Delaware name with even greater
+difficulty than he spoke his English words. "'Bounding Elk' is what the
+white man says, when he calls to the young Mohican."
+
+"Here is some confusion in names between us, Le Renard," said Duncan,
+hoping to provoke a discussion. "_Daim_ is the French for deer, and
+_cerf_ for stag; _elan_ is the true term, when one would speak of an
+elk."
+
+"Yes," muttered the Indian, in his native tongue; "the pale-faces are
+prattling women! they have two words for each thing, while a redskin
+will make the sound of his voice speak for him." Then changing his
+language, he continued, adhering to the imperfect nomenclature of his
+provincial instructors, "The deer is swift, but weak; the elk is swift,
+but strong; and the son of Le Serpent is Le Cerf Agile. Has he leaped
+the river to the woods?"
+
+"If you mean the younger Delaware, he too is gone down with the water."
+
+As there was nothing improbable to an Indian in the manner of the
+escape, Magua admitted the truth of what he had heard, with a readiness
+that afforded additional evidence how little he would prize such
+worthless captives. With his companions, however, the feeling was
+manifestly different.
+
+The Hurons had awaited the result of this short dialogue with
+characteristic patience, and with a silence that increased until there
+was a general stillness in the band. When Heyward ceased to speak, they
+turned their eyes, as one man, on Magua, demanding, in this expressive
+manner, an explanation of what had been said. Their interpreter pointed
+to the river, and made them acquainted with the result, as much by the
+action as by the few words he uttered. When the fact was generally
+understood, the savages raised a frightful yell, which declared the
+extent of their disappointment. Some ran furiously to the water's edge,
+beating the air with frantic gestures, while others spat upon the
+element, to resent the supposed treason it had committed against their
+acknowledged rights as conquerors. A few, and they not the least
+powerful and terrific of the band, threw lowering looks, in which the
+fiercest passion was only tempered by habitual self-command, at those
+captives who still remained in their power; while one or two even gave
+vent to their malignant feelings by the most menacing gestures, against
+which neither the sex nor the beauty of the sisters was any protection.
+The young soldier made a desperate, but fruitless effort, to spring to
+the side of Alice, when he saw the dark hand of a savage twisted in the
+rich tresses which were flowing in volumes over her shoulders, while a
+knife was passed around the head from which they fell, as if to denote
+the horrid manner in which it was about to be robbed of its beautiful
+ornament. But his hands were bound; and at the first movement he made,
+he felt the grasp of the powerful Indian who directed the band, pressing
+his shoulder like a vise. Immediately conscious how unavailing any
+struggle against such an overwhelming force must prove, he submitted to
+his fate, encouraging his gentle companions by a few low and tender
+assurances that the natives seldom failed to threaten more than they
+performed.
+
+But, while Duncan resorted to these words of consolation to quiet the
+apprehensions of the sisters, he was not so weak as to deceive himself.
+He well knew that the authority of an Indian chief was so little
+conventional, that it was oftener maintained by physical superiority
+than by any moral supremacy he might possess. The danger was, therefore,
+magnified exactly in proportion to the number of the savage spirits by
+which they were surrounded. The most positive mandate from him who
+seemed the acknowledged leader, was liable to be violated at each
+moment, by any rash hand that might choose to sacrifice a victim to the
+_manes_ of some dead friend or relative. While, therefore, he sustained
+an outward appearance of calmness and fortitude, his heart leaped into
+his throat, whenever any of their fierce captors drew nearer than common
+to the helpless sisters, or fastened one of their sullen wandering looks
+on those fragile forms which were so little able to resist the slightest
+assault.
+
+His apprehensions were, however, greatly relieved, when he saw that the
+leader had summoned his warriors to himself in council. Their
+deliberations were short, and it would seem, by the silence of most of
+the party, the decision unanimous. By the frequency with which the few
+speakers pointed in the direction of the encampment of Webb, it was
+apparent they dreaded the approach of danger from that quarter. This
+consideration probably hastened their determination, and quickened the
+subsequent movements.
+
+During this short conference, Heyward, finding a respite from his
+greatest fears, had leisure to admire the cautious manner in which the
+Hurons had made their approaches, even after hostilities had ceased.
+
+It has already been stated, that the upper half of the island was a
+naked rock, and destitute of any other defences than a few scattered
+logs of drift-wood. They had selected this point to make their descent,
+having borne the canoe through the wood around the cataract for that
+purpose. Placing their arms in the little vessel, a dozen men clinging
+to its sides had trusted themselves to the direction of the canoe, which
+was controlled by two of the most skilful warriors, in attitudes that
+enabled them to command a view of the dangerous passage. Favored by this
+arrangement, they touched the head of the island at that point which had
+proved so fatal to their first adventures, but with the advantages of
+superior numbers, and the possession of fire-arms. That such had been
+the manner of their descent was rendered quite apparent to Duncan; for
+they now bore the light bark from the upper end of the rock, and placed
+it in the water, near the mouth of the outer cavern. As soon as this
+change was made, the leader made signs to the prisoners to descend and
+enter.
+
+As resistance was impossible, and remonstrance useless, Heyward set the
+example of submission, by leading the way into the canoe, where he was
+soon seated with the sisters, and the still wondering David.
+Notwithstanding the Hurons were necessarily ignorant of the little
+channels among the eddies and rapids of the stream, they knew the common
+signs of such a navigation too well to commit any material blunder. When
+the pilot chosen for the task of guiding the canoe had taken his
+station, the whole band plunged again into the river, the vessel glided
+down the current, and in a few moments the captives found themselves on
+the south bank of the stream, nearly opposite to the point where they
+had struck it the preceding evening.
+
+Here was held another short but earnest consultation, during which the
+horses, to whose panic their owners ascribed their heaviest misfortune,
+were led from the cover of the woods, and brought to the sheltered spot.
+The band now divided. The great chief so often mentioned, mounting the
+charger of Heyward, led the way directly across the river, followed by
+most of his people, and disappeared in the woods, leaving the prisoners
+in charge of six savages, at whose head was Le Renard Subtil. Duncan
+witnessed all their movements with renewed uneasiness.
+
+He had been fond of believing, from the uncommon forbearance of the
+savages, that he was reserved as a prisoner to be delivered to Montcalm.
+As the thoughts of those who are in misery seldom slumber, and the
+invention is never more lively than when it is stimulated by hope,
+however feeble and remote, he had even imagined that the parental
+feelings of Munro were to be made instrumental in seducing him from his
+duty to the king. For though the French commander bore a high character
+for courage and enterprise, he was also thought to be expert in those
+political practices, which do not always respect the nicer obligations
+of morality, and which so generally disgraced the European diplomacy of
+that period.
+
+All those busy and ingenious speculations were now annihilated by the
+conduct of his captors. That portion of the band who had followed the
+huge warrior took the route towards the foot of the Horican, and no
+other expectation was left for himself and companions, than that they
+were to be retained as hopeless captives by their savage conquerors.
+Anxious to know the worst, and willing, in such an emergency, to try the
+potency of gold, he overcame his reluctance to speak to Magua.
+Addressing himself to his former guide, who had now assumed the
+authority and manner of one who was to direct the future movements of
+the party, he said, in tones as friendly and confiding as he could
+assume,--
+
+"I would speak to Magua, what is fit only for so great a chief to hear."
+
+The Indian turned his eyes on the young soldier scornfully, as he
+answered,--
+
+"Speak; trees have no ears!"
+
+"But the red Hurons are not deaf; and counsel that is fit for the great
+men of a nation would make the young warriors drunk. If Magua will not
+listen, the officer of the king knows how to be silent."
+
+The savage spoke carelessly to his comrades, who were busied, after
+their awkward manner, in preparing the horses for the reception of the
+sisters, and moved a little to one side, whither, by a cautious gesture,
+he induced Heyward to follow.
+
+"Now speak," he said; "if the words are such as Magua should hear."
+
+"Le Renard Subtil has proved himself worthy of the honorable name given
+to him by his Canada fathers," commenced Heyward; "I see his wisdom, and
+all that he has done for us, and shall remember it, when the hour to
+reward him arrives. Yes! Renard has proved that he is not only a great
+chief in council, but one who knows how to deceive his enemies!"
+
+"What has Renard done?" coldly demanded the Indian.
+
+"What! has he not seen that the woods were filled with outlying parties
+of the enemies, and that the Serpent could not steal through them
+without being seen? Then, did he not lose his path to blind the eyes of
+the Hurons? Did he not pretend to go back to his tribe, who had treated
+him ill, and driven him from their wigwams like a dog? And, when we saw
+what he wished to do, did we not aid him, by making a false face, that
+the Hurons might think the white man believed that his friend was his
+enemy? Is not all this true? And when Le Subtil had shut the eyes and
+stopped the ears of his nation by his wisdom, did they not forget that
+they had once done him wrong, and forced him to flee to the Mohawks? And
+did they not leave him on the south side of the river, with their
+prisoners, while they have gone foolishly on the north? Does not Renard
+mean to turn like a fox on his footsteps, and to carry to the rich and
+gray-headed Scotchman his daughters? Yes, Magua, I see it all, and I
+have already been thinking how so much wisdom and honesty should be
+repaid. First, the chief of William Henry will give as a great chief
+should for such a service. The medal[16] of Magua will no longer be of
+tin, but of beaten gold; his horn will run over with powder; dollars
+will be as plenty in his pouch as pebbles on the shore of Horican; and
+the deer will lick his hand, for they will know it to be vain to fly
+from the rifle he will carry! As for myself, I know not how to exceed
+the gratitude of the Scotchman, but I--yes, I will--"
+
+"What will the young chief who comes from towards the sun, give?"
+demanded the Huron, observing that Heyward hesitated in his desire to
+end the enumeration of benefits with that which might form the climax of
+an Indian's wishes.
+
+"He will make the fire-water from the Islands in the salt lake flow
+before the wigwam of Magua, until the heart of the Indian shall be
+lighter than the feathers of the humming-bird, and his breath sweeter
+than the wild honeysuckle."
+
+Le Renard had listened gravely as Heyward slowly proceeded in his subtle
+speech. When the young man mentioned the artifice he supposed the Indian
+to have practised on his own nation, the countenance of the listener was
+veiled in an expression of cautious gravity. At the allusion to the
+injury which Duncan affected to believe had driven the Huron from his
+native tribe, a gleam of such ungovernable ferocity flashed from the
+other's eyes, as induced the adventurous speaker to believe he had
+struck the proper chord. And by the time he reached the part where he so
+artfully blended the thirst of vengeance with the desire of gain, he
+had, at least, obtained a command of the deepest attention of the
+savage. The question put by Le Renard had been calm, and with all the
+dignity of an Indian; but it was quite apparent, by the thoughtful
+expression of the listener's countenance, that the answer was most
+cunningly devised. The Huron mused a few moments, and then laying his
+hand on the rude bandages of his wounded shoulder, he said, with some
+energy,--
+
+"Do friends make such remarks?"
+
+"Would La Longue Carabine cut one so light on an enemy?"
+
+"Do the Delawares crawl upon those they love, like snakes, twisting
+themselves to strike?"
+
+"Would Le Gros Serpent have been heard by the ears of one he wished to
+be deaf?"
+
+"Does the white chief burn his powder in the faces of his brothers?"
+
+"Does he ever miss his aim, when seriously bent to kill?" returned
+Duncan, smiling with well acted sincerity.
+
+Another long and deliberate pause succeeded these sententious questions
+and ready replies. Duncan saw that the Indian hesitated. In order to
+complete his victory, he was in the act of recommencing the enumeration
+of the rewards, when Magua made an expressive gesture and said--
+
+"Enough; Le Renard is a wise chief, and what he does will be seen. Go,
+and keep the mouth shut. When Magua speaks, it will be the time to
+answer."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that the eyes of his companion were warily fastened
+on the rest of the band, fell back immediately, in order to avoid the
+appearance of any suspicious confederacy with their leader. Magua
+approached the horses, and affected to be well pleased with the
+diligence and ingenuity of his comrades. He then signed to Heyward to
+assist the sisters into the saddles, for he seldom deigned to use the
+English tongue, unless urged by some motive of more than usual moment.
+
+There was no longer any plausible pretext for delay; and Duncan was
+obliged, however reluctantly, to comply. As he performed this office, he
+whispered his reviving hopes in the ears of the trembling females, who,
+through dread of encountering the savage countenances of their captors,
+seldom raised their eyes from the ground. The mare of David had been
+taken with the followers of the large chief; in consequence, its owner,
+as well as Duncan, was compelled to journey on foot. The latter did not,
+however, so much regret this circumstance, as it might enable him to
+retard the speed of the party; for he still turned his longing looks in
+the direction of Fort Edward, in the vain expectation of catching some
+sound from that quarter of the forest, which might denote the approach
+of succor.
+
+When all were prepared, Magua made the signal to proceed, advancing in
+front to lead the party in person. Next followed David, who was
+gradually coming to a true sense of his condition, as the effects of the
+wound became less and less apparent. The sisters rode in his rear, with
+Heyward at their side, while the Indians flanked the party, and brought
+up the close of the march, with a caution that seemed never to tire.
+
+In this manner they proceeded in uninterrupted silence, except when
+Heyward addressed some solitary word of comfort to the females, or David
+gave vent to the moanings of his spirit in piteous exclamations, which
+he intended should express the humility of resignation. Their direction
+lay towards the south, and in a course nearly opposite to the road to
+William Henry. Notwithstanding this apparent adherence in Magua to the
+original determination of his conquerors, Heyward could not believe his
+tempting bait was so soon forgotten; and he knew the windings of an
+Indian path too well, to suppose that its apparent course led directly
+to its object, when artifice was at all necessary. Mile after mile was,
+however, passed through the boundless woods, in this painful manner,
+without any prospect of a termination to their journey. Heyward watched
+the sun, as he darted his meridian rays through the branches of the
+trees, and pined for the moment when the policy of Magua should change
+their route to one more favorable to his hopes. Sometimes he fancied the
+wary savage, despairing of passing the arm of Montcalm in safety, was
+holding his way towards a well-known border settlement, where a
+distinguished officer of the crown, and a favored friend of the Six
+Nations, held his large possessions, as well as his usual residence. To
+be delivered into the hands of Sir William Johnson was far preferable to
+being led into the wilds of Canada; but in order to effect even the
+former, it would be necessary to traverse the forest for many weary
+leagues, each step of which was carrying him farther from the scene of
+the war, and, consequently, from the post, not only of honor, but of
+duty.
+
+Cora alone remembered the parting injunctions of the scout, and whenever
+an opportunity offered, she stretched forth her arm to bend aside the
+twigs that met her hands. But the vigilance of the Indians rendered this
+act of precaution both difficult and dangerous. She was often defeated
+in her purpose, by encountering their watchful eyes, when it became
+necessary to feign an alarm she did not feel, and occupy the limb by
+some gesture of feminine apprehension. Once, and once only, was she
+completely successful; when she broke down the bough of a large sumach,
+and, by a sudden thought, let her glove fall at the same instant. This
+sign, intended for those that might follow, was observed by one of her
+conductors, who restored the glove, broke the remaining branches of the
+bush in such a manner that it appeared to proceed from the struggling of
+some beast in its branches, and then laid his hand on his tomahawk, with
+a look so significant, that it put an effectual end to these stolen
+memorials of their passage.
+
+As there were horses, to leave the prints of their footsteps, in both
+bands of the Indians, this interruption cut off any probable hopes of
+assistance being conveyed through the means of their trail.
+
+Heyward would have ventured a remonstrance, had there been anything
+encouraging in the gloomy reserve of Magua. But the savage, during all
+this time, seldom turned to look at his followers, and never spoke. With
+the sun for his only guide, or aided by such blind marks as are only
+known to the sagacity of a native, he held his way along the barrens of
+pine, through occasional little fertile vales, across brooks and
+rivulets, and over undulating hills, with the accuracy of instinct, and
+nearly with the directness of a bird. He never seemed to hesitate.
+Whether the path was hardly distinguishable, whether it disappeared, or
+whether it lay beaten and plain before him, made no sensible difference
+in his speed or certainty. It seemed as if fatigue could not affect him.
+Whenever the eyes of the wearied travellers rose from the decayed leaves
+over which they trod, his dark form was to be seen glancing among the
+stems of the trees in front, his head immovably fastened in a forward
+position, with the light plume on his crest fluttering in a current of
+air, made solely by the swiftness of his own motion.
+
+But all this diligence and speed were not without an object. After
+crossing a low vale, through which a gushing brook meandered, he
+suddenly ascended a hill, so steep and difficult of ascent, that the
+sisters were compelled to alight, in order to follow. When the summit
+was gained, they found themselves on a level spot, but thinly covered
+with trees, under one of which Magua had thrown his dark form, as if
+willing and ready to seek that rest which was so much needed by the
+whole party.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+            "Cursed by my tribe
+  If I forgive him."
+
+  _Shylock._
+
+
+The Indian had selected, for this desirable purpose, one of those steep,
+pyramidal hills, which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds,
+and which so frequently occur in the valleys of America. The one in
+question was high and precipitous; its top flattened, as usual; but with
+one of its sides more than ordinarily irregular. It possessed no other
+apparent advantage for a resting-place than in its elevation and form,
+which might render defence easy, and surprise nearly impossible. As
+Heyward, however, no longer expected that rescue which time and distance
+now rendered so improbable, he regarded these little peculiarities with
+an eye devoid of interest, devoting himself entirely to the comfort and
+condolence of his feebler companions. The Narragansetts were suffered to
+browse on the branches of the trees and shrubs that were thinly
+scattered over the summit of the hill, while the remains of their
+provisions were spread under the shade of a beech, that stretched its
+horizontal limbs like a canopy above them.
+
+Notwithstanding the swiftness of their flight, one of the Indians had
+found an opportunity to strike a straggling fawn with an arrow, and had
+borne the more preferable fragments of the victim patiently on his
+shoulders, to the stopping-place. Without any aid from the science of
+cookery, he was immediately employed, in common with his fellows, in
+gorging himself with this digestible sustenance. Magua alone sat apart,
+without participation in the revolting meal, and apparently buried in
+the deepest thought.
+
+This abstinence, so remarkable in an Indian, when he possessed the means
+of satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Heyward. The
+young man willingly believed that the Huron deliberated on the most
+eligible manner of eluding the vigilance of his associates. With a view
+to assist his plans, by any suggestion of his own, and to strengthen the
+temptation, he left the beech, and straggled as if without an object, to
+the spot where Le Renard was seated.
+
+"Has not Magua kept the sun in his face long enough to escape all danger
+from the Canadians?" he asked, as though no longer doubtful of the good
+intelligence established between them; "and will not the chief of
+William Henry be better pleased to see his daughters before another
+night may have hardened his heart to their loss, to make him less
+liberal in his reward?"
+
+"Do the pale-faces love their children less in the morning than at
+night?" asked the Indian, coldly.
+
+"By no means," returned Heyward, anxious to recall his error, if he had
+made one; "the white man may, and does often, forget the burial-place of
+his fathers; he sometimes ceases to remember those he should love and
+has promised to cherish; but the affection of a parent for his child is
+never permitted to die."
+
+"And is the heart of the white-headed chief soft, and will he think of
+the babes that his squaws have given him? He is hard to his warriors,
+and his eyes are made of stone!"
+
+"He is severe to the idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he
+is a leader, but just and humane. I have known many fond and tender
+parents, but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer towards his
+child. You have seen the gray-head in front of his warriors, Magua; but
+I have seen his eyes swimming in water, when he spoke of those children
+who are now in your power!"
+
+Heyward paused, for he knew not how to construe the remarkable
+expression that gleamed across the swarthy features of the attentive
+Indian. At first it seemed as if the remembrance of the promised reward
+grew vivid in his mind, while he listened to the sources of parental
+feeling which were to assure its possession; but as Duncan proceeded,
+the expression of joy became so fiercely malignant, that it was
+impossible not to apprehend it proceeded from some passion more sinister
+than avarice.
+
+"Go," said the Huron, suppressing the alarming exhibition in an instant,
+in a death-like calmness of countenance; "go to the dark-haired
+daughter, and say, Magua waits to speak. The father will remember what
+the child promises."
+
+Duncan, who interpreted this speech to express a wish for some
+additional pledge that the promised gifts should not be withheld,
+slowly and reluctantly repaired to the place where the sisters were now
+resting from their fatigue, to communicate its purport to Cora.
+
+"You understand the nature of an Indian's wishes," he concluded, as he
+led her towards the place where she was expected, "and must be prodigal
+of your offers of powder and blankets. Ardent spirits are, however, the
+most prized by such as he; nor would it be amiss to add some boon from
+your own hand, with that grace you so well know how to practise.
+Remember, Cora, that on your presence of mind and ingenuity even your
+life, as well as that of Alice, may in some measure depend."
+
+"Heyward, and yours!"
+
+"Mine is of little moment; it is already sold to my king, and is a prize
+to be seized by any enemy who may possess the power. I have no father to
+expect me, and but few friends to lament a fate which I have courted
+with the insatiable longings of youth after distinction. But hush! we
+approach the Indian. Magua, the lady with whom you wish to speak is
+here."
+
+The Indian rose slowly from his seat, and stood for near a minute silent
+and motionless. He then signed with his hand for Heyward to retire,
+saying coldly,--
+
+"When the Huron talks to the women, his tribe shut their ears."
+
+Duncan, still lingering, as if refusing to comply, Cora said, with a
+calm smile--
+
+"You hear, Heyward, and delicacy at least should urge you to retire. Go
+to Alice, and comfort her with our reviving prospects."
+
+She waited until he had departed, and then turning to the native, with
+the dignity of her sex in her voice and manner, she added, "What would
+Le Renard say to the daughter of Munro?"
+
+"Listen," said the Indian, laying his hand firmly upon her arm, as if
+willing to draw her utmost attention to his words; a movement that Cora
+as firmly but quietly repulsed, by extricating the limb from his grasp:
+"Magua was born a chief and a warrior among the red Hurons of the lakes;
+he saw the suns of twenty summers make the snows of twenty winters run
+off in the streams, before he saw a pale-face; and he was happy! Then
+his Canada fathers came into the woods, and taught him to drink the
+fire-water, and he became a rascal. The Hurons drove him from the graves
+of his fathers, as they would chase the hunted buffalo. He ran down the
+shores of the lakes, and followed their outlet to the 'city of cannon.'
+There he hunted and fished, till the people chased him again through the
+woods into the arms of his enemies. The chief, who was born a Huron, was
+at last a warrior among the Mohawks!"
+
+"Something like this I had heard before," said Cora, observing that he
+paused to suppress those passions which began to burn with too bright a
+flame, as he recalled the recollection of his supposed injuries.
+
+"Was it the fault of Le Renard that his head was not made of rock? Who
+gave him the fire-water? who made him a villain? 'Twas the pale-faces,
+the people of your own color."
+
+"And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist, whose
+shades of countenance may resemble mine?" Cora calmly demanded of the
+excited savage.
+
+"No; Magua is a man, and not a fool; such as you never open their lips
+to the burning stream: the Great Spirit has given you wisdom!"
+
+"What then have I to do, or say, in the matter of your misfortunes, not
+to say of your errors?"
+
+"Listen," repeated the Indian, resuming his earnest attitude; "when his
+English and French fathers dug up the hatchet, Le Renard struck the
+war-post of the Mohawks, and went out against his own nation. The
+pale-faces have driven the redskins from their hunting-grounds, and now
+when they fight, a white man leads the way. The old chief at Horican,
+your father, was the great captain of our war-party. He said to the
+Mohawks do this, and do that, and he was minded. He made a law, that if
+an Indian swallowed the fire-water, and came into the cloth wigwams of
+his warriors, it should not be forgotten. Magua foolishly opened his
+mouth, and the hot liquor led him into the cabin of Munro. What did the
+gray-head? let his daughter say."
+
+"He forgot not his words, and did justice by punishing the offender,"
+said the undaunted daughter.
+
+"Justice!" repeated the Indian, casting an oblique glance of the most
+ferocious expression at her unyielding countenance; "is it justice to
+make evil, and then punish for it? Magua was not himself; it was the
+fire-water that spoke and acted for him! but Munro did not believe it.
+The Huron chief was tied up before all the pale-faced warriors, and
+whipped like a dog."
+
+Cora remained silent, for she knew not how to palliate this imprudent
+severity on the part of her father, in a manner to suit the
+comprehension of an Indian.
+
+"See!" continued Magua, tearing aside the slight calico that very
+imperfectly concealed his painted breast; "here are scars given by
+knives and bullets--of these a warrior may boast before his nation; but
+the gray-head has left marks on the back of the Huron chief, that he
+must hide, like a squaw, under this painted cloth of the whites."
+
+"I had thought," resumed Cora, "that an Indian warrior was patient, and
+that his spirit felt not, and knew not, the pain his body suffered."
+
+"When the Chippewas tied Magua to the stake, and cut this gash," said
+the other, laying his finger on a deep scar, "the Huron laughed in their
+faces, and told them, Women struck so light! His spirit was then in the
+clouds! But when he felt the blows of Munro, his spirit lay under the
+birch. The spirit of a Huron is never drunk; it remembers forever!"
+
+"But it may be appeased. If my father has done you this injustice, show
+him how an Indian can forgive an injury, and take back his daughters.
+You have heard from Major Heyward--"
+
+Magua shook his head, forbidding the repetition of offers he so much
+despised.
+
+"What would you have?" continued Cora, after a most painful pause, while
+the conviction forced itself on her mind that the too sanguine and
+generous Duncan had been cruelly deceived by the cunning of the savage.
+
+"What a Huron loves--good for good; bad for bad!"
+
+"You would then revenge the injury inflicted by Munro on his helpless
+daughters. Would it not be more like a man to go before his face, and
+take the satisfaction of a warrior?"
+
+"The arms of the pale-faces are long, and their knives sharp!" returned
+the savage, with a malignant laugh: "why should Le Renard go among the
+muskets of his warriors, when he holds the spirit of the gray-head in
+his hand?"
+
+"Name your intention, Magua," said Cora, struggling with herself to
+speak with steady calmness. "Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or
+do you contemplate even some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means
+of palliating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least, release
+my gentle sister, and pour out all your malice on me. Purchase wealth by
+her safety, and satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of
+both of his daughters might bring the aged man to his grave, and where
+would then be the satisfaction of Le Renard?"
+
+"Listen," said the Indian again. "The light eyes can go back to the
+Horican, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired
+woman will swear by the Great Spirit of her fathers to tell no lie."
+
+"What must I promise?" demanded Cora, still maintaining a secret
+ascendency over the fierce native, by the collected and feminine dignity
+of her presence.
+
+"When Magua left his people, his wife was given to another chief; he has
+now made friends with the Hurons, and will go back to the graves of his
+tribe, on the shores of the great lake. Let the daughter of the English
+chief follow, and live in his wigwam forever."
+
+However revolting a proposal of such a character might prove to Cora,
+she retained, notwithstanding her powerful disgust, sufficient
+self-command to reply, without betraying the weakness.
+
+"And what pleasure would Magua find in sharing his cabin with a wife he
+did not love; one who would be of a nation and color different from his
+own? It would be better to take the gold of Munro, and buy the heart of
+some Huron maid with his gifts."
+
+The Indian made no reply for near a minute, but bent his fierce looks on
+the countenance of Cora, in such wavering glances, that her eyes sank
+with shame, under an impression that, for the first time, they had
+encountered an expression that no chaste female might endure. While she
+was shrinking within herself, in dread of having her ears wounded by
+some proposal still more shocking than the last, the voice of Magua
+answered, in its tones of deepest malignancy--
+
+"When the blows scorched the back of the Huron, he would know where to
+find a woman to feel the smart. The daughter of Munro would draw his
+water, hoe his corn, and cook his venison. The body of the gray-head
+would sleep among his cannon, but his heart would lie within reach of
+the knife of Le Subtil."
+
+"Monster! well dost thou deserve thy treacherous name!" cried Cora, in
+an ungovernable burst of filial indignation. "None but a fiend could
+meditate such a vengeance! But thou overratest thy power! You shall find
+it is, in truth, the heart of Munro you hold, and that it will defy your
+utmost malice!"
+
+The Indian answered this bold defiance by a ghastly smile, that showed
+an unaltered purpose, while he motioned her away, as if to close the
+conference forever. Cora, already regretting her precipitation, was
+obliged to comply, for Magua instantly left the spot, and approached his
+gluttonous comrades. Heyward flew to the side of the agitated female,
+and demanded the result of a dialogue that he had watched at a distance
+with so much interest. But unwilling to alarm the fears of Alice, she
+evaded a direct reply, betraying only by her countenance her utter want
+of success, and keeping her anxious looks fastened on the slightest
+movements of their captors. To the reiterated and earnest questions of
+her sister, concerning their probable destination, she made no other
+answer than by pointing towards the dark group, with an agitation she
+could not control, and murmuring, as she folded Alice to her bosom--
+
+"There, there; read our fortunes in their faces; we shall see; we shall
+see!"
+
+The action, and the choked utterance of Cora, spoke more impressively
+than any words, and quickly drew the attention of her companions on that
+spot where her own was riveted with an intenseness that nothing but the
+importance of the stake could create.
+
+When Magua reached the cluster of lolling savages, who, gorged with
+their disgusting meal, lay stretched on the earth in brutal indulgence,
+he commenced speaking with the dignity of an Indian chief. The first
+syllables he uttered had the effect to cause his listeners to raise
+themselves in attitudes of respectful attention. As the Huron used his
+native language, the prisoners, notwithstanding the caution of the
+natives had kept them within the swing of their tomahawks, could only
+conjecture the substance of his harrangue, from the nature of those
+significant gestures with which an Indian always illustrates his
+eloquence.
+
+At first, the language, as well as the action of Magua, appeared calm
+and deliberate. When he had succeeded in sufficiently awakening the
+attention of his comrades, Heyward fancied, by his pointing so
+frequently towards the direction of the great lakes, that he spoke of
+the land of their fathers, and of their distant tribe. Frequent
+indications of applause escaped the listeners, who, as they uttered the
+expressive "Hugh!" looked at each other in commendation of the speaker.
+Le Renard was too skilful to neglect his advantage. He now spoke of the
+long and painful route by which they had left those spacious grounds and
+happy villages, to come and battle against the enemies of their
+Canadian fathers. He enumerated the warriors of the party; their
+several merits; their frequent services to the nation; their wounds, and
+the number of the scalps they had taken. Whenever he alluded to any
+present (and the subtle Indian neglected none), the dark countenance of
+the flattered individual gleamed with exultation, nor did he even
+hesitate to assert the truth of the words, by gestures of applause and
+confirmation. Then the voice of the speaker fell, and lost the loud,
+animated tones of triumph with which he had enumerated their deeds of
+success and victory. He described the cataract of Glenn's; the
+impregnable position of its rocky island, with its caverns, and its
+numerous rapids and whirlpools; he named the name of La Longue Carabine,
+and paused until the forest beneath them had sent up the last echo of a
+loud and long yell, with which the hated appellation was received. He
+pointed towards the youthful military captive, and described the death
+of a favorite warrior, who had been precipitated into the deep ravine by
+his hand. He not only mentioned the fate of him who, hanging between
+heaven and earth, had presented such a spectacle of horror to the whole
+band, but he acted anew the terrors of his situation, his resolution and
+his death, on the branches of a sapling; and, finally, he rapidly
+recounted the manner in which each of their friends had fallen, never
+failing to touch upon their courage, and their most acknowledged
+virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once more
+changed, and became plaintive, and even musical, in its low guttural
+sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain; their
+destitution; their misery, both physical and moral; their distance; and,
+at last, of their unavenged wrongs. Then suddenly lifting his voice to a
+pitch of terrific energy, he concluded, by demanding,--
+
+"Are the Hurons dogs to bear this? Who shall say to the wife of Menowgua
+that the fishes have his scalp, and that his nation have not taken
+revenge! Who will dare meet the mother of Wassawattimie, that scornful
+woman, with his hands clean! What shall be said to the old men when they
+ask us for scalps, and we have not a hair from a white head to give
+them! The women will point their fingers at us. There is a dark spot on
+the names of the Hurons, and it must be hid in blood!"
+
+His voice was no longer audible in the burst of rage which now broke
+into the air, as if the wood, instead of containing so small a band, was
+filled with the nation. During the foregoing address the progress of the
+speaker was too plainly read by those most interested in his success,
+through the medium of the countenances of the men he addressed. They had
+answered his melancholy and mourning by sympathy and sorrow; his
+assertions, by gestures of confirmation; and his boastings, with the
+exultation of savages. When he spoke of courage, their looks were firm
+and responsive; when he alluded to their injuries, their eyes kindled
+with fury; when he mentioned the taunts of the women, they dropped their
+heads in shame; but when he pointed out their means of vengeance, he
+struck a chord which never failed to thrill in the breast of an Indian.
+With the first intimation that it was within their reach, the whole band
+sprang upon their feet as one man; giving utterance to their rage in the
+most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body with
+drawn knives and uplifted tomahawks. Heyward threw himself between the
+sisters and the foremost, whom he grappled with a desperate strength
+that for a moment checked his violence. This unexpected resistance gave
+Magua time to interpose, and with rapid enunciation and animated
+gesture, he drew the attention of the band again to himself. In that
+language he knew so well how to assume, he diverted his comrades from
+their instant purpose, and invited them to prolong the misery of their
+victims. His proposal was received with acclamations, and executed with
+the swiftness of thought.
+
+Two powerful warriors cast themselves on Heyward, while another was
+occupied in securing the less active singing-master. Neither of the
+captives, however, submitted without a desperate though fruitless
+struggle. Even David hurled his assailant to the earth; nor was Heyward
+secured until the victory over his companion enabled the Indians to
+direct their united force to that object. He was then bound and fastened
+to the body of the sapling, on whose branches Magua had acted the
+pantomime of the falling Huron. When the young soldier regained his
+recollection, he had the painful certainty before his eyes that a common
+fate was intended for the whole party. On his right was Cora, in a
+durance similar to his own, pale and agitated, but with an eye, whose
+steady look still read the proceedings of their enemies. On his left,
+the withes which bound her to a pine, performed that office for Alice
+which her trembling limbs refused, and alone kept her fragile form from
+sinking. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer, but instead of
+looking upwards towards that power which alone could rescue them, her
+unconscious looks wandered to the countenance of Duncan with infantile
+dependency. David had contended, and the novelty of the circumstance
+held him silent, in deliberation on the propriety of the unusual
+occurrence.
+
+The vengeance of the Hurons had now taken a new direction, and they
+prepared to execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they
+were familiarized by the practice of centuries. Some sought knots, to
+raise the blazing pile; one was riving the splinters of pine, in order
+to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments; and
+others bent the tops of two saplings to the earth, in order to suspend
+Heyward by the arms between the recoiling branches. But the vengeance of
+Magua sought a deeper and a more malignant enjoyment.
+
+While the less refined monsters of the band prepared, before the eyes of
+those who were to suffer, these well known and vulgar means of torture,
+he approached Cora, and pointed out, with the most malign expression of
+countenance, the speedy fate that awaited her:--
+
+"Ha!" he added, "what says the daughter of Munro? Her head is too good
+to find a pillow in the wigwam of Le Renard; will she like it better
+when it rolls about this hill a plaything for the wolves? Her bosom
+cannot nurse the children of a Huron; she will see it spit upon by
+Indians!"
+
+"What means the monster!" demanded the astonished Heyward.
+
+"Nothing!" was the firm reply. "He is a savage, a barbarous and ignorant
+savage, and knows not what he does. Let us find leisure, with our dying
+breath, to ask for him penitence and pardon."
+
+"Pardon!" echoed the fierce Huron, mistaking, in his anger, the meaning
+of her words; "the memory of an Indian is longer than the arm of the
+pale-faces; his mercy shorter than their justice! Say; shall I send the
+yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Magua to the great lakes,
+to carry his water, and feed him with corn?"
+
+Cora beckoned him away, with an emotion of disgust she could not
+control.
+
+"Leave me," she said, with a solemnity that for a moment checked the
+barbarity of the Indian; "you mingle bitterness in my prayers; you stand
+between me and my God!"
+
+The slight impression produced on the savage was, however, soon
+forgotten, and he continued pointing, with taunting irony, towards
+Alice.
+
+"Look! the child weeps! She is young to die! Send her to Munro, to comb
+his gray hairs, and keep life in the heart of the old man."
+
+Cora could not resist the desire to look upon her youthful sister, in
+whose eyes she met an imploring glance, that betrayed the longings of
+nature.
+
+"What says he, dearest Cora?" asked the trembling voice of Alice. "Did
+he speak of sending me to our father?"
+
+For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a
+countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At
+length she spoke, though her tones had lost their rich and calm fulness,
+in an expression of tenderness that seemed maternal.
+
+"Alice," she said, "the Huron offers us both life, nay, more than both;
+he offers to restore Duncan, our invaluable Duncan, as well as you, to
+our friends--to our father--to our heart-stricken, childless father, if
+I will bow down this rebellious, stubborn pride of mine, and consent--"
+
+Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands, she looked upward, as
+if seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite.
+
+"Say on," cried Alice; "to what, dearest Cora? O, that the proffer were
+made to me! to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore Duncan,
+how cheerfully could I die!"
+
+"Die!" repeated Cora, with a calmer and a firmer voice, "that were easy!
+Perhaps the alternative may not be less so. He would have me," she
+continued, her accents sinking under a deep consciousness of the
+degradation of the proposal, "follow him to the wilderness; go to the
+habitations of the Hurons; to remain there: in short to become his wife!
+Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections! sister of my love! And you,
+too, Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel. Is life to be
+purchased by such a sacrifice? Will you, Alice, receive it at my hands
+at such a price? And _you_, Duncan, guide me; control me between you;
+for I am wholly yours."
+
+"Would I!" echoed the indignant and astonished youth. "Cora! Cora! you
+jest with our misery! Name not the horrid alternative again; the thought
+itself is worse than a thousand deaths."
+
+"That such would be _your_ answer, I well knew!" exclaimed Cora, her
+cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the
+lingering emotions of a woman. "What says my Alice? for her will I
+submit without another murmur."
+
+Although both Heyward and Cora listened with painful suspense and the
+deepest attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the
+delicate and sensitive form of Alice would shrink into itself, as she
+listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her,
+the fingers moving in slight convulsions; her head dropped upon her
+bosom, and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking
+like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of
+animation, and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head
+began to move slowly, in a sign of deep, unconquerable disapprobation.
+
+"No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!"
+
+"Then die!" shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at the
+unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no
+longer be bridled, at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he
+believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of
+Heyward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered in
+the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation.
+Collecting all his energies in one effort, he snapped the twigs which
+bound him and rushed upon another savage who was preparing with loud
+yells, and a more deliberate aim, to repeat the blow. They encountered,
+grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked body of his
+antagonist afforded Heyward no means of holding his adversary, who
+glided from his grasp, and rose again with one knee on his chest,
+pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the
+knife gleaming in the air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and
+was rather accompanied, than followed, by the sharp crack of a rifle. He
+felt his breast relieved from the load it had endured; he saw the savage
+expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant
+wildness, when the Indian fell dead on the faded leaves by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+  "_Clo._--I am gone, sir,
+      And anon, sir,
+  I'll be with you again."
+
+  _Twelfth Night._
+
+
+The Hurons stood aghast at this sudden visitation of death on one of
+their band. But, as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had
+dared to immolate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name of
+"La Longue Carabine" burst simultaneously from every lip, and was
+succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered
+by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had
+piled their arms; and at the next moment, Hawkeye, too eager to load the
+rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the
+clubbed weapon, and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold
+and rapid as was the progress of the scout, it was exceeded by that of a
+light and vigorous form which, bounding past him, leaped, with
+incredible activity and daring, into the very centre of the Hurons,
+where it stood, whirling a tomahawk, and flourishing a glittering knife,
+with fearful menaces, in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could
+follow these unexpected and audacious movements, an image, armed in the
+emblematic panoply of death, glided before their eyes, and assumed a
+threatening attitude at the other's side. The savage tormentors recoiled
+before these warlike intruders, and uttered as they appeared in such
+quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamation of
+surprise, followed by the well known and dreaded appellations of--
+
+"Le Cerf Agile! Le Gros Serpent!"
+
+But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily
+disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he
+comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his
+followers by his voice as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long
+and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud whoop upon the expecting
+Chingachgook. It was the signal for a general combat. Neither party had
+fire-arms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner;
+hand to hand, with weapons of offence, and none of defence.
+
+Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single, well
+directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward tore the
+weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly towards the fray.
+As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent
+from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a
+whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another
+enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable
+weapon he beat down the slight and inartificial defences of his
+antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the blow. Heyward ventured to
+hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment of
+closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and
+checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight
+advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon
+his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him of
+the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully
+engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the
+desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to
+foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and
+succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron
+grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long.
+In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting--
+
+"Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!"
+
+At the next moment, the breech of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head
+of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as
+he sank from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless.
+
+When Uncas had brained his first antagonist, he turned, like a hungry
+lion, to seek another. The fifth and only Huron disengaged at the first
+onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were
+employed in the deadly strife, he sought, with hellish vengeance, to
+complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph, he
+sprang towards the defenceless Cora, sending his keen axe, as the
+dreadful precursor of his approach. The tomahawk grazed her shoulder,
+and cutting the withes which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at
+liberty to fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless of her
+own safety, threw herself on the bosom of Alice, striving with
+convulsed and ill-directed fingers, to tear asunder the twigs which
+confined the person of her sister. Any other than a monster would have
+relented at such an act of generous devotion to the best and purest
+affection; but the breast of the Huron was a stranger to sympathy.
+Seizing Cora by the rich tresses which fell in confusion about her form,
+he tore her from her frantic hold, and bowed her down with brutal
+violence to her knees. The savage drew the flowing curls through his
+hand, and raising them on high with an outstretched arm, he passed the
+knife around the exquisitely moulded head of his victim, with a taunting
+and exulting laugh. But he purchased this moment of fierce gratification
+with the loss of the fatal opportunity. It was just then the sight
+caught the eye of Uncas. Bounding from his footsteps he appeared for an
+instant darting through the air, and descending in a ball he fell on the
+chest of his enemy, driving him many yards from the spot, headlong and
+prostrate. The violence of the exertion cast the young Mohican at his
+side. They arose together, fought, and bled, each in his turn. But the
+conflict was soon decided; the tomahawk of Heyward and the rifle of
+Hawkeye descended on the skull of the Huron, at the same moment that the
+knife of Uncas reached his heart.
+
+The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le Gros Serpent. Well
+did these barbarous warriors prove that they deserved those significant
+names which had been bestowed for deeds in former wars. When they
+engaged, some little time was lost in eluding the quick and vigorous
+thrusts which had been aimed at their lives. Suddenly darting on each
+other, they closed, and came to the earth, twisted together like twining
+serpents, in pliant and subtle folds. At the moment when the victors
+found themselves unoccupied, the spot where these experienced and
+desperate combatants lay, could only be distinguished by a cloud of dust
+and leaves which moved from the centre of the little plain towards its
+boundary, as if raised by the passage of a whirlwind. Urged by the
+different motives of filial affection, friendship, and gratitude,
+Heyward and his companions rushed with one accord to the place,
+encircling the little canopy of dust which hung above the warriors. In
+vain did Uncas dart around the cloud, with a wish to strike his knife
+into the heart of his father's foe; the threatening rifle of Hawkeye was
+raised and suspended in vain, while Duncan endeavored to seize the
+limbs of the Huron with hands that appeared to have lost their power.
+Covered, as they were, with dust and blood, the swift evolutions of the
+combatants seemed to incorporate their bodies into one. The death-like
+looking figure of the Mohican, and the dark form of the Huron, gleamed
+before their eyes in such quick and confused succession, that the
+friends of the former knew not where nor when to plant the succoring
+blow. It is true there were short and fleeting moments, when the fiery
+eyes of Magua were seen glittering, like the fabled organs of the
+basilisk, through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he
+read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the
+presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile hand could descend on
+his devoted head, its place was filled by the scowling visage of
+Chingachgook. In this manner the scene of the combat was removed from
+the centre of the little plain to its verge. The Mohican now found an
+opportunity to make a powerful thrust with his knife; Magua suddenly
+relinquished his grasp, and fell backward without motion, and seemingly
+without life. His adversary leaped on his feet, making the arches of the
+forest ring with the sounds of triumph.
+
+"Well done for the Delawares! victory to the Mohican!" cried Hawkeye,
+once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle; "a finishing
+blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor
+rob him of his right to the scalp."
+
+But, at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of
+descending, the subtle Huron rolled swiftly from beneath the danger,
+over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet, was seen
+leaping, with a single bound, into the centre of a thicket of low
+bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed
+their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were
+following with speed and clamor, like hounds in open view of the deer,
+when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their
+purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill.
+
+"'Twas like himself," cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices
+contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all
+matters which concerned the Mingos; "a lying and deceitful varlet as he
+is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain
+still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to
+life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go--let him go; 'tis but
+one man, and he without rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French
+commerades; and, like a rattler that has lost his fangs, he can do no
+further mischief, until such time as he, and we too, may leave the
+prints of our moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. See, Uncas,"
+he added, in Delaware, "your father is flaying the scalps already. It
+may be well to go round and feel the vagabonds that are left, or we may
+have another of them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay
+that has been winged."
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST
+
+_The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the
+protracted struggle between Le Renard Subtil and Le Gros Serpent_]
+
+So saying, the honest, but implacable scout, made the circuit of the
+dead, into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much
+coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had,
+however, been anticipated by the elder Mohican, who had already torn the
+emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain.
+
+But Uncas, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with
+instinctive delicacy, accompanied by Heyward, to the assistance of the
+females, and quickly releasing Alice, placed her in the arms of Cora. We
+shall not attempt to describe the gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of
+events which glowed in the bosoms of the sisters, who were thus
+unexpectedly restored to life and to each other. Their thanksgivings
+were deep and silent; the offerings of their gentle spirits, burning
+brightest and purest on the secret altars of their hearts; and their
+renovated and more earthly feelings exhibiting themselves in long and
+fervent, though speechless caresses. As Alice rose from her knees, where
+she had sunk by the side of Cora, she threw herself on the bosom of the
+latter; and sobbed aloud the name of their aged father, while her soft,
+dove-like eyes sparkled with the rays of hope.
+
+"We are saved! we are saved!" she murmured; "to return to the arms of
+our dear, dear father, and his heart will not be broken with grief. And
+you too, Cora, my sister; my more than sister, my mother; you too are
+spared. And Duncan," she added, looking round upon the youth with a
+smile of ineffable innocence, "even our own brave and noble Duncan has
+escaped without a hurt."
+
+To these ardent and nearly incoherent words Cora made no other answer
+than by straining the youthful speaker to her heart, as she bent over
+her, in melting tenderness. The manhood of Heyward felt no shame in
+dropping tears over this spectacle of affectionate rapture; and Uncas
+stood, fresh and blood-stained from the combat, a calm, and, apparently,
+an unmoved looker-on, it is true, but with eyes that had already lost
+their fierceness, and were beaming with a sympathy that elevated him far
+above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before the
+practices of his nation.
+
+During this display of emotions so natural in their situation, Hawkeye,
+whose vigilant distrust had satisfied itself that the Hurons, who
+disfigured the heavenly scene, no longer possessed the power to
+interrupt its harmony, approached David, and liberated him from the
+bonds he had, until that moment, endured with the most exemplary
+patience.
+
+"There," exclaimed the scout, casting the last withe behind him, "you
+are once more master of your own limbs, though you seem not to use them
+with greater judgment than that in which they were first fashioned. If
+advice from one who is not older than yourself, but who having lived
+most of his time in the wilderness, may be said to have experience
+beyond his years, will give no offence, you are welcome to my thoughts;
+and these are, to part with the little tooting instrument in your jacket
+to the first fool you meet with, and buy some useful we'pon with the
+money, if it be only the barrel of a horseman's pistol. By industry and
+care, you might thus come to some prefarment; for by this time, I should
+think, your eyes would plainly tell you that a carrion crow is a better
+bird than a mocking thresher. The one will, at least, remove foul sights
+from before the face of man, while the other is only good to brew
+disturbances in the woods, by cheating the ears of all that hear them."
+
+"Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to
+the victory!" answered the liberated David. "Friend," he added,
+thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand towards Hawkeye, in kindness,
+while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee that the hairs of
+my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence; for,
+though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever
+found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not
+join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the
+bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skilful hast thou proved thyself in
+the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge
+other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well
+worthy of a Christian's praise."
+
+"The thing is but a trifle, and what you may often see, if you tarry
+long among us," returned the scout, a good deal softened towards the
+man of song, by this unequivocal expression of gratitude. "I have got
+back my old companion, 'Killdeer,'" he added, striking his hand on the
+breech of his rifle; "and that in itself is a victory. These Iroquois
+are cunning, but they outwitted themselves when they placed their
+fire-arms out of reach; and had Uncas or his father been gifted with
+only their common Indian patience, we should have come in upon the
+knaves with three bullets instead of one, and that would have made a
+finish of the whole pack; yon loping varlet, as well as his commerades.
+But 'twas all foreordered, and for the best."
+
+"Thou sayest well," returned David, "and hast caught the true spirit of
+Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is
+predestined to be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth,
+and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer."
+
+The scout, who by this time was seated, examining into the state of his
+rifle with a species of parental assiduity, now looked up at the other
+in a displeasure that he did not affect to conceal, roughly interrupting
+further speech.
+
+"Doctrine, or no doctrine," said the sturdy woodsman, "'tis the belief
+of knaves, and the curse of an honest man. I can credit that yonder
+Huron was to fall by my hand, for with my own eyes I have seen it; but
+nothing short of being a witness will cause me to think he had met with
+any reward, or that Chingachgook, there, will be condemned at the final
+day."
+
+"You have no warranty for such an audacious doctrine, nor any covenant
+to support it," cried David, who was deeply tinctured with the subtle
+distinctions which, in his time, and more especially in his province,
+had been drawn around the beautiful simplicity of revelation, by
+endeavoring to penetrate the awful mystery of the divine nature,
+supplying faith by self-sufficiency, and by consequence, involving those
+who reasoned from such human dogmas in absurdities and doubt; "your
+temple is reared on the sands, and the first tempest will wash away its
+foundation. I demand your authorities for such an uncharitable assertion
+(like other advocates of a system, David was not always accurate in his
+use of terms). Name chapter and verse; in which of the holy books do you
+find language to support you?"
+
+"Book!" repeated Hawkeye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do
+you take me for a whimpering boy at the apron-string of one of your old
+gals; and this good rifle on my knee for the feather of a goose's wing,
+my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a
+cross-barred handkercher to carry my dinner? Book! what have such as I,
+who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do
+with books? I never read but in one, and the words that are written
+there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may
+boast that of forty long and hard-working years."
+
+"What call you the volume?" said David, misconceiving the other's
+meaning.
+
+"Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it is
+not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who
+read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man
+may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so
+clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If
+any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the
+windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a
+fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the
+level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power."
+
+The instant David discovered that he battled with a disputant who
+imbibed his faith from the lights of nature, eschewing all subtleties of
+doctrine, he willingly abandoned a controversy from which he believed
+neither profit nor credit was to be derived. While the scout was
+speaking, he had also seated himself, and producing the ready little
+volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty,
+which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his
+orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of
+the western continent--of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted
+bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but
+after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared to
+exercise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or rather in
+thanksgiving for, the recent victory. He waited patiently for Hawkeye to
+cease, then lifting his eyes, together with his voice, he said, aloud,--
+
+"I invite you, friends, to join in praise for this signal deliverance
+from the hands of barbarians and infidels, to the comfortable and solemn
+tones of the tune, called 'Northampton.'"
+
+He next named the page and verse where the rhymes selected were to be
+found, and applied the pitch-pipe to his lips, with the decent gravity
+that he had been wont to use in the temple. This time he was, however,
+without any accompaniment, for the sisters were just then pouring out
+those tender effusions of affection which have been already alluded to.
+Nothing deterred by the smallness of his audience, which, in truth,
+consisted only of the discontented scout, he raised his voice,
+commencing and ending the sacred song without accident or interruption
+of any kind.
+
+Hawkeye listened, while he coolly adjusted his flint and reloaded his
+rifle; but the sounds, wanting the extraneous assistance of scene and
+sympathy, failed to awaken his slumbering emotions. Never minstrel, or
+by whatever more suitable name David should be known, drew upon his
+talents in the presence of more insensible auditors; though considering
+the singleness and sincerity of his motive, it is probable that no bard
+of profane song ever uttered notes that ascended so near to that throne
+where all homage and praise is due. The scout shook his head, and
+muttering some unintelligible words, among which "throat" and
+"Iroquois," were alone audible, he walked away, to collect, and to
+examine into, the state of the captured arsenal of the Hurons. In this
+office he was now joined by Chingachgook, who found his own, as well as
+the rifle of his son, among the arms. Even Heyward and David were
+furnished with weapons; nor was ammunition wanting to render them all
+effectual.
+
+When the foresters had made their selection, and distributed their
+prizes, the scout announced that the hour had arrived when it was
+necessary to move. By this time the song of Gamut had ceased, and the
+sisters had learned to still the exhibition of their emotions. Aided by
+Duncan and the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous
+sides of that hill which they had so lately ascended under so very
+different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of
+their massacre. At the foot, they found the Narragansetts browsing the
+herbage of the bushes; and having mounted, they followed the movements
+of a guide, who, in the most deadly straits, had so often proved himself
+their friend. The journey was, however, short. Hawkeye, leaving the
+blind path that the Hurons had followed, turned short to his right, and
+entering the thicket, he crossed a babbling brook, and halted in a
+narrow dell, under the shade of a few water elms. Their distance from
+the base of the fatal hill was but a few rods, and the steeds had been
+serviceable only in crossing the shallow stream.
+
+The scout and the Indians appeared to be familiar with the sequestered
+place where they now were; for, leaning their rifles against the trees,
+they commenced throwing aside the dried leaves, and opening the blue
+clay, out of which a clear and sparkling spring of bright, glancing
+water, quickly bubbled. The white man then looked about him, as though
+seeking for some object, which was not to be found as readily as he
+expected:--
+
+"Them careless imps, the Mohawks, with their Tuscarora and Onondaga
+brethren, have been here slaking their thirst," he muttered, "and the
+vagabonds have thrown away the gourd! This is the way with benefits,
+when they are bestowed on such disremembering hounds! Here has the Lord
+laid his hand, in the midst of the howling wilderness, for their good,
+and raised a fountain of water from the bowels of the 'arth, that might
+laugh at the richest shop of apothecary's ware in all the colonies; and
+see! the knaves have trodden in the clay, and deformed the cleanliness
+of the place, as though they were brute beasts, instead of human men."
+
+Uncas silently extended towards him the desired gourd, which the spleen
+of Hawkeye had hitherto prevented him from observing, on a branch of an
+elm. Filling it with water, he retired a short distance, to a place
+where the ground was more firm and dry; here he coolly seated himself,
+and after taking a long, and, apparently, a grateful draught, he
+commenced a very strict examination of the fragments of food left by the
+Hurons, which had hung in a wallet on his arm.
+
+"Thank you, lad!" he continued, returning the empty gourd to Uncas; "now
+we will see how these rampaging Hurons lived, when outlying in
+ambushments. Look at this! The varlets know the better pieces of the
+deer; and one would think they might carve and roast a saddle, equal to
+the best cook in the land! But everything is raw, for the Iroquois are
+thorough savages. Uncas, take my steel, and kindle a fire; a mouthful of
+a tender broil will give natur' a helping hand, after so long a trail."
+
+Heyward, perceiving that their guides now set about their repast in
+sober earnest, assisted the ladies to alight, and placed himself at
+their side, not unwilling to enjoy a few moments of grateful rest, after
+the bloody scene he had just gone through. While the culinary process
+was in hand, curiosity induced him to inquire into the circumstances
+which had led to their timely and unexpected rescue:--
+
+"How is it that we see you so soon, my generous friend," he asked, "and
+without aid from the garrison of Edward?"
+
+"Had we gone to the bend in the river, we might have been in time to
+rake the leaves over your bodies, but too late to have saved your
+scalps," coolly answered the scout. "No, no; instead of throwing away
+strength and opportunity by crossing to the fort, we lay by, under the
+bank of the Hudson, waiting to watch the movements of the Hurons."
+
+"You were, then, witnesses of all that passed?"
+
+"Not of all; for Indian sight is too keen to be easily cheated, and we
+kept close. A difficult matter it was, too, to keep this Mohican boy
+snug in the ambushment. Ah! Uncas, Uncas, your behavior was more like
+that of a curious woman than of a warrior on his scent."
+
+Uncas permitted his eyes to turn for an instant on the sturdy
+countenance of the speaker, but he neither spoke nor gave any indication
+of repentance. On the contrary, Heyward thought the manner of the young
+Mohican was disdainful, if not a little fierce, and that he suppressed
+passions that were ready to explode, as much in compliment to the
+listeners, as from the deference he usually paid to his white associate.
+
+"You saw our capture?" Heyward next demanded.
+
+"We heard it," was the significant answer. "An Indian yell is plain
+language to men who have passed their days in the woods. But when you
+landed, we were driven to crawl, like sarpents, beneath the leaves; and
+then we lost sight of you entirely, until we placed eyes on you again,
+trussed to the trees, and ready bound for an Indian massacre."
+
+"Our rescue was the deed of Providence. It was nearly a miracle that you
+did not mistake the path, for the Hurons divided, and each band had its
+horses."
+
+"Ay! there we were thrown off the scent, and might, indeed, have lost
+the trail, had it not been for Uncas; we took the path, however, that
+led into the wilderness; for we judged, and judged rightly, that the
+savages would hold that course with their prisoners. But when we had
+followed it for many miles, without finding a single twig broken, as I
+had advised, my mind misgave me; especially as all the footsteps had the
+prints of moccasins."
+
+"Our captors had the precaution to see us shod like themselves," said
+Duncan, raising a foot, and exhibiting the buckskin he wore.
+
+"Ay, 'twas judgmatical, and like themselves; though we were too expart
+to be thrown from a trail by so common an invention."
+
+"To what, then, are we indebted for our safety?"
+
+"To what, as a white man who has no taint of Indian blood, I should be
+ashamed to own; to the judgment of the young Mohican, in matters which I
+should know better than he, but which I can now hardly believe to be
+true, though my own eyes tell me it is so."
+
+"'Tis extraordinary! will you not name the reason?"
+
+"Uncas was bold enough to say, that the beasts ridden by the gentle
+ones," continued Hawkeye, glancing his eyes, not without curious
+interest, on the fillies of the ladies, "planted the legs of one side on
+the ground at the same time, which is contrary to the movements of all
+trotting four-footed animals of my knowledge, except the bear. And yet
+here are horses that always journey in this manner, as my own eyes have
+seen, and as their trail has shown for twenty long miles."
+
+"'Tis the merit of the animal! They come from the shores of
+Narragansett Bay, in the small province of Providence Plantations, and
+are celebrated for their hardihood, and the ease of this peculiar
+movement; though other horses are not unfrequently trained to the same."
+
+"It may be--it may be," said Hawkeye, who had listened with singular
+attention to this explanation; "though I am a man who has the full blood
+of the whites, my judgment in deer and beaver is greater than in beasts
+of burden. Major Effingham has many noble chargers, but I have never
+seen one travel after such a sideling gait."
+
+"True; for he would value the animals for very different properties.
+Still is this a breed highly esteemed, and as you witness, much honored
+with the burdens it is often destined to bear."
+
+The Mohicans had suspended their operations about the glimmering fire,
+to listen; and when Duncan had done, they looked at each other
+significantly, the father uttering the never-failing exclamation of
+surprise. The scout ruminated, like a man digesting his newly acquired
+knowledge, and once more stole a curious glance at the horses.
+
+"I dare to say there are even stranger sights to be seen in the
+settlements!" he said, at length; "natur' is sadly abused by man, when
+he once gets the mastery. But, go sideling or go straight, Uncas had
+seen the movement, and their trail led us on to the broken bush. The
+outer branch, near the prints of one of the horses, was bent upward, as
+a lady breaks a flower from its stem, but all the rest were ragged and
+broken down, as if the strong hand of a man had been tearing them! So I
+concluded that the cunning varmints had seen the twig bent, and had torn
+the rest, to make us believe a buck had been feeling the boughs with his
+antlers."
+
+"I do believe your sagacity did not deceive you; for some such thing
+occurred!"
+
+"That was easy to see," added the scout, in no degree conscious of
+having exhibited any extraordinary sagacity; "and a very different
+matter it was from a waddling horse! It then struck me the Mingos would
+push for this spring, for the knaves well know the vartue of its
+waters!"
+
+"Is it, then, so famous?" demanded Heyward, examining, with a more
+curious eye, the secluded dell, with its bubbling fountain, surrounded,
+as it was, by earth of a deep dingy brown.
+
+"Few redskins, who travel south and east of the great lakes, but have
+heard of its qualities. Will you taste for yourself?"
+
+Heyward took the gourd, and after swallowing a little of the water,
+threw it aside with grimaces of discontent. The scout laughed in his
+silent, but heartfelt manner, and shook his head with vast satisfaction.
+
+"Ah! you want the flavor that one gets by habit; the time was when I
+liked it as little as yourself; but I have come to my taste, and I now
+crave it, as a deer does the licks.[17] Your high spiced wines are not
+better liked than a redskin relishes this water; especially when his
+natur' is ailing. But Uncas has made his fire, and it is time we think
+of eating, for our journey is long, and all before us."
+
+Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had
+instant recourse to the fragments of food which had escaped the voracity
+of the Hurons. A very summary process completed the simple cookery, when
+he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal, with the silence and
+characteristic diligence of men who ate in order to enable themselves
+to endure great and unremitting toil.
+
+When this necessary, and, happily, grateful duty had been performed,
+each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draught at
+that solitary and silent spring,[18] around which and its sister
+fountains, within fifty years, the wealth, beauty, and talents of a
+hemisphere were to assemble in throngs, in pursuit of health and
+pleasure. Then Hawkeye announced his determination to proceed. The
+sisters resumed their saddles; Duncan and David grasped their rifles,
+and followed on their footsteps; the scout leading the advance, and the
+Mohicans bringing up the rear. The whole party moved swiftly through the
+narrow path, towards the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle
+unheeded with the adjacent brook, and the bodies of the dead to fester
+on the neighboring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too
+common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or
+comment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+  "I'll seek a readier path."
+
+  PARNELL.
+
+
+The route taken by Hawkeye lay across those sandy plains, relieved by
+occasional valleys and swells of land, which had been traversed by their
+party on the morning of the same day, with the baffled Magua for their
+guide. The sun had now fallen low towards the distant mountains; and as
+their journey lay through the interminable forest, the heat was no
+longer oppressive. Their progress, in consequence, was proportionate;
+and long before the twilight gathered about them, they had made good
+many toilsome miles on their return.
+
+The hunter, like the savage whose place he filled, seemed to select
+among the blind signs of their wild route, with a species of instinct,
+seldom abating his speed, and never pausing to deliberate. A rapid and
+oblique glance at the moss on the trees, with an occasional upward gaze
+towards the setting sun, or a steady but passing look at the direction
+of the numerous water-courses, through which he waded, were sufficient
+to determine his path, and remove his greatest difficulties. In the
+meantime, the forest began to change its hues, losing that lively green
+which had embellished its arches, in the graver light which is the usual
+precursor of the close of day.
+
+While the eyes of the sisters were endeavoring to catch glimpses through
+the trees, of the flood of golden glory which formed a glittering halo
+around the sun, tinging here and there with ruby streaks, or bordering
+with narrow edgings of shining yellow, a mass of clouds that lay piled
+at no great distance above the western hills, Hawkeye turned suddenly,
+and, pointing upwards towards the gorgeous heavens, he spoke:--
+
+"Yonder is the signal given to a man to seek his food and natural rest,"
+he said: "better and wiser would it be, if he could understand the signs
+of nature, and take a lesson from the fowls of the air and the beasts of
+the fields! Our night, however, will soon be over; for, with the moon,
+we must be up and moving again. I remember to have fou't the Maquas,
+hereaways, in the first war in which I ever drew blood from man; and we
+threw up a work of blocks, to keep the ravenous varmints from handling
+our scalps. If my marks do not fail me, we shall find the place a few
+rods farther to our left."
+
+Without waiting for an assent, or, indeed, for any reply, the sturdy
+hunter moved boldly into a dense thicket of young chestnuts, shoving
+aside the branches of the exuberant shoots which nearly covered the
+ground, like a man who expected, at each step, to discover some object
+he had formerly known. The recollection of the scout did not deceive
+him. After penetrating through the brush, matted as it was with briers,
+for a few hundred feet he entered an open space, that surrounded a low,
+green hillock, which was crowned by the decayed block-house in question.
+This rude and neglected building was one of those deserted works, which,
+having been thrown up on an emergency, had been abandoned with the
+disappearance of danger, and was now quietly crumbling in the solitude
+of the forest, neglected, and nearly forgotten, like the circumstances
+which had caused it to be reared. Such memorials of the passage and
+struggles of man are yet frequent throughout the broad barrier of
+wilderness which once separated the hostile provinces, and form a
+species of ruins that are intimately associated with the recollections
+of colonial history, and which are in appropriate keeping with the
+gloomy character of the surrounding scenery.[19] The roof of bark had
+long since fallen, and mingled with the soil; but the huge logs of pine,
+which had been hastily thrown together, still preserved their relative
+positions, though one angle of the work had given way under the
+pressure, and threatened a speedy downfall to the remainder of the
+rustic edifice. While Heyward and his companions hesitated to approach a
+building so decayed, Hawkeye and the Indians entered within the low
+walls, not only without fear, but with obvious interest. While the
+former surveyed the ruins, both internally and externally, with the
+curiosity of one whose recollections were reviving at each moment,
+Chingachgook related to his son, in the language of the Delawares, and
+with the pride of a conqueror, the brief history of the skirmish which
+had been fought, in his youth, in that secluded spot. A strain of
+melancholy, however, blended with his triumph, rendering his voice, as
+usual, soft and musical.
+
+In the meantime, the sisters gladly dismounted, and prepared to enjoy
+their halt in the coolness of the evening, and in a security which they
+believed nothing but the beasts of the forest could invade.
+
+"Would not our resting-place have been more retired, my worthy friend,"
+demanded the more vigilant Duncan, perceiving that the scout had already
+finished his short survey, "had we chosen a spot less known, and one
+more rarely visited than this?"
+
+"Few live who know the block-house was ever raised," was the slow and
+musing answer; "'tis not often that books are made, and narratives
+written, of such a scrimmage as was here fou't atween the Mohicans and
+the Mohawks, in a war of their own waging. I was then a younker, and
+went out with the Delawares, because I know'd they were a scandalized
+and wronged race. Forty days and forty nights did the imps crave our
+blood around this pile of logs, which I designed and partly reared,
+being, as you'll remember, no Indian myself, but a man without a cross.
+The Delawares lent themselves to the work, and we made it good, ten to
+twenty, until our numbers were nearly equal, and then we sallied out
+upon the hounds, and not a man of them ever got back to tell the fate of
+his party. Yes, yes; I was then young, and new to the sight of blood;
+and not relishing the thought that creatures who had spirits like myself
+should lay on the naked ground, to be torn asunder by beasts, or to
+bleach in the rains, I buried the dead with my own hands, under that
+very little hillock where you have placed yourselves; and no bad seat
+does it make neither, though it be raised by the bones of mortal men."
+
+Heyward and the sisters arose, on the instant, from the grassy
+sepulchre; nor could the two latter, notwithstanding the terrific scenes
+they had so recently passed through, entirely suppress an emotion of
+natural horror, when they found themselves in such familiar contact with
+the grave of the dead Mohawks. The gray light, the gloomy little area of
+dark grass, surrounded by its border of brush, beyond which the pines
+rose, in breathing silence, apparently, into the very clouds, and the
+death-like stillness of the vast forest, were all in unison to deepen
+such a sensation.
+
+"They are gone, and they are harmless," continued Hawkeye, waving his
+hand, with a melancholy smile, at their manifest alarm: "they'll never
+shout the war-whoop nor strike a blow with the tomahawk again! And of
+all those who aided in placing them where they lie, Chingachgook and I
+only are living! The brothers and family of the Mohican formed our
+war-party; and you see before you all that are now left of his race."
+
+The eyes of the listeners involuntarily sought the forms of the Indians,
+with a compassionate interest in their desolate fortune. The dark
+persons were still to be seen within the shadows of the block-house, the
+son listening to the relation of his father with that sort of
+intenseness which would be created by a narrative that redounded so much
+to the honor of those whose names he had long revered for their courage
+and savage virtues.
+
+"I had thought the Delawares a pacific people," said Duncan, "and that
+they never waged war in person; trusting the defence of their lands to
+those very Mohawks that you slew!"
+
+"'Tis true in part," returned the scout, "and yet, at the bottom, 'tis a
+wicked lie. Such a treaty was made in ages gone by, through the
+deviltries of the Dutchers, who wished to disarm the natives that had
+the best right to the country where they had settled themselves. The
+Mohicans, though a part of the same nation, having to deal with the
+English, never entered into the silly bargain, but kept to their
+manhood; as in truth did the Delawares, when their eyes were opened to
+their folly. You see before you a chief of the great Mohican Sagamores!
+Once his family could chase their deer over tracts of country wider than
+that which belongs to the Albany Patteroon, without crossing brook or
+hill that was not their own; but what is left to their descendant! He
+may find his six feet of earth when God chooses, and keep it in peace,
+perhaps, if he has a friend who will take the pains to sink his head so
+low that the ploughshares cannot reach it!"
+
+"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive that the subject might lead to a
+discussion that would interrupt the harmony so necessary to the
+preservation of his fair companions: "we have journeyed far, and few
+among us are blessed with forms like that of yours, which seems to know
+neither fatigue nor weakness."
+
+"The sinews and bones of a man carry me through it all," said the
+hunter, surveying his muscular limbs with a simplicity that betrayed the
+honest pleasure the compliment afforded him: "there are larger and
+heavier men to be found in the settlements, but you might travel many
+days in a city before you could meet one able to walk fifty miles
+without stopping to take breath, or who has kept the hounds within
+hearing during a chase of hours. However, as flesh and blood are not
+always the same, it is quite reasonable to suppose that the gentle ones
+are willing to rest, after all they have seen and done this day. Uncas,
+clear out the spring, while your father and I make a cover for their
+tender heads of these chestnut shoots, and a bed of grass and leaves."
+
+The dialogue ceased, while the hunter and his companions busied
+themselves in preparations for the comfort and protection of those they
+guided. A spring, which many long years before had induced the natives
+to select the place for their temporary fortification, was soon cleared
+of leaves, and a fountain of crystal gushed from the bed, diffusing its
+waters over the verdant hillock. A corner of the building was then
+roofed in such a manner as to exclude the heavy dew of the climate, and
+piles of sweet shrubs and dried leaves were laid beneath it for the
+sisters to repose on.
+
+While the diligent woodsmen were employed in this manner, Cora and Alice
+partook of that refreshment which duty required much more than
+inclination prompted them to accept. They then retired within the walls,
+and first offering up their thanksgivings for past mercies, and
+petitioning for a continuance of the divine favor throughout the coming
+night, they laid their tender forms on the fragrant couch, and in spite
+of recollections and forebodings, soon sank into those slumbers which
+nature so imperiously demanded, and which were sweetened by hopes for
+the morrow. Duncan had prepared himself to pass the night in
+watchfulness near them, just without the ruin, but the scout, perceiving
+his intention, pointed towards Chingachgook, as he coolly disposed his
+own person on the grass, and said--
+
+"The eyes of a white man are too heavy and too blind for such a watch as
+this! The Mohican will be our sentinel, therefore let us sleep."
+
+"I proved myself a sluggard on my post during the past night," said
+Heyward, "and have less need of repose than you, who did more credit to
+the character of a soldier. Let all the party seek their rest, then,
+while I hold guard."
+
+"If we lay among the white tents of the 60th, and in front of an enemy
+like the French, I could not ask for a better watchman," returned the
+scout; "but in the darkness and among the signs of the wilderness your
+judgment would be like the folly of a child, and your vigilance thrown
+away. Do then, like Uncas and myself, sleep, and sleep in safety."
+
+Heyward perceived, in truth, that the younger Indian had thrown his form
+on the side of the hillock while they were talking, like one who sought
+to make the most of the time allotted to rest, and that his example had
+been followed by David, whose voice literally "clove to his jaws," with
+the fever of his wound, heightened, as it was, by their toilsome march.
+Unwilling to prolong a useless discussion, the young man affected to
+comply, by posting his back against the logs of the block-house, in a
+half-recumbent posture, though resolutely determined, in his own mind,
+not to close an eye until he had delivered his precious charge into the
+arms of Munro himself. Hawkeye, believing he had prevailed, soon fell
+asleep, and a silence as deep as the solitude in which they had found
+it, pervaded the retired spot.
+
+For many minutes Duncan succeeded in keeping his senses on the alert,
+and alive to every moaning sound that arose from the forest. His vision
+became more acute as the shades of evening settled on the place; and
+even after the stars were glimmering above his head, he was able to
+distinguish the recumbent forms of his companions, as they lay stretched
+on the grass, and to note the person of Chingachgook, who sat upright
+and motionless as one of the trees which formed the dark barrier on
+every side. He still heard the gentle breathings of the sisters, who lay
+within a few feet of him, and not a leaf was ruffled by the passing air,
+of which his ear did not detect the whispering sound. At length,
+however, the mournful notes of a whippoorwill became blended with the
+moanings of an owl; his heavy eyes occasionally sought the bright rays
+of the stars, and then he fancied he saw them through the fallen lids.
+At instants of momentary wakefulness he mistook a bush for his associate
+sentinel; his head next sank upon his shoulder, which, in its turn,
+sought the support of the ground; and, finally, his whole person become
+relaxed and pliant, and the young man sank into a deep sleep, dreaming
+that he was a knight of ancient chivalry, holding his midnight vigils
+before the tent of a recaptured princess, whose favor he did not despair
+of gaining, by such a proof of devotion and watchfulness.
+
+How long the tired Duncan lay in this insensible state he never knew
+himself, but his slumbering visions had been long lost in total
+forgetfulness, when he was awakened by a light tap on the shoulder.
+Aroused by this signal, slight as it was, he sprang upon his feet with a
+confused recollection of the self-imposed duty he had assumed with the
+commencement of the night.
+
+"Who comes?" he demanded, feeling for his sword at the place where it
+was usually suspended, "Speak! friend or enemy?"
+
+"Friend," replied the low voice of Chingachgook; who, pointing upwards
+at the luminary which was shedding its mild light through the opening in
+the trees, directly in their bivouac, immediately added, in his rude
+English, "moon comes, and white man's fort far--far off; time to move,
+when sleep shuts both eyes of the Frenchman!"
+
+"You say true! call up your friends, and bridle the horses, while I
+prepare my own companions for the march!"
+
+"We are awake, Duncan," said the soft, silvery tones of Alice within the
+building, "and ready to travel very fast after so refreshing a sleep;
+but you have watched through the tedious night in our behalf, after
+having endured so much fatigue the live-long day!"
+
+"Say, rather, I would have watched, but my treacherous eyes betrayed me;
+twice have I proved myself unfit for the trust I bear."
+
+"Nay, Duncan, deny it not," interrupted the smiling Alice, issuing from
+the shadows of the building into the light of the moon, in all the
+loveliness of her freshened beauty; "I know you to be a heedless one,
+when self is the object of your care, and but too vigilant in favor of
+others. Can we not tarry here a little longer, while you find the rest
+you need? Cheerfully, most cheerfully, will Cora and I keep the vigils,
+while you, and all these brave men, endeavor to snatch a little sleep!"
+
+"If shame could cure me of my drowsiness, I should never close an eye
+again," said the uneasy youth, gazing at the ingenuous countenance of
+Alice, where, however, in its sweet solicitude, he read nothing to
+confirm his half awakened suspicion. "It is but too true, that after
+leading you into danger by my heedlessness, I have not even the merit of
+guarding your pillows as should become a soldier."
+
+"No one but Duncan himself should accuse Duncan of such a weakness. Go,
+then, and sleep; believe me, neither of us, weak girls as we are, will
+betray our watch."
+
+The young man was relieved from the awkwardness of making any further
+protestations of his own demerits, by an exclamation from Chingachgook,
+and the attitude of riveted attention assumed by his son.
+
+"The Mohicans hear an enemy!" whispered Hawkeye, who, by this time, in
+common with the whole party, was awake and stirring. "They scent danger
+in the wind!"
+
+"God forbid!" exclaimed Heyward. "Surely we have had enough of
+bloodshed!"
+
+While he spoke, however, the young soldier seized his rifle, and
+advancing towards the front, prepared to atone for his venial
+remissness, by freely exposing his life in defence of those he attended.
+
+"'Tis some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of food,"
+he said, in a whisper, as soon as the low, and apparently distant
+sounds, which had startled the Mohicans, reached his own ears.
+
+"Hist!" returned the attentive scout; "'tis man; even I can now tell his
+tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an Indian's! That
+scampering Huron has fallen in with one of Montcalm's outlying parties,
+and they have struck upon our trail. I shouldn't like, myself, to spill
+more human blood in this spot," he added, looking around with anxiety in
+his features, at the dim objects by which he was surrounded; "but what
+must be, must! Lead the horses into the block-house, Uncas; and,
+friends, do you follow to the same shelter. Poor and old as it is, it
+offers a cover, and has rung with the crack of a rifle afore to-night!"
+
+He was instantly obeyed, the Mohicans leading the Narragansetts within
+the ruin, whither the whole party repaired with the most guarded
+silence.
+
+The sounds of approaching footsteps were now too distinctly audible to
+leave any doubts as to the nature of the interruption. They were soon
+mingled with voices calling to each other in an Indian dialect, which
+the hunter, in a whisper, affirmed to Heyward was the language of the
+Hurons. When the party reached the point where the horses had entered
+the thicket which surrounded the block-house, they were evidently at
+fault, having lost those marks which, until that moment, had directed
+their pursuit.
+
+It would seem by the voices that twenty men were soon collected at that
+one spot, mingling their different opinions and advice in noisy clamor.
+
+"The knaves know our weakness," whispered Hawkeye, who stood by the side
+of Heyward, in deep shade, looking through an opening in the logs, "or
+they wouldn't indulge their idleness in such a squaw's march. Listen to
+the reptiles! each man among them seems to have two tongues, and but a
+single leg."
+
+Duncan, brave as he was in the combat, could not, in such a moment of
+painful suspense, make any reply to the cool and characteristic remark
+of the scout. He only grasped his rifle more firmly, and fastened his
+eyes upon the narrow opening, through which he gazed upon the moonlight
+view with increasing anxiety. The deeper tones of one who spoke as
+having authority were next heard, amid a silence that denoted the
+respect with which his orders, or rather advice, was received. After
+which, by the rustling of leaves, and cracking of dried twigs, it was
+apparent the savages were separating in pursuit of the lost trail.
+Fortunately for the pursued, the light of the moon, while it shed a
+flood of mild lustre upon the little area around the ruin, was not
+sufficiently strong to penetrate the deep arches of the forest, where
+the objects still lay in deceptive shadow. The search proved fruitless;
+for so short and sudden had been the passage from the faint path the
+travellers had journeyed into the thicket, that every trace of their
+footsteps was lost in the obscurity of the woods.
+
+It was not long, however, before the restless savages were heard beating
+the brush, and gradually approaching the inner edge of that dense border
+of young chestnuts which encircled the little area.
+
+"They are coming," muttered Heyward, endeavoring to thrust his rifle
+through the chink in the logs; "let us fire on their approach."
+
+"Keep everything in the shade," returned the scout; "the snapping of a
+flint, or even the smell of a single karnel of the brimstone, would
+bring the hungry varlets upon us in a body. Should it please God that we
+must give battle for the scalps, trust to the experience of men who know
+the ways of the savages, and who are not often backward when the
+war-whoop is howled."
+
+Duncan cast his eyes behind him, and saw that the trembling sisters were
+cowering in the far corner of the building, while the Mohicans stood in
+the shadow, like two upright posts, ready, and apparently willing, to
+strike when the blow should be needed. Curbing his impatience, he again
+looked out upon the area, and awaited the result in silence. At that
+instant the thicket opened, and a tall and armed Huron advanced a few
+paces into the open space. As he gazed upon the silent block-house, the
+moon fell upon his swarthy countenance, and betrayed its surprise and
+curiosity. He made the exclamation which usually accompanies the former
+emotion in an Indian, and, calling in a low voice, soon drew a companion
+to his side.
+
+These children of the woods stood together for several moments pointing
+at the crumbling edifice, and conversing in the unintelligible language
+of their tribe. They then approached, though with slow and cautious
+steps, pausing every instant to look at the building, like startled
+deer, whose curiosity struggled powerfully with their awakened
+apprehensions for the mastery. The foot of one of them suddenly rested
+on the mound, and he stooped to examine its nature. At this moment,
+Heyward observed that the scout loosened his knife in his sheath, and
+lowered the muzzle of his rifle. Imitating these movements, the young
+man prepared himself for the struggle, which now seemed inevitable.
+
+The savages were so near, that the least motion in one of the horses, or
+even a breath louder than common, would have betrayed the fugitives.
+But, in discovering the character of the mound, the attention of the
+Hurons appeared directed to a different object. They spoke together, and
+the sounds of their voices were low and solemn, as if influenced by a
+reverence that was deeply blended with awe. Then they drew warily back,
+keeping their eyes riveted on the ruin, as if they expected to see the
+apparitions of the dead issue from its silent walls, until having
+reached the boundary of the area, they moved slowly into the thicket,
+and disappeared.
+
+Hawkeye dropped the breech of his rifle to the earth, and drawing a
+long, free breath, exclaimed, in an audible whisper,--
+
+"Ay! they respect the dead, and it has this time saved their own lives,
+and, it may be, the lives of better men too."
+
+Heyward lent his attention for a single moment to his companion, but
+without replying, he again turned towards those who just then interested
+him more. He heard the two Hurons leave the bushes, and it was soon
+plain that all the pursuers were gathered about them, in deep attention
+to their report. After a few minutes of earnest and solemn dialogue,
+altogether different from the noisy clamor with which they had first
+collected about the spot, the sounds grew fainter and more distant, and
+finally were lost in the depths of the forest.
+
+Hawkeye waited until a signal from the listening Chingachgook assured
+him that every sound from the retiring party was completely swallowed by
+the distance, when he motioned to Heyward to lead forth the horses, and
+to assist the sisters into their saddles. The instant this was done,
+they issued through the broken gateway, and stealing out by a direction
+opposite to the one by which they had entered, they quitted the spot,
+the sisters casting furtive glances at the silent grave and crumbling
+ruin, as they left the soft light of the moon, to bury themselves in the
+gloom of the woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+  "_Guard._--Qui est la?
+
+  _Puc._--Paisans, pauvres gens de France."
+
+  _King Henry VI._
+
+
+During the rapid movement from the block-house, and until the party was
+deeply buried in the forest, each individual was too much interested in
+the escape to hazard a word even in whispers. The scout resumed his post
+in the advance, though his steps, after he had thrown a safe distance
+between himself and his enemies, were more deliberate than in their
+previous march, in consequence of his utter ignorance of the localities
+of the surrounding woods. More than once he halted to consult with his
+confederates, the Mohicans, pointing upwards at the moon, and examining
+the barks of the trees with care. In these brief pauses, Heyward and the
+sisters listened, with senses rendered doubly acute by the danger, to
+detect any symptoms which might announce the proximity of their foes. At
+such moments, it seemed as if a vast range of country lay buried in
+eternal sleep; not the least sound arising from the forest, unless it
+was the distant and scarcely audible rippling of a water-course. Birds,
+beasts, and man, appeared to slumber alike, if, indeed, any of the
+latter were to be found in that wide tract of wilderness. But the sounds
+of the rivulet, feeble and murmuring as they were, relieved the guides
+at once from no trifling embarrassment, and towards it they immediately
+held their way.
+
+When the banks of the little stream were gained, Hawkeye made another
+halt; and, taking the moccasins from his feet, he invited Heyward and
+Gamut to follow his example. He then entered the water, and for near an
+hour they travelled in the bed of the brook, leaving no trail. The moon
+had already sunk into an immense pile of black clouds, which lay
+impending above the western horizon, when they issued from the low and
+devious water-course to rise again to the light and level of the sandy
+but wooded plain. Here the scout seemed to be once more at home, for he
+held on his way with the certainty and diligence of a man who moved in
+the security of his own knowledge. The path soon became more uneven, and
+the travellers could plainly perceive that the mountains drew nigher to
+them on each hand, and that they were, in truth, about entering one of
+their gorges. Suddenly, Hawkeye made a pause, and waiting until he was
+joined by the whole party, he spoke, though in tones so low and
+cautious, that they added to the solemnity of his words, in the quiet
+and darkness of the place.
+
+"It is easy to know the pathways, and to find the licks and
+water-courses of the wilderness," he said; "but who that saw this spot
+could venture to say, that a mighty army was at rest among yonder silent
+trees and barren mountains?"
+
+"We are then at no great distance from William Henry?" said Heyward,
+advancing nigher to the scout.
+
+"It is yet a long and weary path, and when and where to strike it, is
+now our greatest difficulty. See," he said, pointing through the trees
+towards a spot where a little basin of water reflected the stars from
+its placid bosom, "here is the 'bloody pond'; and I am on the ground
+that I have not only often travelled, but over which I have fou't the
+enemy, from the rising to the setting sun."
+
+"Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is the sepulchre of the
+brave men who fell in the contest. I have heard it named, but never have
+I stood on its banks before."
+
+"Three battles did we make with the Dutch-Frenchman[20] in a day,"
+continued Hawkeye, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, rather than
+replying to the remark of Duncan. "He met us hard by, in our outward
+march to ambush his advance, and scattered us, like driven deer, through
+the defile, to the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our fallen
+trees, and made head against him, under Sir William--who was made Sir
+William for that very deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace of
+the morning! Hundreds of Frenchmen saw the sun that day for the last
+time; and even the leader, Dieskau himself, fell into our hands so cut
+and torn with the lead, that he has gone back to his own country, unfit
+for further acts in war."
+
+"'Twas a noble repulse!" exclaimed Heyward, in the heat of his youthful
+ardor; "the fame of it reached us early, in our southern army."
+
+"Ay! but it did not end there. I was sent by Major Effingham, at Sir
+William's own bidding, to outflank the French, and carry the tidings of
+their disaster across the portage, to the fort on the Hudson. Just
+hereaway, where you see the trees rise into a mountain swell, I met a
+party coming down to our aid, and I led them where the enemy were taking
+their meal, little dreaming that they had not finished the bloody work
+of the day."
+
+"And you surprised them?"
+
+"If death can be a surprise to men who are thinking only of the cravings
+of their appetites. We gave them but little breathing time, for they had
+borne hard upon us in the fight of the morning, and there were few in
+our party who had not lost friend or relative by their hands. When all
+was over, the dead, and some say the dying, were cast into that little
+pond. These eyes have seen its waters colored with blood, as natural
+water never yet flowed from the bowels of the 'arth."
+
+"It was a convenient, and, I trust, will prove a peaceful grave for a
+soldier. You have, then, seen much service on this frontier?"
+
+"I!" said the scout, erecting his tall person with an air of military
+pride; "there are not many echoes among these hills that haven't rung
+with the crack of my rifle, nor is there the space of a square mile
+atwixt Horican and the river, that 'Killdeer' hasn't dropped a living
+body on, be it an enemy or be it a brute beast. As for the grave, there,
+being as quiet as you mention, it is another matter. There are them in
+the camp who say and think, man, to lie still, should not be buried
+while the breath is in the body; and certain it is that in the hurry of
+that evening, the doctors had but little time to say who was living and
+who was dead. Hist! see you nothing walking on the shore of the pond?"
+
+"'Tis not probable that any are as houseless as ourselves, in this
+dreary forest."
+
+"Such as he may care but little for house or shelter, and night dew can
+never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout,
+grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to
+make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror
+had got the mastery of a man usually so dauntless.
+
+"By heaven! there is a human form, and it approaches! Stand to your
+arms, my friends; for we know not whom we encounter."
+
+"Qui vive?" demanded a stern, quick voice, which sounded like a
+challenge from another world, issuing out of that solitary and solemn
+place.
+
+"What says it?" whispered the scout; "it speaks neither Indian nor
+English!"
+
+"Qui vive?" repeated the same voice, which was quickly followed by the
+rattling of arms, and a menacing attitude.
+
+"France!" cried Heyward, advancing from the shadow of the trees to the
+shore of the pond, within a few yards of the sentinel.
+
+"D'ou venez-vous--ou allez-vous, d'aussi bonne heure?" demanded the
+grenadier, in the language and with the accent of a man from old France.
+
+"Je viens de la decouverte, et je vais me coucher."
+
+"Etes-vous officier du roi?"
+
+"Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour un provincial! Je suis
+capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward well knew that the other was of a
+regiment in the line); j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant de
+la fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler! je les ai fait
+prisonnieres pres de l'autre fort, et je les conduis au general."
+
+"Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis fache pour vous," exclaimed the young
+soldier, touching his cap with grace; "mais--fortune de guerre! vous
+trouverez notre general un brave homme, et bien poli avec les dames."
+
+"C'est le caractere des gens de guerre," said Cora, with admirable
+self-possession. "Adieu, mon ami; je vous souhaiterais un devoir plus
+agreable a remplir."
+
+The soldier made a low and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and
+Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately
+forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond,
+little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself
+those words, which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and
+perhaps by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France--
+
+  "Vive le vin, l'amour," etc., etc.
+
+"'Tis well you understood the knave!" whispered the scout, when they had
+gained a little distance from the place, and letting his rifle fall into
+the hollow of his arm again; "I soon saw that he was one of them uneasy
+Frenchers; and well for him it was that his speech was friendly and his
+wishes kind, or a place might have been found for his bones among those
+of his countrymen."
+
+He was interrupted by a long and heavy groan which arose from the little
+basin, as though, in truth, the spirits of the departed lingered about
+their watery sepulchre.
+
+"Surely it was of flesh!" continued the scout; "no spirit could handle
+its arms so steadily!"
+
+"It _was_ of flesh; but whether the poor fellow still belongs to this
+world may well be doubted," said Heyward, glancing his eyes around him,
+and missing Chingachgook from their little band. Another groan more
+faint than the former, was succeeded by a heavy and sullen plunge into
+the water, and all was as still again as if the borders of the dreary
+pool had never been awakened from the silence of creation. While they
+yet hesitated in uncertainty, the form of the Indian was seen gliding
+out of the thicket. As the chief rejoined them, with one hand he
+attached the reeking scalp of the unfortunate young Frenchman to his
+girdle, and with the other he replaced the knife and tomahawk that had
+drunk his blood. He then took his wonted station, with the air of a man
+who believed he had done a deed of merit.
+
+The scout dropped one end of his rifle to the earth, and leaning his
+hands on the other, he stood musing in profound silence. Then shaking
+his head in a mournful manner, he muttered,--
+
+"'T would have been a cruel and an unhuman act for a white-skin; but
+'tis the gift and natur' of an Indian, and I suppose it should not be
+denied. I could wish, though, it had befallen an accursed Mingo, rather
+than that gay young boy from the old countries."
+
+"Enough!" said Heyward, apprehensive the unconscious sisters might
+comprehend the nature of the detention, and conquering his disgust by a
+train of reflections very much like that of the hunter; "'tis done; and
+though better it were left undone, cannot be amended. You see we are,
+too obviously, within the sentinels of the enemy; what course do you
+propose to follow?"
+
+"Yes," said Hawkeye, rousing himself again, "'tis as you say, too late
+to harbor further thoughts about it. Ay, the French have gathered around
+the fort in good earnest, and we have a delicate needle to thread in
+passing them."
+
+"And but little time to do it in," added Heyward, glancing his eyes
+upward, toward the bank of vapor that concealed the setting moon.
+
+"And little time to do it in!" repeated the scout. "The thing may be
+done in two fashions, by the help of Providence, without which it may
+not be done at all."
+
+"Name them quickly, for time presses."
+
+"One would be to dismount the gentle ones, and let their beasts range
+the plain; by sending the Mohicans in front, we might then cut a lane
+through their sentries, and enter the fort over the dead bodies."
+
+"It will not do--it will not do!" interrupted the generous Heyward; "a
+soldier might force his way in this manner, but never with such a
+convoy."
+
+"'Twould be, indeed, a bloody path for tender feet to wade in," returned
+the equally reluctant scout; "but I thought it befitting my manhood to
+name it. We must then turn on our trail and get without the line of
+their look-outs, when we will bend short to the west, and enter the
+mountains; where I can hide you, so that all the devil's hounds in
+Montcalm's pay would be thrown off the scent, for months to come."
+
+"Let it be done, and that instantly."
+
+Further words were unnecessary; for Hawkeye, merely uttering the mandate
+to "follow," moved along the route by which they had just entered their
+present critical and even dangerous situation. Their progress, like
+their late dialogue, was guarded, and without noise; for none knew at
+what moment a passing patrol, or a crouching picket of the enemy, might
+rise upon their path. As they held their silent way along the margin of
+the pond, again Heyward and the scout stole furtive glances at its
+appalling dreariness. They looked in vain for the form they had so
+recently seen stalking along its silent shores, while a low and regular
+wash of the little waves, by announcing that the waters were not yet
+subsided, furnished a frightful memorial of the deed of blood they had
+just witnessed. Like all that passing and gloomy scene, the low basin,
+however, quickly melted in the darkness, and became blended with the
+mass of black objects in the rear of the travellers.
+
+Hawkeye soon deviated from the line of their retreat, and striking off
+towards the mountains which form the western boundary of the narrow
+plain, he led his followers, with swift steps, deep within the shadows
+that were cast from their high and broken summits. The route was now
+painful; lying over ground ragged with rocks, and intersected with
+ravines, and their progress proportionately slow. Bleak and black hills
+lay on every side of them, compensating in some degree for the
+additional toil of the march, by the sense of security they imparted. At
+length the party began slowly to climb a steep and rugged ascent by a
+path that curiously wound among rocks and trees, avoiding the one, and
+supported by the other, in a manner that showed it had been devised by
+men long practised in the arts of the wilderness. As they gradually rose
+from the level of the valleys, the thick darkness which usually precedes
+the approach of day began to disperse, and objects were seen in the
+plain and palpable colors with which they had been gifted by nature.
+When they issued from the stunted woods which clung to the barren sides
+of the mountain, upon a flat and mossy rock that formed its summit, they
+met the morning, as it came blushing above the green pines of a hill
+that lay on the opposite side of the valley of the Horican.
+
+The scout now told the sisters to dismount; and taking the bridles from
+the mouths, and the saddles off the backs of the jaded beasts, he turned
+them loose, to glean a scanty subsistence among the shrubs and meagre
+herbage of that elevated region.
+
+"Go," he said, "and seek your food where natur' gives it you; and beware
+that you become not food to ravenous wolves yourselves, among these
+hills."
+
+"Have we no further need of them?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"See, and judge with your own eyes," said the scout, advancing towards
+the eastern brow of the mountain, whither he beckoned for the whole
+party to follow; "if it was as easy to look into the heart of man as it
+is to spy out the nakedness of Montcalm's camp from this spot,
+hypocrites would grow scarce, and the cunning of a Mingo might prove a
+losing game, compared to the honesty of a Delaware."
+
+When the travellers reached the verge of the precipice, they saw, at a
+glance, the truth of the scout's declaration, and the admirable
+foresight with which he had led them to their commanding station.
+
+The mountain on which they stood, elevated, perhaps, a thousand feet in
+the air, was a high cone that rose a little in advance of that range
+which stretches for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
+meeting its sister piles, beyond the water, it ran off towards the
+Canadas, in confused and broken masses of rock, thinly sprinkled with
+evergreens. Immediately at the feet of the party, the southern shore of
+the Horican swept in a broad semicircle, from mountain to mountain,
+marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat
+elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared
+from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented
+with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted
+with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the
+waters became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of
+vapor that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning
+air. But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills pointed out
+the passage by which they found their way still farther north, to spread
+their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute into
+the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather
+broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction,
+the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
+reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and
+sandy lands, across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their
+double journey. Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
+sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light vapor were rising in
+spiral wreaths from the uninhabited woods, looking like the smokes of
+hidden cottages; or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle with
+the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary, snow-white cloud floated
+above the valley, and marked the spot beneath which lay the silent pool
+of the "bloody pond."
+
+Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its western than to its
+eastern margin, lay the extensive earthen ramparts and low buildings of
+William Henry. Two of the sweeping bastions appeared to rest on the
+water which washed their bases, while a deep ditch and extensive
+morasses guarded its other sides and angles. The land had been cleared
+of wood for a reasonable distance around the work, but every other part
+of the scene lay in the green livery of nature, except where the limpid
+water mellowed the view, or the bold rocks thrust their black and naked
+heads above the undulating outline of the mountain ranges. In its front
+might be seen the scattered sentinels, who held a weary watch against
+their numerous foes; and within the walls themselves, the travellers
+looked down upon men still drowsy with a night of vigilance. Towards the
+southeast, but in immediate contact with the fort, was an entrenched
+camp, posted on a rocky eminence, that would have been far more eligible
+for the work itself, in which Hawkeye pointed out the presence of those
+auxiliary regiments that had so recently left the Hudson in their
+company. From the woods, a little farther to the south, rose numerous
+dark and lurid smokes, that were easily to be distinguished from the
+purer exhalations of the springs, and which the scout also showed to
+Heyward, as evidences that the enemy lay in force in that direction.
+
+But the spectacle which most concerned the young soldier was on the
+western bank of the lake, though quite near to its southern termination.
+On a strip of land, which appeared, from his stand, too narrow to
+contain such an army, but which, in truth, extended many hundreds of
+yards from the shores of the Horican to the base of the mountain, were
+to be seen the white tents and military engines of an encampment of ten
+thousand men. Batteries were already thrown up in their front, and even
+while the spectators above them were looking down, with such different
+emotions, on a scene which lay like a map beneath their feet, the roar
+of artillery rose from the valley, and passed off in thundering echoes,
+along the eastern hills.
+
+"Morning is just touching them below," said the deliberate and musing
+scout, "and the watchers have a mind to wake up the sleepers by the
+sound of cannon. We are a few hours too late? Montcalm has already
+filled the woods with his accursed Iroquois."
+
+"The place is, indeed, invested," returned Duncan, "but is there no
+expedient by which we may enter? capture in the works would be far
+preferable to falling again into the hands of roving Indians."
+
+"See!" exclaimed the scout, unconsciously directing the attention of
+Cora to the quarters of her own father, "how that shot has made the
+stones fly from the side of the commandant's house! Ay! these Frenchers
+will pull it to pieces faster than it was put together, solid and thick
+though it be."
+
+"Heyward, I sicken at the sight of danger that I cannot share," said the
+undaunted, but anxious daughter. "Let us go to Montcalm, and demand
+admission: he dare not deny a child the boon."
+
+"You would scarce find the tent of the Frenchman with the hair on your
+head," said the blunt scout. "If I had but one of the thousand boats
+which lie empty along that shore, it might be done. Ha! here will soon
+be an end of the firing, for yonder comes a fog that will turn day to
+night, and make an Indian arrow more dangerous than a moulded cannon.
+Now, if you are equal to the work, and will follow, I will make a push;
+for I long to get down into that camp, if it be only to scatter some
+Mingo dogs that I see lurking in the skirts of yonder thicket of birch."
+
+"We are equal," said Cora, firmly: "on such an errand we will follow to
+any danger."
+
+The scout turned to her with a smile of honest and cordial approbation
+as he answered,--
+
+"I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs and quick eyes, that
+feared death as little as you! I'd send them jabbering Frenchers back
+into their den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so many
+fettered hounds or hungry wolves. But stir," he added, turning from her
+to the rest of the party, "the fog comes rolling down so fast, we shall
+have but just the time to meet it on the plain, and use it as a cover.
+Remember, if any accident should befall me, to keep the air blowing on
+your left cheeks--or rather, follow the Mohicans; they'd scent their
+way, be it in day or be it at night."
+
+He then waved his hand for them to follow, and threw himself down the
+steep declivity, with free, but careful footsteps. Heyward assisted the
+sisters to descend, and in a few minutes they were all far down a
+mountain whose sides they had climbed with so much toil and pain.
+
+The direction taken by Hawkeye soon brought the travellers to the level
+of the plain, nearly opposite to a sally-port in the western curtain of
+the fort, which lay, itself, at the distance of about half a mile from
+the point where he halted to allow Duncan to come up with his charge. In
+their eagerness, and favored by the nature of the ground, they had
+anticipated the fog, which was rolling heavily down the lake, and it
+became necessary to pause, until the mists had wrapped the camp of the
+enemy in their fleecy mantle. The Mohicans profited by the delay, to
+steal out of the woods, and to make a survey of surrounding objects.
+They were followed at a little distance by the scout, with a view to
+profit early by their report, and to obtain some faint knowledge for
+himself of the more immediate localities.
+
+In a very few moments he returned, his face reddened with vexation,
+while he muttered his disappointment in words of no very gentle import.
+
+"Here has the cunning Frenchman been posting a picket directly in our
+path," he said; "redskins and whites; and we shall be as likely to fall
+into their midst as to pass them in the fog!"
+
+"Cannot we make a circuit to avoid the danger," asked Heyward, "and come
+into our path again when it is passed?"
+
+"Who that once bends from the line of his march in a fog can tell when
+or how to turn to find it again! The mists of Horican are not like the
+curls from a peace-pipe, or the smoke which settles above a mosquito
+fire."
+
+He was yet speaking, when a crashing sound was heard, and a cannon-ball
+entered the thicket, striking the body of a sapling, and rebounding to
+the earth, its force being much expended by previous resistance. The
+Indians followed instantly like busy attendants on the terrible
+messenger, and Uncas commenced speaking earnestly and with much action,
+in the Delaware tongue.
+
+"It may be so, lad," muttered the scout, when he had ended; "for
+desperate fevers are not to be treated like a toothache. Come, then, the
+fog is shutting in."
+
+"Stop!" cried Heyward; "first explain your expectations."
+
+"'Tis soon done, and a small hope it is; but it is better than nothing.
+This shot that you see," added the scout, kicking the harmless iron with
+his foot, "has ploughed the 'arth in its road from the fort, and we
+shall hunt for the furrow it has made, when all other signs may fail. No
+more words, but follow, or the fog may leave us in the middle of our
+path, a mark for both armies to shoot at."
+
+Heyward perceiving that, in fact, a crisis had arrived when acts were
+more required than words, placed himself between the sisters, and drew
+them swiftly forward, keeping the dim figure of their leader in his eye.
+It was soon apparent that Hawkeye had not magnified the power of the
+fog, for before they had proceeded twenty yards, it was difficult for
+the different individuals of the party to distinguish each other, in the
+vapor.
+
+They had made their little circuit to the left, and were already
+inclining again towards the right, having, as Heyward thought, got over
+nearly half the distance to the friendly works, when his ears were
+saluted with the fierce summons, apparently within twenty feet of them,
+of--
+
+"Qui va la?"
+
+"Push on!" whispered the scout, once more bending to the left.
+
+"Push on!" repeated Heyward; when the summons was renewed by a dozen
+voices, each of which seemed charged with menace.
+
+"C'est moi," cried Duncan, dragging, rather than leading those he
+supported, swiftly onward.
+
+"Bete!--qui?--moi!"
+
+"Ami de la France."
+
+"Tu m'as plus l'air d'un _ennemi_ de la France; arrete! ou pardieu je te
+ferai ami du diable. Non! feu, camarades, feu!"
+
+The order was instantly obeyed, and the fog was stirred by the explosion
+of fifty muskets. Happily, the aim was bad, and the bullets cut the air
+in a direction a little different from that taken by the fugitives;
+though still so nigh them, that to the unpractised ears of David and the
+two females, it appeared as if they whistled within a few inches of the
+organs. The outcry was renewed, and the order, not only to fire again,
+but to pursue, was too plainly audible. When Heyward briefly explained
+the meaning of the words they heard, Hawkeye halted, and spoke with
+quick decision and great firmness.
+
+"Let us deliver our fire," he said; "they will believe it a sortie, and
+give way, or they will wait for reinforcements."
+
+The scheme was well conceived, but failed in its effect. The instant the
+French heard the pieces, it seemed as if the plain was alive with men,
+muskets rattling along its whole extent, from the shores of the lake to
+the farthest boundary of the woods.
+
+"We shall draw their entire army upon us, and bring on a general
+assault," said Duncan: "lead on, my friend, for your own life, and
+ours."
+
+The scout seemed willing to comply; but, in the hurry of the moment, and
+in the change of position, he had lost the direction. In vain he turned
+either cheek towards the light air; they felt equally cool. In this
+dilemma, Uncas lighted on the furrow of the cannon-ball, where it had
+cut the ground in three adjacent ant-hills.
+
+"Give me the range!" said Hawkeye, bending to catch a glimpse of the
+direction, and then instantly moving onward.
+
+Cries, oaths, voices calling to each other, and the reports of muskets,
+were now quick and incessant, and, apparently, on every side of them.
+Suddenly, a strong glare of light flashed across the scene, the fog
+rolled upwards in thick wreaths, and several cannon belched across the
+plain, and the roar was thrown heavily back from the bellowing echoes of
+the mountain.
+
+"'Tis from the fort!" exclaimed Hawkeye, turning short on his tracks;
+"and we, like stricken fools, were rushing to the woods, under the very
+knives of the Maquas."
+
+The instant their mistake was rectified, the whole party retraced the
+error with the utmost diligence. Duncan willingly relinquished the
+support of Cora to the arm of Uncas, and Cora as readily accepted the
+welcome assistance. Men, hot and angry in pursuit, were evidently on
+their footsteps, and each instant threatened their capture, if not their
+destruction.
+
+"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to
+direct the operations of the enemy.
+
+"Stand firm, and be ready, my gallant 60ths!" suddenly exclaimed a voice
+above them; "wait to see the enemy,--fire low, and sweep the glacis."
+
+"Father! father!" exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; "it is I!
+Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!"
+
+"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
+agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn
+echo. "'Tis she! God has restored me my children! Throw open the
+sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field; pull not a trigger, lest
+ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel."
+
+Duncan heard the grating of the rusty hinges, and darting to the spot,
+directed by the sound, he met a long line of dark red warriors, passing
+swiftly towards the glacis. He knew them for his own battalion of the
+royal Americans, and flying to their head, soon swept every trace of his
+pursuers from before the works.
+
+For an instant, Cora and Alice had stood trembling and bewildered by
+this unexpected desertion; but, before either had leisure for speech, or
+even thought, an officer of gigantic frame whose locks were bleached
+with years and service, but whose air of military grandeur had been
+rather softened than destroyed by time, rushed out of the body of the
+mist, and folded them to his bosom, while large scalding tears rolled
+down his pale and wrinkled cheeks, and he exclaimed, in the peculiar
+accent of Scotland,--
+
+"For this I thank thee, Lord! Let danger come as it will, thy servant is
+now prepared!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+  "Then go we in, to know his embassy;
+  Which I could, with ready guess, declare,
+  Before the Frenchman speak a word of it."
+
+  _King Henry V._
+
+
+A few succeeding days were passed amid the privations, the uproar, and
+the dangers of the siege, which was vigorously pressed by a power
+against whose approaches Munro possessed no competent means of
+resistance. It appeared as if Webb, with his army, which lay slumbering
+on the banks of the Hudson, had utterly forgotten the strait to which
+his countrymen were reduced. Montcalm had filled the woods of the
+portage with his savages, every yell and whoop from whom rang through
+the British encampment, chilling the hearts of men who were already but
+too much disposed to magnify the danger.
+
+Not so, however, with the besieged. Animated by the words, and
+stimulated by the examples, of their leaders, they had found their
+courage, and maintained their ancient reputation, with zeal that did
+justice to the stern character of their commander. As if satisfied with
+the toil of marching through the wilderness to encounter his enemy, the
+French general, though of approved skill, had neglected to seize the
+adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might have been exterminated
+with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of the country,
+would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of contempt
+for eminences, or rather dread of the labor of ascending them, might
+have been termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It
+originated in the simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the
+nature of the combats, and the density of the forests, fortresses were
+rare, and artillery next to useless. The carelessness engendered by
+these usages descended even to the war of the Revolution, and lost the
+States the important fortress of Ticonderoga, opening a way for the army
+of Burgoyne into what was then the bosom of the country. We look back at
+this ignorance, or infatuation, whichever it may be called, with wonder,
+knowing that the neglect of an eminence, whose difficulties, like those
+of Mount Defiance, have been so greatly exaggerated, would, at the
+present time, prove fatal to the reputation of the engineer who had
+planned the works at their base, or to that of the general whose lot it
+was to defend them.
+
+The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of
+nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the
+scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health,
+or pleasure, or floats steadily towards his object on those artificial
+waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman[21]
+who has dared to stake his political character on the hazardous issue,
+is not to suppose that his ancestors traversed those hills, or struggled
+with the same currents with equal facility. The transportation of a
+single heavy gun was often considered equal to a victory gained; if,
+happily, the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it
+from its necessary concomitant, the ammunition, as to render it no more
+than an useless tube of unwieldy iron.
+
+The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
+resolute Scotsman who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
+neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the
+plain, and caused them to be served with vigor and skill. Against this
+assault, the besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty
+preparations of a fortress in the wilderness.
+
+It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of
+his own service in it, that Major Heyward profited by a parley that had
+just been beaten, by repairing to the ramparts of one of the water
+bastions, to breathe the cool air from the lake, and to take a survey of
+the progress of the siege. He was alone, if the solitary sentinel who
+paced the mound be excepted; for the artillerists had hastened also to
+profit by the temporary suspension of their arduous duties. The evening
+was delightfully calm, and the light air from the limpid water fresh and
+soothing. It seemed as if, with the termination to the roar of artillery
+and the plunging of shot, nature had also seized the moment to assume
+her mildest and most captivating form. The sun poured down his parting
+glory on the scene, without the oppression of those fierce rays that
+belong to the climate and the season. The mountains looked green and
+fresh and lovely; tempered with the milder light, or softened in shadow,
+as thin vapors floated between them and the sun. The numerous islands
+rested on the bosom of the Horican, some low and sunken, as if imbedded
+in the waters, and others appearing to hover above the element, in
+little hillocks of green velvet; among which the fishermen of the
+beleaguering army peacefully rowed their skiffs, or floated at rest on
+the glassy mirror, in quiet pursuit of their employment.
+
+The scene was at once animated and still. All that pertained to nature
+was sweet, or simply grand; while those parts which depended on the
+temper and movements of man were lively and playful.
+
+Two little spotless flags were abroad, the one on a salient angle of the
+fort, and the other on the advanced battery of the besiegers; emblems of
+the truce which existed, not only to the acts, but it would seem, also,
+to the enmity of the combatants.
+
+Behind these, again, swung, heavily opening and closing in silken folds,
+the rival standards of England and France.
+
+A hundred gay and thoughtless young Frenchmen were drawing a net to the
+pebbly beach, within dangerous proximity to the sullen but silent cannon
+of the fort, while the eastern mountain was sending back the loud shouts
+and gay merriment that attended their sport. Some were rushing eagerly
+to enjoy the aquatic games of the lake, and others were already toiling
+their way up the neighboring hills, with the restless curiosity of their
+nation. To all these sports and pursuits, those of the enemy who watched
+the besieged, and the besieged themselves, were, however, merely the
+idle, though sympathizing spectators. Here and there a picket had,
+indeed, raised a song, or mingled in a dance, which had drawn the dusky
+savages around them, from their lairs in the forest. In short,
+everything wore rather the appearance of a day of pleasure, than of an
+hour stolen from the dangers and toil of a bloody and vindictive
+warfare.
+
+Duncan had stood in a musing attitude, contemplating this scene a few
+minutes, when his eyes were directed to the glacis in front of the
+sally-port already mentioned, by the sounds of approaching footsteps. He
+walked to an angle of the bastion, and beheld the scout advancing, under
+the custody of a French officer, to the body of the fort. The
+countenance of Hawkeye was haggard and careworn, and his air dejected,
+as though he felt the deepest degradation at having fallen into the
+power of his enemies. He was without his favorite weapon, and his arms
+were even bound behind him with thongs, made of the skin of a deer. The
+arrival of flags, to cover the messengers of summons, had occurred so
+often of late, that when Heyward first threw his careless glance on this
+group, he expected to see another of the officers of the enemy, charged
+with a similar office; but the instant he recognized the tall person,
+and still sturdy, though downcast features of his friend the woodsman,
+he started with surprise, and turned to descend from the bastion into
+the bosom of the work.
+
+The sounds of other voices, however, caught his attention, and for a
+moment caused him to forget his purpose. At the inner angle of the mound
+he met the sisters, walking along the parapet in search, like himself,
+of air and relief from confinement. They had not met from that painful
+moment when he deserted them on the plain, only to assure their safety.
+He had parted from them worn with care, and jaded with fatigue; he now
+saw them refreshed and blooming, though timid and anxious. Under such an
+inducement, it will cause no surprise that the young man lost sight, for
+a time, of other objects in order to address them. He was, however,
+anticipated by the voice of the ingenuous and youthful Alice.
+
+"Ah! thou truant! thou recreant knight! he who abandons his damsels in
+the very lists!" she cried; "here have we been days, nay, ages,
+expecting you at our feet, imploring mercy and forgetfulness of your
+craven backsliding, or, I should rather say, back-running--for verily
+you fled in a manner that no stricken deer, as our worthy friend the
+scout would say, could equal!"
+
+"You know that Alice means our thanks and our blessings," added the
+graver and more thoughtful Cora. "In truth, we have a little wondered
+why you should so rigidly absent yourself from a place where the
+gratitude of the daughters might receive the support of a parent's
+thanks."
+
+"Your father himself could tell you, that though absent from your
+presence, I have not been altogether forgetful of your safety," returned
+the young man; "the mastery of yonder village of huts," pointing to the
+neighboring entrenched camp, "has been keenly disputed; and he who holds
+it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My
+days and my nights have all been passed there since we separated,
+because I thought that duty called me thither. But," he added with an
+air of chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal,
+"had I been aware that what I then believed a soldier's conduct could so
+be construed, shame would have been added to the list of reasons."
+
+"Heyward!--Duncan!" exclaimed Alice, bending forward to read his
+half-averted countenance, until a lock of her golden hair rested on her
+flushed cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her
+eye; "did I think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would
+silence it forever, Cora can say, if Cora would, how justly we have
+prized your services, and how deep--I had almost said, how fervent--is
+our gratitude."
+
+"And will Cora attest the truth of this?" cried Duncan, suffering the
+cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure.
+"What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of
+the knight in the duty of a soldier?"
+
+Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face towards the water, as
+if looking on the sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes
+on the young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish
+that at once drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his
+mind.
+
+"You are not well, dearest Miss Munro!" he exclaimed; "we have trifled
+while you are in suffering."
+
+"'Tis nothing," she answered, refusing his offered support with feminine
+reserve. "That I cannot see the sunny side of the picture of life, like
+this artless but ardent enthusiast," she added, laying her hand lightly,
+but affectionately, on the arm of her sister, "is the penalty of
+experience, and, perhaps, the misfortune of my nature. See," she
+continued, as if determined to shake off infirmity, in a sense of duty;
+"look around you, Major Heyward, and tell me what a prospect is this for
+the daughter of a soldier whose greatest happiness is his honor and his
+military renown."
+
+"Neither ought nor shall be tarnished by circumstances over which he has
+had no control," Duncan warmly replied. "But your words recall me to my
+own duty. I go now to your gallant father, to hear his determination in
+matters of the last moment to the defence. God bless you in every
+fortune, noble--Cora--I may and must call you." She frankly gave him her
+hand, though her lip quivered, and her cheeks gradually became of an
+ashy paleness. "In every fortune, I know you will be an ornament and
+honor to your sex. Alice, adieu"--his tone changed from admiration to
+tenderness--"adieu, Alice; we shall soon meet again; as conquerors, I
+trust, and amid rejoicings!"
+
+Without waiting for an answer from either, the young man threw himself
+down the grassy steps of the bastion, and moving rapidly across the
+parade, he was quickly in the presence of their father. Munro was
+pacing his narrow apartment with a disturbed air and gigantic strides as
+Duncan entered.
+
+"You have anticipated my wishes, Major Heyward," he said; "I was about
+to request this favor."
+
+"I am sorry to see, sir, that the messenger I so warmly recommended has
+returned in custody of the French! I hope there is no reason to distrust
+his fidelity?"
+
+"The fidelity of 'The Long Rifle' is well known to me," returned Munro,
+"and is above suspicion; though his usual good fortune seems, at last,
+to have failed. Montcalm has got him, and with the accursed politeness
+of his nation, he has sent him in with a doleful tale, of 'knowing how I
+valued the fellow, he could not think of retaining him.' A Jesuitical
+way, that, Major Duncan Heyward, of telling a man of his misfortunes!"
+
+"But the general and his succor?"
+
+"Did ye look to the south as ye entered, and could ye not see them?"
+said the old soldier, laughing bitterly. "Hoot! hoot! you're an
+impatient boy, sir, and cannot give the gentlemen leisure for their
+march!"
+
+"They are coming, then? The scout has said as much?"
+
+"When? and by what path? for the dunce has omitted to tell me this.
+There is a letter, it would seem, too; and that is the only agreeable
+part of the matter. For the customary attentions of your Marquis of
+Montcalm--I warrant me, Duncan, that he of Lothian would buy a dozen
+such marquisates--but, if the news of the letter were bad, the gentility
+of this French monsieur would certainly compel him to let us know it."
+
+"He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger!"
+
+"Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your
+'_bonhommie_,' I would venture, if the truth was known, the fellow's
+grandfather taught the noble science of dancing."
+
+"But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue: what
+verbal report does he make?"
+
+"O! sir, he is not wanting in natural organs, and he is free to tell all
+that he has seen and heard. The whole amount is this: there is a fort of
+his majesty's on the banks of the Hudson, called Edward, in honor of his
+gracious highness of York, you'll know; and it is well filled with armed
+men, as such a work should be."
+
+"But was there no movement, no signs of any intention to advance to our
+relief?"
+
+"There were the morning and evening parades; and when one of the
+provincial loons--you'll know, Duncan, you're half a Scotsman
+yourself--when one of them dropped his powder over his porretch, if it
+touched the coals, it just burnt!" Then suddenly changing his bitter,
+ironical manner, to one more grave and thoughtful, he continued; "and
+yet there might, and must be, something in that letter which it would be
+well to know!"
+
+"Our decision should be speedy," said Duncan, gladly availing himself of
+this change of humor, to press the more important objects of their
+interview; "I cannot conceal from you, sir, that the camp will not be
+much longer tenable; and I am sorry to add, that things appear no better
+in the fort; more than half the guns are bursted."
+
+"And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the
+lake; some have been rusting in the woods since the discovery of the
+country; and some were never guns at all--mere privateersmen's
+playthings! Do you think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst
+of a wilderness, three thousand miles from Great Britain!"
+
+"The walls are crumbling about our ears, and provisions begin to fail
+us," continued Heyward, without regarding this new burst of indignation;
+"even the men show signs of discontent and alarm."
+
+"Major Heyward," said Munro, turning to his youthful associate with the
+dignity of his years and superior rank; "I should have served his
+majesty for half a century, and earned these gray hairs, in vain, were I
+ignorant of all you say, and of the pressing nature of our
+circumstances; still, there is everything due to the honor of the king's
+arms and something to ourselves. While there is hope of succor, this
+fortress will I defend, though it be to be done with pebbles gathered on
+the lake shore. It is a sight of the letter, therefore, that we want,
+that we may know the intentions of the man the Earl of Loudon has left
+among us as his substitute."
+
+"And can I be of service in the matter?"
+
+"Sir, you can; the Marquis of Montcalm has, in addition to his other
+civilities, invited me to a personal interview between the works and his
+own camp; in order, as he says, to impart some additional information.
+Now, I think it would not be wise to show any undue solicitude to meet
+him, and I would employ you, an officer of rank, as my substitute; for
+it would but ill comport with the honor of Scotland to let it be said
+one of her gentlemen was outdone in civility by a native of any other
+country on earth."
+
+Without assuming the supererogatory task of entering into a discussion
+of the comparative merits of national courtesy, Duncan cheerfully
+assented to supply the place of the veteran in the approaching
+interview. A long and confidential communication now succeeded, during
+which the young man received some additional insight into his duty, from
+the experience and native acuteness of his commander, and then the
+former took his leave.
+
+As Duncan could only act as the representative of the commandant of the
+fort, the ceremonies which should have accompanied a meeting between the
+heads of the adverse forces were of course dispensed with. The truce
+still existed, and with a roll and beat of the drum, and covered by a
+little white flag, Duncan left the sally-port, within ten minutes after
+his instructions were ended. He was received by the French officer in
+advance with the usual formalities, and immediately accompanied to a
+distant marquee of the renowned soldier who led the forces of France.
+
+The general of the enemy received the youthful messenger, surrounded by
+his principal officers, and by a swarthy band of the native chiefs, who
+had followed him to the field, with the warriors of their several
+tribes. Heyward paused short, when, in glancing his eyes rapidly over
+the dark group of the latter, he beheld the malignant countenance of
+Magua, regarding him with the calm but sullen attention which marked the
+expression of that subtle savage. A slight exclamation of surprise even
+burst from the lips of the young man; but instantly recollecting his
+errand, and the presence in which he stood, he suppressed every
+appearance of emotion, and turned to the hostile leader, who had already
+advanced a step to receive him.
+
+The Marquis of Montcalm was, at the period of which we write, in the
+flower of his age, and, it may be added, in the zenith of his fortunes.
+But, even in that enviable situation, he was affable, and distinguished
+as much for his attention to the forms of courtesy, as for that
+chivalrous courage which, only two short years afterwards, induced him
+to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham. Duncan, in turning his
+eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them to rest with
+pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble military
+air, of the French general.
+
+"Monsieur," said the latter, "j'ai beaucoup de plaisir a--bah!--ou est
+cet interprete?"
+
+"Je crois, monsieur, qu'il ne sera pas necessaire," Heyward modestly
+replied; "je parle un peu Francais."
+
+"Ah! j'en suis bien aise," said Montcalm, taking Duncan familiarly by
+the arm, and leading him deep into the marquee, a little out of
+ear-shot; "je deteste ces fripons-la; on ne sait jamais sur quel pie on
+est avec eux. Eh, bien! monsieur," he continued, still speaking in
+French; "though I should have been proud of receiving your commandant, I
+am very happy that he has seen proper to employ an officer so
+distinguished, and who, I am sure, is so amiable, as yourself."
+
+Duncan bowed low, pleased with the compliment, in spite of a most heroic
+determination to suffer no artifice to allure him into forgetfulness of
+the interest of his prince; and Montcalm, after a pause of a moment, as
+if to recollect his thoughts, proceeded,--
+
+"Your commandant is a brave man, and well qualified to repel my assault.
+Mais, monsieur, is it not time to begin to take more counsel of
+humanity, and less of your courage? The one as strongly characterizes
+the hero as the other."
+
+"We consider the qualities as inseparable," returned Duncan, smiling;
+"but while we find in the vigor of your excellency every motive to
+stimulate the one, we can, as yet, see no particular call for the
+exercise of the other."
+
+Montcalm, in his turn, slightly bowed, but it was with the air of a man
+too practised to remember the language of flattery. After musing a
+moment, he added,--
+
+"It is possible my glasses have deceived me, and that your works resist
+our cannon better than I had supposed. You know our force?"
+
+"Our accounts vary," said Duncan, carelessly; "the highest, however, has
+not exceeded twenty thousand men."
+
+The Frenchman bit his lip, and fastened his eyes keenly on the other as
+if to read his thoughts; then, with a readiness peculiar to himself, he
+continued, as if assenting to the truth of an enumeration which quite
+doubled his army,--
+
+"It is a poor compliment to the vigilance of us soldiers, monsieur,
+that, do what we will, we never can conceal our numbers. If it were to
+be done at all, one would believe it might succeed in these woods.
+Though you think it too soon to listen to the calls of humanity," he
+added, smiling archly, "I may be permitted to believe that gallantry is
+not forgotten by one so young as yourself. The daughters of the
+commandant, I learn, have passed into the fort since it was invested?"
+
+"It is true, monsieur; but, so far from weakening our efforts, they set
+us an example of courage in their own fortitude. Were nothing but
+resolution necessary to repel so accomplished a soldier as M. de
+Montcalm, I would gladly trust the defence of William Henry to the elder
+of those ladies."
+
+"We have a wise ordinance in our Salique laws, which says, 'The crown of
+France shall never degrade the lance to the distaff,'" said Montcalm,
+dryly, and with a little hauteur; but instantly adding, with his former
+frank and easy air, "as all the nobler qualities are hereditary, I can
+easily credit you; though, as I said before, courage has its limits, and
+humanity must not be forgotten. I trust, monsieur, you come authorized
+to treat for the surrender of the place?"
+
+"Has your excellency found our defence so feeble as to believe the
+measure necessary?"
+
+"I should be sorry to have the defence protracted in such a manner as to
+irritate my red friends there," continued Montcalm, glancing his eyes at
+the group of grave and attentive Indians, without attending to the
+other's question; "I find it difficult, even now, to limit them to the
+usages of war."
+
+Heyward was silent; for a painful recollection of the dangers he had so
+recently escaped came over his mind, and recalled the images of those
+defenceless beings who had shared in all his sufferings.
+
+"Ces messieurs-la," said Montcalm, following up the advantage which he
+conceived he had gained, "are most formidable when baffled: and it is
+unnecessary to tell you with what difficulty they are restrained in
+their anger. Eh bien, monsieur! shall we speak of the terms?"
+
+"I fear your excellency has been deceived as to the strength of William
+Henry, and the resources of its garrison!"
+
+"I have not sat down before Quebec, but an earthen work, that is
+defended by twenty-three hundred gallant men," was the laconic reply.
+
+"Our mounds are earthen, certainly--nor are they seated on the rocks of
+Cape Diamond; but they stand on that shore which proved so destructive
+to Dieskau and his army. There is also a powerful force within a few
+hours' march of us, which we account upon as part of our means."
+
+"Some six or eight thousand men," returned Montcalm, with much apparent
+indifference, "whom their leader wisely judges to be safer in their
+works than in the field."
+
+It was now Heyward's turn to bite his lip with vexation, as the other so
+coolly alluded to a force which the young man knew to be overrated. Both
+mused a little while in silence, when Montcalm renewed the conversation,
+in a way that showed he believed the visit of his guest was solely to
+propose terms of capitulation. On the other hand, Heyward began to throw
+sundry inducements in the way of the French general, to betray the
+discoveries he had made through the intercepted letter. The artifice of
+neither, however, succeeded; and after a protracted and fruitless
+interview, Duncan took his leave, favorably impressed with an opinion of
+the courtesy and talents of the enemy's captain, but as ignorant of what
+he came to learn as when he arrived. Montcalm followed him as far as the
+entrance of the marquee, renewing his invitations to the commandant of
+the fort to give him an immediate meeting in the open ground, between
+the two armies.
+
+There they separated, and Duncan returned to the advanced post of the
+French, accompanied as before; whence he instantly proceeded to the
+fort, and to the quarters of his own commander.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+  "_Edg._--Before you fight the battle, ope this letter."
+
+  _King Lear._
+
+
+Major Heyward found Munro attended only by his daughters. Alice sat upon
+his knee, parting the gray hairs on the forehead of the old man with her
+delicate fingers; and, whenever he affected to frown on her trifling,
+appeasing his assumed anger by pressing her ruby lips fondly on his
+wrinkled brow. Cora was seated nigh them, a calm and amused looker-on;
+regarding the wayward movements of her more youthful sister, with that
+species of maternal fondness which characterized her love for Alice. Not
+only the dangers through which they had passed, but those which still
+impended above them, appeared to be momentarily forgotten, in the
+soothing indulgence of such a family meeting. It seemed as if they had
+profited by the short truce, to devote an instant to the purest and best
+affections: the daughters forgetting their fears, and the veteran his
+cares, in the security of the moment. Of this scene, Duncan, who in his
+eagerness to report his arrival had entered unannounced, stood many
+moments an unobserved and a delighted spectator. But the quick and
+dancing eyes of Alice soon caught a glimpse of his figure reflected from
+a glass, and she sprang blushing from her father's knee, exclaiming
+aloud,--
+
+"Major Heyward!"
+
+"What of the lad?" demanded the father; "I have sent him to crack a
+little with the Frenchman. Ha! sir, you are young, and you're nimble!
+Away with you, ye baggage; as if there were not troubles enough for a
+soldier, without having his camp filled with such prattling hussies as
+yourself!"
+
+Alice laughingly followed her sister, who instantly led the way from an
+apartment where she perceived their presence was no longer desirable.
+Munro, instead of demanding the result of the young man's mission, paced
+the room for a few moments, with his hands behind his back, and his head
+inclined towards the floor, like a man lost in thought. At length he
+raised his eyes, glistening with a father's fondness, and exclaimed,--
+
+"They are a pair of excellent girls, Heyward, and such as any one may
+boast of."
+
+"You are not now to learn my opinion of your daughters, Colonel Munro."
+
+"True, lad, true," interrupted the impatient old man; "you were about
+opening your mind more fully on that matter the day you got in; but I
+did not think it becoming in an old soldier to be talking of nuptial
+blessings and wedding jokes when the enemies of his king were likely to
+be unbidden guests at the feast! But I was wrong, Duncan, boy, I was
+wrong there; and I am now ready to hear what you have to say."
+
+"Notwithstanding the pleasure your assurance gives me, dear sir, I have
+just now a message from Montcalm--"
+
+"Let the Frenchman and all his host go to the devil, sir?" exclaimed the
+hasty veteran. "He is not yet master of William Henry, nor shall he ever
+be, provided Webb proves himself the man he should. No, sir! thank
+Heaven, we are not yet in such a strait that it can be said Munro is too
+much pressed to discharge the little domestic duties of his own family.
+Your mother was the only child of my bosom friend, Duncan; and I'll just
+give you a hearing, though all the knights of St. Louis were in a body
+at the sally-port, with the French saint at their head, craving to speak
+a word under favor. A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which
+can be bought with sugar-hogsheads! and then your two-penny marquisates!
+The thistle is the order for dignity and antiquity; the veritable _nemo
+me impune lacessit_ of chivalry! Ye had ancestors in that degree,
+Duncan, and they were an ornament to the nobles of Scotland."
+
+Heyward, who perceived that his superior took a malicious pleasure in
+exhibiting his contempt for the message of the French general, was fain
+to humor a spleen that he knew would be short-lived; he therefore
+replied with as much indifference as he could assume on such a
+subject,--
+
+"My request, as you know, sir, went so far as to presume to the honor of
+being your son."
+
+"Ay, boy, you found words to make yourself very plainly comprehended.
+But, let me ask ye, sir, have you been as intelligible to the girl?"
+
+"On my honor, no," exclaimed Duncan, warmly; "there would have been an
+abuse of a confided trust, had I taken advantage of my situation for
+such a purpose."
+
+"Your notions are those of a gentleman, Major Heyward, and well enough
+in their place. But Cora Munro is a maiden too discreet, and of a mind
+too elevated and improved, to need the guardianship even of a father."
+
+"Cora!"
+
+"Ay--Cora! we are talking of your pretensions to Miss Munro, are we not,
+sir?"
+
+"I--I--I was not conscious of having mentioned her name," said Duncan,
+stammering.
+
+"And to marry whom, then, did you wish my consent, Major Heyward?"
+demanded the old soldier, erecting himself in the dignity of offended
+feeling.
+
+"You have another, and not less lovely child."
+
+"Alice!" exclaimed the father, in an astonishment equal to that with
+which Duncan had just repeated the name of her sister.
+
+"Such was the direction of my wishes, sir."
+
+The young man awaited in silence the result of the extraordinary effect
+produced by a communication which, as it now appeared, was so
+unexpected. For several minutes Munro paced the chamber with long and
+rapid strides, his rigid features working convulsively, and every
+faculty seemingly absorbed in the musings of his own mind. At length, he
+paused directly in front of Heyward, and riveting his eyes upon those of
+the other, he said, with a lip that quivered violently,--
+
+"Duncan Heyward, I have loved you for the sake of him whose blood is in
+your veins; I have loved you for your own good qualities; and I have
+loved you, because I thought you would contribute to the happiness of my
+child. But all this love would turn to hatred, were I assured that what
+I so much apprehend is true."
+
+"God forbid that any act or thought of mine should lead to such a
+change!" exclaimed the young man, whose eye never quailed under the
+penetrating look it encountered. Without adverting the impossibility of
+the other's comprehending those feelings which were hid in his own
+bosom, Munro suffered himself to be appeased by the unaltered
+countenance he met, and with a voice sensibly softened, he continued,--
+
+"You would be my son, Duncan, and you're ignorant of the history of the
+man you wish to call your father. Sit ye down, young man, and I will
+open to you the wounds of a seared heart, in as few words as may be
+suitable."
+
+By this time, the message of Montcalm was as much forgotten by him who
+bore it as by the man for whose ears it was intended. Each drew a chair,
+and while the veteran communed a few moments with his own thoughts,
+apparently in sadness, the youth suppressed his impatience in a look and
+attitude of respectful attention. At length the former spoke:--
+
+"You'll know, already, Major Heyward, that my family was both ancient
+and honorable," commenced the Scotsman; "though it might not altogether
+be endowed with that amount of wealth that should correspond with its
+degree. I was, may be, such an one as yourself when I plighted my faith
+to Alice Graham, the only child of a neighboring laird of some estate.
+But the connection was disagreeable to her father, on more accounts than
+my poverty. I did therefore what an honest man should--restored the
+maiden her troth, and departed the country in the service of my king. I
+had seen many regions, and had shed much blood in different lands,
+before duty called me to the islands of the West Indies. There it was my
+lot to form a connection with one who in time became my wife, and the
+mother of Cora. She was the daughter of a gentleman of those isles, by a
+lady whose misfortune it was, if you will," said the old man, proudly,
+"to be descended, remotely, from that unfortunate class who are so
+basely enslaved to administer to the wants of a luxurious people. Ay,
+sir, that is a curse entailed on Scotland by her unnatural union with a
+foreign and trading people. But could I find a man among them who would
+dare to reflect on my child, he should feel the weight of a father's
+anger! Ha! Major Heyward, you are yourself born at the south, where
+these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own."
+
+"'Tis most unfortunately true, sir," said Duncan, unable any longer to
+prevent his eyes from sinking to the floor in embarrassment.
+
+"And you cast it on my child as a reproach! You scorn to mingle the
+blood of the Heywards with one so degraded--lovely and virtuous though
+she be?" fiercely demanded the jealous parent.
+
+"Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!" returned
+Duncan, at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply
+rooted as if it had been ingrafted in his nature. "The sweetness, the
+beauty, the witchery of your younger daughter, Colonel Munro, might
+explain my motives, without imputing to me this injustice."
+
+"Ye are right, sir," returned the old man, again changing his tones to
+those of gentleness, or rather softness; "the girl is the image of what
+her mother was at her years, and before she had become acquainted with
+grief. When death deprived me of my wife I returned to Scotland,
+enriched by the marriage; and would you think it, Duncan! The suffering
+angel had remained in the heartless state of celibacy twenty long years,
+and that for the sake of a man who could forget her! She did more, sir;
+she over-looked my want of faith, and all difficulties being now
+removed, she took me for her husband."
+
+"And became the mother of Alice?" exclaimed Duncan, with an eagerness
+that might have proved dangerous at a moment when the thoughts of Munro
+were less occupied than at present.
+
+"She did, indeed," said the old man, "and dearly did she pay for the
+blessing she bestowed. But she is a saint in heaven, sir; and it ill
+becomes one whose foot rests on the grave to mourn a lot so blessed. I
+had her but a single year, though; a short term of happiness for one who
+had seen her youth fade in hopeless pining."
+
+There was something so commanding in the distress of the old man, that
+Heyward did not dare to venture a syllable of consolation. Munro sat
+utterly unconscious of the other's presence, his features exposed and
+working with the anguish of his regrets, while heavy tears fell from his
+eyes, and rolled unheeded from his cheeks to the floor. At length he
+moved, as if suddenly recovering his recollection; when he arose, and
+taking a single turn across the room, he approached his companion with
+an air of military grandeur, and demanded,--
+
+"Have you not, Major Heyward, some communication that I should hear from
+the Marquis de Montcalm?"
+
+Duncan started, in his turn, and immediately commenced, in an
+embarrassed voice, the half-forgotten message. It is unnecessary to
+dwell upon the evasive, though polite manner, with which the French
+general had eluded every attempt of Heyward to worm from him the purport
+of the communication he had proposed making, or on the decided, though
+still polished message, by which he now gave his enemy to understand,
+that unless he chose to receive it in person, he should not receive it
+at all. As Munro listened to the detail of Duncan, the excited feelings
+of the father gradually gave way before the obligations of his station,
+and when the other was done, he saw before him nothing but the veteran,
+swelling with the wounded feelings of a soldier.
+
+"You have said enough, Major Heyward!" exclaimed the angry old man:
+"enough to make a volume of commentary on French civility. Here has this
+gentleman invited me to a conference, and when I send him a capable
+substitute, for ye're all that, Duncan, though your years are but few,
+he answers me with a riddle."
+
+"He may have thought less favorably of the substitute, my dear sir; and
+you will remember that the invitation, which he now repeats, was to the
+commandant of the works, and not to his second."
+
+"Well, sir, is not a substitute clothed with all the power and dignity
+of him who grants the commission? He wishes to confer with Munro! Faith,
+sir, I have much inclination to indulge the man, if it should only be to
+let him behold the firm countenance we maintain in spite of his numbers
+and his summons. There might be no bad policy in such a stroke, young
+man."
+
+Duncan, who believed it of the last importance that they should speedily
+come at the contents of the letter borne by the scout, gladly encouraged
+this idea.
+
+"Without doubt, he could gather no confidence by witnessing our
+indifference," he said.
+
+"You never said truer word. I could wish, sir, that he would visit the
+works in open day, and in the form of a storming party: that is the
+least failing method of proving the countenance of an enemy, and would
+be far preferable to the battering system he has chosen. The beauty and
+manliness of warfare has been much deformed, Major Heyward, by the arts
+of your Monsieur Vauban. Our ancestors were far above such scientific
+cowardice!"
+
+"It may be very true, sir; but we are now obliged to repel art by art.
+What is your pleasure in the matter of the interview?"
+
+"I will meet the Frenchman, and that without fear or delay; promptly;
+sir, as becomes a servant of my royal master. Go, Major Heyward, and
+give them a flourish of the music; and send out a messenger to let them
+know who is coming. We will follow with a small guard, for such respect
+is due to one who holds the honor of his king in keeping; and harkee,
+Duncan," he added, in a half whisper, though they were alone, "it may be
+prudent to have some aid at hand, in case there should be treachery at
+the bottom of it all."
+
+The young man availed himself of this order to quit the apartment; and,
+as the day was fast coming to a close, he hastened, without delay, to
+make the necessary arrangements. A very few minutes only were necessary
+to parade a few files, and to despatch an orderly with a flag to
+announce the approach of the commandant of the fort. When Duncan had
+done both these, he led the guard to the sally-port, near which he found
+his superior ready, waiting his appearance. As soon as the usual
+ceremonials of a military departure were observed, the veteran and his
+more youthful companion left the fortress, attended by the escort.
+
+They had proceeded only a hundred yards from the works, when the little
+array which attended the French general to the conference, was seen
+issuing from the hollow way, which formed the bed of a brook that ran
+between the batteries of the besiegers and the fort. From the moment
+that Munro left his own works to appear in front of his enemies, his air
+had been grand, and his step and countenance highly military. The
+instant he caught a glimpse of the white plume that waved in the hat of
+Montcalm, his eye lighted, and age no longer appeared to possess any
+influence over his vast and still muscular person.
+
+"Speak to the boys to be watchful, sir," he said, in an undertone, to
+Duncan; "and to look well to their flints and steel, for one is never
+safe with a servant of these Louises; at the same time, we will show
+them the front of men in deep security. Ye'll understand me, Major
+Heyward!"
+
+He was interrupted by the clamor of a drum from the approaching
+Frenchmen, which was immediately answered, when each party pushed an
+orderly in advance, bearing a white flag, and the wary Scotsman halted,
+with his guard close at his back. As soon as this slight salutation had
+passed, Montcalm moved towards them with a quick but graceful step,
+baring his head to the veteran, and dropping his spotless plume nearly
+to the earth in courtesy. If the air of Munro was more commanding and
+manly, it wanted both the ease and insinuating polish of that of the
+Frenchman. Neither spoke for a few moments, each regarding the other
+with curious and interested eyes. Then, as became his superior rank and
+the nature of the interview, Montcalm broke the silence. After uttering
+the usual words of greeting, he turned to Duncan, and continued with a
+smile of recognition, speaking always in French,--
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE MEETING OF THE GENERALS
+
+_As soon as this slight salutation had passed, Montcalm moved towards
+them with a quick but graceful step, baring his head to the veteran, and
+dropping his spotless plume nearly to the earth in courtesy_]
+
+"I am rejoiced, monsieur, that you have given us the pleasure of your
+company on this occasion. There will be no necessity to employ an
+ordinary interpreter; for, in your hands, I feel the same security as if
+I spoke your language myself."
+
+Duncan acknowledged the compliment, when Montcalm, turning to his guard,
+which, in imitation of that of their enemies, pressed close upon him,
+continued,--
+
+"En arriere, mes enfans--il fait chaud; retirez-vous un peu."
+
+Before Major Heyward would imitate this proof of confidence, he glanced
+his eyes around the plain, and beheld with uneasiness the numerous dusky
+groups of savages, who looked out from the margin of the surrounding
+woods, curious spectators of the interview.
+
+"Monsieur de Montcalm will readily acknowledge the difference in our
+situation," he said, with some embarrassment, pointing at the same time
+towards those dangerous foes, who were to be seen in almost every
+direction. "Were we to dismiss our guard, we should stand here at the
+mercy of our enemies."
+
+"Monsieur, you have the plighted faith of _un gentilhomme Francais_; for
+your safety," returned Montcalm, laying his hand impressively on his
+heart; "it should suffice."
+
+"It shall. Fall back," Duncan added to the officer who led the escort;
+"fall back, sir, beyond hearing, and wait for orders."
+
+Munro witnessed this movement with manifest uneasiness; nor did he fail
+to demand an instant explanation.
+
+"Is it not our interest, sir, to betray no distrust?" retorted Duncan.
+"Monsieur de Montcalm pledges his word for our safety, and I have
+ordered the men to withdraw a little, in order to prove how much we
+depend on his assurance."
+
+"It may be all right, sir, but I have no overweening reliance on the
+faith of these marquesses, or marquis, as they call themselves. Their
+patents of nobility are too common to be certain that they bear the seal
+of true honor."
+
+"You forget, dear sir, that we confer with an officer distinguished
+alike in Europe and America for his deeds. From a soldier of his
+reputation we can have nothing to apprehend."
+
+The old man made a gesture of resignation, though his rigid features
+still betrayed his obstinate adherence to a distrust, which he derived
+from a sort of hereditary contempt of his enemy, rather than from any
+present signs which might warrant so uncharitable a feeling. Montcalm
+waited patiently until this little dialogue in demi-voice was ended,
+when he drew nigher, and opened the subject of their conference.
+
+"I have solicited this interview from your superior, monsieur," he said,
+"because I believe he will allow himself to be persuaded that he has
+already done everything which is necessary for the honor of his prince,
+and will not listen to the admonitions of humanity. I will forever bear
+testimony that his resistance has been gallant, and was continued as
+long as there was hope."
+
+When this opening was translated to Munro, he answered with dignity, but
+with sufficient courtesy,--
+
+"However I may prize such testimony from Monsieur Montcalm, it will be
+more valuable when it shall be better merited."
+
+The French general smiled, as Duncan gave him the purport of this reply,
+and observed,--
+
+"What is now so freely accorded to approved courage, may be refused to
+useless obstinacy. Monsieur would wish to see my camp, and witness, for
+himself, our numbers, and the impossibility of his resisting them, with
+success?"
+
+"I know that the king of France is well served," returned the unmoved
+Scotsman, as soon as Duncan ended his translation; "but my own royal
+master has as many and as faithful troops."
+
+"Though not at hand, fortunately for us," said Montcalm, without
+waiting, in his ardor, for the interpreter. "There is a destiny in war,
+to which a brave man knows how to submit, with the same courage that he
+faces his foes."
+
+"Had I been conscious that Monsieur Montcalm was master of the English,
+I should have spared myself the trouble of so awkward a translation,"
+said the vexed Duncan, dryly; remembering instantly his recent by-play
+with Munro.
+
+"Your pardon, monsieur," rejoined the Frenchman, suffering a slight
+color to appear on his dark cheek. "There is a vast difference between
+understanding and speaking a foreign tongue; you will, therefore, please
+to assist me still." Then after a short pause, he added, "These hills
+afford us every opportunity of reconnoitring your works, messieurs, and
+I am possibly as well acquainted with their weak condition as you can be
+yourselves."
+
+"Ask the French general if his glasses can reach to the Hudson," said
+Munro, proudly; "and if he knows when and where to expect the army of
+Webb."
+
+"Let General Webb be his own interpreter," returned the politic
+Montcalm, suddenly extending an open letter towards Munro, as he spoke;
+"you will there learn, monsieur, that his movements are not likely to
+prove embarrassing to my army."
+
+The veteran seized the offered paper, without waiting for Duncan to
+translate the speech, and with an eagerness that betrayed how important
+he deemed its contents. As his eye passed hastily over the words, his
+countenance changed from its look of military pride to one of deep
+chagrin: his lip began to quiver; and, suffering the paper to fall from
+his hand, his head dropped upon his chest, like that of a man whose
+hopes were withered at a single blow. Duncan caught the letter from the
+ground, and without apology for the liberty he took, he read at a glance
+its cruel purport. Their common superior, so far from encouraging them
+to resist, advised a speedy surrender, urging in the plainest language
+as a reason, the utter impossibility of his sending a single man to
+their rescue.
+
+"Here is no deception!" exclaimed Duncan, examining the billet both
+inside and out; "this is the signature of Webb, and must be the captured
+letter."
+
+"The man has betrayed me!" Munro at length bitterly exclaimed: "he has
+brought dishonor to the door of one where disgrace was never before
+known to dwell, and shame has he heaped heavily on my gray hairs."
+
+"Say not so," cried Duncan; "we are yet masters of the fort, and of our
+honor. Let us then sell our lives at such a rate as shall make our
+enemies believe the purchase too dear."
+
+"Boy, I thank thee," exclaimed the old man, rousing himself from his
+stupor; "you have, for once, reminded Munro of his duty. We will go
+back, and dig our graves behind those ramparts."
+
+"Messieurs," said Montcalm, advancing towards them a step, in generous
+interest, "you little know Louis de St. Veran, if you believe him
+capable of profiting by this letter to humble brave men, or to build up
+a dishonest reputation for himself. Listen to my terms before you leave
+me."
+
+"What says the Frenchman?" demanded the veteran, sternly; "does he make
+a merit of having captured a scout, with a note from headquarters? Sir,
+he had better raise this siege, to go and sit down before Edward if he
+wishes to frighten his enemy with words."
+
+Duncan explained the other's meaning.
+
+"Monsieur de Montcalm, we will hear you," the veteran added, more calmly,
+as Duncan ended.
+
+"To retain the fort is now impossible," said his liberal enemy; "it is
+necessary to the interests of my master that it should be destroyed;
+but, as for yourselves, and your brave comrades, there is no privilege
+dear to a soldier that shall be denied."
+
+"Our colors?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Carry them to England, and show them to your king."
+
+"Our arms?"
+
+"Keep them; none can use them better."
+
+"Our march; the surrender of the place?"
+
+"Shall all be done in a way most honorable to yourselves."
+
+Duncan now turned to explain these proposals to his commander, who heard
+him with amazement, and a sensibility that was deeply touched by such
+unusual and unexpected generosity.
+
+"Go you, Duncan," he said; "go with this marquess, as indeed marquess he
+should be; go to his marquee and arrange it all. I have lived to see two
+things in my old age, that never did I expect to behold. An Englishman
+afraid to support a friend, and a Frenchman too honest to profit by his
+advantage."
+
+So saying, the veteran again dropped his head to his chest, and returned
+slowly towards the fort, exhibiting, by the dejection of his air, to the
+anxious garrison, a harbinger of evil tidings.
+
+From the shock of this unexpected blow the haughty feelings of Munro
+never recovered; but from that moment there commenced a change in his
+determined character, which accompanied him to a speedy grave. Duncan
+remained to settle the terms of the capitulation. He was seen to
+re-enter the works during the first watches of the night, and
+immediately after a private conference with the commandant, to leave
+them again, It was then openly announced, that hostilities must
+cease--Munro having signed a treaty, by which the place was to be
+yielded to the enemy, with the morning; the garrison to retain their
+arms, their colors, and their baggage, and consequently, according to
+military opinion, their honor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+  "Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.
+  The web is wove. The work is done."
+
+  GRAY.
+
+
+The hostile armies, which lay in the wilds of the Horican, passed the
+night of the 9th of August, 1757, much in the manner they would had they
+encountered on the fairest fields of Europe. While the conquered were
+still, sullen, and dejected, the victors triumphed. But there are limits
+alike to grief and joy; and long before the watches of the morning came,
+the stillness of those boundless woods was only broken by a gay call
+from some exulting young Frenchman of the advanced pickets, or a
+menacing challenge from the fort, which sternly forbade the approach of
+any hostile footsteps before the stipulated moment. Even these
+occasional threatening sounds ceased to be heard in that dull hour which
+precedes the day, at which period a listener might have sought in vain
+any evidence of the presence of those armed powers that then slumbered
+on the shores of the "holy lake."
+
+It was during these moments of deep silence, that the canvas which
+concealed the entrance to a spacious marquee in the French encampment
+was shoved aside, and a man issued from beneath the drapery into the
+open air. He was enveloped in a cloak that might have been intended as a
+protection from the chilling damps of the woods, but which served
+equally well as a mantle, to conceal his person. He was permitted to
+pass the grenadier, who watched over the slumbers of the French
+commander, without interruption, the man making the usual salute which
+betokens military deference, as the other passed swiftly through the
+little city of tents, in the direction of William Henry. Whenever this
+unknown individual encountered one of the numberless sentinels who
+crossed his path, his answer was prompt, and as it appeared
+satisfactory; for he was uniformly allowed to proceed, without further
+interrogation.
+
+With the exception of such repeated, but brief interruptions, he had
+moved, silently, from the centre of the camp, to its most advanced
+outposts, when he drew nigh the soldier who held his watch nearest to
+the works of the enemy. As he approached he was received with the usual
+challenge,--
+
+"Qui vive?"
+
+"France," was the reply.
+
+"Le mot d'ordre?"
+
+"La victoire," said the other, drawing so nigh as to be heard in a loud
+whisper.
+
+"C'est bien," returned the sentinel, throwing his musket from the charge
+to his shoulder; "vous vous promenez bien matin, monsieur!"
+
+"Il est necessaire d'etre vigilant, mon enfant," the other observed,
+dropping a fold of his cloak, and looking the soldier close in the face,
+as he passed him, still continuing his way towards the British
+fortification. The man started; his arms rattled heavily, as he threw
+them forward, in the lowest and most respectful salute; and when he had
+again recovered his piece, he turned to walk his post, muttering between
+his teeth,--
+
+"Il faut etre vigilant, en verite! je crois que nous avons la, un
+caporal qui ne dort jamais!"
+
+The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped
+the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause until he had
+reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the
+western water bastion of the fort. The light of an obscure moon was just
+sufficient to render objects, though dim, perceptible in their outlines.
+He, therefore, took the precaution to place himself against the trunk of
+a tree, where he leaned for many minutes, and seemed to contemplate the
+dark and silent mounds of the English works in profound attention. His
+gaze at the ramparts was not that of a curious or idle spectator; but
+his looks wandered from point to point, denoting his knowledge of
+military usages, and betraying that his search was not unaccompanied by
+distrust. At length he appeared satisfied; and having cast his eyes
+impatiently upwards towards the summit of the eastern mountain, as if
+anticipating the approach of the morning, he was in the act of turning
+on his footsteps, when a light sound on the nearest angle of the bastion
+caught his ear, and induced him to remain.
+
+Just then a figure was seen to approach the edge of the rampart, where
+it stood, apparently contemplating in its turn the distant tents of the
+French encampment. Its head was then turned towards the east, as though
+equally anxious for the appearance of light, when the form leaned
+against the mound, and seemed to gaze upon the glassy expanse of the
+waters, which, like a submarine firmament, glittered with its thousand
+mimic stars. The melancholy air, the hour, together with the vast frame
+of the man who thus leaned, in musing, against the English ramparts,
+left no doubt as to his person, in the mind of his observant spectator.
+Delicacy, no less than prudence, now urged him to retire; and he had
+moved cautiously round the body of the tree for that purpose, when
+another sound drew his attention, and once more arrested his footsteps.
+It was a low and almost inaudible movement of the water, and was
+succeeded by a grating of pebbles one against the other. In a moment he
+saw a dark form rise, as it were out of the lake, and steal without
+further noise to the land, within a few feet of the place where he
+himself stood. A rifle next slowly rose between his eyes and the watery
+mirror; but before it could be discharged his own hand was on the lock.
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the savage, whose treacherous aim was so singularly
+and so unexpectedly interrupted.
+
+Without making any reply, the French officer laid his hand on the
+shoulder of the Indian, and led him in profound silence to a distance
+from the spot, where their subsequent dialogue might have proved
+dangerous, and where it seemed that one of them, at least, sought a
+victim. Then, throwing open his cloak, so as to expose his uniform and
+the cross of St. Louis which was suspended at his breast, Montcalm
+sternly demanded,--
+
+"What means this! Does not my son know that the hatchet is buried
+between the English and his Canadian Father?"
+
+"What can the Hurons do?" returned the savage, speaking also, though
+imperfectly, in the French language. "Not a warrior has a scalp, and the
+pale-faces make friends!"
+
+"Ha! Le Renard Subtil! Methinks this is an excess of zeal for a friend
+who was so late an enemy! How many suns have set since Le Renard struck
+the war-post of the English?"
+
+"Where is that sun!" demanded the sullen savage. "Behind the hill; and
+it is dark and cold. But when he comes again, it will be bright and
+warm. Le Subtil is the sun of his tribe. There have been clouds, and
+many mountains between him and his nation; but now he shines, and it is
+a clear sky!"
+
+"That Le Renard has power with his people, I well know," said Montcalm;
+"for yesterday he hunted for their scalps, and to-day they hear him at
+the council-fire."
+
+"Magua is a great chief."
+
+"Let him prove it, by teaching his nation how to conduct itself towards
+our new friends."
+
+"Why did the chief of the Canadas bring his young men into the woods,
+and fire his cannon at the earthen house?" demanded the subtle Indian.
+
+"To subdue it. My master owns the land, and your father has been ordered
+to drive off these English squatters. They have consented to go, and now
+he calls them enemies no longer."
+
+"'Tis well. Magua took the hatchet to color it with blood. It is now
+bright; when it is red, it shall be buried."
+
+"But Magua is pledged not to sully the lilies of France. The enemies of
+the great king across the salt lake are his enemies; his friends, the
+friends of the Hurons."
+
+"Friends!" repeated the Indian, in scorn. "Let his father give Magua a
+hand."
+
+Montcalm, who felt that his influence over the warlike tribes he had
+gathered was to be maintained by concession rather than by power,
+complied reluctantly with the other's request. The savage placed the
+finger of the French commander on a deep scar in his bosom, and then
+exultingly demanded,--
+
+"Does my father know that?"
+
+"What warrior does not? 'tis where a leaden bullet has cut."
+
+"And this?" continued the Indian, who had turned his naked back to the
+other, his body being without its usual calico mantle.
+
+"This!--my son has been sadly injured, here; who has done this?"
+
+"Magua slept hard in the English wigwams, and the sticks have left their
+mark," returned the savage, with a hollow laugh, which did not conceal
+the fierce temper that nearly choked him. Then recollecting himself,
+with sudden and native dignity, he added, "Go; teach your young men, it
+is peace. Le Renard Subtil knows how to speak to a Huron warrior."
+
+Without deigning to bestow further words, or to wait for any answer, the
+savage cast his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and moved silently
+through the encampment towards the woods where his own tribe was known
+to lie. Every few yards as he proceeded he was challenged by the
+sentinels; but he stalked sullenly onward, utterly disregarding the
+summons of the soldiers, who only spared his life because they knew the
+air and tread no less than the obstinate daring of an Indian.
+
+Montcalm lingered long and melancholy on the strand, where he had been
+left by his companion, brooding deeply on the temper which his
+ungovernable ally had just discovered. Already had his fair fame been
+tarnished by one horrid scene, and in circumstances fearfully resembling
+those under which he now found himself. As he mused he became keenly
+sensible of the deep responsibility they assume who disregard the means
+to attain their end, and of all the danger of setting in motion an
+engine which it exceeds human power to control. Then shaking off a train
+of reflections that he accounted a weakness in such a moment of triumph,
+he retraced his steps towards his tent, giving the order as he passed,
+to make the signal that should arouse the army from its slumbers.
+
+The first tap of the French drums was echoed from the bosom of the fort,
+and presently the valley was filled with the strains of martial music,
+rising long, thrilling, and lively above the rattling accompaniment. The
+horns of the victors sounded merry and cheerful flourishes, until the
+last laggard of the camp was at his post; but the instant the British
+fifes had blown their shrill signal, they became mute. In the meantime
+the day had dawned, and when the line of the French army was ready to
+receive its general, the rays of a brilliant sun were glancing along the
+glittering array. Then that success, which was already so well known,
+was officially announced; the favored band who were selected to guard
+the gates of the fort were detailed, and defiled before their chief; the
+signal of their approach was given, and all the usual preparations for a
+change of masters were ordered and executed directly under the guns of
+the contested works.
+
+A very different scene presented itself within the lines of the
+Anglo-American army. As soon as the warning signal was given, it
+exhibited all the signs of a hurried and forced departure. The sullen
+soldiers shouldered their empty tubes and fell into their places, like
+men whose blood had been heated by the past contest, and who only
+desired the opportunity to revenge an indignity which was still wounding
+to their pride, concealed as it was under all the observances of
+military etiquette. Women and children ran from place to place, some
+bearing the scanty remnants of their baggage, and others searching in
+the ranks for those countenances they looked up to for protection.
+
+Munro appeared among his silent troops firm but dejected. It was evident
+that the unexpected blow had struck deep into his heart, though he
+struggled to sustain his misfortune with the port of man.
+
+Duncan was touched at the quiet and impressive exhibition of his grief.
+He had discharged his own duty, and he now pressed to the side of the
+old man, to know in what particular he might serve him.
+
+"My daughters," was the brief but expressive reply.
+
+"Good heavens! are not arrangements already made for their convenience?"
+
+"To-day I am only a soldier, Major Heyward," said the veteran. "All that
+you see here, claim alike to be my children."
+
+Duncan had heard enough. Without losing one of those moments which had
+now become so precious, he flew towards the quarters of Munro, in quest
+of the sisters. He found them on the threshold of the low edifice,
+already prepared to depart, and surrounded by a clamorous and weeping
+assemblage of their own sex, that had gathered about the place, with a
+sort of instinctive consciousness that it was the point most likely to
+be protected. Though the cheeks of Cora were pale, and her countenance
+anxious, she had lost none of her firmness; but the eyes of Alice were
+inflamed, and betrayed how long and bitterly she had wept. They both,
+however, received the young man with undisguised pleasure; the former,
+for a novelty, being the first to speak.
+
+"The fort is lost," she said, with a melancholy smile; "though our good
+name, I trust, remains."
+
+"'Tis brighter than ever. But, dearest Miss Munro, it is time to think
+less of others, and to make some provision for yourself. Military
+usage,--pride,--that pride on which you so much value yourself, demands
+that your father and I should for a little while continue with the
+troops. Then where to seek a proper protector for you against the
+confusion and chances of such a scene?"
+
+"None is necessary," returned Cora; "who will dare to injure or insult
+the daughter of such a father, at a time like this?"
+
+"I would not leave you alone," continued the youth, looking about him in
+a hurried manner, "for the command of the best regiment in the pay of
+the king. Remember, our Alice is not gifted with all your firmness, and
+God only knows the terror she might endure."
+
+"You may be right," Cora replied, smiling again, but far more sadly than
+before. "Listen! chance has already sent us a friend when he is most
+needed."
+
+Duncan did listen, and on the instant comprehended her meaning. The low
+and serious sounds of the sacred music, so well known to the eastern
+provinces, caught his ear, and instantly drew him to an apartment in an
+adjacent building, which had already been deserted by its customary
+tenants. There he found David, pouring out his pious feelings, through
+the only medium in which he ever indulged. Duncan waited, until, by the
+cessation of the movement of the hand, he believed the strain was ended,
+when, by touching his shoulder, he drew the attention of the other to
+himself, and in a few words explained his wishes.
+
+"Even so," replied the single-minded disciple of the King of Israel,
+when the young man had ended; "I have found much that is comely and
+melodious in the maidens, and it is fitting that we who have consorted
+in so much peril, should abide together in peace. I will attend them,
+when I have completed my morning praise, to which nothing is now wanting
+but the doxology. Wilt thou bear a part, friend? The metre is common,
+and the tune, 'Southwell.'"
+
+Then, extending the little volume, and giving the pitch of the air anew
+with considerate attention, David recommenced and finished his strains,
+with a fixedness of manner that it was not easy to interrupt. Heyward
+was fain to wait until the verse was ended; when, seeing David relieving
+himself from the spectacles, and replacing the book, he continued,--
+
+"It will be your duty to see that none dare to approach the ladies with
+any rude intention, or to offer insult or taunt at the misfortune of
+their brave father. In this task you will be seconded by the domestics
+of their household."
+
+"Even so."
+
+"It is possible that the Indians and stragglers of the enemy may
+intrude, in which case you will remind them of the terms of the
+capitulation, and threaten to report their conduct to Montcalm. A word
+will suffice."
+
+"If not, I have that here which shall," returned David, exhibiting his
+book, with an air in which meekness and confidence were singularly
+blended. "Here are words which, uttered, or rather thundered, with
+proper emphasis, and in measured time, shall quiet the most unruly
+temper:--
+
+  "'Why rage the heathen furiously!'"--
+
+"Enough," said Heyward, interrupting the burst of his musical
+invocation: "we understand each other; it is time that we should now
+assume our respective duties."
+
+Gamut cheerfully assented, and together they sought the females. Cora
+received her new, and somewhat extraordinary protector, courteously at
+least; and even the pallid features of Alice lighted again with some of
+their native archness as she thanked Heyward for his care. Duncan took
+occasion to assure them he had done the best that circumstances
+permitted, and, as he believed, quite enough for the security of their
+feelings; of danger there was none. He then spoke gladly of his
+intention to rejoin them the moment he had led the advance a few miles
+towards the Hudson, and immediately took his leave.
+
+By this time the signal of departure had been given, and the head of the
+English column was in motion. The sisters started at the sound, and
+glancing their eyes around, they saw the white uniforms of the French
+grenadiers, who had already taken possession of the gates of the fort.
+At that moment, an enormous cloud seemed to pass suddenly above their
+heads, and looking upward, they discovered that they stood beneath the
+wide folds of the standard of France.
+
+"Let us go," said Cora; "this is no longer a fit place for the children
+of an English officer."
+
+Alice clung to the arm of her sister, and together they left the parade,
+accompanied by the moving throng that surrounded them.
+
+As they passed the gates, the French officers, who had learned their
+rank, bowed often and low, forbearing, however, to intrude those
+attentions which they saw, with peculiar tact, might not be agreeable.
+As every vehicle and each beast of burden was occupied by the sick and
+wounded, Cora had decided to endure the fatigues of a foot march, rather
+than interfere with their comforts. Indeed, many a maimed and feeble
+soldier was compelled to drag his exhausted limbs in the rear of the
+columns, for the want of the necessary means of conveyance, in that
+wilderness. The whole, however, was in motion; the weak and wounded,
+groaning, and in suffering; their comrades, silent and sullen; and the
+women and children in terror, they knew not of what.
+
+As the confused and timid throng left the protecting mounds of the fort,
+and issued on the open plain, the whole scene was at once presented to
+their eyes. At a little distance on the right, and somewhat in the rear,
+the French army stood to their arms, Montcalm having collected his
+parties, so soon as his guards had possession of the works. They were
+attentive but silent observers of the proceedings of the vanquished,
+failing in none of the stipulated military honors, and offering no taunt
+or insult, in their success, to their less fortunate foes. Living masses
+of the English, to the amount in the whole of near three thousand, were
+moving slowly across the plain, towards the common centre, and gradually
+approached each other, as they converged to the point of their march, a
+vista cut through the lofty trees, where the road to the Hudson entered
+the forest. Along the sweeping borders of the woods, hung a dark cloud
+of savages, eying the passage of their enemies, and hovering, at a
+distance, like vultures, who were only kept from swooping on their prey,
+by the presence and restraint of a superior army. A few had straggled
+among the conquered columns, where they stalked in sullen discontent;
+attentive, though, as yet, passive observers of the moving multitude.
+
+The advance, with Heyward at its head, had already reached the defile,
+and was slowly disappearing, when the attention of Cora was drawn to a
+collection of stragglers, by the sounds of contention. A truant
+provincial was paying the forfeit of his disobedience, by being
+plundered of those very effects which had caused him to desert his place
+in the ranks. The man was of powerful frame, and too avaricious to part
+with his goods without a struggle. Individuals from either party
+interfered; the one side to prevent, and the other to aid in the
+robbery. Voices grew loud and angry, and a hundred savages appeared, as
+it were by magic, where a dozen only had been seen a minute before. It
+was then that Cora saw the form of Magua gliding among his countrymen,
+and speaking with his fatal and artful eloquence. The mass of women and
+children stopped, and hovered together like alarmed and fluttering
+birds. But the cupidity of the Indian was soon gratified, and the
+different bodies again moved slowly onward.
+
+The savages now fell back, and seemed content to let their enemies
+advance without further molestation. But as the female crowd approached
+them, the gaudy colors of a shawl attracted the eyes of a wild and
+untutored Huron. He advanced to seize it, without the least hesitation.
+The woman, more in terror than through love of the ornament, wrapped her
+child in the coveted article, and folded both more closely to her bosom.
+Cora was in the act of speaking, with an intent to advise the woman to
+abandon the trifle, when the savage relinquished his hold of the shawl,
+and tore the screaming infant from her arms. Abandoning everything to
+the greedy grasp of those around her, the mother darted, with
+distraction in her mien, to reclaim her child. The Indian smiled grimly,
+and extended one hand, in sign of a willingness to exchange, while with
+the other, he flourished the babe over his head, holding it by the feet
+as if to enhance the value of the ransom.
+
+"Here--here--there--all--any--everything!" exclaimed the breathless
+woman; tearing the lighter articles of dress from her person, with
+ill-directed and trembling fingers; "take all, but give me my babe!"
+
+The savage spurned the worthless rags, and perceiving that the shawl had
+already become a prize to another, his bantering but sullen smile
+changing to a gleam of ferocity, he dashed the head of the infant
+against a rock, and cast its quivering remains to her very feet. For an
+instant, the mother stood, like a statue of despair, looking wildly down
+at the unseemly object, which had so lately nestled in her bosom and
+smiled in her face; and then she raised her eyes and countenance towards
+heaven, as if calling on God to curse the perpetrator of the foul deed.
+She was spared the sin of such a prayer; for, maddened at his
+disappointment, and excited at the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully
+drove his tomahawk into her own brain. The mother sank under the blow,
+and fell, grasping at her child, in death, with the same engrossing love
+that had caused her to cherish it when living.
+
+At that dangerous moment Magua placed his hands to his mouth, and raised
+the fatal and appalling whoop. The scattered Indians started at the
+well-known cry, as coursers bound at the signal to quit the goal; and,
+directly, there arose such a yell along the plain, and through the
+arches of the wood, as seldom burst from human lips before. They who
+heard it listened with a curdling horror at the heart, little inferior
+to that dread which may be expected to attend the blasts of the final
+summons.
+
+More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the
+signal, and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive
+alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded.
+Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects.
+Resistance only served to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their
+furious blows long after their victims were beyond the power of their
+resentment. The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a
+torrent; and, as the natives became heated and maddened by the sight,
+many among them even kneeled to the earth, and drank freely, exultingly,
+hellishly, of the crimson tide.
+
+The trained bodies of the troops threw themselves quickly into solid
+masses, endeavoring to awe their assailants by the imposing appearance
+of a military front. The experiment in some measure succeeded, though
+far too many suffered their unloaded muskets to be torn from their
+hands, in the vain hope of appeasing the savages.
+
+In such a scene none had leisure to note the fleeting moments. It might
+have been ten minutes (it seemed an age), that the sisters had stood
+riveted to one spot, horror-stricken, and nearly helpless. When the
+first blow was struck, their screaming companions had pressed upon them
+in a body, rendering flight impossible; and now that fear or death had
+scattered most, if not all, from around them, they saw no avenue open,
+but such as conducted to the tomahawks of their foes. On every side
+arose shrieks, groans, exhortations, and curses. At this moment Alice
+caught a glimpse of the vast form of her father, moving rapidly across
+the plain, in the direction of the French army. He was, in truth,
+proceeding to Montcalm, fearless of every danger, to claim the tardy
+escort for which he had before conditioned. Fifty glittering axes and
+barbed spears were offered unheeded at his life, but the savages
+respected his rank and calmness, even in their fury. The dangerous
+weapons were brushed aside by the still nervous arm of the veteran, or
+fell of themselves, after menacing an act that it would seem no one had
+courage to perform. Fortunately, the vindictive Magua was searching for
+his victim in the very band the veteran had just quitted.
+
+"Father--father--we are here!" shrieked Alice, as he passed, at no great
+distance, without appearing to heed them. "Come to us, father, or we
+die!"
+
+The cry was repeated, and in terms and tones that might have melted a
+heart of stone, but it was unanswered. Once, indeed, the old man
+appeared to catch the sounds, for he paused and listened; but Alice had
+dropped senseless on the earth, and Cora had sunk at her side, hovering
+in untiring tenderness over her lifeless form. Munro shook his head in
+disappointment, and proceeded, bent on the high duty of his station.
+
+"Lady," said Gamut, who, helpless and useless as he was, had not yet
+dreamed of deserting his trust, "it is the jubilee of the devils, and
+this is not a meet place for Christians to tarry in. Let us up and fly."
+
+"Go," said Cora, still gazing at her unconscious sister; "save thyself.
+To me thou canst not be of further use."
+
+David comprehended the unyielding character of her resolution, by the
+simple but expressive gesture that accompanied her words. He gazed, for
+a moment, at the dusky forms that were acting their hellish rites on
+every side of him, and his tall person grew more erect, while his chest
+heaved, and every feature swelled, and seemed to speak with the power of
+the feelings by which he was governed.
+
+"If the Jewish boy might tame the evil spirit of Saul by the sound of
+his harp, and the words of sacred song, it may not be amiss," he said,
+"to try the potency of music here."
+
+Then raising his voice to its highest tones, he poured out a strain so
+powerful as to be heard even amid the din of that bloody field. More
+than one savage rushed towards them, thinking to rifle the unprotected
+sisters of their attire, and bear away their scalps; but when they found
+this strange and unmoved figure riveted to his post, they paused to
+listen. Astonishment soon changed to admiration, and they passed on to
+other and less courageous victims, openly expressing their satisfaction
+at the firmness with which the white warrior sang his death song.
+Encouraged and deluded by his success, David exerted all his powers to
+extend what he believed so holy an influence. The unwonted sounds caught
+the ears of a distant savage, who flew raging from group to group, like
+one who, scorning to touch the vulgar herd, hunted for some victim more
+worthy of his renown. It was Magua, who uttered a yell of pleasure when
+he beheld his ancient prisoners again at his mercy.
+
+"Come," he said, laying his soiled hands on the dress of Cora, "the
+wigwam of the Huron is still open. Is it not better than this place?"
+
+"Away!" cried Cora, veiling her eyes from his revolting aspect.
+
+The Indian laughed tauntingly, as he held up his reeking hand, and
+answered,--"It is red, but it comes from white veins!"
+
+"Monster! there is blood, oceans of blood, upon thy soul; thy spirit has
+moved this scene."
+
+"Magua is a great chief!" returned the exulting savage; "will the dark
+hair go to his tribe?"
+
+"Never! strike, if thou wilt, and complete thy revenge."
+
+He hesitated a moment; and then catching the light and senseless form of
+Alice in his arms, the subtle Indian moved swiftly across the plain
+towards the woods.
+
+"Hold!" shrieked Cora, following wildly on his footsteps; "release the
+child! wretch! what is't you do?"
+
+But Magua was deaf to her voice; or rather he knew his power, and was
+determined to maintain it.
+
+"Stay--lady--stay," called Gamut, after the unconscious Cora. "The holy
+charm is beginning to be felt, and soon shalt thou see this horrid
+tumult stilled."
+
+Perceiving that, in his turn, he was unheeded, the faithful David
+followed the distracted sister, raising his voice again in sacred song,
+and sweeping the air to the measure, with his long arm, in diligent
+accompaniment. In this manner they traversed the plain, through the
+flying, the wounded, and the dead. The fierce Huron was, at any time,
+sufficient for himself and the victim that he bore; though Cora would
+have fallen, more than once, under the blows of her savage enemies, but
+for the extraordinary being who stalked in her rear, and who now
+appeared to the astonished natives gifted with the protecting spirit of
+madness.
+
+Magua, who knew how to avoid the more pressing dangers, and also to
+elude pursuit, entered the woods through a low ravine, where he quickly
+found the Narragansetts, which the travellers had abandoned so shortly
+before, awaiting his appearance, in custody of a savage as fierce and as
+malign in his expression as himself. Laying Alice on one of the horses,
+he made a sign to Cora to mount the other.
+
+Notwithstanding the horror excited by the presence of her captor, there
+was a present relief in escaping from the bloody scene enacting on the
+plain, to which Cora could not be altogether insensible. She took her
+seat, and held forth her arms for her sister, with an air of entreaty
+and love that even the Huron could not deny. Placing Alice, then, on the
+same animal with Cora, he seized the bridle, and commenced his route by
+plunging deeper into the forest. David, perceiving that he was left
+alone, utterly disregarded, as a subject too worthless even to destroy,
+threw his long limb across the saddle of the beast they had deserted,
+and made such progress in the pursuit as the difficulties of the path
+permitted.
+
+They soon began to ascend, but as the motion had a tendency to revive
+the dormant faculties of her sister, the attention of Cora was too much
+divided between the tenderest solicitude in her behalf, and in listening
+to the cries which were still too audible on the plain, to note the
+direction in which they journeyed. When, however, they gained the
+flattened surface of the mountain-top, and approached the eastern
+precipice, she recognized the spot to which she had once before been led
+under the more friendly auspices of the scout. Here Magua suffered them
+to dismount; and, notwithstanding their own captivity, the curiosity
+which seems inseparable from horror, induced them to gaze at the
+sickening sight below.
+
+The cruel work was still unchecked. On every side the captured were
+flying before their relentless persecutors, while the armed columns of
+the Christian king stood fast in an apathy which has never been
+explained, and which has left an unmovable blot on the otherwise fair
+escutcheon of their leader. Nor was the sword of death stayed until
+cupidity got the mastery of revenge. Then, indeed, the shrieks of the
+wounded and the yells of their murderers grew less frequent, until,
+finally, the cries of horror were lost to their ear, or were drowned in
+the loud, long, and piercing whoops of the triumphant savages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                "Why, anything:
+  An honorable murderer, if you will;
+  For naught I did in hate, but all in honor."
+
+  _Othello._
+
+
+The bloody and inhuman scene rather incidentally mentioned than
+described in the preceding chapter, is conspicuous in the pages of
+colonial history, by the merited title of "The Massacre of William
+Henry." It so far deepened the stain which a previous and very similar
+event had left upon the reputation of the French commander, that it was
+not entirely erased by his early and glorious death. It is now becoming
+obscured by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm died like a hero
+on the plains of Abraham, have yet to learn how much he was deficient in
+that moral courage without which no man can be truly great. Pages might
+be written to prove, from this illustrious example, the defects of human
+excellence; to show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
+courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence beneath the
+chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
+was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found
+wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior
+to policy. But the task would exceed our prerogatives; and, as history,
+like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of
+imaginary brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint Veran will be
+viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender of his country, while
+his cruel apathy on the shores of the Oswego and of the Horican will be
+forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the part of a sister muse,
+we shall at once retire from her sacred precincts, within the proper
+limits of our own humble vocation.
+
+The third day from the capture of the fort was drawing to a close, but
+the business of the narrative must still detain the reader on the shores
+of the "holy lake." When last seen, the environs of the works were
+filled with violence and uproar. They were now possessed by stillness
+and death. The blood-stained conquerors had departed; and their camp,
+which had so lately rung with the merry rejoicings of a victorious army,
+lay a silent and deserted city of huts. The fortress was a smouldering
+ruin; charred rafters, fragments of exploded artillery, and rent
+mason-work, covering its earthen mounds in confused disorder.
+
+A frightful change had also occurred in the season. The sun had hid its
+warmth behind an impenetrable mass of vapor, and hundreds of human
+forms, which had blackened beneath the fierce heats of August, were
+stiffening in their deformity, before the blasts of a premature
+November. The curling and spotless mists, which had been seen sailing
+above the hills towards the north, were now returning in an interminable
+dusky sheet, that was urged along by the fury of a tempest. The crowded
+mirror of the Horican was gone; and, in its place, the green and angry
+waters lashed the shores, as if indignantly casting back its impurities
+to the polluted strand. Still the clear fountain retained a portion of
+its charmed influence, but it reflected only the sombre gloom that fell
+from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which
+commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its
+asperities, had disappeared, and the northern air poured across the
+waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be
+conjectured by the eye, or fashioned by the fancy.
+
+The fiercer element had cropped the verdure of the plain, which looked
+as though it were scathed by the consuming lightning. But, here and
+there, a dark green tuft rose in the midst of the desolation; the
+earliest fruits of a soil that had been fattened with human blood. The
+whole landscape, which, seen by a favoring light, and in a genial
+temperature, had been found so lovely, appeared now like some pictured
+allegory of life, in which objects were arrayed in their harshest but
+truest colors, and without the relief of any shadowing.
+
+The solitary and arid blades of grass arose from the passing gusts
+fearfully perceptible; the bold and rocky mountains were too distinct in
+their barrenness, and the eye even sought relief, in vain, by attempting
+to pierce the illimitable void of heaven, which was shut to its gaze by
+the dusky sheet of ragged and driving vapor.
+
+The wind blew unequally; sometimes sweeping heavily along the ground,
+seeming to whisper its moanings in the cold ears of the dead, then
+rising in a shrill and mournful whistling, it entered the forest with a
+rush that filled the air with the leaves and branches it scattered in
+its path. Amid the unnatural shower, a few hungry ravens struggled with
+the gale; but no sooner was the green ocean of woods, which stretched
+beneath them, passed, than they gladly stopped, at random, to their
+hideous banquet.
+
+In short, it was the scene of wildness and desolation; and it appeared
+as if all who had profanely entered it had been stricken, at a blow, by
+the relentless arm of death. But the prohibition had ceased; and for the
+first time since the perpetrators of those foul deeds which had assisted
+to disfigure the scene were gone, living human beings had now presumed
+to approach the place.
+
+About an hour before the setting of the sun, on the day already
+mentioned, the forms of five men might have been seen issuing from the
+narrow vista of trees, where the path to the Hudson entered the forest,
+and advancing in the direction of the ruined works. At first their
+progress was slow and guarded, as though they entered with reluctance
+amid the horrors of the spot, or dreaded the renewal of its frightful
+incidents. A light figure preceded the rest of the party, with the
+caution and activity of a native; ascending every hillock to
+reconnoitre, and indicating, by gestures, to his companions, the route
+he deemed it most prudent to pursue. Nor were those in the rear wanting
+in every caution and foresight known to forest warfare. One among them,
+he also was an Indian, moved a little on one flank, and watched the
+margin of the woods, with eyes long accustomed to read the smallest sign
+of danger. The remaining three were white, though clad in vestments
+adapted, both in quality and color, to their present hazardous
+pursuit,--that of hanging on the skirts of a retiring army in the
+wilderness.
+
+The effects produced by the appalling sights that constantly arose in
+their path to the lake shore, were as different as the characters of the
+respective individuals who composed the party. The youth in front threw
+serious but furtive glances at the mangled victims, as he stepped
+lightly across the plain, afraid to exhibit his feelings, and yet too
+inexperienced to quell entirely their sudden and powerful influence. His
+red associate, however, was superior to such a weakness. He passed the
+groups of dead with a steadiness of purpose, and an eye so calm, that
+nothing but long and inveterate practice could enable him to maintain.
+The sensations produced in the minds of even the white men were
+different, though uniformly sorrowful. One, whose gray locks and
+furrowed lineaments, blending with a martial air and tread, betrayed, in
+spite of the disguise of a woodsman's dress, a man long experienced in
+scenes of war, was not ashamed to groan aloud, whenever a spectacle of
+more than usual horror came under his view. The young man at his elbow
+shuddered, but seemed to suppress his feelings in tenderness to his
+companion. Of them all, the straggler who brought up the rear appeared
+alone to betray his real thoughts, without fear of observation or dread
+of consequences. He gazed at the most appalling sight with eyes and
+muscles that knew not how to waver, but with execrations so bitter and
+deep as to denote how much he denounced the crime of his enemies.
+
+The reader will perceive at once, in these respective characters, the
+Mohicans, and their white friend, the scout; together with Munro and
+Heyward. It was, in truth, the father in quest of his children, attended
+by the youth who felt so deep a stake in their happiness, and those
+brave and trusty foresters, who had already proved their skill and
+fidelity through the trying scenes related.
+
+When Uncas, who moved in front, had reached the centre of the plain, he
+raised a cry that drew his companions in a body to the spot. The young
+warrior had halted over a group of females who lay in a cluster, a
+confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding the revolting horror of the
+exhibition, Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap,
+endeavoring, with a love that no unseemliness could extinguish, to
+discover whether any vestiges of those they sought were to be seen among
+the tattered and many-colored garments. The father and lover found
+instant relief in the search; though each was condemned again to
+experience the misery of an uncertainty that was hardly less
+insupportable than the most revolting truth. They were standing, silent
+and thoughtful, around the melancholy pile, when the scout approached.
+Eying the sad spectacle with an angry countenance, the sturdy woodsman,
+for the first time since his entering the plain, spoke intelligibly and
+aloud:--
+
+"I have been on many a shocking field, and have followed a trail of
+blood for many miles," he said, "but never have I found the hand of the
+devil so plain as it is here to be seen! Revenge is an Indian feeling,
+and all who know me know that there is no cross in my veins; but this
+much will I say--here, in the face of heaven, and with the power of the
+Lord so manifest in this howling wilderness,--that should these
+Frenchers ever trust themselves again within the range of a ragged
+bullet, there is one rifle shall play its part, so long as flint will
+fire or powder burn! I leave the tomahawk and knife to such as have a
+natural gift to use them. What say you, Chingachgook," he added in
+Delaware; "shall the Hurons boast of this to their women when the deep
+snows come?"
+
+A gleam of resentment flashed across the dark lineaments of the Mohican
+chief: he loosened his knife in its sheath; and then turning calmly from
+the sight, his countenance settled into a repose as deep as if he never
+knew the instigation of passion.
+
+"Montcalm! Montcalm!" continued the deeply resentful and less
+self-restrained scout; "they say a time must come, when all the deeds
+done in the flesh will be seen at a single look; and that by eyes
+cleared from mortal infirmities. Woe betide the wretch who is born to
+behold this plain, with the judgment hanging about his soul! Ha--as I am
+a man of white blood, yonder lies a redskin, without the hair of his
+head where nature rooted it! Look to him, Delaware; it may be one of
+your missing people; and he should have burial like a stout warrior. I
+see it in your eye, Sagamore: a Huron pays for this, afore the fall
+winds have blown away the scent of the blood!"
+
+Chingachgook approached the mutilated form, and turning it over, he
+found the distinguishing marks of one of those six allied tribes, or
+nations, as they were called, who, while they fought in the English
+ranks, were so deadly hostile to his own people. Spurning the loathsome
+object with his foot, he turned from it with the same indifference he
+would have quitted a brute carcass. The scout comprehended the action,
+and very deliberately pursued his own way, continuing, however, his
+denunciations against the French commander in the same resentful strain.
+
+"Nothing but vast wisdom and unlimited power should dare to sweep off
+men in multitudes," he added; "for it is only the one that can know the
+necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that
+can replace the creatures of the Lord? I hold it a sin to kill the
+second buck afore the first is eaten, unless a march in the front, or an
+ambushment, be contemplated. It is a different matter with a few
+warriors in open and rugged fight, for 'tis their gift to die with the
+rifle or the tomahawk in hand; according as their natures may happen to
+be, white or red. Uncas, come this way, lad, and let the ravens settle
+upon the Mingo. I know, from often seeing it, that they have a craving
+for the flesh of an Oneida; and it is as well to let the bird follow the
+gift of its natural appetite."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed the young Mohican, rising on the extremities of his
+feet, and gazing intently in his front, frightening the raven to some
+other prey, by the sound and the action.
+
+"What is it, boy?" whispered the scout, lowering his tall form into a
+crouching attitude, like a panther about to take his leap; "God send it
+be a tardy Frencher, skulking for plunder. I do believe 'Killdeer' would
+take an oncommon range to-day!"
+
+Uncas, without making any reply, bounded away from the spot, and in the
+next instant he was seen tearing from a bush, and waving in triumph a
+fragment of the green riding-veil of Cora. The movement, the exhibition,
+and the cry, which again burst from the lips of the young Mohican,
+instantly drew the whole party about him.
+
+"My child!" said Munro, speaking quick and wildly "give me my child!"
+
+"Uncas will try," was the short and touching answer.
+
+The simple but meaning assurance was lost on the father, who seized the
+piece of gauze, and crushed it in his hand, while his eyes roamed
+fearfully among the bushes, as if he equally dreaded and hoped for the
+secrets they might reveal.
+
+"Here are no dead," said Heyward; "the storm seems not to have passed
+this way."
+
+"That's manifest; and clearer than the heavens above our heads,"
+returned the undisturbed scout; "but either she, or they that have
+robbed her, have passed the bush; for I remember the rag she wore to
+hide a face that all did love to look upon. Uncas, you are right; the
+dark-hair has been here, and she has fled like a frightened fawn, to the
+wood; none who could fly would remain to be murdered. Let us search for
+the marks she left; for to Indian eyes, I sometimes think even a
+humming-bird leaves his trail in the air."
+
+The young Mohican darted away at the suggestion, and the scout had
+hardly done speaking, before the former raised a cry of success from the
+margin of the forest. On reaching the spot, the anxious party perceived
+another portion of the veil fluttering on the lower branch of a beech.
+
+"Softly, softly," said the scout, extending his long rifle in front of
+the eager Heyward; "we now know our work, but the beauty of the trail
+must not be deformed. A step too soon may give us hours of trouble. We
+have them, though; that much is beyond denial."
+
+"Bless ye, bless ye, worthy man!" exclaimed Munro; "whither, then, have
+they fled, and where are my babes?"
+
+"The path they have taken depends on many chances. If they have gone
+alone, they are quite as likely to move in a circle as straight, and
+they may be within a dozen miles of us; but if the Hurons, or any of the
+French Indians, have laid hands on them, 'tis probable they are now near
+the borders of the Canadas. But what matters that?" continued the
+deliberate scout, observing the powerful anxiety and disappointment the
+listeners exhibited; "here are the Mohicans and I on one end of the
+trail, and, rely on it, we find the other, though they should be a
+hundred leagues asunder! Gently, gently, Uncas, you are as impatient as
+a man in the settlements; you forget that light feet leave but faint
+marks!"
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed Chingachgook, who had been occupied in examining an
+opening that had been evidently made through the low underbrush, which
+skirted the forest; and who now stood erect, as he pointed downwards, in
+the attitude and with the air of a man who beheld a disgusting serpent.
+
+"Here is the palpable impression of the footstep of a man," cried
+Heyward, bending over the indicated spot; "he has trod in the margin of
+this pool, and the mark cannot be mistaken. They are captives."
+
+"Better so than left to starve in the wilderness," returned the scout;
+"and they will leave a wider trail. I would wager fifty beaver skins
+against as many flints, that the Mohicans and I enter their wigwams
+within the month! Stoop to it, Uncas, and try what you can make of the
+moccasin; for moccasin it plainly is, and no shoe."
+
+The young Mohican bent over the track, and removing the scattered leaves
+from around the place, he examined it with much of that sort of scrutiny
+that a money-dealer, in these days of pecuniary doubts, would bestow on
+a suspected due-bill. At length he arose from his knees, satisfied with
+the result of the examination.
+
+"Well, boy," demanded the attentive scout, "what does it say? can you
+make anything of the tell-tale?"
+
+"Le Renard Subtil!"
+
+"Ha! that rampaging devil again! there never will be an end of his
+loping, till 'Killdeer' has said a friendly word to him."
+
+Heyward reluctantly admitted the truth of this intelligence, and now
+expressed rather his hopes than his doubts by saying,--
+
+"One moccasin is so much like another, it is probable there is some
+mistake."
+
+"One moccasin like another! you may as well say that one foot is like
+another; though we all know that some are long, and others short; some
+broad, and others narrow; some with high, and some with low insteps;
+some in-toed, and some out. One moccasin is no more like another than
+one book is like another; though they who can read in one are seldom
+able to tell the marks of the other. Which is all ordered for the best,
+giving to every man his natural advantages. Let me get down to it,
+Uncas; neither book nor moccasin is the worse for having two opinions,
+instead of one." The scout stooped to the task, and instantly added,
+"You are right, boy; here is the patch we saw so often in the other
+chase. And the fellow will drink when he can get an opportunity: your
+drinking Indian always learns to walk with a wider toe than the natural
+savage, it being the gift of a drunkard to straddle, whether of white or
+red skin. 'Tis just the length and breadth too! look at it, Sagamore:
+you measured the prints more than once, when we hunted the varmints from
+Glenn's to the health-springs."
+
+Chingachgook complied; and after finishing his short examination, he
+arose, and with a quiet demeanor, he merely pronounced the word--
+
+"Magua!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here then have passed the dark-hair and
+Magua."
+
+"And not Alice?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Of her we have not yet seen the signs," returned the scout, looking
+closely around at the trees, the bushes, and the ground. "What have we
+there? Uncas, bring hither the thing you see dangling from yonder
+thorn-bush."
+
+When the Indian had complied, the scout received the prize, and holding
+it on high, he laughed in his silent but heartfelt manner.
+
+"'Tis the tooting we'pon of the singer! now we shall have a trail a
+priest might travel," he said. "Uncas, look for the marks of a shoe that
+is long enough to uphold six feet two of tottering human flesh. I begin
+to have some hopes of the fellow, since he has given up squalling to
+follow some better trade."
+
+"At least, he has been faithful to his trust," said Heyward; "and Cora
+and Alice are not without a friend."
+
+"Yes," said Hawkeye, dropping his rifle, and leaning on it with an air
+of visible contempt, "he will do their singing. Can he slay a buck for
+their dinner; journey by the moss on the beeches, or cut the throat of a
+Huron? If not, the first catbird[22] he meets is the cleverest of the
+two. Well, boy, any signs of such a foundation?"
+
+"Here is something like the footstep of one who has worn a shoe; can it
+be that of our friend?"
+
+"Touch the leaves lightly, or you'll disconsart the formation. That!
+that is the print of a foot, but 'tis the dark-hair's; and small it is,
+too, for one of such a noble height and grand appearance. The singer
+would cover it with his heel."
+
+"Where! let me look on the footsteps of my child," said Munro, shoving
+the bushes aside, and bending fondly over the nearly obliterated
+impression. Though the tread, which had left the mark, had been light
+and rapid, it was still plainly visible. The aged soldier examined it
+with eyes that grew dim as he gazed; nor did he rise from his stooping
+posture until Heyward saw that he had watered the trace of his
+daughter's passage with a scalding tear. Willing to divert a distress
+which threatened each moment to break through the restraint of
+appearances, by giving the veteran something to do, the young man said
+to the scout,--
+
+"As we now possess these infallible signs, let us commence our march. A
+moment, at such a time, will appear an age to the captives."
+
+"It is not the swiftest leaping deer that gives the longest chase,"
+returned Hawkeye, without moving his eyes from the different marks that
+had come under his view; "we know that the rampaging Huron has
+passed,--and the dark hair,--and the singer,--but where is she of the
+yellow locks and blue eyes? Though little, and far from being as bold as
+her sister, she is fair to the view, and pleasant in discourse. Has she
+no friend, that none care for her?"
+
+"God forbid she should ever want hundreds! Are we not now in her
+pursuit? for one, I will never cease the search till she be found."
+
+"In that case we may have to journey by different paths; for here she
+has not passed, light and little as her footstep would be."
+
+Heyward drew back, all his ardor to proceed seeming to vanish on the
+instant. Without attending to this sudden change in the other's humor,
+the scout, after musing a moment, continued,--
+
+"There is no woman in this wilderness could leave such a print as that,
+but the dark-hair or her sister. We know that the first has been here,
+but where are the signs of the other? Let us push deeper on the trail,
+and if nothing offers, we must go back to the plain and strike another
+scent. Move on, Uncas, and keep your eyes on the dried leaves. I will
+watch the bushes, while your father shall run with a low nose to the
+ground. Move on, friends; the sun is getting behind the hills."
+
+"Is there nothing that I can do?" demanded the anxious Heyward.
+
+"You!" repeated the scout, who, with his red friends, was already
+advancing in the order he had prescribed; "yes, you can keep in our
+rear, and be careful not to cross the trail."
+
+Before they had proceeded many rods, the Indians stopped, and appeared
+to gaze at some signs on the earth, with more than their usual keenness.
+Both father and son spoke quick and loud, now looking at the object of
+their mutual admiration, and now regarding each other with the most
+unequivocal pleasure.
+
+"They have found the little foot!" exclaimed the scout, moving forward,
+without attending further to his own portion of the duty. "What have we
+here? An ambushment has been planted in the spot? No, by the truest
+rifle on the frontiers, here have been them one-sided horses again! Now
+the whole secret is out, and all is plain as the north star at midnight.
+Yes, here they have mounted. There the beasts have been bound to a
+sapling, in waiting; and yonder runs the broad path away to the north,
+in full sweep for the Canadas."
+
+"But still there are no signs of Alice--of the younger Miss
+Munro,"--said Duncan.
+
+"Unless the shining bauble Uncas has just lifted from the ground should
+prove one. Pass it this way, lad, that we may look at it."
+
+Heyward instantly knew it for a trinket that Alice was fond of wearing,
+and which he recollected, with the tenacious memory of a lover, to have
+seen, on the fatal morning of the massacre, dangling from the fair neck
+of his mistress. He seized the highly prized jewel; and as he proclaimed
+the fact, it vanished from the eyes of the wondering scout, who in vain
+looked for it on the ground, long after it was warmly pressed against
+the beating heart of Duncan.
+
+"Pshaw!" said the disappointed Hawkeye, ceasing to rake the leaves with
+the breech of his rifle; "'tis a certain sign of age, when the sight
+begins to weaken. Such a glittering gewgaw, and not to be seen! Well,
+well, I can squint along a clouded barrel yet, and that is enough to
+settle all disputes between me and the Mingos. I should like to find the
+thing too, if it were only to carry it to the right owner, and that
+would be bringing the two ends of what I call a long trail
+together,--for by this time the broad St. Lawrence, or, perhaps, the
+Great Lakes themselves, are atwixt us."
+
+"So much the more reason why we should not delay our march," returned
+Heyward; "let us proceed."
+
+"Young blood and hot blood, they say, are much the same thing. We are
+not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the
+Horican, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a
+wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish
+knowledge would carry you through harmless. An Indian never starts on
+such an expedition without smoking over his council-fire; and though a
+man of white blood, I honor their customs in this particular, seeing
+that they are deliberate and wise. We will, therefore, go back, and
+light our fire to-night in the ruins of the old fort, and in the morning
+we shall be fresh, and ready to undertake our work like men, and not
+like babbling women or eager boys."
+
+Heyward saw, by the manner of the scout, that altercation would be
+useless. Munro had again sunk into that sort of apathy which had beset
+him since his late overwhelming misfortunes, and from which he was
+apparently to be roused only by some new and powerful excitement. Making
+a merit of necessity, the young man took the veteran by the arm, and
+followed in the footsteps of the Indians and the scout, who had already
+begun to retrace the path which conducted them to the plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+  "_Salar._--Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
+    flesh; what's that good for?"
+
+  "_Shy._--To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will
+    feed my revenge."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The shades of evening had come to increase the dreariness of the place,
+when the party entered the ruins of William Henry. The scout and his
+companions immediately made their preparations to pass the night there;
+but with an earnestness and sobriety of demeanor, that betrayed how much
+the unusual horrors they had just witnessed worked on even their
+practised feelings. A few fragments of rafters were reared against a
+blackened wall; and when Uncas had covered them slightly with brush, the
+temporary accommodations were deemed sufficient. The young Indian
+pointed towards his rude hut, when his labor was ended; and Heyward, who
+understood the meaning of the silent gesture, gently urged Munro to
+enter. Leaving the bereaved old man alone with his sorrows, Duncan
+immediately returned to the open air, too much excited himself to seek
+the repose he had recommended to his veteran friend.
+
+While Hawkeye and the Indians lighted their fire, and took their
+evening's repast, a frugal meal of dried bear's meat, the young man paid
+a visit to that curtain of the dilapidated fort which looked out on the
+sheet of the Horican. The wind had fallen, and the waves were already
+rolling on the sandy beach beneath him, in a more regular and tempered
+succession. The clouds, as if tired of their furious chase, were
+breaking asunder; the heavier volumes, gathering in black masses about
+the horizon, while the lighter scud still hurried above the water, or
+eddied among the tops of the mountains, like broken flights of birds,
+hovering around their roosts. Here and there, a red and fiery star
+struggled through the drifting vapor, furnishing a lurid gleam of
+brightness to the dull aspect of the heavens. Within the bosom of the
+encircling hills, an impenetrable darkness had already settled; and the
+plain lay like a vast and deserted charnel-house, without omen or
+whisper to disturb the slumbers of its numerous and hapless tenants.
+
+Of this scene, so chillingly in accordance with the past, Duncan stood
+for many minutes a rapt observer. His eyes wandered from the bosom of
+the mound, where the foresters were seated around their glimmering fire,
+to the fainter light which still lingered in the skies, and then rested
+long and anxiously on the embodied gloom, which lay like a dreary void
+on that side of him where the dead reposed. He soon fancied that
+inexplicable sounds arose from the place, though so indistinct and
+stolen, as to render not only their nature but even their existence
+uncertain. Ashamed of his apprehensions, the young man turned towards
+the water, and strove to divert his attentions to the mimic stars that
+dimly glimmered on its moving surface. Still, his too conscious ears
+performed their ungrateful duty, as if to warn him of some lurking
+danger. At length a swift trampling seemed quite audibly to rush athwart
+the darkness. Unable any longer to quiet his uneasiness, Duncan spoke in
+a low voice to the scout, requesting him to ascend the mound to the
+place where he stood. Hawkeye threw his rifle across an arm, and
+complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm, as to prove how much he
+counted on the security of their position.
+
+"Listen!" said Duncan, when the other placed himself deliberately at his
+elbow: "there are suppressed noises on the plain which may show that
+Montcalm has not yet entirely deserted his conquest."
+
+"Then ears are better than eyes," said the undisturbed scout, who,
+having just deposited a portion of bear between his grinders, spoke
+thick and slow, like one whose mouth was doubly occupied. "I, myself,
+saw him caged in Ty, with all his host; for your Frenchers, when they
+have done a clever thing, like to get back, and have a dance, or a
+merry-making, with the women over their success."
+
+"I know not. An Indian seldom sleeps in war, and plunder may keep a
+Huron here after his tribe has departed. It would be well to extinguish
+the fire, and have a watch--listen! you hear the noise I mean!"
+
+"An Indian more rarely lurks about the graves. Though ready to slay, and
+not over-regardful of the means, he is commonly content with the scalp,
+unless when blood is hot, and temper up; but after the spirit is once
+fairly gone, he forgets his enmity, and is willing to let the dead find
+their natural rest. Speaking of spirits, Major, are you of opinion that
+the heaven of a redskin and of us whites will be one and the same?"
+
+"No doubt--no doubt. I thought I heard it again! or was it the rustling
+of the leaves in the top of the beech?"
+
+"For my own part," continued Hawkeye, turning his face, for a moment, in
+the direction indicated by Heyward, but with a vacant and careless
+manner, "I believe that paradise is ordained for happiness; and that men
+will be indulged in it according to their dispositions and gifts. I
+therefore judge that a redskin is not far from the truth when he
+believes he is to find them glorious hunting-grounds of which his
+traditions tell; nor, for that matter, do I think it would be any
+disparagement to a man without a cross to pass his time--"
+
+"You hear it again?" interrupted Duncan.
+
+"Ay, ay; when food is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows
+bold," said the unmoved scout. "There would be picking, too, among the
+skins of the devils, if there was light and time for the sport. But,
+concerning the life that is to come, major: I have heard preachers say,
+in the settlements, that heaven was a place of rest. Now men's minds
+differ as to their ideas of enjoyment. For myself, and I say it with
+reverence to the ordering of Providence, it would be no great indulgence
+to be kept shut up in those mansions of which they preach, having a
+natural longing for motion and the chase."
+
+Duncan, who was now made to understand the nature of the noises he had
+heard, answered with more attention to the subject which the humor of
+the scout had chosen for discussion, by saying,--
+
+"It is difficult to account for the feelings that may attend the last
+great change."
+
+"It would be a change, indeed, for a man who has passed his days in the
+open air," returned the single-minded scout; "and who has so often
+broken his fast on the head-waters of the Hudson, to sleep within sound
+of the roaring Mohawk. But it is a comfort to know we serve a merciful
+Master, though we do it each after his fashion, and with great tracts of
+wilderness atween us--what goes there?"
+
+"Is it not the rushing of the wolves you have mentioned?"
+
+Hawkeye slowly shook his head, and beckoned for Duncan to follow him to
+a spot, to which the glare from the fire did not extend. When he had
+taken this precaution, the scout placed himself in an attitude of
+intense attention, and listened long and keenly for a repetition of the
+low sound that had so unexpectedly startled him. His vigilance, however,
+seemed exercised in vain; for, after a fruitless pause, he whispered to
+Duncan,--
+
+"We must give a call to Uncas. The boy has Indian senses, and may hear
+what is hid from us; for being a white-skin, I will not deny my nature."
+
+The young Mohican, who was conversing in a low voice with his father,
+started as he heard the moaning of an owl, and springing on his feet he
+looked towards the black mounds, as if seeking the place whence the
+sounds proceeded. The scout repeated the call, and in a few moments,
+Duncan saw the figure of Uncas stealing cautiously along the rampart, to
+the spot where they stood.
+
+Hawkeye explained his wishes in a very few words, which were spoken in
+the Delaware tongue. So soon as Uncas was in possession of the reason
+why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the
+eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at
+the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the
+manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired
+information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and bent over the dark
+object, on which he had kept his eyes riveted. Then it was he discovered
+that the form of Uncas had vanished, and that he beheld only the dark
+outline of an inequality in the embankment.
+
+"What has become of the Mohican?" he demanded of the scout, stepping
+back in amazement; "it was here that I saw him fall, and I could have
+sworn that here he yet remained."
+
+"Hist! speak lower; for we know not what ears are open, and the Mingos
+are a quick-witted breed. As for Uncas, he is out on the plain, and the
+Maquas, if any such are about us, will find their equal."
+
+"You think that Montcalm has not called off all his Indians? Let us give
+the alarm to our companions, that we may stand to our arms. Here are
+five of us, who are not unused to meet an enemy."
+
+"Not a word to either, as you value life. Look at the Sagamore, how like
+a grand Indian chief he sits by the fire. If there are any skulkers out
+in the darkness, they will never discover by his countenance that we
+suspect danger at hand."
+
+"But they may discover him, and it will prove his death. His person can
+be too plainly seen by the light of that fire, and he will become the
+first and most certain victim."
+
+"It is undeniable that now you speak the truth," returned the scout,
+betraying more anxiety than was usual; "yet what can be done? A single
+suspicious look might bring on an attack before we are ready to receive
+it. He knows, by the call I gave to Uncas, that we have struck a scent:
+I will tell him that we are on the trail of the Mingos; his Indian
+nature will teach him how to act."
+
+The scout applied his fingers to his mouth, and raised a low hissing
+sound, that caused Duncan, at first, to start aside, believing that he
+heard a serpent. The head of Chingachgook was resting on a hand, as he
+sat musing by himself; but the moment he heard the warning of the animal
+whose name he bore, it arose to an upright position and his dark eyes
+glanced swiftly and keenly on every side of him. With this sudden and
+perhaps involuntary movement, every appearance of surprise or alarm
+ended. His rifle lay untouched, and apparently unnoticed, within reach
+of his hand. The tomahawk that he had loosened in his belt for the sake
+of ease, was even suffered to fall from its usual situation to the
+ground, and his form seemed to sink, like that of a man whose nerves and
+sinews were suffered to relax for the purpose of rest. Cunningly
+resuming his former position, though with a change of hands, as if the
+movement had been made merely to relieve the limb, the native awaited
+the result with a calmness and fortitude that none but an Indian warrior
+would have known how to exercise.
+
+But Heyward saw that while to a less instructed eye the Mohican chief
+appeared to slumber, his nostrils were expanded, his head was turned a
+little to one side, as if to assist the organs of hearing, and that his
+quick and rapid glances ran incessantly over every object, within the
+power of his vision.
+
+"See the noble fellow!" whispered Hawkeye, pressing the arm of Heyward;
+"he knows that a look or a motion might discansart our schemes, and put
+us at the mercy of them imps--"
+
+He was interrupted by the flash and report of a rifle. The air was
+filled with sparks of fire around that spot where the eyes of Heyward
+were still fastened with admiration and wonder. A second look told him
+that Chingachgook had disappeared in the confusion. In the meantime the
+scout had thrown forward his rifle, like one prepared for service, and
+awaited impatiently the moment when an enemy might rise to view. But
+with the solitary and fruitless attempt made on the life of
+Chingachgook, the attack appeared to have terminated. Once or twice the
+listeners thought they could distinguish the distant rustling of bushes,
+as bodies of some unknown description rushed through them; nor was it
+long before Hawkeye pointed out the "scampering of the wolves," as they
+fled precipitately before the passage of some intruder on their proper
+domains. After an impatient and breathless pause, a plunge was heard in
+the water, and it was immediately followed by the report of another
+rifle.
+
+"There goes Uncas!" said the scout; "the boy bears a smart piece! I know
+its crack, as well as a father knows the language of his child, for I
+carried the gun myself until a better offered."
+
+"What can this mean?" demanded Duncan; "we are watched, and, as it would
+seem, marked for destruction."
+
+"Yonder scattered brand can witness that no good was intended, and this
+Indian will testify that no harm has been done," returned the scout,
+dropping his rifle across his arm again, and following Chingachgook, who
+just then reappeared within the circle of light, into the bosom of the
+works. "How is it, Sagamore? Are the Mingos upon us in earnest, or is it
+only one of those rept_y_les who hang upon the skirts of a war party, to
+scalp the dead, go in, and make their boast among the squaws of the
+valiant deeds done on the pale-faces?"
+
+Chingachgook very quietly resumed his seat; nor did he make any reply,
+until after he had examined the firebrand which had been struck by the
+bullet that had nearly proved fatal to himself. After which, he was
+content to reply, holding a single finger up to view, with the English
+monosyllable,--
+
+"One."
+
+"I thought as much," returned Hawkeye, seating himself; "and as he had
+got the cover of the lake afore Uncas pulled upon him, it is more than
+probable the knave will sing his lies about some great ambushment, in
+which he was outlying on the trail of two Mohicans and a white
+hunter--for the officers can be considered as little better than idlers
+in such a scrimmage. Well, let him--let him. There are always some
+honest men in every nation, though heaven knows, too, that they are
+scarce among the Maquas, to look down an upstart when he brags ag'in
+the face of reason. The varlet sent his lead within whistle of your
+ears, Sagamore."
+
+Chingachgook turned a calm and incurious eye towards the place where the
+ball had struck, and then resumed his former attitude, with a composure
+that could not be disturbed by so trifling an incident. Just then Uncas
+glided into the circle, and seated himself at the fire, with the same
+appearance of indifference as was maintained by his father.
+
+Of these several movements Heyward was a deeply interested and wondering
+observer. It appeared to him as though the foresters had some secret
+means of intelligence, which had escaped the vigilance of his own
+faculties. In place of that eager and garrulous narration with which a
+white youth would have endeavored to communicate, and perhaps
+exaggerate, that which had passed out in the darkness of the plain, the
+young warrior was seemingly content to let his deeds speak for
+themselves. It was, in fact, neither the moment nor the occasion for an
+Indian to boast of his exploits; and it is probable, that had Heyward
+neglected to inquire, not another syllable would, just then, have been
+uttered on the subject.
+
+"What has become of our enemy, Uncas?" demanded Duncan: "we heard your
+rifle, and hoped you had not fired in vain."
+
+The young chief removed a fold of his hunting-shirt, and quietly exposed
+the fatal tuft of hair, which he bore as the symbol of victory.
+Chingachgook laid his hand on the scalp, and considered it for a moment
+with deep attention. Then dropping it, with disgust depicted in his
+strong features, he ejaculated,--
+
+"Oneida!"
+
+"Oneida!" repeated the scout, who was fast losing his interest in the
+scene, in an apathy nearly assimilated to that of his red associates,
+but who now advanced with uncommon earnestness to regard the bloody
+badge. "By the Lord, if the Oneidas are outlying upon the trail, we
+shall be flanked by devils on every side of us! Now, to white eyes there
+is no difference between this bit of skin and that of any other Indian,
+and yet the Sagamore declares it came from the poll of a Mingo; nay, he
+even names the tribe of the poor devil with as much ease as if the scalp
+was the leaf of a book, and each hair a letter. What right have
+Christian whites to boast of their learning, when a savage can read a
+language that would prove too much for the wisest of them all! What say
+_you_, lad; of what people was the knave?"
+
+Uncas raised his eyes to the face of the scout, and answered, in his
+soft voice,--
+
+"Oneida."
+
+"Oneida, again! when one Indian makes a declaration it is commonly true;
+but when he is supported by his people, set it down as gospel!"
+
+"The poor fellow has mistaken us for French," said Heyward; "or he would
+not have attempted the life of a friend."
+
+"He mistake a Mohican in his paint for a Huron! You would be as likely
+to mistake the white-coated grenadiers of Montcalm for the scarlet
+jackets of the 'Royal Americans'," returned the scout. "No, no, the
+sarpent knew his errand; nor was there any great mistake in the matter,
+for there is but little love atween a Delaware and a Mingo, let their
+tribes go out to fight for whom they may, in a white quarrel. For that
+matter, though the Oneidas do serve his sacred majesty, who is my own
+sovereign lord and master, I should not have deliberated long about
+letting off 'Killdeer' at the imp myself, had luck thrown him in my
+way."
+
+"That would have been an abuse of our treaties, and unworthy of your
+character."
+
+"When a man consorts much with a people," continued Hawkeye, "if they
+are honest and he no knave, love will grow up atwixt them. It is true
+that white cunning has managed to throw the tribes into great confusion
+as respects friends and enemies; so that the Hurons and the Oneidas, who
+speak the same tongue, or what may be called the same, take each other's
+scalps, and the Delawares are divided among themselves; a few hanging
+about their great council-fire on their own river, and fighting on the
+same side with the Mingos, while the greater part are in the Canadas,
+out of natural enmity to the Maquas--thus throwing everything into
+disorder, and destroying all the harmony of warfare. Yet a red natur' is
+not likely to alter with every shift of policy; so that the love atwixt
+a Mohican and a Mingo is much like the regard between a white man and a
+sarpent."
+
+"I regret to hear it; for I had believed those natives who dwelt within
+our boundaries had found us too just and liberal, not to identify
+themselves fully with our quarrels."
+
+"Why, I believe it is natur' to give a preference to one's own quarrels
+before those of strangers. Now, for myself, I do love justice; and
+therefore I will not say I hate a Mingo, for that may be unsuitable to
+my color and my religion, though I will just repeat, it may have been
+owing to the night that 'Killdeer' had no hand in the death of this
+skulking Oneida."
+
+Then, as if satisfied with the force of his own reasons, whatever might
+be their effect on the opinions of the other disputant, the honest but
+implacable woodsman turned from the fire, content to let the controversy
+slumber. Heyward withdrew to the rampart, too uneasy and too little
+accustomed to the warfare of the woods to remain at ease under the
+possibility of such insidious attacks. Not so, however, with the scout
+and the Mohicans. Those acute and long practised senses, whose powers so
+often exceed the limits of all ordinary credulity, after having detected
+the danger, had enabled them to ascertain its magnitude and duration.
+Not one of the three appeared in the least to doubt their perfect
+security, as was indicated by the preparations that were soon made to
+sit in council over their future proceedings.
+
+The confusion of nations, and even of tribes, to which Hawkeye alluded,
+existed at that period in the fullest force. The great tie of language,
+and, of course, of a common origin, was severed in many places; and it
+was one of its consequences, that the Delaware and the Mingo (as the
+people of the Six Nations were called) were found fighting in the same
+ranks, while the latter sought the scalp of the Huron, though believed
+to be the root of his own stock. The Delawares were even divided among
+themselves. Though love for the soil which had belonged to his ancestors
+kept the Sagamore of the Mohicans with a small band of followers who
+were serving at Edward, under the banners of the English king, by far
+the largest portion of his nation were known to be in the field as
+allies of Montcalm. The reader probably knows, if enough has not already
+been gleaned from this narrative, that the Delaware, or Lenape, claimed
+to be the progenitors of that numerous people, who once were masters of
+most of the Eastern and Northern States of America, of whom the
+community of the Mohicans was an ancient and highly honored member.
+
+It was, of course, with a perfect understanding of the minute and
+intricate interest which had armed friend against friend, and brought
+natural enemies to combat by each other's side, that the scout and his
+companions now disposed themselves to deliberate on the measures that
+were to govern their future movements, amid so many jarring and savage
+races of men. Duncan knew enough of Indian customs to understand the
+reason that the fire was replenished, and why the warriors, not
+excepting Hawkeye, took their seats within the curl of its smoke with
+so much gravity and decorum. Placing himself at an angle of the works,
+where he might be a spectator of the scene within, while he kept a
+watchful eye against any danger from without, he awaited the result with
+as much patience as he could summon.
+
+After a short and impressive pause, Chingachgook lighted a pipe whose
+bowl was curiously carved in one of the soft stones of the country, and
+whose stem was a tube of wood, and commenced smoking. When he had
+inhaled enough of the fragrance of the soothing weed, he passed the
+instrument into the hands of the scout. In this manner the pipe had made
+its rounds three several times, amid the most profound silence, before
+either of the party opened his lips. Then the Sagamore, as the oldest
+and highest in rank, in a few calm and dignified words, proposed the
+subject for deliberation. He was answered by the scout; and Chingachgook
+rejoined, when the other objected to his opinions. But the youthful
+Uncas continued a silent and respectful listener, until Hawkeye, in
+complaisance, demanded his opinion. Heyward gathered from the manners of
+the different speakers, that the father and son espoused one side of a
+disputed question, while the white man maintained the other. The contest
+gradually grew warmer, until it was quite evident the feelings of the
+speakers began to be somewhat enlisted in the debate.
+
+Notwithstanding the increasing warmth of the amicable contest, the most
+decorous Christian assembly, not even excepting those in which its
+reverend ministers are collected, might have learned a wholesome lesson
+of moderation from the forbearance and courtesy of the disputants. The
+words of Uncas were received with the same deep attention as those which
+fell from the maturer wisdom of his father; and so far from manifesting
+any impatience, neither spoke in reply, until a few moments of silent
+meditation were, seemingly, bestowed in deliberating on what had already
+been said.
+
+The language of the Mohicans was accompanied by gestures so direct and
+natural, that Heyward had but little difficulty in following the thread
+of their argument. On the other hand, the scout was obscure; because,
+from the lingering pride of color, he rather affected the cold and
+artificial manner which characterizes all classes of Anglo-Americans,
+when unexcited. By the frequency with which the Indians described the
+marks of a forest trail, it was evident they urged a pursuit by land,
+while the repeated sweep of Hawkeye's arm towards the Horican denoted
+that he was for a passage across its waters.
+
+The latter was, to every appearance, fast losing ground, and the point
+was about to be decided against him, when he arose to his feet, and
+shaking off his apathy, he suddenly assumed the manner of an Indian, and
+adopted all the arts of native eloquence. Elevating an arm, he pointed
+out the track of the sun, repeating the gesture for every day that was
+necessary to accomplish their object. Then he delineated a long and
+painful path, amid rocks and water-courses. The age and weakness of the
+slumbering and unconscious Munro were indicated by signs too palpable to
+be mistaken. Duncan perceived that even his own powers were spoken
+lightly of, as the scout extended his palm, and mentioned him by
+appellation of the "Open Hand,"--a name his liberality had purchased of
+all the friendly tribes. Then came a representation of the light and
+graceful movements of a canoe, set in forcible contrast to the tottering
+steps of one enfeebled and tired. He concluded by pointing to the scalp
+of the Oneida, and apparently urging the necessity of their departing
+speedily, and in a manner that should leave no trail.
+
+The Mohicans listened gravely, and with countenances that reflected the
+sentiments of the speaker. Conviction gradually wrought its influence,
+and towards the close of Hawkeye's speech, his sentences were
+accompanied by the customary exclamation of commendation. In short,
+Uncas and his father became converts to his way of thinking, abandoning
+their own previously expressed opinions with a liberality and candor
+that, had they been the representatives of some great and civilized
+people, would have infallibly worked their political ruin, by
+destroying, forever, their reputation for consistency.
+
+The instant the matter in discussion was decided, the debate, and
+everything connected with it, except the results, appeared to be
+forgotten. Hawkeye, without looking round to read his triumph in
+applauding eyes, very composedly stretched his tall frame before the
+dying embers, and closed his own organs in sleep.
+
+Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose time had been
+so much devoted to the interests of others, seized the moment to devote
+some attention to themselves. Casting off, at once, the grave and
+austere demeanor of an Indian chief, Chingachgook commenced speaking to
+his son in the soft and playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met
+the familiar air of his father; and before the hard breathing of the
+scout announced that he slept, a complete change was effected in the
+manner of his two associates.
+
+It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while thus
+engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it
+intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The
+compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was
+wonderful,--extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even
+feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and
+ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to
+smile in reply to the other's contagious, but low laughter. While under
+the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity
+was to be seen in the softened features of the Sagamore. His figured
+panoply of death looked more like a disguise assumed in mockery, than a
+fierce annunciation of a desire to carry destruction in his footsteps.
+
+After an hour passed in the indulgence of their better feelings,
+Chingachgook abruptly announced his desire to sleep, by wrapping his
+head in his blanket, and stretching his form on the naked earth. The
+merriment of Uncas instantly ceased; and carefully raking the coals in
+such a manner that they should impart their warmth to his father's feet,
+the youth sought his own pillow among the ruins of the place.
+
+Imbibing renewed confidence from the security of these experienced
+foresters, Heyward soon imitated their example; and long before the
+night had turned, they who lay in the bosom of the ruined work, seemed
+to slumber as heavily as the unconscious multitude whose bones were
+already beginning to bleach on the surrounding plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+  "Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
+  On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!"
+
+  _Childe Harold._
+
+
+The heavens were still studded with stars, when Hawkeye came to arouse
+the sleepers. Casting aside their cloaks Munro and Heyward were on their
+feet while the woodsman was still making his low calls, at the entrance
+of the rude shelter where they had passed the night. When they issued
+from beneath its concealment, they found the scout awaiting their
+appearance nigh by, and the only salutation between them was the
+significant gesture for silence, made by their sagacious leader.
+
+"Think over your prayers," he whispered, as they approached him; "for He
+to whom you make them knows all tongues; that of the heart as well as
+those of the mouth. But speak not a syllable; it is rare for a white
+voice to pitch itself properly in the woods, as we have seen by the
+example of that miserable devil, the singer. Come," he continued,
+turning towards a curtain of the works; "let us get into the ditch on
+this side, and be regardful to step on the stones and fragments of wood
+as you go."
+
+His companions complied, though to two of them the reasons of this
+extraordinary precaution were yet a mystery. When they were in the low
+cavity that surrounded the earthen fort on three sides, they found the
+passage nearly choked by the ruins. With care and patience, however,
+they succeeded in clambering after the scout, until they reached the
+sandy shore of the Horican.
+
+"That's a trail that nothing but a nose can follow," said the satisfied
+scout, looking back along their difficult way; "grass is a treacherous
+carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print
+from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots, there might, indeed,
+have been something to fear; but with the deer-skin suitably prepared, a
+man may trust himself, generally, on rocks with safety. Shove in the
+canoe nigher to the land, Uncas; this sand will take a stamp as easily
+as the butter of the Jarmans on the Mohawk. Softly, lad, softly; it must
+not touch the beach, or the knaves will know by what road we have left
+the place."
+
+The young man observed the precaution; and the scout, laying a board
+from the ruins to the canoe, made a sign for the two officers to enter.
+When this was done, everything was studiously restored to its former
+disorder; and then Hawkeye succeeded in reaching his little birchen
+vessel, without leaving behind him any of those marks which he appeared
+so much to dread. Heyward was silent, until the Indians had cautiously
+paddled the canoe some distance from the fort, and within the broad and
+dark shadow that fell from the eastern mountain on the glassy surface of
+the lake; then he demanded,--
+
+"What need have we for this stolen and hurried departure?"
+
+"If the blood of an Oneida could stain such a sheet of pure water as
+this we float on," returned the scout, "your two eyes would answer your
+own question. Have you forgotten the skulking rept_y_le that Uncas
+slew?"
+
+"By no means. But he was said to be alone, and dead men give no cause
+for fear."
+
+"Ay, he was alone in his deviltry! but an Indian whose tribe counts so
+many warriors, need seldom fear his blood will run, without the
+death-shriek coming speedily from some of his enemies."
+
+"But our presence--the authority of Colonel Munro--would prove a
+sufficient protection against the anger of our allies, especially in a
+case where a wretch so well merited his fate. I trust in Heaven you have
+not deviated a single foot from the direct line of our course, with so
+slight a reason!"
+
+"Do you think the bullet of that varlet's rifle would have turned aside,
+though his majesty the king had stood in its path?" returned the
+stubborn scout. "Why did not the grand Frencher, he who is
+captain-general of the Canadas, bury the tomahawks of the Hurons, if a
+word from a white can work so strongly on the natur' of an Indian?"
+
+The reply of Heyward was interrupted by a groan from Munro; but after he
+had paused a moment, in deference to the sorrow of his aged friend, he
+resumed the subject.
+
+"The Marquis of Montcalm can only settle that error with his God," said
+the young man solemnly.
+
+"Ay, ay; now there is reason in your words, for they are bottomed on
+religion and honesty. There is a vast difference between throwing a
+regiment of white coats atwixt the tribes and the prisoners, and coaxing
+an angry savage to forget he carries a knife and a rifle, with words
+that must begin with calling him your son. No, no," continued the scout,
+looking back at the dim shore of William Henry, which was now fast
+receding, and laughing in his own silent but heartfelt manner; "I have
+put a trail of water atween us; and unless the imps can make friends
+with the fishes, and hear who has paddled across their basin, this fine
+morning, we shall throw the length of the Horican behind us, before they
+have made up their minds which path to take."
+
+"With foes in front, and foes in our rear, our journey is like to be one
+of danger."
+
+"Danger!" repeated Hawkeye, calmly; "no, not absolutely of danger; for,
+with vigilant ears and quick eyes, we can manage to keep a few hours
+ahead of the knaves; or, if we must try the rifle, there are three of us
+who understand its gifts as well as any you can name on the borders. No,
+not of danger; but that we shall have what you may call a brisk push of
+it is probable; and it may happen, a brush, a skrimmage, or some such
+divarsion, but always where covers are good, and ammunition abundant."
+
+It is possible that Heyward's estimate of danger differed in some degree
+from that of the scout, for, instead of replying, he now sat in silence,
+while the canoe glided over several miles of water. Just as the day
+dawned, they entered the narrows of the lake,[23] and stole swiftly and
+cautiously among their numberless little islands. It was by this road
+that Montcalm had retired with his army; and the adventurers knew not
+but he had left some of his Indians in ambush, to protect the rear of
+his forces, and collect the stragglers. They, therefore, approached the
+passage with the customary silence of their guarded habits.
+
+Chingachgook laid aside his paddle; while Uncas and the scout urged the
+light vessel through crooked and intricate channels, where every foot
+that they advanced exposed them to the danger of some sudden rising on
+their progress. The eyes of the Sagamore moved warily from islet to
+islet, and copse to copse, as the canoe proceeded; and when a clearer
+sheet of water permitted, his keen vision was bent along the bald rocks
+and impending forests, that frowned upon the narrow strait.
+
+Heyward, who was a doubly interested spectator, as well from the
+beauties of the place as from the apprehension natural to his situation,
+was just believing that he had permitted the latter to be excited
+without sufficient reason, when the paddle ceased moving, in obedience
+to a signal from Chingachgook.
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed Uncas, nearly at the moment that the light tap his
+father had made on the side of the canoe notified them of the vicinity
+of danger.
+
+"What now?" asked the scout; "the lake is as smooth as if the winds had
+never blown, and I can see along its sheet for miles; there is not so
+much as the black head of a loon dotting the water."
+
+The Indian gravely raised his paddle, and pointed in the direction in
+which his own steady look was riveted. Duncan's eyes followed the
+motion. A few rods in their front lay another of the low wooded islets,
+but it appeared as calm and peaceful as if its solitude had never been
+disturbed by the foot of man.
+
+"I see nothing," he said, "but land and water; and a lovely scene it
+is."
+
+"Hist!" interrupted the scout. "Ay, Sagamore, there is always a reason
+for what you do. 'Tis but a shade, and yet it is not natural. You see
+the mist, major, that is rising above the island; you can't call it a
+fog, for it is more like a streak of thin cloud--"
+
+"It is vapor from the water."
+
+"That a child could tell. But what is the edging of blacker smoke that
+hangs along its lower side, and which you may trace down into the
+thicket of hazel? 'Tis from a fire; but one that, in my judgment, has
+been suffered to burn low."
+
+"Let us then push for the place, and relieve our doubts," said the
+impatient Duncan; "the party must be small that can lie on such a bit of
+land."
+
+"If you judge of Indian cunning by the rules you find in books, or by
+white sagacity, they will lead you astray, if not to your death,"
+returned Hawkeye, examining the signs of the place with that acuteness
+which distinguished him. "If I may be permitted to speak in this matter,
+it will be to say, that we have but two things to choose between: the
+one is, to return, and give up all thoughts of following the Hurons--"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice far too loud for their
+circumstances.
+
+"Well, well," continued Hawkeye, making a hasty sign to repress his
+impatience; "I am much of your mind myself; though I thought it becoming
+my experience to tell the whole. We must then make a push, and if the
+Indians or Frenchers are in the narrows, run the gauntlet through these
+toppling mountains. Is there reason in my words, Sagamore?"
+
+The Indian made no other answer than by dropping his paddle into the
+water, and urging forward the canoe. As he held the office of directing
+its course, his resolution was sufficiently indicated by the movement.
+The whole party now plied their paddles vigorously, and in a very few
+moments they had reached a point whence they might command an entire
+view of the northern shore of the island, the side that had hitherto
+been concealed.
+
+"There they are, by all the truth of signs," whispered the scout; "two
+canoes and a smoke. The knaves haven't yet got their eyes out of the
+mist, or we should hear the accursed whoop. Together, friend! we are
+leaving them, and are already nearly out of whistle of a bullet."
+
+The well known crack of a rifle, whose ball came skipping along the
+placid surface of the strait, and a shrill yell from the island,
+interrupted his speech, and announced that their passage was discovered.
+In another instant several savages were seen rushing into the canoes,
+which were soon dancing over the water, in pursuit. These fearful
+precursors of a coming struggle produced no change in the countenances
+and movements of his three guides, so far as Duncan could discover,
+except that the strokes of their paddles were longer and more in unison,
+and caused the little bark to spring forward like a creature possessing
+life and volition.
+
+"Hold them there, Sagamore," said Hawkeye, looking coolly backward over
+his left shoulder, while he still plied his paddle; "keep them just
+there. Them Hurons have never a piece in their nation that will execute
+at this distance; but 'Killdeer' has a barrel on which a man may
+calculate."
+
+The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle. Three several times he brought
+the piece to his shoulder, and when his companions were expecting its
+report, he as often lowered it to request the Indians would permit their
+enemies to approach a little nigher. At length his accurate and
+fastidious eye seemed satisfied, and throwing out his left arm on the
+barrel, he was slowly elevating the muzzle, when an exclamation from
+Uncas, who sat in the bow, once more caused him to suspend the shot.
+
+"What now, lad?" demanded Hawkeye; "you saved a Huron from the
+death-shriek by that word; have you reason for what you do?"
+
+Uncas pointed towards the rocky shore a little in their front, whence
+another war canoe was darting directly across their course. It was too
+obvious now that their situation was imminently perilous to need the aid
+of language to confirm it. The scout laid aside his rifle, and resumed
+the paddle, while Chingachgook inclined the bows of the canoe a little
+towards the western shore, in order to increase the distance between
+them and this new enemy. In the meantime they were reminded of the
+presence of those who pressed upon their rear, by wild and exulting
+shouts. The stirring scene awakened even Munro from his apathy.
+
+"Let us make for the rocks on the main," he said, with the mien of a
+tired soldier, "and give battle to the savages. God forbid that I, or
+those attached to me and mine, should ever trust again to the faith of
+any servant of the Louis's!"
+
+"He who wishes to prosper in Indian warfare," returned the scout, "must
+not be too proud to learn from the wit of a native. Lay her more along
+the land, Sagamore; we are doubling on the varlets, and perhaps they may
+try to strike our trail on the long calculation."
+
+Hawkeye was not mistaken; for when the Hurons found their course was
+likely to throw them behind their chase, they rendered it less direct,
+until, by gradually bearing more and more obliquely, the two canoes were
+ere long, gliding on parallel lines, within two hundred yards of each
+other. It now became entirely a trial of speed. So rapid was the
+progress of the light vessels, that the lake curled in their front, in
+miniature waves, and their motion became undulating by its own velocity.
+It was, perhaps, owing to this circumstance, in addition to the
+necessity of keeping every hand employed at the paddles, that the
+Hurons had not immediate recourse to their fire-arms. The exertions of
+the fugitives were too severe to continue long, and the pursuers had the
+advantage of numbers. Duncan observed, with uneasiness, that the scout
+began to look anxiously about him, as if searching for some further
+means of assisting their flight.
+
+"Edge her a little more from the sun, Sagamore," said the stubborn
+woodsman; "I see the knaves are sparing a man to the rifle. A single
+broken bone might lose us our scalps. Edge more from the sun and we will
+put the island between us."
+
+The expedient was not without its use. A long, low island lay at a
+little distance before them, and as they closed with it, the chasing
+canoe was compelled to take a side opposite to that on which the pursued
+passed. The scout and his companions did not neglect this advantage, but
+the instant they were hid from observation by the bushes, they redoubled
+efforts that before had seemed prodigious. The two canoes came round the
+last low point, like two coursers at the top of their speed, the
+fugitives taking the lead. This change had brought them nigher to each
+other, however, while it altered their relative positions.
+
+"You showed knowledge in the shaping of birchen bark, Uncas, when you
+chose this from among the Huron canoes," said the scout, smiling,
+apparently more in satisfaction at their superiority in the race, than
+from that prospect of final escape which now began to open a little upon
+them. "The imps have put all their strength again at the paddles, and we
+are to struggle for our scalps with bits of flattened wood, instead of
+clouded barrels and true eyes. A long stroke, and together, friends."
+
+"They are preparing for a shot," said Heyward; "and as we are in a line
+with them, it can scarcely fail."
+
+"Get you then into the bottom of the canoe," returned the scout; "you
+and the colonel; it will be so much taken from the size of the mark."
+
+Heyward smiled, as he answered,--
+
+"It would be but an ill example for the highest in rank to dodge, while
+the warriors were under fire!"
+
+"Lord! Lord! That is now a white man's courage!" exclaimed the scout;
+"and like too many of his notions, not to be maintained by reason. Do
+you think the Sagamore, or Uncas, or even I, who am a man without a
+cross, would deliberate about finding a cover in the skrimmage, when an
+open body would do no good? For what have the Frenchers reared up their
+Quebec, if fighting is always to be done in the clearings?"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE FLIGHT ACROSS THE LAKE
+
+_The scout having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of
+themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside
+his paddle, and raised the fatal rifle_]
+
+"All that you say is very true, my friend," replied Heyward; "still,
+our customs must prevent us from doing as you wish."
+
+A volley from the Hurons interrupted the discourse, and as the bullets
+whistled about them, Duncan saw the head of Uncas turned, looking back
+at himself and Munro. Notwithstanding the nearness of the enemy, and his
+own great personal danger, the countenance of the young warrior
+expressed no other emotion, as the former was compelled to think, than
+amazement at finding men willing to encounter so useless an exposure.
+Chingachgook was probably better acquainted with the notions of white
+men, for he did not even cast a glance aside from the riveted look his
+eye maintained on the object by which he governed their course. A ball
+soon struck the light and polished paddle from the hands of the chief,
+and drove it through the air, far in the advance. A shout arose from the
+Hurons, who seized the opportunity to fire another volley. Uncas
+described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe
+passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it
+on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans, and then lent his
+strength and skill again to the important task.
+
+The clamorous sounds of "Le Gros Serpent!" "La Longue Carabine!" "Le
+Cerf Agile!" burst at once from the canoes behind, and seemed to give
+new zeal to the pursuers. The scout seized "Killdeer" in his left hand,
+and elevating it above his head, he shook it in triumph at his enemies.
+The savages answered the insult with a yell, and immediately another
+volley succeeded. The bullets pattered along the lake, and one even
+pierced the bark of their little vessel. No perceptible emotion could be
+discovered in the Mohicans during this critical moment, their rigid
+features expressing neither hope nor alarm; but the scout again turned
+his head, and laughing in his own silent manner, he said to Heyward,--
+
+"The knaves love to hear the sounds of their pieces; but the eye is not
+to be found among the Mingos that can calculate a true range in a
+dancing canoe! You see the dumb devils have taken off a man to charge,
+and by the smallest measurement that can be allowed, we move three feet
+to their two!"
+
+Duncan, who was not altogether as easy under this nice estimate of
+distances as his companions, was glad to find, however, that owing to
+their superior dexterity, and the diversion among their enemies, they
+were very sensibly obtaining the advantage. The Hurons soon fired again,
+and a bullet struck the blade of Hawkeye's paddle without injury.
+
+"That will do," said the scout, examining the slight indentation with a
+curious eye; "it would not have cut the skin of an infant, much less of
+men, who, like us, have been blown upon by the heavens in their anger.
+Now, major, if you will try to use this piece of flattened wood, I'll
+let 'Killdeer' take a part in the conversation."
+
+Heyward seized the paddle, and applied himself to the work with an
+eagerness that supplied the place of skill, while Hawkeye was engaged in
+inspecting the priming of his rifle. The latter then took a swift aim,
+and fired. The Huron in the bows of the leading canoe had risen with a
+similar object, and he now fell backward, suffering his gun to escape
+from his hands into the water. In an instant, however, he recovered his
+feet, though his gestures were wild and bewildered. At the same moment
+his companions suspended their efforts, and the chasing canoes clustered
+together, and became stationary. Chingachgook and Uncas profited by the
+interval to regain their wind, though Duncan continued to work with the
+most persevering industry. The father and son now cast calm but
+inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any
+injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would,
+in such a moment of necessity, have been permitted to betray the
+accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulder of
+the Sagamore, who, when he perceived that the eyes of Uncas dwelt too
+long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and
+washing off the stain, was content to manifest, in this simple manner,
+the slightness of the injury.
+
+"Softly, softly, major," said the scout, who by this time had reloaded
+his rifle; "we are a little too far already for a rifle to put forth its
+beauties, and you see yonder imps are holding a council. Let them come
+up within striking distance--my eye may well be trusted in such a
+matter--and I will trail the varlets the length of the Horican,
+guaranteeing that not a shot of theirs shall, at the worst, more than
+break the skin, while 'Killdeer' shall touch the life twice in three
+times."
+
+"We forget our errand," returned the diligent Duncan. "For God's sake
+let us profit by this advantage, and increase our distance from the
+enemy."
+
+"Give me my children," said Munro hoarsely; "trifle no longer with a
+father's agony, but restore me my babes."
+
+Long and habitual deference to the mandates of his superiors had taught
+the scout the virtue of obedience. Throwing a last and lingering glance
+at the distant canoes, he laid aside his rifle, and relieving the
+wearied Duncan, resumed the paddle, which he wielded with sinews that
+never tired. His efforts were seconded by those of the Mohicans, and a
+very few minutes served to place such a sheet of water between them and
+their enemies, that Heyward once more breathed freely.
+
+The lake now began to expand, and their route lay along a wide reach,
+that was lined, as before, by high and ragged mountains. But the islands
+were few, and easily avoided. The strokes of the paddles grew more
+measured and regular, while they who plied them continued their labor,
+after the close and deadly chase from which they had just relieved
+themselves, with as much coolness as though their speed had been tried
+in sport, rather than under such pressing, nay, almost desperate
+circumstances.
+
+Instead of following the western shore, whither their errand led them,
+the wary Mohican inclined his course more towards those hills behind
+which Montcalm was known to have led his army into the formidable
+fortress of Ticonderoga. As the Hurons, to every appearance, had
+abandoned the pursuit, there was no apparent reason for this excess of
+caution. It was, however, maintained for hours, until they had reached a
+bay, nigh the northern termination of the lake. Here the canoe was
+driven upon the beach, and the whole party landed. Hawkeye and Heyward
+ascended an adjacent bluff, where the former, after considering the
+expanse of water beneath him, pointed out to the latter a small black
+object, hovering under a headland, at the distance of several miles.
+
+"Do you see it?" demanded the scout. "Now, what would you account that
+spot, were you left alone to white experience to find your way through
+this wilderness?"
+
+"But for its distance and its magnitude, I should suppose it a bird. Can
+it be a living object?"
+
+"'Tis a canoe of good birchen bark, and paddled by fierce and crafty
+Mingos. Though Providence has lent to those who inhabit the woods eyes
+that would be needless to men in the settlements, where there are
+inventions to assist the sight, yet no human organs can see all the
+dangers which at this moment circumvent us. These varlets pretend to be
+bent chiefly on their sun-down meal, but the moment it is dark they will
+be on our trail, as true as hounds on the scent. We must throw them off,
+or our pursuit of Le Renard Subtil may be given up. These lakes are
+useful at times, especially when the game takes the water," continued
+the scout, gazing about him with a countenance of concern; "but they
+give no cover, except it be to the fishes. God knows what the country
+would be, if the settlements should ever spread far from the two rivers.
+Both hunting and war would lose their beauty."
+
+"Let us not delay a moment, without some good and obvious cause."
+
+"I little like that smoke, which you may see worming up along the rock
+above the canoe," interrupted the abstracted scout. "My life on it,
+other eyes than ours see it, and know its meaning. Well, words will not
+mend the matter, and it is time that we were doing."
+
+Hawkeye moved away from the look-out, and descended, musing profoundly,
+to the shore. He communicated the result of his observations to his
+companions, in Delaware, and a short and earnest consultation succeeded.
+When it terminated, the three instantly set about executing their new
+resolutions.
+
+The canoe was lifted from the water, and borne on the shoulders of the
+party. They proceeded into the wood, making as broad and obvious a trail
+as possible. They soon reached a water-course, which they crossed, and
+continued onward, until they came to an extensive and naked rock. At
+this point, where their footsteps might be expected to be no longer
+visible, they retraced their route to the brook, walking backwards, with
+the utmost care. They now followed the bed of the little stream to the
+lake, into which they immediately launched their canoe again. A low
+point concealed them from the headland, and the margin of the lake was
+fringed for some distance with dense and overhanging bushes. Under the
+cover of these natural advantages, they toiled their way, with patient
+industry, until the scout pronounced that he believed it would be safe
+once more to land.
+
+The halt continued until evening rendered objects indistinct and
+uncertain to the eye. Then they resumed their route, and, favored by the
+darkness, pushed silently and vigorously towards the western shore.
+Although the rugged outline of mountain, to which they were steering,
+presented no distinctive marks to the eyes of Duncan, the Mohican
+entered the little haven he had selected with the confidence and
+accuracy of an experienced pilot.
+
+The boat was again lifted and borne into the woods where it was
+carefully concealed under a pile of brush. The adventurers assumed their
+arms and packs, and the scout announced to Munro and Heyward that he and
+the Indians were at last in readiness to proceed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+  "If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death."
+
+  _Merry Wives of Windsor._
+
+
+The party had landed on the border of a region that is, even to this
+day, less known to the inhabitants of the States, than the deserts of
+Arabia, or the steppes of Tartary. It was the sterile and rugged
+district which separates the tributaries of Champlain from those of the
+Hudson, the Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence. Since the period of our tale,
+the active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a belt of rich
+and thriving settlements, though none but the hunter or the savage is
+ever known, even now, to penetrate its wild recesses.
+
+As Hawkeye and the Mohicans had, however, often traversed the mountains
+and valleys of this vast wilderness, they did not hesitate to plunge
+into its depths, with the freedom of men accustomed to its privations
+and difficulties. For many hours the travellers toiled on their
+laborious way, guided by a star, or following the direction of some
+water-course, until the scout called a halt, and holding a short
+consultation with the Indians, they lighted their fire, and made the
+usual preparations to pass the remainder of the night where they then
+were.
+
+Imitating the example, and emulating the confidence, of their more
+experienced associates, Munro and Duncan slept without fear, if not
+without uneasiness. The dews were suffered to exhale, and the sun
+dispersed the mists, and was shedding a strong and clear light in the
+forest, when the travellers resumed their journey.
+
+After proceeding a few miles, the progress of Hawkeye, who led the
+advance, became more deliberate and watchful. He often stopped to
+examine the trees; nor did he cross a rivulet, without attentively
+considering the quantity, the velocity, and the color of its waters.
+Distrusting his own judgment his appeals to the opinion of Chingachgook
+were frequent and earnest. During one of these conferences, Heyward
+observed that Uncas stood a patient and silent, though, as he imagined,
+an interested listener. He was strongly tempted to address the young
+chief, and demand his opinion of their progress; but the calm and
+dignified demeanor of the native induced him to believe that, like
+himself, the other was wholly dependent on the sagacity and intelligence
+of the seniors of the party. At last, the scout spoke in English, and at
+once explained the embarrassment of their situation.
+
+"When I found that the home path of the Hurons run north," he said, "it
+did not need the judgment of many long years to tell that they would
+follow the valleys, and keep atween the waters of the Hudson and the
+Horican, until they might strike the springs of the Canada streams,
+which would lead them into the heart of the country of the Frenchers.
+Yet here are we, within a short range of the Scaroon, and not a sign of
+a trail have we crossed! Human natur' is weak, and it is possible we may
+not have taken the proper scent."
+
+"Heaven protect us from such an error!" exclaimed Duncan. "Let us
+retrace our steps, and examine as we go, with keener eyes. Has Uncas no
+counsel to offer in such a strait?"
+
+The young Mohican cast a glance at his father, but maintaining his quiet
+and reserved mien, he continued silent. Chingachgook had caught the
+look, and motioning with his hand, he bade him speak. The moment this
+permission was accorded, the countenance of Uncas changed from its grave
+composure to a gleam of intelligence and joy. Bounding forward like a
+deer, he sprang up the side of a little acclivity, a few rods in
+advance, and stood exultingly over a spot of fresh earth that looked as
+though it had been recently upturned by the passage of some heavy
+animal. The eyes of the whole party followed the unexpected movement,
+and read their success in the air of triumph that the youth assumed.
+
+"'Tis the trail!" exclaimed the scout, advancing to the spot: "the lad
+is quick of sight and keen of wit for his years."
+
+"'Tis extraordinary that he should have withheld his knowledge so long,"
+muttered Duncan, at his elbow.
+
+"It would have been more wonderful had he spoken without a bidding. No,
+no; your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can
+measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like
+his legs, outruns that of his father; but where experience is the
+master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects
+them accordingly."
+
+"See!" said Uncas, pointing north and south, at the evident marks of
+the broad trail on either side of him: "the dark-hair has gone towards
+the frost."
+
+"Hound never ran on a more beautiful scent," responded the scout,
+dashing forward, at once, on the indicated route; "we are favored,
+greatly favored, and can follow with high noses. Ay, here are both your
+waddling beasts: this Huron travels like a white general. The fellow is
+stricken with a judgment, and is mad! Look sharp for wheels, Sagamore,"
+he continued, looking back, and laughing in his newly awakened
+satisfaction; "we shall soon have the fool journeying in a coach, and
+that with three of the best pair of eyes on the borders, in his rear."
+
+The spirits of the scout, and the astonishing success of the chase, in
+which a circuitous distance of more than forty miles had been passed,
+did not fail to impart a portion of hope to the whole party. Their
+advance was rapid; and made with as much confidence as a traveller would
+proceed along a wide highway. If a rock, or a rivulet, or a bit of earth
+harder than common, severed the links of the clue they followed, the
+true eye of the scout recovered them at a distance, and seldom rendered
+the delay of a single moment necessary. Their progress was much
+facilitated by the certainty that Magua had found it necessary to
+journey through the valleys; a circumstance which rendered the general
+direction of the route sure. Nor had the Huron entirely neglected the
+arts uniformly practised by the natives when retiring in front of any
+enemy. False trails, and sudden turnings, were frequent, wherever a
+brook, or the formation of the ground, rendered them feasible; but his
+pursuers were rarely deceived, and never failed to detect their error,
+before they had lost either time or distance on the deceptive track.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon they had passed the Scaroon, and were
+following the route of the declining sun. After descending an eminence
+to a low bottom, through which a stream glided, they suddenly came to a
+place where the party of Le Renard had made a halt. Extinguished brands
+were lying around a spring, the offals of a deer were scattered about
+the place, and the trees bore evident marks of having been browsed by
+the horses. At a little distance, Heyward discovered, and contemplated
+with tender emotion, the small bower under which he was fain to believe
+that Cora and Alice had reposed. But while the earth was trodden, and
+the footsteps of both men and beasts were so plainly visible around the
+place, the trail appeared to have suddenly ended.
+
+It was easy to follow the track of the Narragansetts, but they seemed
+only to have wandered without guides, or any other object than the
+pursuit of food. At length Uncas, who, with his father, had endeavored
+to trace the route of the horses, came upon a sign of their presence
+that was quite recent. Before following the clue, he communicated his
+success to his companions; and while the latter were consulting on the
+circumstance, the youth reappeared, leading the two fillies, with their
+saddles broken, and the housings soiled, as though they had been
+permitted to run at will for several days.
+
+"What should this mean?" said Duncan, turning pale, and glancing his
+eyes around him, as if he feared the brush and leaves were about to give
+up some horrid secret.
+
+"That our march is come to a quick end, and that we are in an enemy's
+country," returned the scout. "Had the knaves been pressed, and the
+gentle ones wanted horses to keep up with the party, he might have taken
+their scalps; but without an enemy at his heels, and with such rugged
+beasts as these, he would not hurt a hair of their heads. I know your
+thoughts, and shame be it to our color that you have reason for them;
+but he who thinks that even a Mingo would ill-treat a woman, unless it
+be to tomahawk her, knows nothing of Indian natur', or the laws of the
+woods. No, no; I have heard that the French Indians had come into these
+hills, to hunt the moose, and we are getting within scent of their camp.
+Why should they not? the morning and evening guns of Ty may be heard any
+day among these mountains; for the Frenchers are running a new line
+atween the provinces of the king and the Canadas. It is true that the
+horses are here, but the Hurons are gone; let us then hunt for the path
+by which they departed."
+
+Hawkeye and the Mohicans now applied themselves to their task in good
+earnest. A circle of a few hundred feet in circumference was drawn, and
+each of the party took a segment for his portion. The examination,
+however, resulted in no discovery. The impressions of footsteps were
+numerous, but they all appeared like those of men who had wandered about
+the spot, without any design to quit it. Again the scout and his
+companions made the circuit of the halting-place, each slowly following
+the other, until they assembled in the centre once more, no wiser than
+when they started.
+
+"Such cunning is not without its deviltry," exclaimed Hawkeye, when he
+met the disappointed looks of his assistants.
+
+"We must get down to it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring, and going
+over the ground by inches. The Huron shall never brag in his tribe that
+he has a foot which leaves no print."
+
+Setting the example himself, the scout engaged in the scrutiny with
+renewed zeal. Not a leaf was left unturned. The sticks were removed, and
+the stones lifted; for Indian cunning was known frequently to adopt
+these objects as covers, laboring with the utmost patience and industry,
+to conceal each footstep as they proceeded. Still no discovery was made.
+At length Uncas, whose activity had enabled him to achieve his portion
+of the task the soonest, raked the earth across the turbid little rill
+which ran from the spring, and diverted its course into another channel.
+So soon as its narrow bed below the dam was dry, he stooped over it with
+keen and curious eyes. A cry of exultation immediately announced the
+success of the young warrior. The whole party crowded to the spot where
+Uncas pointed out the impression of a moccasin in the moist alluvion.
+
+"The lad will be an honor to his people," said Hawkeye, regarding the
+trail with as much admiration as a naturalist would expend on the tusk
+of a mammoth or the rib of a mastodon; "ay, and a thorn in the sides of
+the Hurons. Yet that is not the footstep of an Indian! the weight is too
+much on the heel, and the toes are squared, as though one of the French
+dancers had been in, pigeon-winging his tribe! Run back, Uncas, and
+bring me the size of the singer's foot. You will find a beautiful print
+of it just opposite yon rock, agin the hillside."
+
+While the youth was engaged in this commission, the scout and
+Chingachgook were attentively considering the impressions. The
+measurements agreed, and the former unhesitatingly pronounced that the
+footstep was that of David, who had once more, been made to exchange his
+shoes for moccasins.
+
+"I can now read the whole of it, as plainly as if I had seen the arts of
+Le Subtil," he added; "the singer, being a man whose gifts lay chiefly
+in his throat and feet, was made to go first, and the others have trod
+in his steps, imitating their formation."
+
+"But," cried Duncan, "I see no signs of--"
+
+"The gentle ones," interrupted the scout; "the varlet has found a way to
+carry them, until he supposed he had thrown any followers off the scent.
+My life on it, we see their pretty little feet again, before many rods
+go by."
+
+The whole party now proceeded, following the course of the rill, keeping
+anxious eyes on the regular impressions. The water soon flowed into its
+bed again, but watching the ground on either side, the foresters pursued
+their way content with knowing that the trail lay beneath. More than
+half a mile was passed, before the rill rippled close around the base of
+an extensive and dry rock. Here they paused to make sure that the Hurons
+had not quitted the water.
+
+It was fortunate they did so. For the quick and active Uncas soon found
+the impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it would seem an
+Indian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the direction given by this
+discovery, he entered the neighboring thicket, and struck the trail, as
+fresh and obvious as it had been before they reached the spring. Another
+shout announced the good fortune of the youth to his companions, and at
+once terminated the search.
+
+"Ay, it has been planned with Indian judgment," said the scout, when the
+party was assembled around the place; "and would have blinded white
+eyes."
+
+"Shall we proceed?" demanded Heyward.
+
+"Softly, softly: we know our path; but it is good to examine the
+formation of things. This is my schooling, major; and if one neglects
+the book, there is little chance of learning from the open hand of
+Providence. All is plain but one thing, which is the manner that the
+knave contrived to get the gentle ones along the blind trail. Even a
+Huron would be too proud to let their tender feet touch the water."
+
+"Will this assist in explaining the difficulty?" said Heyward, pointing
+towards the fragments of a sort of handbarrow, that had been rudely
+constructed of boughs, and bound together with withes, and which now
+seemed carelessly cast aside as useless.
+
+"'Tis explained!" cried the delighted Hawkeye. "If them varlets have
+passed a minute, they have spent hours in striving to fabricate a lying
+end to their trail! Well, I've known them to waste a day in the same
+manner, to as little purpose. Here we have three pair of moccasins, and
+two of little feet. It is amazing that any mortal beings can journey on
+limbs so small! Pass me the thong of buckskin, Uncas, and let me take
+the length of this foot. By the Lord, it is no longer than a child's and
+yet the maidens are tall and comely. That Providence is partial in its
+gifts, for its own wise reasons, the best and most contented of us must
+allow."
+
+"The tender limbs of my daughters are unequal to these hardships," said
+Munro, looking at the light footsteps of his children, with a parent's
+love: "we shall find their fainting forms in this desert."
+
+"Of that there is little cause of fear," returned the scout, slowly
+shaking his head; "this is a firm and straight, though a light step, and
+not over long. See, the heel has hardly touched the ground; and there
+the dark-hair has made a little jump, from root to root. No, no; my
+knowledge for it, neither of them was nigh fainting, hereaway. Now, the
+singer was beginning to be foot-sore and leg-weary as is plain by his
+trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has travelled wide, and
+tottered; and there, again, it looks as though he journeyed on
+snow-shoes. Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly
+give his legs a proper training."
+
+From such undeniable testimony did the practised woodsman arrive at the
+truth, with nearly as much certainty and precision as if he had been a
+witness of all those events which his ingenuity so easily elucidated.
+Cheered by these assurances, and satisfied by a reasoning that was so
+obvious, while it was so simple, the party resumed its course, after
+making a short halt to take a hurried repast.
+
+When the meal was ended, the scout cast a glance upwards at the setting
+sun, and pushed forward with a rapidity which compelled Heyward and the
+still vigorous Munro to exert all their muscles to equal. Their route
+now lay along the bottom which had already been mentioned. As the Hurons
+had made no further efforts to conceal their footsteps, the progress of
+the pursuers was no longer delayed by uncertainty. Before an hour had
+elapsed, however, the speed of Hawkeye sensibly abated, and his head,
+instead of maintaining its former direct and forward look, began to turn
+suspiciously from side to side, as if he were conscious of approaching
+danger. He soon stopped again, and waited for the whole party to come
+up.
+
+"I scent the Hurons," he said, speaking to the Mohicans; "yonder is open
+sky, through the tree-tops, and we are getting too nigh their
+encampment. Sagamore, you will take the hillside, to the right; Uncas
+will bend along the brook to the left, while I will try the trail. If
+anything should happen, the call will be three croaks of a crow. I saw
+one of the birds fanning himself in the air, just beyond the dead
+oak--another sign that we are touching an encampment."
+
+The Indians departed their several ways without reply, while Hawkeye
+cautiously proceeded with the two gentlemen. Heyward soon pressed to the
+side of their guide, eager to catch an early glimpse of those enemies he
+had pursued with so much toil and anxiety. His companion told him to
+steal to the edge of the wood, which, as usual, was fringed with a
+thicket, and wait his coming, for he wished to examine certain
+suspicious signs a little on one side. Duncan obeyed, and soon found
+himself in a situation to command a view which he found as extraordinary
+as it was novel.
+
+The trees of many acres had been felled, and the glow of a mild summer's
+evening had fallen on the clearing, in beautiful contrast to the gray
+light of the forest. A short distance from the place where Duncan stood,
+the stream had seemingly expanded into a little lake, covering most of
+the low land, from mountain to mountain. The water fell out of this wide
+basin, in a cataract so regular and gentle, that it appeared rather to
+be the work of human hands, than fashioned by nature. A hundred earthen
+dwellings stood on the margin of the lake, and even in its water, as
+though the latter had overflowed its usual banks. Their rounded roofs,
+admirably moulded for defence against the weather, denoted more of
+industry and foresight than the natives were wont to bestow on their
+regular habitations, much less on those they occupied for the temporary
+purposes of hunting and war. In short, the whole village or town,
+whichever it might be termed, possessed more of method and neatness of
+execution, than the white men had been accustomed to believe belonged,
+ordinarily, to the Indian habits. It appeared, however, to be deserted.
+At least, so thought Duncan for many minutes; but, at length, he fancied
+he discovered several human forms advancing towards him on all fours,
+and apparently dragging in their train some heavy, and as he was quick
+to apprehend, some formidable engine. Just then a few dark looking heads
+gleamed out of the dwellings, and the place seemed suddenly alive with
+beings, which, however, glided from cover to cover so swiftly, as to
+allow no opportunity of examining their humors or pursuits. Alarmed at
+these suspicious and inexplicable movements, he was about to attempt the
+signal of the crows, when the rustling of leaves at hand drew his eyes
+in another direction.
+
+The young man started, and recoiled a few paces instinctively, when he
+found himself within a hundred yards of a stranger Indian. Recovering
+his recollection on the instant, instead of sounding an alarm, which
+might prove fatal to himself, he remained stationary, an attentive
+observer of the other's motions.
+
+An instant of calm observation served to assure Duncan that he was
+undiscovered. The native, like himself, seemed occupied in considering
+the low dwellings of the village, and the stolen movements of its
+inhabitants. It was impossible to discover the expression of his
+features, through the grotesque mask of paint under which they were
+concealed; though Duncan fancied it was rather melancholy than savage.
+His head was shaved, as usual, with the exception of the crown, from
+whose tuft three or four faded feathers from a hawk's wing were loosely
+dangling. A ragged calico mantle half-encircled his body, while his
+nether garment was composed of an ordinary shirt, the sleeves of which
+were made to perform the office that is usually executed by a much more
+commodious arrangement. His legs were bare, and sadly cut and torn by
+briers. The feet were, however, covered with a pair of good deer-skin
+moccasins. Altogether, the appearance of the individual was forlorn and
+miserable.
+
+Duncan was still curiously observing the person of his neighbor, when
+the scout stole silently and cautiously to his side.
+
+"You see we have reached their settlement or encampment," whispered the
+young man; "and here is one of the savages himself, in a very
+embarrassing position for our further movements."
+
+Hawkeye started, and dropped his rifle, directed by the finger of his
+companion, the stranger came under his view. Then lowering the dangerous
+muzzle, he stretched forward his long neck, as if to assist a scrutiny
+that was already intensely keen.
+
+"The imp is not a Huron," he said, "nor of any of the Canada tribes; and
+yet you see, by his clothes, the knave has been plundering a white. Ay,
+Montcalm has raked the woods for his inroad, and a whooping, murdering
+set of varlets has he gathered together. Can you see where he has put
+his rifle or his bow?"
+
+"He appears to have no arms; nor does he seem to be viciously inclined.
+Unless he communicate the alarm to his fellows, who as you see are
+dodging about the water, we have but little to fear from him."
+
+The scout turned to Heyward, and regarded him a moment with unconcealed
+amazement. Then opening wide his mouth, he indulged in unrestrained and
+heartfelt laughter, though in that silent and peculiar manner which
+danger had so long taught him to practise.
+
+Repeating the words, "fellows who are dodging about the water!" he
+added, "so much for schooling and passing a boyhood in the settlements!
+The knave has long legs, though, and shall not be trusted. Do you keep
+him under your rifle while I creep in behind, through the bush, and take
+him alive. Fire on no account."
+
+Heyward had already permitted his companion to bury part of his person
+in the thicket, when, stretching forth an arm, he arrested him, in order
+to ask,--
+
+"If I see you in danger, may I not risk a shot?"
+
+Hawkeye regarded him a moment, like one who knew not how to take the
+question; then nodding his head, he answered, still laughing, though
+inaudibly,--
+
+"Fire a whole platoon, major."
+
+In the next moment he was concealed by the leaves. Duncan waited several
+minutes in feverish impatience, before he caught another glimpse of the
+scout. Then he reappeared, creeping along the earth, from which his
+dress was hardly distinguishable, directly in the rear of his intended
+captive. Having reached within a few yards of the latter, he arose to
+his feet, silently and slowly. At that instant, several loud blows were
+struck on the water, and Duncan turned his eyes just in time to perceive
+that a hundred dark forms were plunging, in a body, into the troubled
+little sheet. Grasping his rifle, his looks were again bent on the
+Indian near him. Instead of taking the alarm, the unconscious savage
+stretched forward his neck, as if he also watched the movements about
+the gloomy lake, with a sort of silly curiosity. In the meantime, the
+uplifted hand of Hawkeye was above him. But, without any apparent
+reason, it was withdrawn, and its owner indulged in another long, though
+still silent, fit of merriment. When the peculiar and hearty laughter of
+Hawkeye was ended, instead of grasping his victim by the throat, he
+tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and exclaimed aloud,--
+
+"How now, friend! have you a mind to teach the beavers to sing?"
+
+"Even so," was the ready answer. "It would seem that the Being that gave
+them power to improve his gifts so well, would not deny them voices to
+proclaim his praise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+  _"Bot._--Are we all met?"
+
+  _"Qui._--Pat--pat; and here's a marvellous
+  Convenient place for our rehearsal."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+The reader may better imagine, than we describe, the surprise of
+Heyward. His lurking Indians were suddenly converted into four-footed
+beasts; his lake into a beaver pond; his cataract into a dam,
+constructed by those industrious and ingenious quadrupeds; and a
+suspected enemy into his tried friend, David Gamut, the master of
+psalmody. The presence of the latter created so many unexpected hopes
+relative to the sisters that, without a moment's hesitation, the young
+man broke out of his ambush, and sprang forward to join the two
+principal actors in the scene.
+
+The merriment of Hawkeye was not easily appeased. Without ceremony, and
+with a rough hand, he twirled the supple Gamut around on his heel, and
+more than once affirmed that the Hurons had done themselves great credit
+in the fashion of his costume. Then seizing the hand of the other, he
+squeezed it with a gripe that brought the tears into the eyes of the
+placid David, and wished him joy of his new condition.
+
+"You were about opening your throat-practysings among the beavers, were
+ye?" he said. "The cunning devils know half the trade already, for they
+beat the time with their tails, as you heard just now; and in good time
+it was too, or 'Killdeer' might have sounded the first note among them.
+I have known greater fools, who could read and write, than an
+experienced old beaver; but as for squalling, the animals are born dumb!
+What think you of such a song as this?"
+
+David shut his sensitive ears, and even Heyward, apprised as he was of
+the nature of the cry, looked upwards in quest of the bird, as the
+cawing of a crow rang in the air about them.
+
+"See!" continued the laughing scout, as he pointed towards the remainder
+of the party, who, in obedience to the signal, were already
+approaching: "this is music which has its natural virtues; it brings two
+good rifles to my elbow, to say nothing of the knives and tomahawks. But
+we see that you are safe; now tell us what has become of the maidens."
+
+"They are captives to the heathen," said David; "and though greatly
+troubled in spirit, enjoying comfort and safety in the body."
+
+"Both?" demanded the breathless Heyward.
+
+"Even so. Though our wayfaring has been sore and our sustenance scanty,
+we have had little other cause for complaint, except the violence done
+our feelings, by being thus led in captivity into a far land."
+
+"Bless ye for these very words!" exclaimed the trembling Munro; "I shall
+then receive my babes spotless and angel-like, as I lost them!"
+
+"I know not that their delivery is at hand," returned the doubting
+David; "the leader of these savages is possessed of an evil spirit that
+no power short of Omnipotence can tame. I have tried him sleeping and
+waking, but neither sounds nor language seem to touch his soul."
+
+"Where is the knave?" bluntly interrupted the scout.
+
+"He hunts the moose to-day, with his young men; and to-morrow, as I
+hear, they pass farther into these forests, and nigher to the borders of
+Canada. The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighboring people, whose
+lodges are situate beyond yonder black pinnacle of rock; while the
+younger is detained among the women of the Hurons, whose dwellings are
+but two short miles hence, on a table-land, where the fire has done the
+office of the axe, and prepared the place for their reception."
+
+"Alice, my gentle Alice!" murmured Heyward; "she has lost the
+consolation of her sister's presence!"
+
+"Even so. But so far as praise and thanksgiving in psalmody can temper
+the spirit in affliction, she has not suffered."
+
+"Has she then a heart for music?"
+
+"Of the graver and more solemn character; though it must be acknowledged
+that, in spite of all my endeavors, the maiden weeps oftener than she
+smiles. At such moments I forbear to press the holy songs; but there are
+many sweet and comfortable periods of satisfactory communication, when
+the ears of the savages are astounded with the upliftings of our
+voices."
+
+"And why are you permitted to go at large, unwatched?"
+
+David composed his features into what he intended should express an air
+of modest humility, before he meekly replied--
+
+"Little be the praise to such a worm as I. But, though the power of
+psalmody was suspended in the terrible business of that field of blood
+through which we passed, it has recovered its influence even over the
+souls of the heathen, and I am suffered to go and come at will."
+
+The scout laughed, and tapping his own forehead significantly, he
+perhaps explained the singular indulgence more satisfactorily when he
+said--
+
+"The Indians never harm a non-composser. But why, when the path lay open
+before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not
+so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings
+to Edward?"
+
+The scout, remembering only his own sturdy and iron nature, had probably
+exacted a task that David, under no circumstances, could have performed.
+But, without entirely losing the meekness of his air, the latter was
+content to answer--
+
+"Though my soul would rejoice to visit the habitations of Christendom
+once more, my feet would rather follow the tender spirits intrusted to
+my keeping, even into the idolatrous province of the Jesuits, than take
+one step backward, while they pined in captivity and sorrow."
+
+Though the figurative language of David was not very intelligible, the
+sincere and steady expression of his eye, and the glow on his honest
+countenance, were not easily mistaken. Uncas pressed closer to his side,
+and regarded the speaker with a look of commendation, while his father
+expressed his satisfaction by the ordinary pithy exclamation of
+approbation. The scout shook his head as he rejoined--
+
+"The Lord never intended that the man should place all his endeavors in
+his throat, to the neglect of other and better gifts! But he has fallen
+into the hands of some silly woman, when he should have been gathering
+his education under a blue sky, among the beauties of the forest. Here,
+friend; I did intend to kindle a fire with this tooting whistle of
+thine; but as you value the thing, take it, and blow your best on it!"
+
+Gamut received his pitch-pipe with as strong an expression of pleasure
+as he believed compatible with the grave functions he exercised. After
+essaying its virtues repeatedly, in contrast with his own voice, and
+satisfying himself that none of its melody was lost, he made a very
+serious demonstration towards achieving a few stanzas of one of the
+longest effusions in the little volume so often mentioned.
+
+Heyward, however, hastily interrupted his pious purpose, by continuing
+questions concerning the past and present condition of his
+fellow-captives, and in a manner more methodical than had been permitted
+by his feelings in the opening of their interview. David, though he
+regarded his treasure with longing eyes, was constrained to answer:
+especially as the venerable father took a part in the interrogatories,
+with an interest too imposing to be denied. Nor did the scout fail to
+throw in a pertinent inquiry, whenever a fitting occasion presented. In
+this manner, though with frequent interruptions, which were filled with
+certain threatening sounds from the recovered instrument, the pursuers
+were put in possession of such leading circumstances as were likely to
+prove useful in accomplishing their great and engrossing object--the
+recovery of the sisters. The narrative of David was simple, and the
+facts but few.
+
+Magua had waited on the mountain until a safe moment to retire presented
+itself, when he had descended, and taken the route along the western
+side of the Horican, in the direction of the Canadas. As the subtle
+Huron was familiar with the paths, and well knew there was no immediate
+danger of pursuit, their progress had been moderate, and far from
+fatiguing. It appeared from the unembellished statement of David, that
+his own presence had been rather endured than desired; though even Magua
+had not been entirely exempt from that veneration with which the Indians
+regard those whom the Great Spirit has visited in their intellects. At
+night, the utmost care had been taken of the captives, both to prevent
+injury from the damps of the woods, and to guard against an escape. At
+the spring, the horses were turned loose, as has been seen; and
+notwithstanding the remoteness and length of their trail, the artifices
+already named were resorted to, in order to cut off every clue to their
+place of retreat. On their arrival at the encampment of his people,
+Magua, in obedience to a policy seldom departed from, separated his
+prisoners. Cora had been sent to a tribe that temporarily occupied an
+adjacent valley, though David was too ignorant of the customs and
+history of the natives to be able to declare anything satisfactory
+concerning their name or character. He only knew that they had not
+engaged in the late expedition against William Henry; that, like the
+Hurons themselves, they were allies of Montcalm; and that they
+maintained an amicable, though a watchful intercourse with the warlike
+and savage people, whom chance had, for a time, brought in such close
+and disagreeable contact with themselves.
+
+The Mohicans and the scout listened to his interrupted and imperfect
+narrative, with an interest that obviously increased as he proceeded;
+and it was while attempting to explain the pursuits of the community in
+which Cora was detained, that the latter abruptly demanded--
+
+"Did you see the fashion of their knives? Were they of English or French
+formation?"
+
+"My thoughts were bent on no such vanities, but rather mingled in
+consolation with those of the maidens."
+
+"The time may come when you will not consider the knife of a savage such
+a despisable vanity," returned the scout, with a strong expression of
+contempt for the other's dulness. "Had they held their corn-feast--or
+can you say anything of the totems of the tribe?"
+
+"Of corn, we had many and plentiful feasts; for the grain, being in the
+milk, is both sweet to the mouth and comfortable to the stomach. Of
+totem, I know not the meaning; but if it appertaineth in any wise to the
+art of Indian music, it need not be inquired after at their hands. They
+never join their voices in praise, and it would seem that they are among
+the profanest of the idolatrous."
+
+"Therein you belie the nature of an Indian. Even the Mingo adores but
+the true and living God. 'Tis a wicked fabrication of the whites, and I
+say it to the shame of my color, that would make the warrior bow down
+before images of his own creation. It is true, they endeavor to make
+truces with the wicked one--as who would not with an enemy he cannot
+conquer!--but they look up for favor and assistance to the Great and
+Good Spirit only."
+
+"It may be so," said David; "but I have seen strange and fantastic
+images drawn in their paint, of which their admiration and care savored
+of spiritual pride; especially one, and that, too, a foul and loathsome
+object."
+
+"Was it a sarpent?" quickly demanded the scout.
+
+"Much the same. It was in the likeness of an abject and creeping
+tortoise."
+
+"Hugh!" exclaimed both the attentive Mohicans in a breath; while the
+scout shook his head with an air of one who had made an important, but
+by no means a pleasing discovery. Then the father spoke, in the language
+of the Delawares, and with a calmness and dignity that instantly
+arrested the attention even of those to whom his words were
+unintelligible. His gestures were impressive, and at times energetic.
+Once he lifted his arm on high; and as it descended, the action threw
+aside the folds of his light mantle, a finger resting on his breast, as
+if he would enforce his meaning by the attitude. Duncan's eyes followed
+the movement, and he perceived that the animal just mentioned was
+beautifully, though faintly, worked in a blue tint, on the swarthy
+breast of the chief. All that he had ever heard of the violent
+separation of the vast tribes of the Delawares rushed across his mind,
+and he awaited the proper moment to speak, with a suspense that was
+rendered nearly intolerable, by his interest in the stake. His wish,
+however, was anticipated by the scout, who turned from his red friend,
+saying--
+
+"We have found that which may be good or evil to us, as Heaven disposes.
+The Sagamore is of the high blood of the Delawares, and is the great
+chief of their Tortoises! That some of this stock are among the people
+of whom the singer tells us, is plain, by his words; and had he but
+spent half the breath in prudent questions, that he has blown away in
+making a trumpet of his throat, we might have known how many warriors
+they numbered. It is, altogether, a dangerous path we move in; for a
+friend whose face is turned from you often bears a bloodier mind than
+the enemy who seeks your scalp."
+
+"Explain," said Duncan.
+
+"'Tis a long and melancholy tradition, and one I little like to think
+of; for it is not to be denied, that the evil has been mainly done by
+men with white skins. But it has ended in turning the tomahawk of
+brother against brother, and brought the Mingo and the Delaware to
+travel in the same path."
+
+"You then suspect it is a portion of that people among whom Cora
+resides?"
+
+The scout nodded his head in assent, though he seemed anxious to waive
+the further discussion of a subject that appeared painful. The impatient
+Duncan now made several hasty and desperate propositions to attempt the
+release of the sisters. Munro seemed to shake off his apathy, and
+listened to the wild schemes of the young man with a deference that his
+gray hairs and reverend years should have denied. But the scout, after
+suffering the ardor of the lover to expend itself a little, found means
+to convince him of the folly of precipitation, in a matter that would
+require their coolest judgment and utmost fortitude.
+
+"It would be well," he added, "to let this man go in again, as usual,
+and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle ones of
+our approach, until we call him out, by signal, to consult. You know the
+cry of a crow, friend, from the whistle of the whippoorwill?"
+
+"'Tis a pleasing bird," returned David, "and has a soft and melancholy
+note! though the time is rather quick and ill-measured."
+
+"He speaks of the wish-ton-wish," said the scout; "well, since you like
+his whistle, it shall be your signal. Remember, then, when you hear the
+whippoorwill's call three times repeated, you are to come into the
+bushes where the bird might be supposed----"
+
+"Stop," interrupted Heyward; "I will accompany him."
+
+"You!" exclaimed the astonished Hawkeye; "are you tired of seeing the
+sun rise and set?"
+
+"David is a living proof that the Hurons can be merciful."
+
+"Ay, but David can use his throat, as no man in his senses would pervert
+the gift."
+
+"I, too, can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or
+everything to rescue her I love. Name your objections no longer; I am
+resolved."
+
+Hawkeye regarded the young man a moment in speechless amazement. But
+Duncan, who, in deference to the other's skill and services, had
+hitherto submitted somewhat implicitly to his dictation, now assumed the
+superior, with a manner that was not easily resisted. He waved his hand,
+in sign of his dislike to all remonstrance, and then, in more tempered
+language, he continued--
+
+"You have the means of disguise; change me; paint me, too, if you will;
+in short, alter me to anything--a fool."
+
+"It is not for one like me to say that he who is already formed by so
+powerful a hand as Providence, stands in need of a change," muttered the
+discontented scout. "When you send your parties abroad in war, you find
+it prudent, at least, to arrange the marks and places of encampment, in
+order that they who fight on your side may know when and where to expect
+a friend."
+
+"Listen," interrupted Duncan; "you have heard from this faithful
+follower of the captives, that the Indians are of two tribes, if not of
+different nations. With one, whom you think to be a branch of the
+Delawares, is she you call the 'dark-hair'; the other, and younger of
+the ladies, is undeniably with our declared enemies, the Hurons. It
+becomes my youth and rank to attempt the latter adventure. While you,
+therefore, are negotiating with your friends for the release of one of
+the sisters, I will effect that of the other, or die."
+
+The awakened spirit of the young soldier gleamed in his eyes, and his
+form became imposing under its influence. Hawkeye, though too much
+accustomed to Indian artifices not to foresee the danger of the
+experiment, knew not well how to combat this sudden resolution.
+
+Perhaps there was something in the proposal that suited his own hardy
+nature, and that secret love of desperate adventure, which had increased
+with his experience, until hazard and danger had become, in some
+measure, necessary to the enjoyment of his existence. Instead of
+continuing to oppose the scheme of Duncan, his humor suddenly altered,
+and he lent himself to its execution.
+
+"Come," he said, with a good-humored smile; "the buck that will take to
+the water must be headed, and not followed. Chingachgook has as many
+different paints as the engineer officer's wife, who takes down natur'
+on scraps of paper, making the mountains look like cocks of rusty hay,
+and placing the blue sky in reach of your hand. The Sagamore can use
+them, too. Seat yourself on the log; and my life on it, he can soon make
+a natural fool of you, and that well to your liking."
+
+Duncan complied; and the Mohican, who had been an attentive listener to
+the discourse, readily undertook the office. Long practised in all the
+subtle arts of his race, he drew, with great dexterity and quickness,
+the fantastic shadow that the natives were accustomed to consider as the
+evidence of a friendly and jocular disposition. Every line that could
+possibly be interpreted into a secret inclination for war, was carefully
+avoided; while, on the other hand, he studied those conceits that might
+be construed into amity.
+
+In short, he entirely sacrificed every appearance of the warrior to the
+masquerade of a buffoon. Such exhibitions were not uncommon among the
+Indians; and as Duncan was already sufficiently disguised in his dress,
+there certainly did exist some reason for believing that, with his
+knowledge of French, he might pass for a juggler from Ticonderoga,
+straggling among the allied and friendly tribes.
+
+When he was thought to be sufficiently painted, the scout gave him much
+friendly advice; concerted signals, and appointed the place where they
+should meet, in the event of mutual success. The parting between Munro
+and his young friend was more melancholy; still, the former submitted to
+the separation with an indifference that his warm and honest nature
+would never have permitted in a more healthful state of mind. The scout
+led Heyward aside, and acquainted him with his intention to leave the
+veteran in some safe encampment, in charge of Chingachgook, while he and
+Uncas pursued their inquiries among the people they had reason to
+believe were Delawares. Then renewing his cautions and advice, he
+concluded by saying, with a solemnity and warmth of feeling, with which
+Duncan was deeply touched:
+
+"And now God bless you! You have shown a spirit that I like; for it is
+the gift of youth, more especially one of warm blood and a stout heart.
+But believe the warning of a man who has reason to know all he says to
+be true. You will have occasion for your best manhood, and for a sharper
+wit than what is to be gathered in books, afore you outdo the cunning,
+or get the better of the courage of a Mingo. God bless you! if the
+Hurons master your scalp, rely on the promise of one who has two stout
+warriors to back him. They shall pay for their victory, with a life for
+every hair it holds. I say, young gentleman, may Providence bless your
+undertaking, which is altogether for good; and remember, that to outwit
+the knaves it is lawful to practise things that may not be naturally the
+gift of a white skin."
+
+Duncan shook his worthy and reluctant associate warmly by the hand, once
+more recommended his aged friend to his care, and returning his good
+wishes, he motioned to David to proceed. Hawkeye gazed after the
+high-spirited and adventurous young man for several moments, in open
+admiration; then shaking his head doubtingly, he turned, and led his own
+division of the party into the concealment of the forest.
+
+The route taken by Duncan and David lay directly across the clearing of
+the beavers, and along the margin of their pond.
+
+When the former found himself alone with one so simple, and so little
+qualified to render any assistance in desperate emergencies, he first
+began to be sensible of the difficulties of the task he had undertaken.
+The fading light increased the gloominess of the bleak and savage
+wilderness that stretched so far on every side of him; and there was
+even a fearful character in the stillness of those little huts, that he
+knew were so abundantly peopled. It struck him, as he gazed at the
+admirable structures and the wonderful precautions of their sagacious
+inmates, that even the brutes of these vast wilds were possessed of an
+instinct nearly commensurate with his own reason; and he could not
+reflect, without anxiety, on the unequal contest that he had so rashly
+courted. Then came the glowing image of Alice; her distress; her actual
+danger; and all the peril of his situation was forgotten. Cheering
+David, he moved on with the light and vigorous step of youth and
+enterprise.
+
+After making nearly a semicircle around the pond, they diverged from the
+water-course, and began to ascend to the level of a slight elevation in
+that bottom land, over which they journeyed. Within half an hour they
+gained the margin of another opening that bore all the signs of having
+been also made by the beavers, and which those sagacious animals had
+probably been induced, by some accident, to abandon, for the more
+eligible position they now occupied. A very natural sensation caused
+Duncan to hesitate a moment, unwilling to leave the cover of their bushy
+path, as a man pauses to collect his energies before he essays any
+hazardous experiment, in which he is secretly conscious they will all be
+needed. He profited by the halt, to gather such information as might be
+obtained from his short and hasty glances.
+
+On the opposite side of the clearing, and near the point where the brook
+tumbled over some rocks, from a still higher level, some fifty or sixty
+lodges, rudely fabricated of logs, brush, and earth intermingled, were
+to be discovered. They were arranged without any order, and seemed to be
+constructed with very little attention to neatness or beauty. Indeed, so
+very inferior were they in the two latter particulars to the village
+Duncan had just seen, that he began to expect a second surprise, no less
+astonishing than the former. This expectation was in no degree
+diminished, when, by the doubtful twilight, he beheld twenty or thirty
+forms rising alternately from the cover of the tall, coarse grass, in
+front of the lodges, and then sinking again from the sight, as it were
+to burrow in the earth. By the sudden and hasty glimpses that he caught
+of these figures, they seemed more like dark glancing spectres, or some
+other unearthly beings, than creatures fashioned with the ordinary and
+vulgar materials of flesh and blood. A gaunt, naked form was seen, for a
+single instant, tossing its arms wildly in the air, and then the spot it
+had filled was vacant; the figure appearing suddenly in some other and
+distant place, or being succeeded by another, possessing the same
+mysterious character. David, observing that his companion lingered,
+pursued the direction of his gaze, and in some measure recalled the
+recollection of Heyward, by speaking.
+
+"There is much fruitful soil uncultivated here," he said; "and I may
+add, without the sinful leaven of self-commendation, that since my short
+sojourn in these heathenish abodes, much good seed has been scattered by
+the wayside."
+
+"The tribes are fonder of the chase than of the arts of men of labor,"
+returned the unconscious Duncan, still gazing at the objects of his
+wonder.
+
+"It is rather joy than labor to the spirit, to lift up the voice in
+praise; but sadly do these boys abuse their gifts. Rarely have I found
+any of their age, on whom nature has so freely bestowed the elements of
+psalmody; and surely, surely, there are none who neglect them more.
+Three nights have I now tarried here, and three several times have I
+assembled the urchins to join in sacred song; and as often have they
+responded to my efforts with whoopings and howlings that have chilled my
+soul!"
+
+"Of whom speak you?"
+
+"Of those children of the devil, who waste the precious moments in
+yonder idle antics. Ah! the wholesome restraint of discipline is but
+little known among this self-abandoned people. In a country of birches,
+a rod is never seen; and it ought not to appear a marvel in my eyes,
+that the choicest blessings of Providence are wasted in such cries as
+these."
+
+David closed his ears against the juvenile pack, whose yell just then
+rang shrilly through the forest; and Duncan, suffering his lip to curl,
+as in mockery of his own superstition, said firmly:
+
+"We will proceed."
+
+Without removing the safeguards from his ears, the master of song
+complied, and together they pursued their way towards what David was
+sometimes wont to call "the tents of the Philistines."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+  "But though the beast of game
+  The privilege of chase may claim;
+  Though space and law the stag we lend
+  Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend;
+  Who ever recked, where, how, or when
+  The prowling fox was trapped or slain?"
+
+  _Lady of the Lake._
+
+
+It is unusual to find an encampment of the natives, like those of the
+more instructed whites, guarded by the presence of armed men. Well
+informed of the approach of every danger, while it is yet at a distance,
+the Indian generally rests secure under his knowledge of the signs of
+the forest, and the long and difficult paths that separate him from
+those he has most reason to dread. But the enemy who, by any lucky
+concurrence of accidents, has found means to elude the vigilance of the
+scouts, will seldom meet with sentinels nearer home to sound the alarm.
+In addition to this general usage, the tribes friendly to the French
+knew too well the weight of the blow that had just been struck, to
+apprehend any immediate danger from the hostile nations that were
+tributary to the crown of Britain.
+
+When Duncan and David, therefore, found themselves in the centre of the
+children, who played the antics already mentioned, it was with the least
+previous intimation of their approach. But so soon as they were
+observed, the whole of the juvenile pack raised, by common consent, a
+shrill and warning whoop; and then sank, as it were, by magic, from
+before the sight of their visitors. The naked, tawny bodies of the
+crouching urchins blended so nicely, at that hour, with the withered
+herbage, that at first it seemed as if the earth had, in truth,
+swallowed up their forms; though when surprise permitted Duncan to bend
+his look more curiously about the spot, he found it everywhere met by
+dark, quick, and rolling eyeballs.
+
+Gathering no encouragement from this startling presage of the nature of
+the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of
+the men, there was an instant when the young soldier would have
+retreated. It was, however, too late to appear to hesitate. The cry of
+the children had drawn a dozen warriors to the door of the nearest
+lodge, where they stood clustered in a dark and savage group, gravely
+awaiting the nearer approach of those who had unexpectedly come among
+them.
+
+David, in some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way with a
+steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert, into this
+very building. It was the principal edifice of the village, though
+roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees; being the lodge
+in which the tribe held its councils and public meetings during their
+temporary residence on the borders of the English province. Duncan found
+it difficult to assume the necessary appearance of unconcern, as he
+brushed the dark and powerful frames of the savages who thronged its
+threshold; but, conscious that his existence depended on his presence of
+mind, he trusted to the discretion of his companion, whose footsteps he
+closely followed, endeavoring, as he proceeded, to rally his thoughts
+for the occasion. His blood curdled when he found himself in absolute
+contact with such fierce and implacable enemies; but he so far mastered
+his feelings as to pursue his way into the centre of the lodge, with an
+exterior that did not betray the weakness. Imitating the example of the
+deliberate Gamut, he drew a bundle of fragrant brush from beneath a pile
+that filled a corner of the hut, and seated himself in silence.
+
+So soon as their visitor had passed, the observant warriors fell back
+from the entrance, and arranging themselves about him, they seemed
+patiently to await the moment when it might comport with the dignity of
+the stranger to speak. By far the greater number stood leaning, in lazy,
+lounging attitudes, against the upright posts that supported the crazy
+building, while three or four of the oldest and most distinguished of
+the chiefs placed themselves on the earth a little more in advance.
+
+A flaring torch was burning in the place, and sent its red glare from
+face to face and figure to figure, as it waved in the currents of air.
+Duncan profited by its light to read the probable character of his
+reception, in the countenances of his hosts. But his ingenuity availed
+him little, against the cold artifices of the people he had encountered.
+The chiefs in front scarce cast a glance at his person, keeping their
+eyes on the ground, with an air that might have been intended for
+respect, but which it was quite easy to construe into distrust. The men
+in shadow were less reserved. Duncan soon detected their searching, but
+stolen looks, which, in truth, scanned his person and attire inch by
+inch; leaving no emotion of the countenance, no gesture, no line of the
+paint, nor even the fashion of a garment, unheeded, and without comment.
+
+At length one whose hair was beginning to be sprinkled with gray, but
+whose sinewy limbs and firm tread announced that he was still equal to
+the duties of manhood, advanced out of the gloom of a corner, whither he
+had probably posted himself to make his observations unseen, and spoke.
+He used the language of the Wyandots, or Hurons; his words were,
+consequently, unintelligible to Heyward, though they seemed, by the
+gestures that accompanied them, to be uttered more in courtesy than
+anger. The latter shook his head, and made a gesture indicative of his
+inability to reply.
+
+"Do none of my brothers speak the French or the English?" he said, in
+the former language, looking about him from countenance to countenance,
+in hopes of finding a nod of assent.
+
+Though more than one had turned, as if to catch the meaning of his
+words, they remained unanswered.
+
+"I should be grieved to think," continued Duncan, speaking slowly, and
+using the simplest French of which he was the master, "to believe, that
+none of this wise and brave nation understand the language that the
+'Grand Monarque' uses when he talks to his children. His heart would be
+heavy did he believe his red warriors paid him so little respect!"
+
+A long and grave pause succeeded, during which no movement of a limb,
+nor any expression of an eye, betrayed the impression produced by his
+remark. Duncan, who knew that silence was a virtue among his hosts,
+gladly had recourse to the custom, in order to arrange his ideas. At
+length the same warrior who had before addressed him replied, by dryly
+demanding, in the language of the Canadas--
+
+"When our Great Father speaks to his people, is it with the tongue of a
+Huron?"
+
+"He knows no difference in his children, whether the color of the skin
+be red, or black, or white," returned Duncan, evasively; "though chiefly
+is he satisfied with the brave Hurons."
+
+"In what manner will he speak," demanded the wary chief, "when the
+runners count to him the scalps which five nights ago grew on the heads
+of the Yengeese?"
+
+"They were his enemies," said Duncan, shuddering involuntarily; "and,
+doubtless, he will say, It is good; my Hurons are very gallant."
+
+"Our Canada father does not think it. Instead of looking forward to
+reward his Indians, his eyes are turned backward. He sees the dead
+Yengeese, but no Huron. What can this mean?"
+
+"A great chief, like him, has more thoughts than tongues. He looks to
+see that no enemies are on his trail."
+
+"The canoe of a dead warrior will not float on the Horican," returned
+the savage, gloomily. "His ears are open to the Delawares, who are not
+our friends, and they fill them with lies."
+
+"It cannot be. See; he has bid me, who am a man that knows the art of
+healing, to go to his children, the red Hurons of the great lakes, and
+ask if any are sick!"
+
+Another silence succeeded this annunciation of the character Duncan had
+assumed. Every eye was simultaneously bent on his person, as if to
+inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declaration, with an
+intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of their scrutiny to
+tremble for the result. He was, however, relieved again by the former
+speaker.
+
+"Do the cunning men of the Canadas paint their skins?" the Huron coldly
+continued; "we have heard them boast that their faces were pale."
+
+"When an Indian chief comes among his white fathers," returned Duncan,
+with great steadiness, "he lays aside his buffalo robe, to carry the
+shirt that is offered him. My brothers have given me paint, and I wear
+it."
+
+A low murmur of applause announced that the compliment to the tribe was
+favorably received. The elderly chief made a gesture of commendation,
+which was answered by most of his companions, who each threw forth a
+hand, and uttered a brief exclamation of pleasure. Duncan began to
+breathe more freely, believing that the weight of his examination was
+past; and as he had already prepared a simple and probable tale to
+support his pretended occupation, his hopes of ultimate success grew
+brighter.
+
+After a silence of a few moments, as if adjusting his thoughts, in order
+to make a suitable answer to the declaration their guest had just given,
+another warrior arose, and placed himself in an attitude to speak. While
+his lips were yet in the act of parting, a low but fearful sound arose
+from the forest, and was immediately succeeded by a high, shrill yell,
+that was drawn out, until it equalled the longest and most plaintive
+howl of the wolf. The sudden and terrible interruption caused Duncan to
+start from his seat, unconscious of everything but the effect produced
+by so frightful a cry. At the same moment, the warriors glided in a body
+from the lodge, and the outer air was filled with loud shouts, that
+nearly drowned those awful sounds, which were still ringing beneath the
+arches of the woods. Unable to command himself any longer, the youth
+broke from the place, and presently stood in the centre of a disorderly
+throng, that included nearly everything having life, within the limits
+of the encampment. Men, women, and children; the aged, the infirm, the
+active, and the strong, were alike abroad; some exclaiming aloud, others
+clapping their hands with a joy that seemed frantic, and all expressing
+their savage pleasure in some unexpected event. Though astounded, at
+first, by the uproar, Heyward was soon enabled to find its solution by
+the scene that followed.
+
+There yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit those
+bright openings among the tree-tops, where different paths left the
+clearing to enter the depths of the wilderness. Beneath one of them, a
+line of warriors issued from the woods, and advanced slowly towards the
+dwellings. One in front bore a short pole, on which, as it afterwards
+appeared, were suspended several human scalps. The startling sounds that
+Duncan had heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called
+the "death-halloo;" and each repetition of the cry was intended to
+announce to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of
+Heyward assisted him in the explanation; and as he now knew that the
+interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return of a successful
+war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted in inward
+congratulation, for the opportune relief and insignificance it conferred
+on himself.
+
+When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges, the newly
+arrived warriors halted. Their plaintive and terrific cry, which was
+intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead and the triumph
+of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their number now called
+aloud, in words that were far from appalling, though not more
+intelligible to those for whose ears they were intended, than their
+expressive yells. It would be difficult to convey a suitable idea of the
+savage ecstasy with which the news thus imparted was received. The whole
+encampment, in a moment, became a scene of the most violent bustle and
+commotion. The warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they
+arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended from the
+war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes, or whatever
+weapon of offence first offered itself to their hands, and rushed
+eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was at hand. Even the
+children would not be excluded; but boys, little able to wield the
+instruments, tore the tomahawks from the belts of their fathers, and
+stole into the ranks, apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited by
+their parents.
+
+Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and a wary and
+aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might serve to light the
+coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its power exceeded that of the
+parting day, and assisted to render objects at the same time more
+distinct and more hideous. The whole scene formed a striking picture,
+whose frame was composed of the dark and tall border of pines. The
+warriors just arrived were the most distant figures. A little in advance
+stood two men, who were apparently selected from the rest, as the
+principal actors in what was to follow. The light was not strong enough
+to render their features distinct, though it was quite evident that they
+were governed by very different emotions. While one stood erect and
+firm, prepared to meet his fate like a hero, the other bowed his head,
+as if palsied by terror or stricken with shame. The high-spirited Duncan
+felt a powerful impulse of admiration and pity towards the former,
+though no opportunity could offer to exhibit his generous emotions. He
+watched his slightest movement, however, with eager eyes; and as he
+traced the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and active frame,
+he endeavored to persuade himself, that if the powers of man, seconded
+by such noble resolution, could bear one harmless through so severe a
+trial, the youthful captive before him might hope for success in the
+hazardous race he was about to run. Insensibly the young man drew nigher
+to the swarthy lines of the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense
+became his interest in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was
+given, and the momentary quiet which had preceded it was broken by a
+burst of cries, that far exceeded any before heard. The most abject of
+the two victims continued motionless; but the other bounded from the
+place at the cry, with the activity and swiftness of a deer. Instead of
+rushing through the hostile lines, as had been expected, he just
+entered the dangerous defile, and before time was given for a single
+blow, turned short, and leaping the heads of a row of children, he
+gained at once the exterior and safer side of the formidable array. The
+artifice was answered by a hundred voices raised in imprecations; and
+the whole of the excited multitude broke from their order, and spread
+themselves about the place in wild confusion.
+
+A dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the place,
+which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena, in which
+malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody and lawless rites.
+The forms in the background looked like unearthly beings, gliding before
+the eye, and cleaving the air with frantic and unmeaning gestures; while
+the savage passions of such as passed the flames, were rendered
+fearfully distinct by the gleams that shot athwart their inflamed
+visages.
+
+It will easily be understood, that amid such a concourse of vindictive
+enemies, no breathing time was allowed the fugitive. There was a single
+moment when it seemed as if he would have reached the forest, but the
+whole body of his captors threw themselves before him, and drove him
+back into the centre of his relentless persecutors. Turning like a
+headed deer, he shot, with the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar
+of forked flame, and passing the whole multitude harmless, he appeared
+on the opposite side of the clearing. Here too he was met and turned by
+a few of the older and more subtle of the Hurons. Once more he tried the
+throng, as if seeking safety in its blindness, and then several moments
+succeeded, during which Duncan believed the active and courageous young
+stranger was lost.
+
+Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed and
+involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and
+formidable clubs, appeared above them, but the blows were evidently
+given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks
+of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan
+caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate
+bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained
+the command of his astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly the
+multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where he himself
+stood. The heavy body in the rear pressed upon the women and children in
+front, and bore them to the earth. The stranger reappeared in the
+confusion. Human power could not, however, much longer endure so severe
+a trial. Of this the captive seemed conscious. Profiting by the
+momentary opening, he darted from among the warriors, and made a
+desperate, and, what seemed to Duncan, a final effort to gain the wood.
+As if aware that no danger was to be apprehended from the young soldier,
+the fugitive nearly brushed his person in his flight. A tall and
+powerful Huron, who had husbanded his forces, pressed close upon his
+heels, and with an uplifted arm menaced a fatal blow. Duncan thrust
+forth a foot, and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many
+feet in advance of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker
+than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage; he
+turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and at
+the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed
+around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against a
+small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal lodge.
+
+Apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might prove fatal
+to himself, Duncan left the place without delay. He followed the crowd,
+which drew nigh the lodges, gloomy and sullen, like any other multitude
+that had been disappointed in an execution. Curiosity, or perhaps a
+better feeling, induced him to approach the stranger. He found him,
+standing with one arm cast about the protecting post, and breathing
+thick and hard, after his exertions, but disdaining to permit a single
+sign of suffering to escape. His person was now protected by immemorial
+and sacred usage, until the tribe in council had deliberated and
+determined on his fate. It was not difficult, however, to foretell the
+result, if any presage could be drawn from the feelings of those who
+crowded the place.
+
+There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary that the
+disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the successful stranger.
+They flouted at his efforts, and told him, with bitter scoffs, that his
+feet were better than his hands; and that he merited wings, while he
+knew not the use of an arrow or a knife. To all this the captive made no
+reply; but was content to preserve an attitude in which dignity was
+singularly blended with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure as
+by his good-fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were
+succeeded by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who had
+taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her way through
+the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive. The
+squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained for her
+the character of possessing more than human cunning. Throwing back her
+light vestment, she stretched forth her long skinny arm, in derision,
+and using the language of the Lenape, as more intelligible to the
+subject of her gibes, she commenced aloud--
+
+"Look you, Delaware!" she said, snapping her fingers in his face; "your
+nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your hands
+than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear, or a
+wild cat, or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The Huron
+girls shall make you petticoats, and we will find you a husband."
+
+A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which the soft
+and musical merriment of the younger females strangely chimed with the
+cracked voice of their older and more malignant companion. But the
+stranger was superior to all their efforts. His head was immovable; nor
+did he betray the slightest consciousness that any were present, except
+when his haughty eye rolled towards the dusky forms of the warriors, who
+stalked in the background, silent and sullen observers of the scene.
+
+Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman placed her arms
+akimbo; and throwing herself into a posture of defiance, she broke out
+anew, in a torrent of words that no art of ours could commit
+successfully to paper. Her breath was, however, expended in vain; for,
+although distinguished in her own nation as a proficient in the art of
+abuse, she was permitted to work herself into such a fury as actually to
+foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless
+figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend
+itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting
+the condition of a boy, to enter the state of manhood, attempted to
+assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim,
+and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the woman. Then, indeed,
+the captive turned his face towards the light, and looked down on the
+stripling with an expression that was superior to contempt. At the next
+moment he resumed his quiet and reclining attitude against the post. But
+the change of posture had permitted Duncan to exchange glances with the
+firm and piercing eyes of Uncas.
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE TERMAGANT
+
+_Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth her long skinny
+arm, in derision_]
+
+Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed with the critical
+situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled before the look, trembling
+lest its meaning might, in some unknown manner, hasten the prisoner's
+fate. There was not, however, any instant cause for such an
+apprehension. Just then a warrior forced his way into the exasperated
+crowd. Motioning the women and children aside with a stern gesture, he
+took Uncas by the arm, and led him towards the door of the council
+lodge. Thither all the chiefs, and most of the distinguished warriors,
+followed; among whom the anxious Heyward found means to enter without
+attracting any dangerous attention to himself.
+
+A few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present in a manner
+suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe. An order very similar
+to that adopted in the preceding interview was observed; the aged and
+superior chiefs occupying the area of the spacious apartment, within the
+powerful light of a glaring torch, while their juniors and inferiors
+were arranged in the background, presenting a dark outline of swarthy
+and marked visages. In the very centre of the lodge, immediately under
+an opening that admitted the twinkling light of one or two stars, stood
+Uncas, calm, elevated, and collected. His high and haughty carriage was
+not lost on his captors, who often bent their looks on his person, with
+eyes which, while they lost none of their inflexibility of purpose,
+plainly betrayed their admiration of the stranger's daring.
+
+The case was different with the individual whom Duncan had observed to
+stand forth with his friend, previously to the desperate trial of speed;
+and who, instead of joining in the chase, had remained, throughout its
+turbulent uproar, like a cringing statue, expressive of shame and
+disgrace. Though not a hand had been extended to greet him, nor yet an
+eye had condescended to watch his movements, he had also entered the
+lodge, as though impelled by a fate to whose decrees he submitted,
+seemingly, without a struggle. Heyward profited by the first opportunity
+to gaze in his face, secretly apprehensive he might find the features of
+another acquaintance; but they proved to be those of a stranger, and,
+what was still more inexplicable, of one who bore all the distinctive
+marks of a Huron warrior. Instead of mingling with his tribe, however,
+he sat apart, a solitary being in a multitude, his form shrinking into a
+crouching and abject attitude, as if anxious to fill as little space as
+possible. When each individual had taken his proper station, and silence
+reigned in the place, the gray-haired chief already introduced to the
+reader, spoke aloud, in the language of the Lenni Lenape.
+
+"Delaware," he said, "though one of a nation of women, you have proved
+yourself a man. I would give you food; but he who eats with a Huron
+should become his friend. Rest in peace till the morning sun, when our
+last words shall be spoken."
+
+"Seven nights, and as many summer days, have I fasted on the trail of
+the Hurons," Uncas coldly replied; "the children of the Lenape know how
+to travel the path of the just without lingering to eat."
+
+"Two of my young men are in pursuit of your companion," resumed the
+other, without appearing to regard the boast of his captive; "when they
+get back, then will our wise men say to you 'live' or 'die.'"
+
+"Has a Huron no ears?" scornfully exclaimed Uncas; "twice, since he has
+been your prisoner, has the Delaware heard a gun that he knows. Your
+young men will never come back!"
+
+A short and sullen pause succeeded this bold assertion. Duncan, who
+understood the Mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of the scout, bent
+forward in earnest observation of the effect it might produce on the
+conquerors; but the chief was content with simply retorting,--
+
+"If the Lenape are so skilful, why is one of their bravest warriors
+here?"
+
+"He followed in the steps of a flying coward, and fell into a snare. The
+cunning beaver may be caught."
+
+As Uncas thus replied, he pointed with his finger toward the solitary
+Huron, but without deigning to bestow any other notice on so unworthy an
+object. The words of the answer and the air of the speaker produced a
+strong sensation among his auditors. Every eye rolled sullenly towards
+the individual indicated by the simple gesture, and a low, threatening
+murmur passed through the crowd. The ominous sounds reached the outer
+door, and the women and children pressing into the throng, no gap had
+been left, between shoulder and shoulder, that was not now filled with
+the dark lineaments of some eager and curious human countenance.
+
+In the meantime, the more aged chiefs, in the centre, communed with each
+other in short and broken sentences. Not a word was uttered that did not
+convey the meaning of the speaker, in the simplest and most energetic
+form. Again, a long and deeply solemn pause took place. It was known,
+by all present, to be the grave precursor of a weighty and important
+judgment. They who composed the outer circle of faces were on tiptoe to
+gaze; and even the culprit for an instant forgot his shame in a deeper
+emotion, and exposed his abject features, in order to cast an anxious
+and troubled glance at the dark assemblage of chiefs. The silence was
+finally broken by the aged warrior so often named. He arose from the
+earth, and moving past the immovable form of Uncas, placed himself in a
+dignified attitude before the offender. At that moment, the withered
+squaw already mentioned moved into the circle, in a slow, sideling sort
+of a dance, holding the torch, and muttering the indistinct words of
+what might have been a species of incantation. Though her presence was
+altogether an intrusion, it was unheeded.
+
+Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in such a manner as to
+cast its red glare on his person, and to expose the slightest emotion of
+his countenance. The Mohican maintained his firm and haughty attitude;
+and his eye, so far from deigning to meet her inquisitive look, dwelt
+steadily on the distance, as though it penetrated the obstacles which
+impeded the view, and looked into futurity. Satisfied with her
+examination, she left him, with a slight expression of pleasure, and
+proceeded to practise the same trying experiment on her delinquent
+countryman.
+
+The young Huron was in his war paint, and very little of a finely
+moulded form was concealed by his attire. The light rendered every limb
+and joint discernible, and Duncan turned away in horror when he saw they
+were writhing in irrepressible agony. The woman was commencing a low and
+plaintive howl at the sad and shameful spectacle, when the chief put
+forth his hand and gently pushed her aside.
+
+"Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by name, and in
+his proper language, "though the Great Spirit has made you pleasant to
+the eyes, it would have been better that you had not been born. Your
+tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my
+young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post--none of them so
+lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they
+have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on
+you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never
+be mentioned again in your tribe--it is already forgotten."
+
+As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between
+each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's
+rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments.
+His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the
+persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for
+an instant predominated. He arose to his feet, and baring his bosom,
+looked steadily on the keen, glittering knife, that was already upheld
+by his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart he
+even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he
+had anticipated, and fell heavily on his face, at the feet of the rigid
+and unyielding form of Uncas.
+
+The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to the earth,
+and buried everything in darkness. The whole shuddering group of
+spectators glided from the lodge, like troubled sprites; and Duncan
+thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an Indian
+judgment had now become its only tenants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+  "Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
+  Dissolve the council, and their chief obey."
+
+  POPE'S _Iliad._
+
+
+A single moment served to convince the youth that he was mistaken. A
+hand was laid, with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and the low voice
+of Uncas muttered in his ears,--
+
+"The Hurons are dogs. The sight of a coward's blood can never make a
+warrior tremble. The 'Gray Head' and the Sagamore are safe, and the
+rifle of Hawkeye is not asleep. Go,--Uncas and the 'Open Hand' are now
+strangers. It is enough."
+
+Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a gentle push from his friend
+urged him towards the door, and admonished him of the danger that might
+attend the discovery of their intercourse. Slowly and reluctantly
+yielding to the necessity, he quitted the place, and mingled with the
+throng that hovered nigh. The dying fires in the clearing cast a dim and
+uncertain light on the dusky figures that were silently stalking to and
+fro; and occasionally a brighter gleam than common glanced into the
+lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas still maintaining its upright
+attitude near the dead body of the Huron.
+
+A knot of warriors soon entered the place again, and reissuing, they
+bore the senseless remains into the adjacent woods. After this
+termination of the scene, Duncan wandered among the lodges, unquestioned
+and unnoticed, endeavoring to find some trace of her in whose behalf he
+incurred the risk he ran. In the present temper of the tribe, it would
+have been easy to have fled and rejoined his companions, had such a wish
+crossed his mind. But, in addition to the never-ceasing anxiety on
+account of Alice, a fresher, though feebler interest in the fate of
+Uncas assisted to chain him to the spot. He continued, therefore, to
+stray from hut to hut, looking into each only to encounter additional
+disappointment, until he had made the entire circuit of the village.
+Abandoning a species of inquiry that proved so fruitless, he retraced
+his steps to the council lodge, resolved to seek and question David, in
+order to put an end to his doubts.
+
+On reaching the building which had proved alike the seat of judgment
+and the place of execution, the young man found that the excitement had
+already subsided. The warriors had reassembled, and were now calmly
+smoking, while they conversed gravely on the chief incidents of their
+recent expedition to the head of the Horican. Though the return of
+Duncan was likely to remind them of his character, and the suspicious
+circumstances of his visit, it produced no visible sensation. So far,
+the terrible scene that had just occurred proved favorable to his views,
+and he required no other prompter than his own feelings to convince him
+of the expediency of profiting by so unexpected an advantage.
+
+Without seeming to hesitate, he walked into the lodge, and took his seat
+with a gravity that accorded admirably with the deportment of his hosts.
+A hasty but searching glance sufficed to tell him that, though Uncas
+still remained where he had left him, David had not reappeared. No other
+restraint was imposed on the former than the watchful looks of a young
+Huron, who had placed himself at hand; though an armed warrior leaned
+against the post that formed one side of the narrow door-way. In every
+other respect, the captive seemed at liberty; still he was excluded from
+all participation in the discourse, and possessed much more of the air
+of some finely moulded statue than a man having life and volition.
+
+Heyward had too recently witnessed a frightful instance of the prompt
+punishments of the people into whose hands he had fallen, to hazard an
+exposure by any officious boldness. He would greatly have preferred
+silence and meditation to speech, when a discovery of his real condition
+might prove so instantly fatal. Unfortunately for this prudent
+resolution, his entertainers appeared otherwise disposed. He had not
+long occupied the seat wisely taken a little in the shade, when another
+of the elder warriors, who spoke the French language, addressed him:--
+
+"My Canada father does not forget his children," said the chief; "I
+thank him. An evil spirit lives in the wife of one of my young men. Can
+the cunning stranger frighten him away?"
+
+Heyward possessed some knowledge of the mummery practised among the
+Indians, in the cases of such supposed visitations. He saw, at a glance,
+that the circumstance might possibly be improved to further his own end.
+It would, therefore, have been difficult, just then, to have uttered a
+proposal that would have given him more satisfaction. Aware of the
+necessity of preserving the dignity of his imaginary character, however,
+he repressed his feelings, and answered with suitable mystery,--
+
+"Spirits differ; some yield to the power of wisdom, while others are too
+strong."
+
+"My brother is a great medicine," said the cunning savage; "he will
+try?"
+
+A gesture of assent was the answer. The Huron was content with the
+assurance, and resuming his pipe, he awaited the proper moment to move.
+The impatient Heyward, inwardly execrating the cold customs of the
+savages, which required such sacrifices to appearance, was fain to
+assume an air of indifference, equal to that maintained by the chief,
+who was, in truth, a near relative of the afflicted woman. The minutes
+lingered, and the delay had seemed an hour to the adventurer in
+empiricism, when the Huron laid aside his pipe, and drew his robe across
+his breast, as if about to lead the way to the lodge of the invalid.
+Just then, a warrior of powerful frame darkened the door, and stalking
+silently among the attentive group, he seated himself on one end of the
+low pile of brush which sustained Duncan. The latter cast an impatient
+look at his neighbor, and felt his flesh creep with uncontrollable
+horror when he found himself in actual contact with Magua.
+
+The sudden return of this artful and dreaded chief caused a delay in the
+departure of the Huron. Several pipes, that had been extinguished, were
+lighted again; while the newcomer, without speaking a word, drew his
+tomahawk from his girdle, and filling the bowl on its head, began to
+inhale the vapors of the weed through the hollow handle, with as much
+indifference as if he had not been absent two weary days on a long and
+toilsome hunt. Ten minutes, which appeared so many ages to Duncan, might
+have passed in this manner; and the warriors were fairly enveloped in a
+cloud of white smoke before any of them spoke.
+
+"Welcome!" one at length uttered; "has my friend found the moose?"
+
+"The young men stagger under their burdens," returned Magua. "Let
+'Reed-that-bends' go on the hunting-path; he will meet them."
+
+A deep and awful silence succeeded the utterance of the forbidden name.
+Each pipe dropped from the lips of its owner as though all had inhaled
+an impurity at the same instant. The smoke wreathed above their heads in
+little eddies, and curling in a spiral form, it ascended swiftly
+through the opening in the roof of the lodge, leaving the place beneath
+clear of its fumes, and each dark visage distinctly visible. The looks
+of most of the warriors were riveted on the earth; though a few of the
+younger and less gifted of the party suffered their wild and glaring
+eyeballs to roll in the direction of a white-headed savage, who sat
+between two of the most venerated chiefs of the tribe. There was nothing
+in the air or attire of this Indian that would seem to entitle him to
+such a distinction. The former was rather depressed, than remarkable for
+the bearing of the natives; and the latter was such as was commonly worn
+by the ordinary men of the nation. Like most around him, for more than a
+minute his look too was on the ground; but, trusting his eyes at length
+to steal a glance aside, he perceived that he was becoming an object of
+general attention. Then he arose and lifted his voice in the general
+silence.
+
+"It was a lie," he said; "I had no son. He who was called by that name
+is forgotten; his blood was pale; and it came not from the veins of a
+Huron; the wicked Chippewas cheated my squaw. The Great Spirit has said,
+that the family of Wiss-entush should end; he is happy who knows that
+the evil of his race dies with himself. I have done."
+
+The speaker, who was the father of the recreant young Indian, looked
+round and about him, as if seeking commendation of his stoicism in the
+eyes of his auditors. But the stern customs of his people had made too
+severe an exaction of the feeble old man. The expression of his eye
+contradicted his figurative and boastful language, while every muscle in
+his wrinkled visage was working with anguish. Standing a single minute
+to enjoy his bitter triumph, he turned away, as if sickening at the gaze
+of men, and veiling his face in his blanket, he walked from the lodge
+with the noiseless step of an Indian, seeking, in the privacy of his own
+abode, the sympathy of one like himself, aged, forlorn, and childless.
+
+The Indians, who believe in the hereditary transmission of virtues and
+defects in character, suffered him to depart in silence. Then, with an
+elevation of breeding that many in a more cultivated state of society
+might profitably emulate, one of the chiefs drew the attention of the
+young men from the weakness they had just witnessed, by saying, in a
+cheerful voice, addressing himself in courtesy to Magua, as the newest
+comer,--
+
+"The Delawares have been like bears after the honey-pots, prowling
+around my village. But who has ever found a Huron asleep?"
+
+The darkness of the impending cloud which precedes a burst of thunder
+was not blacker than the brow of Magua as he exclaimed,--
+
+"The Delawares of the Lakes!"
+
+"Not so. They who wear the petticoats of squaws, on their own river. One
+of them has been passing the tribe."
+
+"Did my young men take his scalp?"
+
+"His legs were good, though his arm is better for the hoe than the
+tomahawk," returned the other, pointing to the immovable form of Uncas.
+
+Instead of manifesting any womanish curiosity to feast his eyes with the
+sight of a captive from a people he was known to have so much reason to
+hate, Magua continued to smoke, with the meditative air that he usually
+maintained, when there was no immediate call on his cunning or his
+eloquence. Although secretly amazed at the facts communicated by the
+speech of the aged father, he permitted himself to ask no questions,
+reserving his inquiries for a more suitable moment. It was only after a
+sufficient interval that he shook the ashes from his pipe, replaced the
+tomahawk, tightened his girdle, and arose, casting for the first time a
+glance in the direction of the prisoner, who stood a little behind him.
+The wary, though seemingly abstracted Uncas, caught a glimpse of the
+movement, and turning suddenly to the light, their looks met. Near a
+minute these two bold and untamed spirits stood regarding one another
+steadily in the eye, neither quailing in the least before the fierce
+gaze he encountered. The form of Uncas dilated, and his nostrils opened
+like those of a tiger at bay; but so rigid and unyielding was his
+posture, that he might easily have been converted by the imagination
+into an exquisite and faultless representation of the warlike deity of
+his tribe. The lineaments of the quivering features of Magua proved more
+ductile; his countenance gradually lost its character of defiance in an
+expression of ferocious joy, and heaving a breath from the very bottom
+of his chest, he pronounced aloud the very formidable name of--
+
+"Le Cerf Agile!"
+
+Each warrior sprang upon his feet at the utterance of the well known
+appellation, and there was a short period during which the stoical
+constancy of the natives was completely conquered by surprise. The
+hated and yet respected name was repeated as by one voice, carrying the
+sound even beyond the limits of the lodge. The women and children, who
+lingered around the entrance, took up the words in an echo, which was
+succeeded by another shrill and plaintive howl. The latter was not yet
+ended, when the sensation among the men had entirely abated. Each one in
+presence seated himself, as though ashamed of his precipitation; but it
+was many minutes before their meaning eyes ceased to roll towards their
+captive, in curious examination of a warrior who had so often proved his
+prowess on the best and proudest of their nation. Uncas enjoyed his
+victory, but was content with merely exhibiting his triumph by a quiet
+smile--an emblem of scorn which belongs to all time and every nation.
+
+Magua caught the expression, and raising his arm, he shook it at the
+captive, the light silver ornaments attached to his bracelet rattling
+with the trembling agitation of the limb, as, in a tone of vengeance, he
+exclaimed, in English,--
+
+"Mohican, you die!"
+
+"The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life," returned
+Uncas, in the music of the Delawares; "the tumbling river washes their
+bones; their men are squaws; their women owls. Go! call together the
+Huron dogs, that they may look upon a warrior. My nostrils are offended;
+they scent the blood of a coward."
+
+The latter allusion struck deep, and the injury rankled. Many of the
+Hurons understood the strange tongue in which the captive spoke, among
+which number was Magua. This cunning savage beheld, and instantly
+profited by his advantage. Dropping the light robe of skin from his
+shoulder, he stretched forth his arm, and commenced a burst of his
+dangerous and artful eloquence. However much his influence among his
+people had been impaired by his occasional and besetting weakness, as
+well as by his desertion of the tribe, his courage and his fame as an
+orator were undeniable. He never spoke without auditors, and rarely
+without making converts to his opinions. On the present occasion, his
+native powers were stimulated by the thirst of revenge.
+
+He again recounted the events of the attack on the island at Glenn's,
+the death of his associates, and the escape of their most formidable
+enemies. Then he described the nature and position of the mount whither
+he had led such captives as had fallen into their hands. Of his own
+bloody intentions towards the maidens, and of his baffled malice he made
+no mention, but passed rapidly on to the surprise of the party by La
+Longue Carabine, and its fatal termination. Here he paused, and looked
+about him, in affected veneration for the departed, but, in truth, to
+note the effect of his opening narrative. As usual, every eye was
+riveted on his face. Each dusky figure seemed a breathing statue, so
+motionless was the posture, so intense the attention of the individual.
+
+Then Magua dropped his voice, which had hitherto been clear, strong, and
+elevated, and touched upon the merits of the dead. No quality that was
+likely to command the sympathy of an Indian escaped his notice. One had
+never been known to follow the chase in vain; another had been
+indefatigable on the trail of their enemies. This was brave, that
+generous. In short, he so managed his allusions, that in a nation, which
+was composed of so few families, he contrived to strike every chord that
+might find, in its turn, some breast in which to vibrate.
+
+"Are the bones of my young men," he concluded, "in the burial-place of
+the Hurons? You know they are not. Their spirits are gone towards the
+setting sun, and are already crossing the great waters, to the happy
+hunting-grounds. But they departed without food, without guns or knives,
+without moccasins, naked and poor as they were born. Shall this be? Are
+their souls to enter the land of the just like hungry Iroquois or
+unmanly Delawares; or shall they meet their friends with arms in their
+hands and robes on their backs? What will our fathers think the tribes
+of the Wyandots have become? They will look on their children with a
+dark eye, and say, Go! a Chippewa has come hither with the name of a
+Huron. Brothers, we must not forget the dead; a redskin never ceases to
+remember. We will load the back of this Mohican until he staggers under
+our bounty, and despatch him after my young men. They call to us for
+aid, though our ears are not open; they say, Forget us not. When they
+see the spirit of this Mohican toiling after them with his burden, they
+will know we are of that mind. Then will they go on happy; and our
+children will say, 'So did our fathers to their friends, so must we do
+to them.' What is a Yengee? we have slain many, but the earth is still
+pale. A stain on the name of a Huron can only be hid by blood that comes
+from the veins of an Indian. Let this Delaware die."
+
+The effect of such an harangue, delivered in the nervous language and
+with the emphatic manner of a Huron orator, could scarcely be mistaken.
+Magua had so artfully blended the natural sympathies with the religious
+superstition of his auditors, that their minds, already prepared by
+custom to sacrifice a victim to the _manes_ of their countrymen, lost
+every vestige of humanity in a wish for revenge. One warrior in
+particular, a man of wild and ferocious mien, had been conspicuous for
+the attention he had given to the words of the speaker. His countenance
+had changed with each passing emotion, until it settled into a look of
+deadly malice. As Magua ended he arose, and uttering the yell of a
+demon, his polished little axe was seen glancing in the torch-light as
+he whirled it above his head. The motion and the cry were too sudden for
+words to interrupt his bloody intention. It appeared as if a bright
+gleam shot from his hand, which was crossed at the same moment by a dark
+and powerful line. The former was the tomahawk in its passage; the
+latter the arm that Magua darted forward to divert its aim. The quick
+and ready motion of the chief was not entirely too late. The keen weapon
+cut the war-plume from the scalping-tuft of Uncas, and passed through
+the frail wall of the lodge, as though it were hurled from some
+formidable engine.
+
+Duncan had seen the threatening action, and sprang upon his feet, with a
+heart which while it leaped into his throat, swelled with the most
+generous resolution in behalf of his friend. A glance told him that the
+blow had failed, and terror changed to admiration. Uncas stood still,
+looking his enemy in the eye with features that seemed superior to
+emotion. Marble could not be colder, calmer, or steadier than the
+countenance he put upon this sudden and vindictive attack. Then, as if
+pitying a want of skill which had proved so fortunate to himself, he
+smiled, and muttered a few words of contempt in his own tongue.
+
+"No!" said Magua, after satisfying himself of the safety of the captive;
+"the sun must shine on his shame; the squaws must see his flesh tremble,
+or our revenge will be like the play of boys. Go! take him where there
+is silence; let us see if a Delaware can sleep at night, and in the
+morning die."
+
+The young men whose duty it was to guard the prisoner instantly passed
+their ligaments of bark across his arms, and led him from the lodge,
+amid a profound and ominous silence. It was only as the figure of Uncas
+stood in the opening of the door that his firm step hesitated. There he
+turned, and, in the sweeping and haughty glance that he threw around the
+circle of his enemies, Duncan caught a look which he was glad to
+construe into an expression that he was not entirely deserted by hope.
+
+Magua was content with his success, or too much occupied with his secret
+purposes to push his inquiries any further. Shaking his mantle, and
+folding it on his bosom, he also quitted the place, without pursuing a
+subject which might have proved so fatal to the individual at his elbow.
+Notwithstanding his rising resentment, his natural firmness, and his
+anxiety in behalf of Uncas, Heyward felt sensibly relieved by the
+absence of so dangerous and so subtle a foe. The excitement produced by
+the speech gradually subsided. The warriors resumed their seats, and
+clouds of smoke once more filled the lodge. For near half an hour, not a
+syllable was uttered, or scarcely a look cast aside; a grave and
+meditative silence being the ordinary succession to every scene of
+violence and commotion among those beings, who were alike so impetuous
+and yet so self-restrained.
+
+When the chief who had solicited the aid of Duncan finished his pipe, he
+made a final and successful movement towards departing. A motion of a
+finger was the intimation he gave the supposed physician to follow; and
+passing through the clouds of smoke, Duncan was glad, on more accounts
+than one, to be able, at last, to breathe the pure air of a cool and
+refreshing summer evening.
+
+Instead of pursuing his way among those lodges where Heyward had already
+made his unsuccessful search, his companion turned aside, and proceeded
+directly towards the base of an adjacent mountain, which overhung the
+temporary village. A thicket of brush skirted its foot, and it became
+necessary to proceed through a crooked and narrow path. The boys had
+resumed their sports in the clearing, and were enacting a mimic chase to
+the post among themselves. In order to render their games as like the
+reality as possible, one of the boldest of their number had conveyed a
+few brands into some piles of tree-tops that had hitherto escaped the
+burning. The blaze of one of these fires lighted the way of the chief
+and Duncan, and gave a character of additional wildness to the rude
+scenery. At a little distance from a bald rock, and directly in its
+front, they entered a grassy opening, which they prepared to cross. Just
+then fresh fuel was added to the fire, and a powerful light penetrated
+even to that distant spot. It fell upon the white surface of the
+mountain, and was reflected downwards upon a dark and mysterious-looking
+being that arose, unexpectedly, in their path.
+
+The Indian paused, as if doubtful whether to proceed, and permitted his
+companion to approach his side. A large black ball, which at first
+seemed stationary, now began to move in a manner that to the latter was
+inexplicable. Again the fire brightened, and its glare fell more
+distinctly on the object. Then even Duncan knew it, by its restless and
+sideling attitudes, which kept the upper part of its form in constant
+motion, while the animal itself appeared seated, to be a bear. Though it
+growled loudly and fiercely, and there were instants when its glistening
+eyeballs might be seen, it gave no other indications of hostility. The
+Huron, at least, seemed assured that the intentions of this singular
+intruder were peaceable, for after giving it an attentive examination,
+he quietly pursued his course.
+
+Duncan, who knew that the animal was often domesticated among the
+Indians, followed the example of his companion, believing that some
+favorite of the tribe had found its way into the thicket, in search of
+food. They passed it unmolested. Though obliged to come nearly in
+contact with the monster, the Huron, who had at first so warily
+determined the character of his strange visitor, was now content with
+proceeding without wasting a moment in further examination; but Heyward
+was unable to prevent his eyes from looking backward, in salutary
+watchfulness against attacks in the rear. His uneasiness was in no
+degree diminished when he perceived the beast rolling along their path,
+and following their footsteps. He would have spoken, but the Indian at
+that moment shoved aside a door of bark, and entered a cavern in the
+bosom of the mountain.
+
+Profiting by so easy a method of retreat, Duncan stepped after him, and
+was gladly closing the slight cover to the opening, when he felt it
+drawn from his hand by the beast, whose shaggy form immediately darkened
+the passage. They were now in a straight and long gallery, in a chasm of
+the rocks, where retreat without encountering the animal was impossible.
+Making the best of the circumstances, the young man pressed forward,
+keeping as close as possible to his conductor. The bear growled
+frequently at his heels, and once or twice its enormous paws were laid
+on his person, as if disposed to prevent his further passage into the
+den.
+
+How long the nerves of Heyward would have sustained him in this
+extraordinary situation, it might be difficult to decide; for, happily,
+he soon found relief. A glimmer of light had constantly been in their
+front, and they now arrived at the place whence it proceeded.
+
+A large cavity in the rock had been rudely fitted to answer the purposes
+of many apartments. The subdivisions were simple but ingenious, being
+composed of stone, sticks, and bark, intermingled. Openings above
+admitted the light by day, and at night fires and torches supplied the
+place of the sun. Hither the Hurons had brought most of their valuables,
+especially those which more particularly pertained to the nation; and
+hither, as it now appeared, the sick woman, who was believed to be the
+victim of supernatural power, had been transported also, under an
+impression that her tormentor would find more difficulty in making his
+assaults through walls of stone than through the leafy coverings of the
+lodges. The apartment into which Duncan and his guide first entered, had
+been exclusively devoted to her accommodation. The latter approached her
+bedside, which was surrounded by females, in the centre of whom Heyward
+was surprised to find his missing friend David.
+
+A single look was sufficient to apprise the pretended leech that the
+invalid was far beyond his powers of healing. She lay in a sort of
+paralysis, indifferent to the objects which crowded before her sight,
+and happily unconscious of suffering. Heyward was far from regretting
+that his mummeries were to be performed on one who was much too ill to
+take an interest in their failure or success. The slight qualm of
+conscience which had been excited by the intended deception was
+instantly appeased, and he began to collect his thoughts, in order to
+enact his part with suitable spirit, when he found he was about to be
+anticipated in his skill by an attempt to prove the power of music.
+
+Gamut, who had stood prepared to pour forth his spirit in song when the
+visitors entered, after delaying a moment, drew a strain from his pipe,
+and commenced a hymn that might have worked a miracle, had faith in its
+efficacy been of much avail. He was allowed to proceed to the close, the
+Indians respecting his imaginary infirmity, and Duncan too glad of the
+delay to hazard the slightest interruption. As the dying cadence of his
+strains was falling on the ears of the latter, he started aside at
+hearing them repeated behind him in a voice half human, half
+sepulchral. Looking around, he beheld the shaggy monster seated on end
+in a shadow of the cavern, where, while his restless body swung in the
+uneasy manner of the animal, it repeated, in a sort of low growl, sound,
+if not words, which bore some slight resemblance to the melody of the
+singer.
+
+The effect of so strange an echo on David may better be imagined than
+described. His eyes opened as if he doubted their truth; and his voice
+became instantly mute in excess of wonder. A deep-laid scheme, of
+communicating some important intelligence to Heyward, was driven from
+his recollection by an emotion which very nearly resembled fear, but
+which he was fain to believe was admiration. Under its influence, he
+exclaimed aloud--"She expects you, and is at hand;" and precipitately
+left the cavern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+  _"Snug._--Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give
+    it me, for I am slow of study."
+
+  _"Quince_.--You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+There was a strange blending of the ridiculous with that which was
+solemn in this scene. The beast still continued its rolling, and
+apparently untiring movements, though its ludicrous attempt to imitate
+the melody of David ceased the instant the latter abandoned the field.
+The words of Gamut were, as has been seen, in his native tongue; and to
+Duncan they seemed pregnant with some hidden meaning, though nothing
+present assisted him in discovering the object of their illusion. A
+speedy end was, however, put to every conjecture on the subject, by the
+manner of the chief, who advanced to the bedside of the invalid, and
+beckoned away the whole group of female attendants that had clustered
+there to witness the skill of the stranger. He was implicitly, though
+reluctantly, obeyed; and when the low echo which rang along the hollow
+natural gallery from the distant closing door had ceased, pointing
+towards his insensible daughter, he said,--
+
+"Now let my brother show his power."
+
+Thus unequivocally called on to exercise the functions of his assumed
+character, Heyward was apprehensive that the smallest delay might prove
+dangerous. Endeavoring then to collect his ideas, he prepared to perform
+that species of incantation, and those uncouth rites, under which the
+Indian conjurers are accustomed to conceal their ignorance and
+impotency. It is more than probable that, in the disordered state of his
+thoughts, he would soon have fallen into some suspicious, if not fatal
+error, had not his incipient attempts been interrupted by a fierce growl
+from the quadruped. Three several times did he renew his efforts to
+proceed, and as often was he met by the same unaccountable opposition,
+each interruption seeming more savage and threatening than the
+preceding.
+
+"The cunning ones are jealous," said the Huron; "I go. Brother, the
+woman is the wife of one of my bravest young men; deal justly by her.
+Peace!" he added, beckoning to the discontented beast to be quiet; "I
+go."
+
+The chief was as good as his word, and Duncan now found himself alone in
+that wild and desolate abode, with the helpless invalid, and the fierce
+and dangerous brute. The latter listened to the movements of the Indian
+with that air of sagacity that a bear is known to possess, until another
+echo announced that he had also left the cavern, when it turned and came
+waddling up to Duncan, before whom it seated itself, in its natural
+attitude, erect like a man. The youth looked anxiously about him for
+some weapon, with which he might make a resistance against the attack he
+now seriously expected.
+
+It seemed, however, as if the humor of the animal had suddenly changed.
+Instead of continuing its discontented growls, or manifesting any
+further signs of anger, the whole of its shaggy body shook violently, as
+if agitated by some strange internal convulsion. The huge and unwieldy
+talons pawed stupidly about the grinning muzzle, and while Heyward kept
+his eyes riveted on its movements with jealous watchfulness, the grim
+head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the honest, sturdy
+countenance of the scout, who was indulging from the bottom of his soul,
+in his own peculiar expression of merriment.
+
+"Hist!" said the wary woodsman, interrupting Heyward's exclamation of
+surprise; "the varlets are about the place, and any sounds that are not
+natural to witchcraft would bring them back upon us in a body."
+
+"Tell me the meaning of this masquerade; and why you have attempted so
+desperate an adventure."
+
+"Ah! reason and calculation are often outdone by accident," returned the
+scout. "But as a story should always commence at the beginning, I will
+tell you the whole in order. After we parted I placed the commandant and
+the Sagamore in an old beaver lodge, where they are safer from the
+Hurons than they would be in the garrison of Edward, for your high
+northwest Indians, not having as yet got the traders among them,
+continue to venerate the beaver. After which Uncas and I pushed for the
+other encampment, as was agreed; have you seen the lad?"
+
+"To my great grief! he is captive, and condemned to die at the rising of
+the sun."
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE MASQUERADER
+
+_The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the honest,
+sturdy countenance of the scout_]
+
+"I had misgivings that such would be his fate," resumed the scout, in a
+less confident and joyous tone. But soon regaining his naturally firm
+voice, he continued: "His bad fortune is the true reason of my being
+here, for it would never do to abandon such a boy to the Hurons. A rare
+time the knaves would have of it, could they tie The Bounding Elk and
+The Long Carabine, as they call me, to the same stake! Though why they
+have given me such a name I never knew, there being as little likeness
+between the gifts of 'Killdeer,' and the performance of one of your real
+Canada carabynes, as there is between the natur' of a pipe-stone and a
+flint!"
+
+"Keep to your tale," said the impatient Heyward; "we know not at what
+moment the Hurons may return."
+
+"No fear of them. A conjurer must have his time, like a straggling
+priest in the settlements. We are as safe from interruption as a
+missionary would be at the beginning of a two hours' discourse. Well,
+Uncas and I fell in with a return party of the varlets; the lad was much
+too forward for a scout; nay, for that matter, being of hot blood, he
+was not so much to blame; and, after all, one of the Hurons proved a
+coward, and in fleeing led him into an ambushment."
+
+"And dearly has he paid for the weakness!"
+
+The scout significantly passed his hand across his own throat, and
+nodded, as if he said, "I comprehend your meaning." After which he
+continued, in a more audible though scarcely more intelligible
+language,--
+
+"After the loss of the boy I turned upon the Hurons, as you may judge.
+There have been scrimmages atween one or two of their outlyers and
+myself; but that is neither here nor there. So, after I had shot the
+imps, I got in pretty nigh to the lodges without further commotion. Then
+what should luck do in my favor, but lead me to the very spot where one
+of the most famous conjurers of the tribe was dressing himself, as I
+well knew, for some great battle with Satan--though why should I call
+that luck, which it now seems was an especial ordering of Providence! So
+a judgmatical rap over the head stiffened the lying impostor for a time,
+and leaving him a bit of walnut for his supper, to prevent an uproar,
+and stringing him up atween two sapplings, I made free with his finery,
+and took the part of the bear on myself, in order that the operations
+might proceed."
+
+"And admirably did you enact the character; the animal itself might have
+been shamed by the representation."
+
+"Lord, major," returned the flattered woodsman, "I should be but a poor
+scholar for one who has studied so long in the wilderness, did I not
+know how to set forth the movements and natur' of such a beast. Had it
+been now a catamount, or even a full-sized panther, I would have
+embellished a performance for you worth regarding. But it is no such
+marvellous feat to exhibit the feats of so dull a beast; though, for
+that matter too, a bear may be overacted. Yes, yes; it is not every
+imitator that knows natur' may be outdone easier than she is equalled.
+But all our work is yet before us: where is the gentle one?"
+
+"Heaven knows; I have examined every lodge in the village, without
+discovering the slightest trace of her presence in the tribe."
+
+"You heard what the singer said, as he left us,--'She is at hand, and
+expects you'?"
+
+"I have been compelled to believe he alluded to this unhappy woman."
+
+"The simpleton was frightened, and blundered through his message; but he
+had a deeper meaning. Here are walls enough to separate the whole
+settlement. A bear ought to climb; therefore will I take a look above
+them. There may be honey-pots hid in these rocks, and I am a beast you
+know, that has a hankering for the sweets."
+
+The scout looked behind him, laughing at his own conceit, while he
+clambered up the partition, imitating, as he went, the clumsy motions of
+the beast he represented; but the instant the summit was gained he made
+a gesture for silence, and slid down with the utmost precipitation.
+
+"She is here," he whispered, "and by that door you will find her. I
+would have spoken a word of comfort to the afflicted soul; but the sight
+of such a monster might upset her reason. Though for that matter, major,
+you are none of the most inviting yourself in your paint."
+
+Duncan, who had already sprung eagerly forward, drew instantly back on
+hearing these discouraging words.
+
+"Am I, then, so very revolting?" he demanded, with an air of chagrin.
+
+"You might not startle a wolf, or turn the Royal Americans from a
+charge; but I have seen the time when you had a better-favored look;
+your streaked countenances are not ill-judged of by the squaws, but
+young women of white blood give the preference to their own color. See,"
+he added, pointing to a place where the water trickled from a rock,
+forming a little crystal spring before it found an issue through the
+adjacent crevices; "you may easily get rid of the Sagamore's daub, and
+when you come back I will try my hand at a new embellishment. It's as
+common for a conjurer to alter his paint as for a buck in the
+settlements to change his finery."
+
+The deliberate woodsman had little occasion to hunt for arguments to
+enforce his advice. He was yet speaking when Duncan availed himself of
+the water. In a moment every frightful or offensive mark was
+obliterated, and the youth appeared again in the lineaments with which
+he had been gifted by nature. Thus prepared for an interview with his
+mistress, he took a hasty leave of his companion, and disappeared
+through the indicated passage. The scout witnessed his departure with
+complacency, nodding his head after him, and muttering his good wishes;
+after which he very coolly set about an examination of the state of the
+larder, among the Hurons--the cavern, among other purposes, being used
+as a receptacle for the fruits of their hunts.
+
+Duncan had no other guide than a distant glimmering light, which served,
+however, the office of a polar star to the lover. By its aid he was
+enabled to enter the haven of his hopes, which was merely another
+apartment of the cavern, that had been solely appropriated to the
+safe-keeping of so important a prisoner as a daughter of the commandant
+of William Henry. It was profusely strewed with the plunder of that
+unlucky fortress. In the midst of this confusion he found her he sought,
+pale, anxious, and terrified, but lovely. David had prepared her for
+such a visit.
+
+"Duncan!" she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to tremble at the sounds
+created by itself.
+
+"Alice" he answered, leaping carelessly among trunks, boxes, arms, and
+furniture, until he stood at her side.
+
+"I knew that you would never desert me," she said, looking up with a
+momentary glow on her otherwise dejected countenance. "But you are
+alone! grateful as it is to be thus remembered, I could wish to think
+you are not entirely alone."
+
+Duncan, observing that she trembled in a manner which betrayed her
+inability to stand, gently induced her to be seated, while he recounted
+those leading incidents which it has been our task to record. Alice
+listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched
+lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father, taking care, however, not
+to wound the self-love of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the
+cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing
+tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her
+emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided attention,
+if not with composure.
+
+"And now, Alice," he added, "you will see how much is still expected of
+you. By the assistance of our experienced and invaluable friend, the
+scout, we may find our way from this savage people, but you will have to
+exert your utmost fortitude. Remember that you fly to the arms of your
+venerable parent, and how much his happiness, as well as your own,
+depends on those exertions."
+
+"Can I do otherwise for a father who has done so much for me?"
+
+"And for me too," continued the youth, gently pressing the hand he held
+in both his own.
+
+The look of innocence and surprise which he received in return convinced
+Duncan of the necessity of being more explicit.
+
+"This is neither the place nor the occasion to detain you with selfish
+wishes," he added; "but what heart loaded like mine would not wish to
+cast its burden? They say misery is the closest of all ties; our common
+suffering in your behalf left but little to be explained between your
+father and myself."
+
+"And dearest Cora, Duncan; surely Cora was not forgotten?"
+
+"Not forgotten! no; regretted, as woman was seldom mourned before. Your
+venerable father knew no difference between his children; but I--Alice,
+you will not be offended when I say, that to me her worth was in a
+degree obscured--"
+
+"Then you knew not the merit of my sister," said Alice, withdrawing her
+hand; "of you she ever speaks as of one who is her nearest friend."
+
+"I would gladly believe her such," returned Duncan, hastily; "I could
+wish her to be even more; but with you, Alice, I have the permission of
+your father to aspire to a still nearer and dearer tie."
+
+Alice trembled violently, and there was an instant during which she bent
+her face aside, yielding to the emotions common to her sex; but they
+quickly passed away, leaving her mistress of her deportment, if not of
+her affections.
+
+"Heyward," she said, looking him full in the face with a touching
+expression of innocence and dependency, "give me the sacred presence
+and the holy sanction of that parent before you urge me further."
+
+"Though more I should not, less I could not say," the youth was about to
+answer, when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder. Starting
+to his feet, he turned, and, confronting the intruder, his looks fell on
+the dark form and malignant visage of Magua. The deep guttural laugh of
+the savage sounded, at such a moment, to Duncan like the hellish taunt
+of a demon. Had he pursued the sudden and fierce impulse of the instant,
+he would have cast himself on the Huron, and committed their fortunes to
+the issue of a deadly struggle. But, without arms of any description,
+ignorant of what succor his subtle enemy could command, and charged with
+the safety of one who was just then dearer than ever to his heart, he no
+sooner entertained than he abandoned the desperate intention.
+
+"What is your purpose?" said Alice, meekly folding her arms on her
+bosom, and struggling to conceal an agony of apprehension in behalf of
+Heyward, in the usual cold and distant manner with which she received
+the visits of her captor.
+
+The exulting Indian had resumed his austere countenance, though he drew
+warily back before the menacing glance of the young man's fiery eye. He
+regarded both his captives for a moment with a steady look, and then
+stepping aside, he dropped a log of wood across a door different from
+that by which Duncan had entered. The latter now comprehended the manner
+of his surprise, and believing himself irretrievably lost, he drew Alice
+to his bosom, and stood prepared to meet a fate which he hardly
+regretted, since it was to be suffered in such company. But Magua
+meditated no immediate violence. His first measures were very evidently
+taken to secure his new captive; nor did he even bestow a second glance
+at the motionless forms in the centre of the cavern, until he had
+completely cut off every hope of retreat through the private outlet he
+had himself used. He was watched in all his movements by Heyward, who,
+however, remained firm, still folding the fragile form of Alice to his
+heart, at once too proud and too hopeless to ask favor of an enemy so
+often foiled. When Magua had effected his object he approached his
+prisoners, and said in English,--
+
+"The pale-faces trap the cunning beavers; but the redskins know how to
+take the Yengeese."
+
+"Huron, do your worst!" exclaimed the excited Heyward, forgetful that a
+double stake was involved in his life; "you and your vengeance are alike
+despised."
+
+"Will the white man speak these words at the stake?" asked Magua;
+manifesting, at the same time, how little faith he had in the other's
+resolution by the sneer that accompanied his words.
+
+"Here; singly to your face, or in the presence of your nation."
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief!" returned the Indian; "he will go
+and bring his young men to see how bravely a pale-face can laugh at the
+tortures."
+
+He turned away while speaking, and was about to leave the place through
+the avenue by which Duncan had approached, when a growl caught his ear,
+and caused him to hesitate. The figure of the bear appeared in the door,
+where it sat, rolling from side to side in its customary restlessness.
+Magua, like the father of the sick woman, eyed it keenly for a moment,
+as if to ascertain its character. He was far above the more vulgar
+superstitions of his tribe, and so soon as he recognized the well-known
+attire of the conjurer, he prepared to pass it in cool contempt. But a
+louder and more threatening growl caused him again to pause. Then he
+seemed as if suddenly resolved to trifle no longer, and moved resolutely
+forward. The mimic animal, which had advanced a little, retired slowly
+in his front, until it arrived again at the pass, when rearing on its
+hinder legs it beat the air with its paws, in the manner practised by
+its brutal prototype.
+
+"Fool!" exclaimed the chief, in Huron, "go play with the children and
+squaws; leave men to their wisdom."
+
+He once more endeavored to pass the supposed empiric, scorning even the
+parade of threatening to use the knife, or tomahawk, that was pendent
+from his belt. Suddenly the beast extended its arms, or rather legs, and
+inclosed him in a grasp that might have vied with the far-famed power of
+the "bear's hug" itself. Heyward had watched the whole procedure, on the
+part of Hawkeye, with breathless interest. At first he relinquished his
+hold of Alice; then he caught up a thong of buckskin, which had been
+used around some bundle, and when he beheld his enemy with his two arms
+pinned to his side by the iron muscles of the scout, he rushed upon him,
+and effectually secured them there. Arms, legs, and feet were encircled
+in twenty folds of the thong, in less time than we have taken to record
+the circumstance. When the formidable Huron was completely pinioned, the
+scout released his hold, and Duncan laid his enemy on his back, utterly
+helpless.
+
+Throughout the whole of this sudden and extraordinary operation, Magua,
+though he had struggled violently, until assured he was in the hands of
+one whose nerves were far better strung than his own, had not uttered
+the slightest exclamation. But when Hawkeye, by way of making a summary
+explanation of his conduct, removed the shaggy jaws of the beast, and
+exposed his own rugged and earnest countenance to the gaze of the Huron,
+the philosophy of the latter was so far mastered as to permit him to
+utter the never-failing,--
+
+"Hugh!"
+
+"Ay! you've found your tongue," said his undisturbed conqueror; "now, in
+order that you shall not use it to our ruin, I must make free to stop
+your mouth."
+
+As there was no time to be lost, the scout immediately set about
+effecting so necessary a precaution; and when he had gagged the Indian,
+his enemy might safely have been considered as _hors de combat_.
+
+"By what place did the imp enter?" asked the industrious scout, when his
+work was ended. "Not a soul has passed my way since you left me."
+
+Duncan pointed out the door by which Magua had come, and which now
+presented too many obstacles to a quick retreat.
+
+"Bring on the gentle one, then," continued his friend; "we must make a
+push for the woods by the other outlet."
+
+"'Tis impossible!" said Duncan; "fear has overcome her, and she is
+helpless. Alice! my sweet, my own Alice, arouse yourself; now is the
+moment to fly. 'Tis in vain! she hears, but is unable to follow. Go,
+noble and worthy friend; save yourself, and leave me to my fate!"
+
+"Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!"
+returned the scout. "There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all
+of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it
+will betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow.
+Leave the rest to me."
+
+Duncan, as may be gathered from the words of his companion, was eagerly
+obeying; and as the other finished speaking, he took the light person of
+Alice in his arms, and followed on the footsteps of the scout. They
+found the sick woman as they had left her, still alone, and passed
+swiftly on, by the natural gallery, to the place of entrance. As they
+approached the little door of bark, a murmur of voices without announced
+that the friends and relatives of the invalid were gathered about the
+place, patiently awaiting a summons to re-enter.
+
+"If I open my lips to speak," Hawkeye whispered, "my English, which is
+the genuine tongue of a white-skin, will tell the varlets that an enemy
+is among them. You must give 'em your jargon, major; and say that we
+have shut the evil spirit in the cave, and are taking the woman to the
+woods in order to find strengthening roots. Practyse all your cunning,
+for it is a lawful undertaking."
+
+The door opened a little, as if one without was listening to the
+proceedings within, and compelled the scout to cease his directions. A
+fierce growl repelled the eavesdropper, and then the scout boldly threw
+open the covering of bark, and left the place, enacting the character of
+the bear as he proceeded. Duncan kept close at his heels, and so found
+himself in the centre of a cluster of twenty anxious relatives and
+friends.
+
+The crowd fell back a little, and permitted the father, and one who
+appeared to be the husband of the woman, to approach.
+
+"Has my brother driven away the evil spirit?" demanded the former. "What
+has he in his arms?"
+
+"Thy child," returned Duncan, gravely; "the disease has gone out of her;
+it is shut up in the rocks. I take the woman to a distance, where I will
+strengthen her against any further attacks. She shall be in the wigwam
+of the young man when the sun comes again."
+
+When the father had translated the meaning of the stranger's words into
+the Huron language, a suppressed murmur announced the satisfaction with
+which the intelligence was received. The chief himself waved his hand
+for Duncan to proceed, saying aloud, in a firm voice, and with a lofty
+manner,--
+
+"Go; I am a man, and I will enter the rock and fight the wicked one."
+
+Heyward had gladly obeyed, and was already past the little group, when
+these startling words arrested him.
+
+"Is my brother mad?" he exclaimed; "is he cruel! He will meet the
+disease, and it will enter him; or he will drive out the disease, and it
+will chase his daughter into the woods. No; let my children wait
+without, and if the spirit appears beat him down with clubs. He is
+cunning, and will bury himself in the mountain, when he sees how many
+are ready to fight him."
+
+This singular warning had the desired effect. Instead of entering the
+cavern, the father and husband drew their tomahawks, and posted
+themselves in readiness to deal their vengeance on the imaginary
+tormentor of their sick relative, while the women and children broke
+branches from the bushes, or seized fragments of the rock, with a
+similar intention. At this favorable moment the counterfeit conjurers
+disappeared.
+
+Hawkeye, at the same time that he had presumed so far on the nature of
+the Indian superstitions, was not ignorant that they were rather
+tolerated than relied on by the wisest of the chiefs. He well knew the
+value of time in the present emergency. Whatever might be the extent of
+the self-delusion of his enemies, and however it had tended to assist
+his schemes, the slightest cause of suspicion, acting on the subtle
+nature of an Indian, would be likely to prove fatal. Taking the path,
+therefore, that was most likely to avoid observation, he rather skirted
+than entered the village. The warriors were still to be seen in the
+distance, by the fading light of the fires, stalking from lodge to
+lodge. But the children had abandoned their sports for their beds of
+skins, and the quiet of night was already beginning to prevail over the
+turbulence and excitement of so busy and important an evening.
+
+Alice revived under the renovating influence of the open air, and as her
+physical rather than her mental powers had been the subject of weakness,
+she stood in no need of any explanation of that which had occurred.
+
+"Now let me make an effort to walk," she said, when they had entered the
+forest, blushing, though unseen, that she had not been sooner able to
+quit the arms of Duncan; "I am indeed restored."
+
+"Nay, Alice, you are yet too weak."
+
+The maiden struggled gently to release herself, and Heyward was
+compelled to part with his precious burden. The representative of the
+bear had certainly been an entire stranger to the delicious emotions of
+the lover while his arms encircled his mistress; and he was, perhaps, a
+stranger also to the nature of that feeling of ingenuous shame that
+oppressed the trembling Alice. But when he found himself at a suitable
+distance from the lodges he made a halt, and spoke on a subject of which
+he was thoroughly the master.
+
+"This path will lead you to the brook," he said; "follow its northern
+bank until you come to a fall; and mount the hill on your right, and you
+will see the fires of the other people. There you must go and demand
+protection; if they are true Delawares, you will be safe. A distant
+flight with that gentle one, just now, is impossible. The Hurons would
+follow up our trail, and master our scalps, before we had got a dozen
+miles. Go, and Providence be with you."
+
+"And you!" demanded Heyward, in surprise; "surely we part not here?"
+
+"The Hurons hold the pride of the Delawares; the last of the high blood
+of the Mohicans is in their power," returned the scout; "I go to see
+what can be done in his favor. Had they mastered your scalp, major, a
+knave should have fallen for every hair it held, as I promised; but if
+the young Sagamore is to be led to the stake, the Indians shall see also
+how a man without a cross can die."
+
+Not in the least offended with the decided preference that the sturdy
+woodsman gave to one who might, in some degree, be called the child of
+his adoption, Duncan still continued to urge such reasons against so
+desperate an effort as presented themselves. He was aided by Alice, who
+mingled her entreaties with those of Heyward that he would abandon a
+resolution that promised so much danger, with so little hope of success.
+Their eloquence and ingenuity were expended in vain. The scout heard
+them attentively, but impatiently, and finally closed the discussion, by
+answering, in a tone that instantly silenced Alice, while it told
+Heyward how fruitless any further remonstrances would be,--
+
+"I have heard," he said, "that there is a feeling in youth which binds
+man to woman closer than the father is tied to the son. It may be so. I
+have seldom been where women of my color dwell; but such may be the
+gifts of nature in the settlements. You have risked life, and all that
+is dear to you, to bring off this gentle one, and I suppose that some
+such disposition is at the bottom of it all. As for me, I taught the lad
+the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have
+fou't at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could
+hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the
+other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and
+days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish,
+one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that
+Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand--There is but a single
+Ruler of us all, whatever may be the color of the skin; and Him I call
+to witness, that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a
+friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth, and 'Killdeer' become as
+harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE LOVERS
+
+_Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the distant village
+of the Delawares_]
+
+Duncan released his hold on the arm of the scout, who turned, and
+steadily retraced his steps towards the lodges. After pausing a moment
+to gaze at his retiring form, the successful and yet sorrowful Heyward,
+and Alice, took their way together towards the distant village of the
+Delawares.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+  "_Bot._--Let me play the lion too."
+
+  _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+Notwithstanding the high resolution of Hawkeye, he fully comprehended
+all the difficulties and dangers he was about to incur. In his return to
+the camp, his acute and practised intellects were intently engaged in
+devising means to counteract a watchfulness and suspicion on the part of
+his enemies, that he knew were, in no degree, inferior to his own.
+Nothing but the color of his skin had saved the lives of Magua and the
+conjurer, who would have been the first victims sacrificed to his own
+security, had not the scout believed such an act, however congenial it
+might be to the nature of an Indian, utterly unworthy of one who boasted
+a descent from men that knew no cross of blood. Accordingly, he trusted
+to the withes and ligaments with which he had bound his captives, and
+pursued his way directly towards the centre of the lodges.
+
+As he approached the buildings, his steps became more deliberate, and
+his vigilant eye suffered no sign, whether friendly or hostile, to
+escape him. A neglected hut was a little in advance of the others, and
+appeared as if it had been deserted when half completed--most probably
+on account of failing in some of the more important requisites; such as
+food or water. A faint light glimmered through its cracks, however, and
+announced that, notwithstanding its imperfect structure, it was not
+without a tenant. Thither, then, the scout proceeded, like a prudent
+general, who was about to feel the advanced positions of his enemy,
+before he hazarded the main attack.
+
+Throwing himself into a suitable posture for the beast he represented,
+Hawkeye crawled to a little opening, where he might command a view of
+the interior. It proved to be the abiding-place of David Gamut. Hither
+the faithful singing-master had now brought himself, together with all
+his sorrows, his apprehensions, and his meek dependence on the
+protection of Providence. At the precise moment when his ungainly person
+came under the observation of the scout, in the manner just mentioned,
+the woodsman himself, though in his assumed character, was the subject
+of the solitary being's profoundest reflections.
+
+However implicit the faith of David was in the performance of ancient
+miracles, he eschewed the belief of any direct supernatural agency in
+the management of modern morality. In other words, while he had implicit
+faith in the ability of Balsam's ass to speak, he was somewhat skeptical
+on the subject of a bear's singing; and yet he had been assured of the
+latter, on the testimony of his own exquisite organs. There was
+something in his air and manner that betrayed to the scout the utter
+confusion of the state of his mind. He was seated on a pile of brush, a
+few twigs from which occasionally fed his low fire, with his head
+leaning on his arm, in a posture of melancholy musing. The costume of
+the votary of music had undergone no other alteration from that so
+lately described, except that he had covered his bald head with the
+triangular beaver, which had not proved sufficiently alluring to excite
+the cupidity of any of his captors.
+
+The ingenious Hawkeye, who recalled the hasty manner in which the other
+had abandoned his post at the bedside of the sick woman, was not without
+his suspicions concerning the subject of so much solemn deliberation.
+First making the circuit of the hut, and ascertaining that it stood
+quite alone, and that the character of its inmate was likely to protect
+it from visitors, he ventured through its low door, into the very
+presence of Gamut. The position of the latter brought the fire between
+them; and when Hawkeye had seated himself on end, near a minute elapsed,
+during which the two remained regarding each other without speaking. The
+suddenness and the nature of the surprise had nearly proved too much
+for--we will not say the philosophy--but for the faith and resolution of
+David. He fumbled for his pitch-pipe, and arose with a confused
+intention of attempting a musical exorcism.
+
+"Dark and mysterious monster!" he exclaimed, while with trembling hands
+he disposed of his auxiliary eyes, and sought his never-failing resource
+in trouble, the gifted version of the Psalms: "I know not your nature
+nor intents; but if aught you meditate against the person and rights of
+one of the humblest servants of the temple, listen to the inspired
+language of the youth of Israel, and repent."
+
+The bear shook his shaggy sides, and then a well-known voice replied,--
+
+"Put up the tooting we'pon, and teach your throat modesty. Five words of
+plain and comprehensible English are worth, just now, an hour of
+squalling."
+
+"What art thou!" demanded David, utterly disqualified to pursue his
+original intention, and nearly gasping for breath.
+
+"A man like yourself; and one whose blood is as little tainted by the
+cross of a bear, or an Indian, as your own. Have you so soon forgotten
+from whom you received the foolish instrument you hold in your hand?"
+
+"Can these things be?" returned David, breathing more freely, as the
+truth began to dawn upon him. "I have found many marvels during my
+sojourn with the heathen, but surely nothing to excel this!"
+
+"Come, come," returned Hawkeye, uncasing his honest countenance, the
+better to assure the wavering confidence of his companion; "you may see
+a skin, which, if it be not as white as one of the gentle ones, has no
+tinge of red to it that the winds of heaven and the sun have not
+bestowed. Now let us to business."
+
+"First tell me of the maiden, and of the youth who so bravely sought
+her," interrupted David.
+
+"Ay, they are happily freed from the tomahawks of these varlets. But can
+you put me on the scent of Uncas?"
+
+"The young man is in bondage, and much I fear his death is decreed. I
+greatly mourn that one so well disposed should die in his ignorance, and
+I have sought a goodly hymn--"
+
+"Can you lead me to him?"
+
+"The task will not be difficult," returned David, hesitating; "though I
+greatly fear your presence would rather increase than mitigate his
+unhappy fortunes."
+
+"No more words, but lead on," returned Hawkeye, concealing his face
+again, and setting the example in his own person, by instantly quitting
+the lodge.
+
+As they proceeded, the scout ascertained that his companion found access
+to Uncas, under privilege of his imaginary infirmity, aided by the favor
+he had acquired with one of the guards, who, in consequence of speaking
+a little English, had been selected by David as the subject of a
+religious conversation. How far the Huron comprehended the intentions of
+his new friend, may well be doubted; but as exclusive attention is as
+flattering to a savage as to a more civilized individual, it had
+produced the effect we have mentioned. It is unnecessary to repeat the
+shrewd manner with which the scout extracted these particulars from the
+simple David; neither shall we dwell in this place on the nature of the
+instructions he delivered, when completely master of all the necessary
+facts; as the whole will be sufficiently explained to the reader in the
+course of the narrative.
+
+The lodge in which Uncas was confined was in the very centre of the
+village, and in a situation, perhaps, more difficult than any other to
+approach, or leave, without observation. But it was not the policy of
+Hawkeye to affect the least concealment. Presuming on his disguise, and
+his ability to sustain the character he had assumed, he took the most
+plain and direct route to the place. The hour, however, afforded him
+some little of that protection which he appeared so much to despise. The
+boys were already buried in sleep, and all the women, and most of the
+warriors, had retired to their lodges for the night. Four or five of the
+latter only lingered about the door of the prison of Uncas, wary but
+close observers of the manner of their captive.
+
+At the sight of Gamut, accompanied by one in the well known masquerade
+of their most distinguished conjurer, they readily made way for them
+both. Still they betrayed no intention to depart. On the other hand,
+they were evidently disposed to remain bound to the place by an
+additional interest in the mysterious mummeries that they of course
+expected from such a visit.
+
+From the total inability of the scout to address the Hurons in their own
+language, he was compelled to trust the conversation entirely to David.
+Notwithstanding the simplicity of the latter, he did ample justice to
+the instructions he had received, more than fulfilling the strongest
+hopes of his teacher.
+
+"The Delawares are women!" he exclaimed, addressing himself to the
+savage who had a slight understanding of the language in which he spoke;
+"the Yengeese, my foolish countrymen, have told them to take up the
+tomahawk, and strike their fathers in the Canadas, and they have
+forgotten their sex. Does my brother wish to hear Le Cerf Agile ask for
+his petticoats, and see him weep before the Hurons, at the stake?"
+
+The exclamation "Hugh!" delivered in a strong tone of assent, announced
+the gratification the savage would receive in witnessing such an
+exhibition of weakness in an enemy so long hated and so much feared.
+
+"Then let him step aside, and the cunning man will blow upon the dog!
+Tell it to my brothers."
+
+The Huron explained the meaning of David to his fellows, who, in their
+turn, listened to the project with that sort of satisfaction that their
+untamed spirits might be expected to find in such a refinement in
+cruelty. They drew back a little from the entrance, and motioned to the
+supposed conjurer to enter. But the bear, instead of obeying, maintained
+the seat it had taken, and growled.
+
+"The cunning man is afraid that his breath will blow upon his brothers,
+and take away their courage too," continued David, improving the hint he
+received; "they must stand farther off."
+
+The Hurons, who would have deemed such a misfortune the heaviest
+calamity that could befall them, fell back in a body, taking a position
+where they were out of ear-shot, though at the same time they could
+command a view of the entrance to the lodge. Then, as if satisfied of
+their safety, the scout left his position, and slowly entered the place.
+It was silent and gloomy, being tenanted solely by the captive, and
+lighted by the dying embers of a fire, which had been used for the
+purposes of cookery.
+
+Uncas occupied a distant corner, in a reclining attitude, being rigidly
+bound, both hands and feet, by strong and painful withes. When the
+frightful object first presented itself to the young Mohican, he did not
+deign to bestow a single glance on the animal. The scout, who had left
+David at the door, to ascertain they were not observed, thought it
+prudent to preserve his disguise until assured of their privacy. Instead
+of speaking, therefore, he exerted himself to enact one of the antics of
+the animal he represented. The young Mohican, who at first believed his
+enemies had sent in a real beast to torment him, and try his nerves,
+detected, in those performances that to Heyward had appeared so
+accurate, certain blemishes, that at once betrayed the counterfeit. Had
+Hawkeye been aware of the low estimation in which the more skilful Uncas
+held his representations, he would probably have prolonged the
+entertainment a little in pique. But the scornful expression of the
+young man's eye admitted of so many constructions, that the worthy scout
+was spared the mortification of such a discovery. As soon, therefore, as
+David gave the pre-concerted signal, a low hissing sound was heard in
+the lodge, in place of the fierce growlings of the bear.
+
+Uncas had cast his body back against the wall of the hut, and closed
+his eyes, as if willing to exclude so contemptible and disagreeable an
+object from his sight. But the moment the noise of the serpent was
+heard, he arose, and cast his looks on each side of him, bending his
+head low, and turning it inquiringly in every direction, until his keen
+eye rested on the shaggy monster, where it remained riveted, as though
+fixed by the power of a charm. Again the same sounds were repeated,
+evidently proceeding from the mouth of the beast. Once more the eyes of
+the youth roamed over the interior of the lodge, and returning to their
+former resting place, he uttered, in a deep, suppressed voice,--
+
+"Hawkeye!"
+
+"Cut his bands," said Hawkeye to David, who just then approached them.
+
+The singer did as he was ordered, and Uncas found his limbs released. At
+the same moment the dried skin of the animal rattled, and presently the
+scout arose to his feet, in proper person. The Mohican appeared to
+comprehend the nature of the attempt his friend had made, intuitively;
+neither tongue nor feature betraying another symptom of surprise. When
+Hawkeye had cast his shaggy vestment, which was done by simply loosing
+certain thongs of skin, he drew a long glittering knife, and put it in
+the hands of Uncas.
+
+"The red Hurons are without," he said; "let us be ready."
+
+At the same time he laid his finger significantly on another similar
+weapon, both being the fruits of his prowess among their enemies during
+the evening.
+
+"We will go," said Uncas.
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To the Tortoises; they are the children of my grandfathers."
+
+"Ay, lad," said the scout in English--a language he was apt to use when
+a little abstracted in mind; "the same blood runs in your veins, I
+believe; but time and distance have a little changed its color. What
+shall we do with the Mingos at the door? They count six, and this singer
+is as good as nothing."
+
+"The Hurons are boasters," said Uncas scornfully; "their 'totem' is a
+moose, and they run like snails. The Delawares are children of the
+tortoise, and they outstrip the deer."
+
+"Ay, lad, there is truth in what you say; and I doubt not, on a rush,
+you would pass the whole nation; and, in a straight race of two miles,
+would be in, and get your breath again, afore a knave of them all was
+within hearing of the other village. But the gift of a white man lies
+more in his arms than in his legs. As for myself, I can brain a Huron as
+well as a better man; but when it comes to a race, the knaves would
+prove too much for me."
+
+Uncas, who had already approached the door, in readiness to lead the
+way, now recoiled; and placed himself, once more, in the bottom of the
+lodge. But Hawkeye, who was too much occupied with his own thoughts to
+note the movement, continued speaking more to himself than to his
+companion.
+
+"After all," he said, "it is unreasonable to keep one man in bondage to
+the gifts of another. So, Uncas, you had better take the leap, while I
+put on the skin again, and trust to cunning for want of speed."
+
+The young Mohican made no reply, but quietly folded his arms, and leaned
+his body against one of the upright posts that supported the wall of the
+hut.
+
+"Well," said the scout, looking up at him, "why do you tarry? There will
+be time enough for me, as the knaves will give chase to you at first."
+
+"Uncas will stay," was the calm reply.
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To fight with his father's brother, and die with the friend of the
+Delawares."
+
+"Ay, lad," returned Hawkeye, squeezing the hand of Uncas between his own
+iron fingers; "'twould have been more like a Mingo than a Mohican had
+you left me. But I thought I would make the offer, seeing that youth
+commonly loves life. Well, what can't be done by main courage, in war,
+must be done by circumvention. Put on the skin; I doubt not you can play
+the bear nearly as well as myself."
+
+Whatever might have been the private opinion of Uncas of their
+respective abilities in this particular, his grave countenance
+manifested no opinion of his own superiority. He silently and
+expeditiously encased himself in the covering of the beast, and then
+awaited such other movements as his more aged companion saw fit to
+dictate.
+
+"Now, friend," said Hawkeye, addressing David, "an exchange of garments
+will be a great convenience to you, inasmuch as you are but little
+accustomed to the make-shifts of the wilderness. Here, take my hunting
+shirt and cap, and give me your blanket and hat. You must trust me with
+the book and spectacles, as well as the tooter, too; if we ever meet
+again, in better times, you shall have all back again, with many thanks
+into the bargain."
+
+David parted with the several articles named with a readiness that would
+have done great credit to his liberality, had he not certainly profited,
+in many particulars, by the exchange. Hawkeye was not long in assuming
+his borrowed garments; and when his restless eyes were hid behind the
+glasses, and his head was surmounted by the triangular beaver, as their
+statures were not dissimilar, he might readily have passed for the
+singer by star-light. As soon as these dispositions were made, the scout
+turned to David, and gave him his parting instructions.
+
+"Are you much given to cowardice?" he bluntly asked, by way of obtaining
+a suitable understanding of the whole case before he ventured a
+prescription.
+
+"My pursuits are peaceful, and my temper, I humbly trust, is greatly
+given to mercy and love," returned David, a little nettled at so direct
+an attack on his manhood; "but there are none who can say that I have
+ever forgotten my faith in the Lord, even in the greatest straits."
+
+"Your chiefest danger will be at the moment when the savages find out
+that they have been deceived. If you are not then knocked in the head,
+your being a non-composser will protect you; and you'll then have good
+reason to expect to die in your bed. If you stay, it must be to sit down
+here in the shadow, and take the part of Uncas, until such times as the
+cunning of the Indians discover the cheat, when, as I have already said,
+your time of trial will come. So choose for yourself,--to make a rush or
+tarry here."
+
+"Even so," said David, firmly; "I will abide in the place of the
+Delaware. Bravely and generously has he battled in my behalf; and this,
+and more, will I dare in his service."
+
+"You have spoken as a man, and like one who, under wiser schooling,
+would have been brought to better things. Hold your head down, and draw
+in your legs; their formation might tell the truth too early. Keep
+silent as long as may be; and it would be wise, when you do speak, to
+break out suddenly in one of your shoutings, which will serve to remind
+the Indians that you are not altogether as responsible as men should be.
+If, however, they take your scalp, as I trust and believe they will not,
+depend on it, Uncas and I will not forget the deed, but revenge it as
+becomes true warriors and trusty friends."
+
+"Hold!" said David, perceiving that with this assurance they were about
+to leave him; "I am an unworthy and humble follower of One who taught
+not the damnable principle of revenge. Should I fall, therefore, seek no
+victims to my manes, but rather forgive my destroyers; and if you
+remember them at all, let it be in prayers for the enlightening of their
+minds, and for their eternal welfare."
+
+The scout hesitated, and appeared to muse.
+
+"There is a principle in that," he said, "different from the law of the
+woods; and yet it is fair and noble to reflect upon." Then, heaving a
+heavy sigh, probably among the last he ever drew in pining for a
+condition he had so long abandoned, he added, "It is what I would wish
+to practise, myself, as one without a cross of blood, though it is not
+always easy to deal with an Indian as you would with a fellow Christian.
+God bless you, friend; I do believe your scent is not greatly wrong,
+when the matter is duly considered, and keeping eternity before the
+eyes, though much depends on the natural gifts, and the force of
+temptation."
+
+So saying, the scout returned and shook David cordially by the hand;
+after which act of friendship he immediately left the lodge, attended by
+the new representative of the beast.
+
+The instant Hawkeye found himself under the observation of the Hurons,
+he drew up his tall form in the rigid manner of David, threw out his arm
+in the act of keeping time, and commenced what he intended for an
+imitation of his psalmody. Happily for the success of this delicate
+adventure, he had to deal with ears but little practised in the concord
+of sweet sounds, or the miserable effort would infallibly have been
+detected. It was necessary to pass within a dangerous proximity of the
+dark group of the savages, and the voice of the scout grew louder as
+they drew nigher. When at the nearest point, the Huron who spoke the
+English thrust out an arm, and stopped the supposed singing-master.
+
+"The Delaware dog!" he said, leaning forward, and peering through the
+dim light to catch the expression of the other's features; "is he
+afraid? will the Hurons hear his groans?"
+
+A growl so exceedingly fierce and natural proceeded from the beast, that
+the young Indian released his hold and started aside, as if to assure
+himself that it was not a veritable bear, and no counterfeit, that was
+rolling before him. Hawkeye, who feared his voice would betray him to
+his subtle enemies, gladly profited by the interruption, to break out
+anew in such a burst of musical expression as would, probably, in a
+more refined state of society have been termed "a grand crash." Among
+his actual auditors, however, it merely gave him an additional claim to
+that respect which they never withhold from such as are believed to be
+the subjects of mental alienation. The little knot of Indians drew back
+in a body, and suffered, as they thought, the conjurer and his inspired
+assistant to proceed.
+
+It required no common exercise of fortitude in Uncas and the scout, to
+continue the dignified and deliberate pace they had assumed in passing
+the lodges; especially as they immediately perceived that curiosity had
+so far mastered fear, as to induce the watchers to approach the hut, in
+order to witness the effect of the incantations. The least injudicious
+or impatient movement on the part of David might betray them, and time
+was absolutely necessary to insure the safety of the scout. The loud
+noise the latter conceived it politic to continue, drew many curious
+gazers to the doors of the different huts as they passed; and once or
+twice a dark-looking warrior stepped across their path, led to the act
+by superstition or watchfulness. They were not, however, interrupted;
+the darkness of the hour, and the coldness of the attempt, proving their
+principal friends.
+
+The adventurers had got clear of the village, and were now swiftly
+approaching the shelter of the woods, when a loud and long cry arose
+from the lodge where Uncas had been confined. The Mohican started on his
+feet, and shook his shaggy covering, as though the animal he
+counterfeited was about to make some desperate effort.
+
+"Hold!" said the scout, grasping his friend by the shoulder, "let them
+yell again! 'Twas nothing but wonderment."
+
+He had no occasion to delay, for the next instant a burst of cries
+filled the outer air, and ran along the whole extent of the village.
+Uncas cast his skin, and stepped forth in his own beautiful proportions.
+Hawkeye tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and glided ahead.
+
+"Now let the devils strike our scent!" said the scout, tearing two
+rifles, with all their attendant accoutrements, from beneath a bush, and
+flourishing "Killdeer" as he handed Uncas his weapon; "two, at least,
+will find it to their deaths."
+
+Then throwing their pieces to a low trail, like sportsmen in readiness
+for their game, they dashed forward, and were soon buried in the sombre
+darkness of the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+  "_Ant._ I shall remember:
+  When Caesar says _Do this_, it is performed."
+
+  _Julius Caesar._
+
+
+The impatience of the savages who lingered about the prison of Uncas, as
+has been seen, had overcome their dread of the conjurer's breath. They
+stole cautiously, and with beating hearts, to a crevice, through which
+the faint light of the fire was glimmering. For several minutes they
+mistook the form of David for that of their prisoner; but the very
+accident which Hawkeye had foreseen occurred. Tired of keeping the
+extremities of his long person so near together, the singer gradually
+suffered the lower limbs to extend themselves, until one of his
+misshapen feet actually came in contact with and shoved aside the embers
+of the fire. At first the Hurons believed the Delaware had been thus
+deformed by witchcraft. But when David, unconscious of being observed,
+turned his head, and exposed his simple, mild countenance, in place of
+the haughty lineaments of their prisoner, it would have exceeded the
+credulity of even a native to have doubted any longer. They rushed
+together into the lodge, and laying their hands, with but little
+ceremony, on their captive, immediately detected the imposition. Then
+arose the cry first heard by the fugitives. It was succeeded by the most
+frantic and angry demonstrations of vengeance. David, however firm in
+his determination to cover the retreat of his friends, was compelled to
+believe that his own final hour had come. Deprived of his book and his
+pipe, he was fain to trust to a memory that rarely failed him on such
+subjects; and breaking forth in a loud and impassioned strain, he
+endeavored to soothe his passage into the other world, by singing the
+opening verse of a funeral anthem. The Indians were seasonably reminded
+of his infirmity, and rushing into the open air, they aroused the
+village in the manner described.
+
+A native warrior fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything
+defensive. The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered,
+before two hundred men were afoot, and ready for the battle or the
+chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known; and the
+whole tribe crowded, in a body, around the council-lodge, impatiently
+awaiting the instruction of their chiefs. In such a sudden demand on
+their wisdom, the presence of the cunning Magua could scarcely fail of
+being needed. His name was mentioned, and all looked round in wonder
+that he did not appear. Messengers were then despatched to his lodge,
+requiring his presence.
+
+In the meantime, some of the swiftest and most discreet of the young men
+were ordered to make the circuit of the clearing, under cover of the
+woods, in order to ascertain that their suspected neighbors, the
+Delawares, designed no mischief. Women and children ran to and fro; and
+in short, the whole encampment exhibited another scene of wild and
+savage confusion. Gradually, however, these symptoms of disorder
+diminished; and in a few minutes the oldest and most distinguished
+chiefs were assembled in the lodge, in grave consultation.
+
+The clamor of many voices soon announced that a party approached, who
+might be expected to communicate some intelligence that would explain
+the mystery of the novel surprise. The crowd without gave way, and
+several warriors entered the place, bringing with them the hapless
+conjurer, who had been left so long by the scout in duress.
+
+Notwithstanding this man was held in very unequal estimation among the
+Hurons, some believing implicitly in his power, and others deeming him
+an impostor, he was now listened to by all with the deepest attention.
+When his brief story was ended, the father of the sick woman stepped
+forth, and, in a few pithy expressions, related, in his turn, what he
+knew. These two narratives gave a proper direction to the subsequent
+inquiries, which were now made with the characteristic cunning of
+savages.
+
+Instead of rushing in a confused and disorderly throng to the cavern,
+ten of the wisest and firmest among the chiefs were selected to
+prosecute the investigation. As no time was to be lost, the instant the
+choice was made the individuals appointed rose in a body, and left the
+place without speaking. On reaching the entrance, the younger men in
+advance made way for their seniors; and the whole proceeded along the
+low, dark gallery, with the firmness of warriors ready to devote
+themselves to the public good, though, at the same time, secretly
+doubting the nature of the power with which they were about to contend.
+
+The outer apartment of the cavern was silent and gloomy. The woman lay
+in her usual place and posture, though there were those present who
+affirmed they had seen her borne to the woods, by the supposed "medicine
+of the white men." Such a direct and palpable contradiction of the tale
+related by the father, caused all eyes to be turned on him. Chafed by
+the silent imputation, and inwardly troubled by so unaccountable a
+circumstance, the chief advanced to the side of the bed, and stooping,
+cast an incredulous look at the features, as if distrusting their
+reality. His daughter was dead.
+
+The unerring feeling of nature, for a moment prevailed, and the old
+warrior hid his eyes in sorrow. Then recovering his self-possession, he
+faced his companions, and pointing towards the corpse, he said, in the
+language of his people,--
+
+"The wife of my young man has left us! the Great Spirit is angry with
+his children."
+
+The mournful intelligence was received in solemn silence. After a short
+pause, one of the elder Indians was about to speak, when a dark-looking
+object was seen rolling out of an adjoining apartment, into the very
+centre of the room where they stood. Ignorant of the nature of the
+beings they had to deal with, the whole party drew back a little, and
+gazed in admiration, until the object fronted the light, and rising on
+end, exhibited the distorted, but still fierce and sullen features of
+Magua. The discovery was succeeded by a general exclamation of
+amazement.
+
+As soon, however, as the true situation of the chief was understood,
+several ready knives appeared, and his limbs and tongue were quickly
+released. The Huron arose, and shook himself like a lion quitting his
+lair. Not a word escaped him, though his hand played convulsively with
+the handle of his knife, while his lowering eyes scanned the whole
+party, as if they sought an object suited to the first burst of his
+vengeance.
+
+It was happy for Uncas and the scout, and even David, that they were all
+beyond the reach of his arm at such a moment; for, assuredly, no
+refinement in cruelty would then have deferred their deaths, in
+opposition to the promptings of the fierce temper that nearly choked
+him. Meeting everywhere faces that he knew as friends, the savage grated
+his teeth together like rasps of iron, and swallowed his passion for
+want of a victim on whom to vent it. This exhibition of anger was noted
+by all present; and, from an apprehension of exasperating a temper that
+was already chafed nearly to madness, several minutes were suffered to
+pass before another word was uttered. When, however, suitable time had
+elapsed, the oldest of the party spoke.
+
+"My friend has found an enemy," he said. "Is he nigh, that the Hurons
+may take revenge?"
+
+"Let the Delaware die!" exclaimed Magua, in a voice of thunder.
+
+Another long and expressive silence was observed, and was broken, as
+before, with due precaution, by the same individual.
+
+"The Mohican is swift of foot, and leaps far," he said; "but my young
+men are on his trail."
+
+"Is he gone?" demanded Magua, in tones so deep and guttural, that they
+seemed to proceed from his inmost chest.
+
+"An evil spirit has been among us, and the Delaware has blinded our
+eyes."
+
+"An evil spirit!" repeated the other, mockingly; "'tis the spirit that
+has taken the lives of so many Hurons; the spirit that slew my young men
+at 'the tumbling river'; that took their scalps at the 'healing spring';
+and who has now bound the arms of Le Renard Subtil!"
+
+"Of whom does my friend speak?"
+
+"Of the dog who carries the heart and cunning of a Huron under a pale
+skin--La Longue Carabine."
+
+The pronunciation of so terrible a name produced the usual effect among
+his auditors. But when time was given for reflection, and the warriors
+remembered that their formidable and daring enemy had even been in the
+bosom of their encampment, working injury, fearful rage took the place
+of wonder, and all those fierce passions with which the bosom of Magua
+had just been struggling were suddenly transferred to his companions.
+Some among them gnashed their teeth in anger, others vented their
+feelings in yells, and some, again beat the air as frantically as if the
+object of their resentment were suffering under their blows. But this
+sudden outbreaking of temper as quickly subsided in the still and sullen
+restraint they most affected, in their moments of inaction.
+
+Magua who had in his turn found leisure for reflection, now changed his
+manner, and assumed the air of one who knew how to think and act with a
+dignity worthy of so grave a subject.
+
+"Let us go to my people," he said; "they wait for us."
+
+His companions consented in silence, and the whole of the savage party
+left the cavern and returned to the council-lodge. When they were
+seated, all eyes turned on Magua, who understood, from such an
+indication, that, by common consent, they had devolved the duty of
+relating what had passed on him. He arose, and told his tale without
+duplicity or reservation. The whole deception practised by both Duncan
+and Hawkeye was, of course, laid naked; and no room was found, even for
+the most superstitious of the tribe, any longer to affix a doubt on the
+character of the occurrences. It was but too apparent that they had been
+insultingly, shamefully, disgracefully deceived. When he had ended, and
+resumed his seat, the collected tribe--for his auditors, in substance,
+included all the fighting men of the party--sat regarding each other
+like men astonished equally at the audacity and the success of their
+enemies. The next consideration, however, was the means and
+opportunities for revenge.
+
+Additional pursuers were sent on the trail of the fugitives; and then
+the chiefs applied themselves, in earnest, to the business of
+consultation. Many different expedients were proposed by the elder
+warriors, in succession, to all of which Magua was a silent and
+respectful listener. That subtle savage had recovered his artifice and
+self-command, and now proceeded towards his object with his customary
+caution and skill. It was only when each one disposed to speak had
+uttered his sentiments, that he prepared to advance his own opinions.
+They were given with additional weight from the circumstance that some
+of the runners had already returned, and reported that their enemies had
+been traced so far as to leave no doubt of their having sought safety in
+the neighboring camp of their suspected allies, the Delawares. With the
+advantage of possessing this important intelligence, the chief warily
+laid his plans before his fellows, and, as might have been anticipated
+from his eloquence and cunning, they were adopted without a dissenting
+voice. They were, briefly, as follows, both in opinions and in motives.
+
+It has been already stated that, in obedience to a policy rarely
+departed from, the sisters were separated so soon as they reached the
+Huron village. Magua had early discovered that in retaining the person
+of Alice, he possessed the most effectual check on Cora. When they
+parted, therefore, he kept the former within reach of his hand,
+consigning the one he most valued to the keeping of their allies. The
+arrangement was understood to be merely temporary, and was made as much
+with a view to flatter his neighbors as in obedience to the invariable
+rule of Indian policy.
+
+While goaded incessantly by those revengeful impulses that in a savage
+seldom slumber, the chief was still attentive to his more permanent
+personal interests. The follies and disloyalty committed in his youth
+were to be expiated by a long and painful penance, ere he could be
+restored to the full enjoyment of the confidence of his ancient people;
+and without confidence, there could be no authority in an Indian tribe.
+In this delicate and arduous situation, the crafty native had neglected
+no means of increasing his influence; and one of the happiest of his
+expedients had been the success with which he had cultivated the favor
+of their powerful and dangerous neighbors. The result of his experiment
+had answered all the expectations of his policy; for the Hurons were in
+no degree exempt from that governing principle of nature, which induces
+man to value his gifts precisely in the degree that they are appreciated
+by others.
+
+But, while he was making this ostensible sacrifice to general
+considerations, Magua never lost sight of his individual motives. The
+latter had been frustrated by the unlooked-for events which had placed
+all his prisoners beyond his control; and he now found himself reduced
+to the necessity of suing for favors to those whom it had so lately been
+his policy to oblige.
+
+Several of the chiefs had proposed deep and treacherous schemes to
+surprise the Delawares, and, by gaining possession of their camp, to
+recover their prisoners by the same blow; for all agreed that their
+honor, their interests, and the peace and happiness of their dead
+countrymen, imperiously required them speedily to immolate some victims
+to their revenge. But plans so dangerous to attempt, and of such
+doubtful issue, Magua found little difficulty in defeating. He exposed
+their risk and fallacy with his usual skill; and it was only after he
+had removed every impediment, in the shape of opposing advice, that he
+ventured to propose his own projects.
+
+He commenced by flattering the self-love of his auditors; a
+never-failing method of commanding attention. When he had enumerated the
+many different occasions on which the Hurons had exhibited their courage
+and prowess, in the punishment of insults, he digressed in a high
+encomium on the virtue of wisdom. He painted the quality, as forming the
+great point of difference between the beaver and other brutes; between
+brutes and men; and, finally, between the Hurons, in particular, and
+the rest of the human race. After he had sufficiently extolled the
+property of discretion, he undertook to exhibit in what manner its use
+was applicable to the present situation of their tribe. On the one hand,
+he said, was their great pale father, the governor of the Canadas, who
+had looked upon his children with a hard eye since their tomahawks had
+been so red; on the other, a people as numerous as themselves, who spoke
+a different language, possessed different interests, and loved them not,
+and who would be glad of any pretence to bring them in disgrace with the
+great white chief. Then he spoke of their necessities; of the gifts they
+had a right to expect for their past services; of their distance from
+their proper hunting-grounds and native villages; and of the necessity
+of consulting prudence more, and inclination less, in so critical
+circumstances. When he perceived that, while the old men applauded his
+moderation, many of the fiercest and most distinguished of the warriors
+listened to these politic plans with lowering looks, he cunningly led
+them back to the subject which they most loved. He spoke openly of the
+fruits of their wisdom, which he boldly pronounced would be a complete
+and final triumph over their enemies. He even darkly hinted that their
+success might be extended, with proper caution, in such a manner as to
+include the destruction of all whom they had reason to hate. In short,
+he so blended the warlike with the artful, the obvious with the obscure,
+as to flatter the propensities of both parties, and to leave to each
+subject of hope, while neither could say it clearly comprehended his
+intentions.
+
+The orator, or the politician, who can produce such a state of things,
+is commonly popular with his contemporaries, however he may be treated
+by posterity. All perceived that more was meant than was uttered, and
+each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own
+faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to
+anticipate.
+
+In this happy state of things, it is not surprising that the management
+of Magua prevailed. The tribe consented to act with deliberation, and
+with one voice they committed the direction of the whole affair to the
+government of the chief who had suggested such wise and intelligible
+expedients.
+
+Magua had now attained one great object of all his cunning and
+enterprise. The ground he had lost in the favor of his people was
+completely regained, and he found himself even placed at the head of
+affairs. He was, in truth, their ruler; and, so long as he could
+maintain his popularity, no monarch could be more despotic, especially
+while the tribe continued in a hostile country. Throwing off, therefore,
+the appearance of consultation, he assumed the grave air of authority
+necessary to support the dignity of his office.
+
+Runners were despatched for intelligence in different directions; spies
+were ordered to approach and feel the encampment of the Delawares; the
+warriors were dismissed to their lodges, with an intimation that their
+services would soon be needed; and the women and children were ordered
+to retire, with a warning that it was their province to be silent. When
+these several arrangements were made, Magua passed through the village,
+stopping here and there to pay a visit where he thought his presence
+might be flattering to the individual. He confirmed his friends in their
+confidence, fixed the wavering, and gratified all. Then he sought his
+own lodge. The wife the Huron chief had abandoned, when he was chased
+from among his people, was dead. Children he had none; and he now
+occupied a hut, without companion of any sort. It was, in fact, the
+dilapidated and solitary structure in which David had been discovered,
+and whom he had tolerated in his presence, on those few occasions when
+they met, with the contemptuous indifference of a haughty superiority.
+
+Hither, then, Magua retired, when his labors of policy were ended. While
+others slept, however, he neither knew nor sought repose. Had there been
+one sufficiently curious to have watched the movements of the newly
+elected chief, he would have seen him seated in a corner of his lodge,
+musing on the subject of his future plans, from the hour of his
+retirement to the time he had appointed for the warriors to assemble
+again. Occasionally the air breathed through the crevices of the hut,
+and the low flames that fluttered about the embers of the fire threw
+their wavering light on the person of the sullen recluse. At such
+moments it would not have been difficult to have fancied the dusky
+savage the Prince of Darkness, brooding on his own fancied wrongs, and
+plotting evil.
+
+Long before the day dawned, however, warrior after warrior entered the
+solitary hut of Magua, until they had collected to the number of twenty.
+Each bore his rifle, and all the other accoutrements of war, though the
+paint was uniformly peaceful. The entrance of these fierce-looking
+beings was unnoticed; some seating themselves in the shadows of the
+place, and others standing like motionless statues, until the whole of
+the designated band was collected.
+
+Then Magua arose and gave the signal to proceed, marching himself in
+advance. They followed their leader singly, and in that well-known order
+which has obtained the distinguishing appellation of "Indian file."
+Unlike other men engaged in the spirit-stirring business of war, they
+stole from their camp unostentatiously and unobserved, resembling a band
+of gliding spectres, more than warriors seeking the bubble reputation by
+deeds of desperate daring.
+
+Instead of taking the path which led directly towards the camp of the
+Delawares, Magua led his party for some distance down the windings of
+the stream, and along the little artificial lake of the beavers. The day
+began to dawn as they entered the clearing which had been formed by
+those sagacious and industrious animals. Though Magua, who had resumed
+his ancient garb, bore the outline of a fox on the dressed skin which
+formed his robe, there was one chief of his party who carried the beaver
+as his peculiar symbol, or "totem." There would have been a species of
+profanity in the omission, had this man passed so powerful a community
+of his fancied kindred, without bestowing some evidence of his regard.
+Accordingly, he paused, and spoke in words as kind and friendly as if he
+were addressing more intelligent beings. He called the animals his
+cousins, and reminded them that his protecting influence was the reason
+they remained unharmed, while so many avaricious traders were prompting
+the Indians to take their lives. He promised a continuance of his
+favors, and admonished them to be grateful. After which, he spoke of the
+expedition in which he was himself engaged, and intimated, though with
+sufficient delicacy and circumlocution, the expediency of bestowing on
+their relative a portion of that wisdom for which they were so
+renowned.[24]
+
+During the utterance of this extraordinary address, the companions of
+the speaker were as grave and as attentive to his language as though
+they were all equally impressed with its propriety. Once or twice black
+objects were seen rising to the surface of the water, and the Huron
+expressed pleasure, conceiving that his words were not bestowed in
+vain. Just as he had ended his address, the head of a large beaver was
+thrust from the door of a lodge, whose earthen walls had been much
+injured, and which the party had believed, from its situation, to be
+uninhabited. Such an extraordinary sign of confidence was received by
+the orator as a highly favorable omen; and though the animal retreated a
+little precipitately, he was lavish of his thanks and commendations.
+
+When Magua thought sufficient time had been lost in gratifying the
+family affection of the warrior, he again made the signal to proceed. As
+the Indians moved away in a body, and with a step that would have been
+inaudible to the ears of any common man, the same venerable-looking
+beaver once more ventured his head from its cover. Had any of the Hurons
+turned to look behind them, they would have seen the animal watching
+their movements with an interest and sagacity that might easily have
+been mistaken for reason. Indeed, so very distinct and intelligible were
+the devices of the quadruped, that even the most experienced observer
+would have been at a loss to account for its actions, until the moment
+when the party entered the forest, when the whole would have been
+explained, by seeing the entire animal issue from the lodge, uncasing,
+by the act, the grave features of Chingachgook from his mask of fur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+  "Brief, I pray you; for you see, 'tis a busy time with me."
+
+  _Much Ado About Nothing._
+
+
+The tribe, or rather half tribe, of Delawares, which has been so often
+mentioned, and whose present place of encampment was so nigh the
+temporary village of the Hurons, could assemble about an equal number of
+warriors with the latter people. Like their neighbors, they had followed
+Montcalm into the territories of the English crown, and were making
+heavy and serious inroads on the hunting-grounds of the Mohawks; though
+they had seen fit, with the mysterious reserve so common among the
+natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most
+required. The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the
+part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion,
+however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient
+treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Six Nations for
+military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their
+former masters. As for the tribe itself, it had been content to announce
+to Montcalm, through his emissaries, with Indian brevity, that their
+hatchets were dull, and time was necessary to sharpen them. The politic
+captain of the Canadas had deemed it wiser to submit to entertain a
+passive friend, than by any acts of ill-judged severity to convert him
+into an open enemy.
+
+On that morning when Magua led his silent party from the settlement of
+the beavers into the forest, in the manner described, the sun rose upon
+the Delaware encampment as if it had suddenly burst upon a busy people,
+actively employed in all the customary avocations of high noon. The
+women ran from lodge to lodge, some engaged in preparing their morning's
+meal, a few earnestly bent on seeking the comforts necessary to their
+habits, but more pausing to exchange hasty and whispered sentences with
+their friends. The warriors were lounging in groups, musing more than
+they conversed; and when a few words were uttered, speaking like men who
+deeply weighed their opinions. The instruments of the chase were to be
+seen in abundance among the lodges; but none departed. Here and there a
+warrior was examining his arms, with an attention that is rarely
+bestowed on the implements, when no other enemy than the beasts of the
+forest is expected to be encountered. And, occasionally, the eyes of a
+whole group were turned simultaneously towards a large and silent lodge
+in the centre of the village, as if it contained the subject of their
+common thoughts.
+
+During the existence of this scene, a man suddenly appeared at the
+farthest extremity of a platform of rock which formed the level of the
+village. He was without arms, and his paint tended rather to soften than
+increase the natural sternness of his austere countenance. When in full
+view of the Delawares he stopped, and made a gesture of amity, by
+throwing his arm upward towards heaven, and then letting it fall
+impressively on his breast. The inhabitants of the village answered his
+salute by a low murmur of welcome, and encouraged him to advance by
+similar indications of friendship. Fortified by these assurances, the
+dark figure left the brow of the natural rocky terrace, where it had
+stood a moment, drawn in a strong outline against the blushing morning
+sky, and moved with dignity into the very centre of the huts. As he
+approached, nothing was audible but the rattling of the light silver
+ornaments that loaded his arms and neck, and the tinkling of the little
+bells that fringed his deer-skin moccasins. He made, as he advanced,
+many courteous signs of greeting to the men he passed, neglecting to
+notice the women, however, like one who deemed their favor, in the
+present enterprise, of no importance. When he had reached the group in
+which it was evident, by the haughtiness of their common mien, that the
+principal chiefs were collected, the stranger paused, and then the
+Delawares saw that the active and erect form that stood before them was
+that of the well-known Huron chief, Le Renard Subtil.
+
+His reception was grave, silent, and wary. The warriors in front stepped
+aside, opening the way to their most approved orator by the action; one
+who spoke all those languages that were cultivated among the northern
+aborigines.
+
+"The wise Huron is welcome," said the Delaware, in the language of the
+Maquas; "he is come to eat his 'succotash,'[25] with his brothers of the
+lakes."
+
+"He is come," repeated Magua, bending his head with the dignity of an
+Eastern prince.
+
+The chief extended his arm, and taking the other by the wrist, they once
+more exchanged friendly salutations. Then the Delaware invited his guest
+to enter his own lodge, and share his morning meal. The invitation was
+accepted; and the two warriors, attended by three or four of the old
+men, walked calmly away, leaving the rest of the tribe devoured by a
+desire to understand the reasons of so unusual a visit, and yet not
+betraying the least impatience by sign or word.
+
+During the short and frugal repast that followed, the conversation was
+extremely circumspect, and related entirely to the events of the hunt in
+which Magua had so lately been engaged. It would have been impossible
+for the most finished breeding to wear more of the appearance of
+considering the visit as a matter of course, than did his hosts,
+notwithstanding every individual present was perfectly aware that it
+must be connected with some secret object, and that probably of
+importance to themselves. When the appetites of the whole were appeased,
+the squaws removed the trenchers and gourd, and the two parties began to
+prepare themselves for a subtle trial of their wits.
+
+"Is the face of my great Canada father turned again towards his Huron
+children?" demanded the orator of the Delawares.
+
+"When was it ever otherwise?" returned Magua. "He calls my people 'most
+beloved.'"
+
+The Delaware gravely bowed his acquiescence to what he knew to be false,
+and continued,--
+
+"The tomahawks of your young men have been very red."
+
+"It is so; but they are now bright and dull; for the Yengeese are dead,
+and the Delawares are our neighbors."
+
+The other acknowledged the pacific compliment by a gesture of the hand,
+and remained silent. Then Magua, as if recalled to such a recollection,
+by the allusion to the massacre, demanded,--
+
+"Does my prisoner give trouble to my brothers?"
+
+"She is welcome."
+
+"The path between the Hurons and the Delawares is short, and it is open;
+let her be sent to my squaws, if she gives trouble to my brother."
+
+"She is welcome," returned the chief of the latter nation, still more
+emphatically.
+
+The baffled Magua continued silent several minutes, apparently
+indifferent, however, to the repulse he had received in this his open
+effort to gain possession of Cora.
+
+"Do my young men leave the Delawares room on the mountains for their
+hunts?" he at length continued.
+
+"The Lenape are rulers of their own hills," returned the other, a little
+haughtily.
+
+"It is well. Justice is the master of a redskin! Why should they
+brighten their tomahawks, and sharpen their knives against each other?
+Are not the pale-faces thicker than the swallows in the season of
+flowers?"
+
+"Good!" exclaimed two or three of his auditors at the same time.
+
+Magua waited a little, to permit his words to soften the feelings of the
+Delawares, before he added,--
+
+"Have there not been strange moccasins in the woods? Have not my
+brothers scented the feet of white men?"
+
+"Let my Canada father come," returned the other evasively; "his children
+are ready to see him."
+
+"When the great chief comes, it is to smoke with the Indians in their
+wigwams. The Hurons say, too, he is welcome. But the Yengeese have long
+arms, and legs that never tire! My young men dreamed they had seen the
+trail of the Yengeese nigh the village of the Delawares?"
+
+"They will not find the Lenape asleep."
+
+"It is well. The warrior whose eye is open can see his enemy," said
+Magua, once more shifting his ground, when he found himself unable to
+penetrate the caution of his companion. "I have brought gifts to my
+brother. His nation would not go on the war-path because they did not
+think it well; but their friends have remembered where they lived."
+
+When he had thus announced his liberal intention, the crafty chief
+arose, and gravely spread his presents before the dazzled eyes of his
+hosts. They consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered
+from the slaughtered females of William Henry. In the division of the
+baubles the cunning Huron discovered no less art than in their
+selection. While he bestowed those of greater value on the two most
+distinguished warriors, one of whom was his host, he seasoned his
+offerings to their inferiors with such well-timed and apposite
+compliments, as left them no grounds of complaint. In short, the whole
+ceremony contained such a happy blending of the profitable with the
+flattering, that it was not difficult for the donor immediately to read
+the effect of a generosity so aptly mingled with praise, in the eyes of
+those he addressed.
+
+This well-judged and politic stroke on the part of Magua was not without
+instantaneous results. The Delawares lost their gravity in a much more
+cordial expression; and the host, in particular, after contemplating his
+own liberal share of the spoil for some moments with peculiar
+gratification, repeated with strong emphasis, the words,--
+
+"My brother is a wise chief. He is welcome!"
+
+"The Hurons love their friends the Delawares," returned Magua. "Why
+should they not? they are colored by the same sun, and their just men
+will hunt in the same grounds after death. The redskins should be
+friends, and look with open eyes on the white men. Has not my brother
+scented spies in the woods?"
+
+The Delaware, whose name in English signified "Hard Heart," an
+appellation that the French had translated into "Le Coeur-dur," forgot
+the obduracy of purpose, which had probably obtained him so significant
+a title. His countenance grew very sensibly less stern, and now deigned
+to answer more directly.
+
+"There have been strange moccasins about my camp. They have been tracked
+into my lodges."
+
+"Did my brother beat out the dogs?" asked Magua, without adverting in
+any manner to the former equivocation of the chief.
+
+"It would not do. The stranger is always welcome to the children of the
+Lenape."
+
+"The stranger, but not the spy."
+
+"Would the Yengeese send their women as spies? Did not the Huron chief
+say he took women in the battle?"
+
+"He told no lie. The Yengeese have sent out their scouts. They have been
+in my wigwams, but they found there no one to say welcome. Then they
+fled to the Delawares--for, say they, the Delawares are our friends;
+their minds are turned from their Canada father!"
+
+This insinuation was a home thrust, and one that in a more advanced
+state of society, would have entitled Magua to the reputation of a
+skilful diplomatist. The recent defection of the tribe had, as they well
+knew themselves, subjected the Delawares to much reproach among their
+French allies; and they were now made to feel that their future actions
+were to be regarded with jealousy and distrust. There was no deep
+insight into causes and effects necessary to foresee that such a
+situation of things was likely to prove highly prejudicial to their
+future movements. Their distant villages, their hunting-grounds, and
+hundreds of their women and children, together with a material part of
+their physical force, were actually within the limits of the French
+territory. Accordingly, this alarming annunciation was received, as
+Magua intended, with manifest disapprobation, if not with alarm.
+
+"Let my father look in my face," said Le Coeur-dur; "he will see no
+change. It is true, my young men did not go out on the war-path; they
+had dreams for not doing so. But they love and venerate the great white
+chief."
+
+"Will he think so when he hears that his greatest enemy is fed in the
+camp of his children? When he is told a bloody Yengee smokes at your
+fire? That the pale-face who has slain so many of his friends goes in
+and out among the Delawares? Go! my great Canada father is not a fool!"
+
+"Where is the Yengee that the Delawares fear?" returned the other; "who
+has slain my young men? who is the mortal enemy of my Great Father!"
+
+"La Longue Carabine."
+
+The Delaware warriors started at the well-known name, betraying, by
+their amazement, that they now learnt, for the first time, one so famous
+among the Indian allies of France was within their power.
+
+"What does my brother mean?" demanded Le Coeur-dur, in a tone that, by
+its wonder, far exceeded the usual apathy of his race.
+
+"A Huron never lies!" returned Magua coldly, leaning his head against
+the side of the lodge, and drawing his slight robe across his tawny
+breast. "Let the Delawares count their prisoners; they will find one
+whose skin is neither red nor pale."
+
+A long and musing pause succeeded. The chief consulted apart with his
+companions, and messengers were despatched to collect certain others of
+the most distinguished men of the tribe.
+
+As warrior after warrior dropped in, they were each made acquainted, in
+turn, with the important intelligence that Magua had just communicated.
+The air of surprise, and the usual low, deep, guttural exclamation, were
+common to them all. The news spread from mouth to mouth, until the whole
+encampment became powerfully agitated. The women suspended their
+labors, to catch such syllables as unguardedly fell from the lips of the
+consulting warriors. The boys deserted their sports, and walking
+fearlessly among their fathers, looked up in curious admiration, as they
+heard the brief exclamations of wonder they so freely expressed at the
+temerity of their hated foe. In short, every occupation was abandoned
+for the time, and all other pursuits seemed discarded, in order that the
+tribe might freely indulge, after their own peculiar manner, in an open
+expression of feeling.
+
+When the excitement had a little abated, the old men disposed themselves
+seriously to consider that which it became the honor and safety of their
+tribe to perform, under circumstances of so much delicacy and
+embarrassment. During all these movements, and in the midst of the
+general commotion, Magua had not only maintained his seat, but the very
+attitude he had originally taken, against the side of the lodge, where
+he continued as immovable, and, apparently, as unconcerned, as if he had
+no interest in the result. Not a single indication of the future
+intentions of his hosts, however, escaped his vigilant eyes. With his
+consummate knowledge of the nature of the people with whom he had to
+deal, he anticipated every measure on which they decided; and it might
+almost be said, that, in many instances, he knew their intentions, even
+before they became known to themselves.
+
+The council of the Delawares was short. When it was ended, a general
+bustle announced that it was to be immediately succeeded by a solemn and
+formal assemblage of the nation. As such meetings were rare, and only
+called on occasions of the last importance, the subtle Huron, who still
+sat apart, a wily and dark observer of the proceedings, now knew that
+all his projects must be brought to their final issue. He therefore left
+the lodge, and walked silently forth to the place in front of the
+encampment whither the warriors were already beginning to collect.
+
+It might have been half an hour before each individual, including even
+the women and children, was in his place. The delay had been created by
+the grave preparations that were deemed necessary to so solemn and
+unusual a conference. But when the sun was seen climbing above the tops
+of that mountain against whose bosom the Delawares had constructed their
+encampment, most were seated; and as his bright rays darted from behind
+the outline of trees that fringed the eminence, they fell upon as grave,
+as attentive, and as deeply interested a multitude, as was probably
+ever before lighted by his morning beams. Its number somewhat exceeded a
+thousand souls.
+
+In a collection of such serious savages, there is never to be found any
+impatient aspirant after premature distinction, standing ready to move
+his auditors to some hasty, and, perhaps, injudicious discussion, in
+order that his own reputation may be the gainer. An act of so much
+precipitancy and presumption would seal the downfall of precocious
+intellect forever. It rested solely with the oldest and most experienced
+of the men to lay the subject of the conference before the people. Until
+such a one chose to make some movement, no deeds in arms, no natural
+gifts, nor any renown as an orator, would have justified the slightest
+interruption. On the present occasion, the aged warrior whose privilege
+it was to speak, was silent, seemingly oppressed with the magnitude of
+his subject. The delay had already continued long beyond the usual
+deliberative pause that always precedes a conference; but no sign of
+impatience or surprise escaped even the youngest boy. Occasionally, an
+eye was raised from the earth, where the looks of most were riveted, and
+strayed towards a particular lodge, that was, however, in no manner
+distinguished from those around it, except in the peculiar care that had
+been taken to protect it against the assaults of the weather.
+
+At length, one of those low murmurs that are so apt to disturb a
+multitude, was heard, and the whole nation arose to their feet by a
+common impulse. At that the door of the lodge in question opened, and
+three men, issuing from it, slowly approached the place of consultation.
+They were all aged, even beyond that period to which the oldest present
+had reached; but one in the centre, who leaned on his companions for
+support, had numbered an amount of years to which the human race is
+seldom permitted to attain. His frame, which had once been tall and
+erect, like the cedar, was now bending under the pressure of more than a
+century. The elastic, light step of an Indian was gone, and in its place
+he was compelled to toil his tardy way over the ground, inch by inch.
+His dark, wrinkled countenance was in singular and wild contrast with
+the long white locks which floated on his shoulders in such thickness as
+to announce that generations had probably passed away since they had
+last been shorn.
+
+The dress of this patriarch--for such, considering his vast age, in
+conjunction with his affinity and influence with his people, he might
+very properly be termed--was rich and imposing, though strictly after
+the simple fashions of the tribe. His robe was of the finest skins,
+which had been deprived of their fur, in order to admit of a
+hieroglyphical representation of various deeds in arms, done in former
+ages. His bosom was loaded with medals, some in massive silver, and one
+or two even in gold, the gifts of various Christian potentates during
+the long period of his life. He also wore armlets, and cinctures above
+the ankles, of the latter precious metal. His head, on the whole of
+which the hair had been permitted to grow, the pursuits of war having so
+long been abandoned, was encircled by a sort of plated diadem, which, in
+its turn, bore lesser and more glittering ornaments, that sparkled amid
+the glossy hues of three drooping ostrich feathers, dyed a deep black,
+in touching contrast to the color of his snow-white locks. His tomahawk
+was nearly hid in silver, and the handle of his knife shone like a horn
+of solid gold.
+
+So soon as the first hum of emotion and pleasure, which the sudden
+appearance of this venerated individual created, had a little subsided,
+the name of "Tamenund" was whispered from mouth to mouth. Magua had
+often heard the fame of this wise and just Delaware; a reputation that
+even proceeded so far as to bestow on him the rare gift of holding
+secret communion with the Great Spirit, and which has since transmitted
+his name, with some slight alteration, to the white usurpers of his
+ancient territory, as the imaginary tutelar saint of a vast empire. The
+Huron chief, therefore, stepped eagerly out a little from the throng, to
+a spot whence he might catch a nearer glimpse of the features of the
+man, whose decision was likely to produce so deep an influence on his
+own fortunes.
+
+The eyes of the old man were closed, as though the organs were wearied
+with having so long witnessed the selfish workings of the human
+passions. The color of his skin differed from that of most around him,
+being richer and darker, the latter hue having been produced by certain
+delicate and mazy lines of complicated and yet beautiful figures, which
+had been traced over most of his person by the operation of tattooing.
+Notwithstanding the position of the Huron, he passed the observant and
+silent Magua without notice, and leaning on his two venerable supporters
+proceeded to the high place of the multitude, where he seated himself in
+the centre of his nation, with the dignity of a monarch and the air of a
+father.
+
+Nothing could surpass the reverence and affection with which this
+unexpected visit from one who belonged rather to another world than to
+this, was received by his people. After a suitable and decent pause, the
+principal chiefs arose; and approaching the patriarch, they placed his
+hands reverently on their heads, seeming to entreat a blessing. The
+younger men were content with touching his robe, or even drawing nigh
+his person, in order to breathe in the atmosphere of one so aged, so
+just, and so valiant. None but the most distinguished among the youthful
+warriors even presumed so far as to perform the latter ceremony; the
+great mass of the multitude deeming it a sufficient happiness to look
+upon a form so deeply venerated, and so well beloved. When these acts of
+affection and respect were performed, the chiefs drew back again to
+their several places, and silence reigned in the whole encampment.
+
+After a short delay, a few of the young men, to whom instructions had
+been whispered by one of the aged attendants of Tamenund, arose, left
+the crowd, and entered the lodge which has already been noted as the
+object of so much attention throughout that morning. In a few minutes
+they reappeared, escorting the individuals who had caused all these
+solemn preparations towards the seat of judgment. The crowd opened in a
+lane; and when the party had re-entered, it closed in again, forming a
+large and dense belt of human bodies, arranged in an open circle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+  "The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,
+  Achilles thus the king of men addressed."
+
+  POPE'S _Iliad._
+
+
+Cora stood foremost among the prisoners, entwining her arms in those of
+Alice, in the tenderness of sisterly love. Notwithstanding the fearful
+and menacing array of savages on every side of her, no apprehension on
+her own account could prevent the noble-minded maiden from keeping her
+eyes fastened on the pale and anxious features of the trembling Alice.
+Close at their side stood Heyward, with an interest in both, that, at
+such a moment of intense uncertainty, scarcely knew a preponderance in
+favor of her whom he most loved. Hawkeye had placed himself a little in
+the rear, with a deference to the superior rank of his companions, that
+no similarity in the state of their present fortunes could induce him to
+forget. Uncas was not there.
+
+When perfect silence was again restored, and after the usual long,
+impressive pause, one of the two aged chiefs who sat at the side of the
+patriarch arose, and demanded aloud, in very intelligible English,--
+
+"Which of my prisoners is La Longue Carabine?"
+
+Neither Duncan nor the scout answered. The former, however, glanced his
+eyes around the dark and silent assembly, and recoiled a pace, when they
+fell on the malignant visage of Magua. He saw, at once, that this wily
+savage had some secret agency in their present arraignment before the
+nation, and determined to throw every possible impediment in the way of
+the execution of his sinister plans. He had witnessed one instance of
+the summary punishments of the Indians, and now dreaded that his
+companion was to be selected for a second. In this dilemma, with little
+or no time for reflection, he suddenly determined to cloak his
+invaluable friend, at any or every hazard to himself. Before he had
+time, however, to speak, the question was repeated in a louder voice,
+and with a clearer utterance.
+
+"Give us arms," the young man haughtily replied, "and place us in
+yonder woods. Our deeds shall speak for us!"
+
+"This is the warrior whose name has filled our ears!" returned the
+chief, regarding Heyward with that sort of curious interest which seems
+inseparable from man, when first beholding one of his fellows to whom
+merit or accident, virtue or crime, has given notoriety. "What has
+brought the white man into the camp of the Delawares?"
+
+"My necessities. I come for food, shelter and friends."
+
+"It cannot be. The woods are full of game. The head of a warrior needs
+no other shelter than a sky without clouds; and the Delawares are the
+enemies, and not the friends, of the Yengeese. Go! the mouth has spoken,
+while the heart said nothing."
+
+Duncan, a little at a loss in what manner to proceed, remained silent;
+but the scout, who had listened attentively to all that passed, now
+advanced steadily to the front.
+
+"That I did not answer to the call for La Longue Carabine, was not owing
+either to shame or fear," he said; "for neither one nor the other is the
+gift of an honest man. But I do not admit the right of the Mingos to
+bestow a name on one whose friends have been mindful of his gifts, in
+this particular; especially as their title is a lie, 'Killdeer' being a
+grooved barrel and no carabyne. I am the man, however, that got the name
+of Nathaniel from my kin; the compliment of Hawkeye from the Delawares,
+who live on their own river; and whom the Iroquois have presumed to
+style the 'Long Rifle,' without any warranty from him who is most
+concerned in the matter."
+
+The eyes of all present, which had hitherto been gravely scanning the
+person of Duncan, were now turned, on the instant, towards the upright
+iron frame of this new pretender to the distinguished appellation. It
+was in no degree remarkable that there should be found two who were
+willing to claim so great an honor, for impostors, though rare, were not
+unknown amongst the natives; but it was altogether material to the just
+and severe intentions of the Delawares, that there should be no mistake
+in the matter. Some of their old men consulted together in private, and
+then, as it would seem, they determined to interrogate their visitor on
+the subject.
+
+"My brother has said that a snake crept into my camp," said the chief to
+Magua; "which is he?"
+
+The Huron pointed to the scout.
+
+"Will a wise Delaware believe the barking of a wolf?" exclaimed Duncan,
+still more confirmed in the evil intentions of his ancient enemy: "a dog
+never lies, but when was a wolf known to speak the truth?"
+
+The eyes of Magua flashed fire; but, suddenly recollecting the necessity
+of maintaining his presence of mind, he turned away in silent disdain,
+well assured that the sagacity of the Indians would not fail to extract
+the real merits of the point in controversy. He was not deceived; for,
+after another short consultation, the wary Delaware turned to him again,
+and expressed the determination of the chiefs, though in the most
+considerate language.
+
+"My brother has been called a liar," he said, "and his friends are
+angry. They will show that he has spoken the truth. Give my prisoners
+guns, and let them prove which is the man."
+
+Magua affected to consider the expedient, which he well knew proceeded
+from distrust of himself, as a compliment, and made a gesture of
+acquiescence, well content that his veracity should be supported by so
+skilful a marksman as the scout. The weapons were instantly placed in
+the hands of the friendly opponents, and they were bid to fire over the
+heads of the seated multitude at an earthen vessel, which lay, by
+accident, on a stump some fifty yards from the place where they stood.
+
+Heyward smiled to himself at the idea of a competition with the scout,
+though he determined to persevere in the deception, until apprised of
+the real designs of Magua. Raising his rifle with the utmost care, and
+renewing his aim three several times, he fired. The bullet cut the wood
+within a few inches of the vessel; and a general exclamation of
+satisfaction announced that the shot was considered a proof of great
+skill in the use of the weapon. Even Hawkeye nodded his head, as if he
+would say, it was better than he had expected. But, instead of
+manifesting an intention to contend with the successful marksman, he
+stood leaning on his rifle for more than a minute, like a man who was
+completely buried in thought. From this reverie he was, however,
+awakened by one of the young Indians who had furnished the arms, and who
+now touched his shoulder, saying, in exceedingly broken English,--
+
+"Can the pale-face beat it?"
+
+"Yes, Huron!" exclaimed the scout, raising the short rifle in his right
+hand, and shaking it at Magua, with as much apparent ease as if it were
+a reed; "yes, Huron, I could strike you now, and no power of earth could
+prevent the deed! The soaring hawk is not more certain of the dove than
+I am this moment of you, did I choose to send a bullet to your heart!
+Why should I not? Why!--because the gifts of my color forbid it, and I
+might draw down evil on tender and innocent heads. If you know such a
+being as God, thank Him, therefore, in your inward soul; for you have
+reason."
+
+The flushed countenance, angry eye, and swelling figure of the scout,
+produced a sensation of secret awe in all that heard him. The Delawares
+held their breath in expectation; but Magua himself, even while he
+distrusted the forbearance of his enemy, remained immovable and calm,
+where he stood wedged in by the crowd, as one who grew to the spot.
+
+"Beat it," replied the young Delaware at the elbow of the scout.
+
+"Beat what, fool!--what!" exclaimed Hawkeye, still flourishing the
+weapon angrily above his head, though his eye no longer sought the
+person of Magua.
+
+"If the white man is the warrior he pretends," said the aged chief, "let
+him strike nigher to the mark."
+
+The scout laughed aloud--a noise that produced the startling effect of
+an unnatural sound on Heyward; then dropping the piece heavily into his
+extended left hand, it was discharged, apparently by the shock, driving
+the fragments of the vessel into the air, and scattering them on every
+side. Almost at the same instant, the rattling sound of the rifle was
+heard, as he suffered it to fall, contemptuously, to the earth.
+
+The first impression of so strange a scene was engrossing admiration.
+Then a low, but increasing murmur, ran through the multitude, and
+finally swelled into sounds that denoted a lively opposition in the
+sentiments of the spectators. While some openly testified their
+satisfaction at so unexampled dexterity, by far the larger portion of
+the tribe were inclined to believe the success of the shot was the
+result of accident. Heyward was not slow to confirm an opinion that was
+so favorable to his own pretentions.
+
+"It was chance!" he exclaimed; "none can shoot without an aim!"
+
+"Chance!" echoed the excited woodsman, who was now stubbornly bent on
+maintaining his identity at every hazard, and on whom the secret hints
+of Heyward to acquiesce in the deception were entirely lost. "Does
+yonder lying Huron, too, think it chance? Give him another gun, and
+place us face to face, without cover or dodge, and let Providence, and
+our own eyes, decide the matter atween us! I do not make the offer to
+you, major; for our blood is of a color, and we serve the same master."
+
+"That the Huron is a liar, is very evident," returned Heyward, coolly;
+"you have yourself heard him assert you to be La Longue Carabine."
+
+It were impossible to say what violent assertion the stubborn Hawkeye
+would have next made, in his headlong wish to vindicate his identity,
+had not the aged Delaware once more interposed.
+
+"The hawk which comes from the clouds can return when he will," he said;
+"give them the guns."
+
+This time the scout seized the rifle with avidity; nor had Magua, though
+he watched the movement of the marksman with jealous eyes, any further
+cause for apprehension.
+
+"Now let it be proved, in the face of this tribe of Delawares, which is
+the better man," cried the scout, tapping the butt of his piece with
+that finger which had pulled so many fatal triggers. "You see the gourd
+hanging against yonder tree, major; if you are a marksman fit for the
+borders, let me see you break its shell!"
+
+Duncan noted the object, and prepared himself to renew the trial. The
+gourd was one of the usual little vessels used by the Indians, and it
+was suspended from a dead branch of a small pine, by a thong of
+deer-skin, at the full distance of a hundred yards. So strangely
+compounded is the feeling of self-love, that the young soldier, while he
+knew the utter worthlessness of the suffrages of his savage umpires,
+forgot the sudden motives of the contest in a wish to excel. It has been
+seen, already, that his skill was far from being contemptible, and he
+now resolved to put forth its nicest qualities. Had his life depended on
+the issue, the aim of Duncan could not have been more deliberate or
+guarded. He fired; and three or four young Indians, who sprang forward
+at the report, announced with a shout, that the ball was in the tree, a
+very little on one side of the proper object. The warriors uttered a
+common ejaculation of pleasure, and then turned their eyes inquiringly
+on the movements of his rival.
+
+"It may do for the Royal Americans!" said Hawkeye, laughing once more
+in his own silent, heartfelt manner; "but had my gun often turned so
+much from the true line, many a marten, whose skin is now in a lady's
+muff, would still be in the woods; ay, and many a bloody Mingo, who has
+departed to his final account, would be acting his deviltries at this
+very day, atween the provinces. I hope the squaw who owns the gourd has
+more of them in her wigwam, for this will never hold water again!"
+
+The scout had shook his priming, and cocked his piece, while speaking;
+and, as he ended, he threw back a foot, and slowly raised the muzzle
+from the earth: the motion was steady, uniform, and in one direction.
+When on a perfect level, it remained for a single moment, without tremor
+or variation, as though both man and rifle were carved in stone. During
+that stationary instant, it poured forth its contents, in a bright,
+glancing sheet of flame. Again the young Indians bounded forward; but
+their hurried search and disappointed looks announced that no traces of
+the bullet were to be seen.
+
+"Go!" said the old chief to the scout, in a tone of strong disgust;
+"thou art a wolf in the skin of a dog. I will talk to the 'Long Rifle'
+of the Yengeese."
+
+"Ah! had I that piece which furnished the name you use, I would obligate
+myself to cut the thong, and drop the gourd without breaking it!"
+returned Hawkeye, perfectly undisturbed by the other's manner, "Fools,
+if you would find the bullet of a sharpshooter of these woods, you must
+look in the object and not around it!"
+
+The Indian youths instantly comprehended his meaning--for this time he
+spoke in the Delaware tongue--and tearing the gourd from the tree, they
+held it on high with an exulting shout, displaying a hole in its bottom,
+which had been cut by the bullet, after passing through the usual
+orifice in the centre of its upper side. At this unexpected exhibition,
+a loud and vehement expression of pleasure burst from the mouth of every
+warrior present. It decided the question, and effectually established
+Hawkeye in the possession of his dangerous reputation. Those curious and
+admiring eyes which had been turned again on Heyward, were finally
+directed to the weather-beaten form of the scout, who immediately became
+the principal object of attention to the simple and unsophisticated
+beings by whom he was surrounded. When the sudden and noisy commotion
+had a little subsided, the aged chief resumed his examination.
+
+"Why did you wish to stop my ears?" he said, addressing Duncan; "are
+the Delawares fools, that they could not know the young panther from the
+cat?"
+
+"They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird," said Duncan, endeavoring
+to adopt the figurative language of the natives.
+
+"It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother," added
+the chief, turning his eyes on Magua, "the Delawares listen."
+
+Thus singled, and directly called on to declare his object, the Huron
+arose; and advancing with great deliberation and dignity into the very
+centre of the circle, where he stood confronted to the prisoners, he
+placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth,
+however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of
+earnest faces as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his
+audience. On Hawkeye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan, a
+look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice he
+scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm,
+commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with
+an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled
+with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a
+tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.
+
+"The Spirit that made men colored them differently," commenced the
+subtle Huron. "Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These He said
+would be slaves; and He ordered them to work forever, like the beaver.
+You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the
+lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt lake, where the big
+canoes come and go with them in droves. Some He made with faces paler
+than the ermine of the forests: and these He ordered to be traders; dogs
+to their women, and wolves to their slaves. He gave this people the
+nature of the pigeon: wings that never tire; young, more plentiful than
+the leaves on the trees, and appetites to devour the earth. He gave them
+tongues like the false call of the wild-cat; hearts like rabbits; the
+cunning of the hog (but none of the fox), and arms longer than the legs
+of the moose. With his tongue, he stops the ears of the Indians; his
+heart teaches him to pay warriors to fight his battles; his cunning
+tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms
+inclose the land from the shores of the salt-water to the islands of the
+great lake. His gluttony makes him sick. God gave him enough, and yet
+he wants all. Such are the pale-faces.
+
+"Some the Great Spirit made with skins brighter and redder than yonder
+sun," continued Magua, pointing impressively upwards to the lurid
+luminary, which was struggling through the misty atmosphere of the
+horizon; "and these did He fashion to His own mind. He gave them this
+island as He had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game. The
+wind made their clearings; the sun and rains ripened their fruits; and
+the snows came to tell them to be thankful. What need had they of roads
+to journey by! They saw through the hills. When the beavers worked, they
+lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in
+winter, skins kept them warm. If they fought among themselves, it was to
+prove that they were men. They were brave; they were just; they were
+happy."
+
+Here the speaker paused, and again looked around him, to discover if his
+legend had touched the sympathies of his listeners. He met everywhere
+with eyes riveted on his own, heads erect, and nostrils expanded, as if
+each individual present felt himself able and willing, singly, to
+redress the wrongs of his race.
+
+"If the Great Spirit gave different tongues to his red children," he
+continued, in a low, still, melancholy voice, "it was that all animals
+might understand them. Some He placed among the snows, with their cousin
+the bear. Some he placed near the setting sun, on the road to the happy
+hunting-grounds. Some on the lands around the great fresh waters; but to
+his greatest, and most beloved, He gave the sands of the salt lake. Do
+my brothers know the name of this favored people?"
+
+"It was the Lenape!" exclaimed twenty eager voices, in a breath.
+
+"It was the Lenni Lenape," returned Magua, affecting to bend his head in
+reverence to their former greatness. "It was the tribes of the Lenape!
+The sun rose from water that was salt, and set in water that was sweet,
+and never hid himself from their eyes. But why should I, a Huron of the
+woods, tell a wise people their own traditions? Why remind them of their
+injuries; their ancient greatness; their deeds; their glory; their
+happiness,--their losses; their defeats; their misery? Is there not one
+among them who has seen it all, and who knows it to be true? I have
+done. My tongue is still, for my heart is of lead. I listen."
+
+As the voice of the speaker suddenly ceased, every face and all eyes
+turned, by a common movement, towards the venerable Tamenund. From the
+moment that he took his seat, until the present instant, the lips of the
+patriarch had not severed, and scarcely a sign of life had escaped him.
+He sat bent in feebleness, and apparently unconscious of the presence he
+was in, during the whole of that opening scene, in which the skill of
+the scout had been so clearly established. At the nicely graduated sound
+of Magua's voice, however, he betrayed some evidence of consciousness,
+and once or twice he even raised his head, as if to listen. But when the
+crafty Huron spoke of his nation by name, the eyelids of the old man
+raised themselves, and he looked out upon the multitude with that sort
+of dull unmeaning expression which might be supposed to belong to the
+countenance of a spectre. Then he made an effort to rise, and being
+upheld by his supporters, he gained his feet, in a posture commanding by
+its dignity, while he tottered with weakness.
+
+"Who calls upon the children of the Lenape!" he said, in a deep,
+guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless
+silence of the multitude: "who speaks of things gone! Does not the egg
+become a worm--the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of
+good that is past? Better thank the Manitou for that which remains."
+
+"It is a Wyandot," said Magua, stepping nigher to the rude platform on
+which the other stood; "a friend of Tamenund."
+
+"A friend!" repeated the sage, on whose brow a dark frown settled,
+imparting a portion of that severity which had rendered his eye so
+terrible in middle age. "Are the Mingos rulers of the earth? What brings
+a Huron here?"
+
+"Justice. His prisoners are with his brothers, and he comes for his
+own."
+
+Tamenund turned his head towards one of his supporters, and listened to
+the short explanation the man gave. Then facing the applicant, he
+regarded him a moment with deep attention; after which he said, in a low
+and reluctant voice,--
+
+"Justice is the law of the great Manitou. My children, give the stranger
+food. Then, Huron, take thine own and depart."
+
+On the delivery of this solemn judgment, the patriarch seated himself,
+and closed his eyes again, as if better pleased with the images of his
+own ripened experience than with the visible objects of the world.
+Against such a decree there was no Delaware sufficiently hardy to
+murmur, much less oppose himself. The words were barely uttered when
+four or five of the younger warriors, stepping behind Heyward and the
+scout, passed thongs so dexterously and rapidly around their arms, as to
+hold them both in instant bondage. The former was too much engrossed
+with his precious and nearly insensible burden, to be aware of their
+intentions before they were executed; and the latter, who considered
+even the hostile tribes of the Delawares a superior race of beings,
+submitted without resistance. Perhaps, however, the manner of the scout
+would not have been so passive, had he fully comprehended the language
+in which the preceding dialogue had been conducted.
+
+Magua cast a look of triumph around the whole assembly before he
+proceeded to the execution of his purpose. Perceiving that the men were
+unable to offer any resistance, he turned his looks on her he valued
+most. Cora met his gaze with an eye so calm and firm, that his
+resolution wavered. Then recollecting his former artifice, he raised
+Alice from the arms of the warrior against whom she leaned, and
+beckoning Heyward to follow, he motioned for the encircling crowd to
+open. But Cora, instead of obeying the impulse he had expected, rushed
+to the feet of the patriarch, and raising her voice, exclaimed aloud,--
+
+"Just and venerable Delaware, on thy wisdom and power we lean for mercy!
+Be deaf to yonder artful and remorseless monster, who poisons thy ears
+with falsehoods to feed his thirst for blood. Thou that hast lived long,
+and that hast seen the evil of the world, should know how to temper its
+calamities to the miserable."
+
+The eyes of the old man opened heavily, and he once more looked upwards
+at the multitude. As the piercing tones of the supplicant swelled on his
+ears, they moved slowly in the direction of her person, and finally
+settled there in a steady gaze. Cora had cast herself to her knees; and,
+with hands clenched in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she
+remained like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in
+his faded, but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence.
+Gradually the expression of Tamenund's features changed, and losing
+their vacancy in admiration, they lighted with a portion of that
+intelligence which a century before had been wont to communicate his
+youthful fire to the extensive bands of the Delawares. Rising without
+assistance, and seemingly without an effort, he demanded, in a voice
+that startled its auditors by its firmness,--
+
+"What art thou?"
+
+"A woman. One of a hated race, if thou wilt--a Yengee. But one who has
+never harmed thee, and who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who
+asks for succor."
+
+"Tell me, my children," continued the patriarch, hoarsely, motioning to
+those around him, though his eyes still dwelt upon the kneeling form of
+Cora, "where have the Delawares camped?"
+
+"In the mountains of the Iroquois, beyond the clear springs of the
+Horican."
+
+"Many parching summers are come and gone," continued the sage, "since I
+drank of the water of my own rivers. The children of Minquon[26] are the
+justest white men; but they were thirsty, and they took it to
+themselves. Do they follow us so far?"
+
+"We follow none; we covet nothing," answered Cora. "Captives against our
+wills, have we been brought among you; and we ask but permission to
+depart to our own in peace. Art thou not Tamenund--the father, the
+judge, I had almost said, the prophet--of this people?"
+
+"I am Tamenund of many days."
+
+"'Tis now some seven years that one of thy people was at the mercy of a
+white chief on the borders of this province. He claimed to be of the
+blood of the good and just Tamenund. 'Go,' said the white man, 'for thy
+parent's sake thou art free.' Dost thou remember the name of that
+English warrior?"
+
+"I remember, that when a laughing boy," returned the patriarch, with the
+peculiar recollection of vast age, "I stood upon the sands of the
+sea-shore, and saw a big canoe, with wings whiter than the swan's, and
+wider than many eagles, come from the rising sun."
+
+"Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant, but of favor shown to
+thy kindred by one of mine, within the memory of thy youngest warrior."
+
+"Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchmanne fought for the
+hunting-grounds of the Delawares? Then Tamenund was a chief, and first
+laid aside the bow for the lightning of the pale faces--"
+
+[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+THE SUPPLICANT
+
+_Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched in each
+other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a beauteous and
+breathing model of her sex_]
+
+"Nor yet then," interrupted Cora, "by many ages; I speak of a thing of
+yesterday. Surely, surely, you forget it not."
+
+"It was but yesterday," rejoined the aged man, with touching pathos,
+"that the children of the Lenape were masters of the world. The fishes
+of the salt lake, the birds, the beasts, and the Mengwe of the woods,
+owned them for sagamores."
+
+Cora bowed her head in disappointment, and, for a bitter moment,
+struggled with her chagrin. Then elevating her rich features and beaming
+eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
+unearthly voice of the patriarch himself,--
+
+"Tell me, is Tamenund a father?"
+
+The old man looked down upon her from his elevated stand, with a
+benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes
+slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered,--
+
+"Of a nation."
+
+"For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief," she
+continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering
+her head to droop until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the
+maze of dark glossy tresses that fell in disorder upon her shoulders,
+"the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child. But yonder
+is one who has never known the weight of Heaven's displeasure until now.
+She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their
+close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she
+is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain."
+
+"I know that the pale-faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that
+they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their
+color is better than the sachems of the redman. The dogs and crows of
+their tribes," continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the
+wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the
+earth in shame, as he proceeded, "would bark and caw before they would
+take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow.
+But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They
+entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun. I
+have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the
+season of blossoms has always come again."
+
+"It is so," said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a
+trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with a
+kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness of her
+countenance; "but why--it is not permitted us to inquire. There is yet
+one of thine own people who has not been brought before thee; before
+thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak."
+
+Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly, one of his companions
+said,--
+
+"It is a snake--a redskin in the pay of the Yengeese. We keep him for
+the torture."
+
+"Let him come," returned the sage.
+
+Then Tamenund once more sank into his seat, and a silence so deep
+prevailed, while the young men prepared to obey his simple mandate, that
+the leaves, which fluttered in the draught of the light morning air,
+were distinctly heard rustling in the surrounding forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+  "If you deny me, fie upon your law!
+  There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
+  I stand for judgment; answer, shall I have it?"
+
+  _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+The silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes.
+Then the waving multitude opened and shut again, and Uncas stood in the
+living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the
+lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned
+on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect,
+agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in
+which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted,
+in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He
+cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting the
+settled expression of hostility that lowered in the visages of the
+chiefs, with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive
+children. But when, last in his haughty scrutiny, the person of Tamenund
+came under his glance, his eye became fixed, as though all other objects
+were already forgotten. Then advancing with a slow and noiseless step up
+the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the
+sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one
+of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.
+
+"With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou?" demanded the
+patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.
+
+"Like his fathers," Uncas replied; "with the tongue of a Delaware."
+
+At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran
+through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl
+of the lion, as his choler is first awakened--a fearful omen of the
+weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage,
+though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to
+exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he
+repeated, in his low, guttural tones, the words he had just heard.
+
+"A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from
+their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the
+hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strange people
+sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven had spared! The
+beasts that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the
+trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I
+found a Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the
+camps of his nation."
+
+"The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the
+softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has heard their
+song."
+
+The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting
+sounds of some passing melody.
+
+"Does Tamenund dream!" he exclaimed. "What voice is at his ear! Have the
+winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the
+Lenape!"
+
+A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from the
+lips of the Delaware prophet. His people steadily construed his
+unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was
+believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence, and they
+awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause,
+however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the
+recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of
+the presence of the prisoner.
+
+"The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,"
+he said. "'Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail."
+
+"And ye," returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, "are dogs that
+whine, when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!"
+
+Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their
+feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one
+of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored
+the appearance of quiet. The task might probably have been more
+difficult, had not a movement made by Tamenund indicated that he was
+again about to speak.
+
+"Delaware!" resumed the sage, "little art thou worthy of thy name. My
+people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who
+deserts his tribe when hid in clouds is doubly a traitor. The law of
+the Manitou is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains
+stand, while the blossoms come and go on the trees, it must be so. He is
+thine, my children; deal justly by him."
+
+Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than
+common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the
+lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be,
+from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their ruthless
+intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief
+proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure
+the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and
+screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of preparation.
+Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawkeye
+began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness;
+and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a
+suppliant for mercy.
+
+Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved
+his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when
+the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright
+attitude. One among them, if possible, more fierce and savage than his
+fellows, seized the hunting-shirt of the young warrior, and at a single
+effort tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure, he
+leaped towards his unresisting victim, and prepared to lead him to the
+stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the
+feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly
+as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The
+eyeballs of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth
+opened, and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement.
+Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a
+finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him in
+wonder, and every eye was, like his own, fastened intently on the figure
+of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner,
+in a bright blue tint.
+
+For a single instant Uncas enjoyed his triumph, smiling calmly on the
+scene. Then motioning the crowd away with a high and haughty sweep of
+his arm, he advanced in front of the nation with the air of a king, and
+spoke in a voice louder than the murmur of admiration that ran through
+the multitude.
+
+"Men of the Lenni Lenape!" he said, "my race upholds the earth! Your
+feeble tribe stands on my shell![27] What fire that a Delaware can light
+would burn the child of my fathers," he added, pointing proudly to the
+simple blazonry on his skin; "the blood that came from such a stock
+would smother your flames! My race is the grandfather of nations!"
+
+"Who art thou?" demanded Tamenund, rising at the startling tones he
+heard, more than at any meaning conveyed by the language of the
+prisoner.
+
+"Uncas, the son of Chingachgook," answered the captive modestly, turning
+from the nation, and bending his head in reverence to the other's
+character and years; "a son of the great Unamis."
+
+"The hour of Tamenund is nigh!" exclaimed the sage; "the day is come, at
+last, to the night! I thank the Manitou, that one is here to fill my
+place at the council-fire. Uncas, the child of Uncas, is found! Let the
+eyes of a dying eagle gaze on the rising sun."
+
+The youth stepped lightly, but proudly, on the platform, where he became
+visible to the whole agitated and wondering multitude. Tamenund held him
+long at the length of his arm, and read every turn in the fine
+lineaments of his countenance, with the untiring gaze of one who
+recalled days of happiness.
+
+"Is Tamenund a boy?" at length the bewildered prophet exclaimed. "Have I
+dreamt of so many snows--that my people were scattered like floating
+sands--of Yengeese, more plenty than the leaves on the trees! The arrow
+of Tamenund would not frighten the fawn; his arm is withered like the
+branch of a dead oak; the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is
+Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale-faces! Uncas,
+the panther of his tribe, the eldest son of the Lenape, the wisest
+Sagamore of the Mohicans! Tell me, ye Delawares, has Tamenund been a
+sleeper for a hundred winters?"
+
+The calm and deep silence which succeeded these words, sufficiently
+announced the awful reverence with which his people received the
+communication of the patriarch. None dared to answer, though all
+listened in breathless expectation of what might follow. Uncas, however,
+looking in his face with the fondness and veneration of a favored child,
+presumed on his own high and acknowledged rank, to reply.
+
+"Four warriors of his race have lived, and died," he said, "since the
+friend of Tamenund led his people in battle. The blood of the turtle has
+been in many chiefs, but all have gone back into the earth from whence
+they came except Chingachgook and his son."
+
+"It is true--it is true," returned the sage; a flash of recollection
+destroying all his pleasing fancies, and restoring him at once to a
+consciousness of the true history of his nation. "Our wise men have
+often said that two warriors of the unchanged race were in the hills of
+the Yengeese; why have their seats at the council-fires of the Delawares
+been so long empty?"
+
+At these words the young man raised his head, which he had still kept
+bowed a little, in reverence; and lifting his voice so as to be heard by
+the multitude, as if to explain at once and forever the policy of his
+family, he said aloud,--
+
+"Once we slept where we could hear the salt lake speak in its anger.
+Then we were rulers and sagamores over the land. But when a pale-face
+was seen on every brook, we followed the deer back to the river of our
+nation. The Delawares were gone. Few warriors of them all stayed to
+drink of the stream they loved. Then said my fathers, 'Here will we
+hunt. The waters of the river go into the salt lake. If we go towards
+the setting sun, we shall find streams that run into the great lakes of
+sweet water; there would a Mohican die, like fishes of the sea, in the
+clear springs. When the Manitou is ready, and shall say "Come," we will
+follow the river to the sea, and take our own again.' Such, Delawares,
+is the belief of the children of the Turtle. Our eyes are on the rising,
+and not towards the setting sun. We know whence he comes, but we know
+not whither he goes. It is enough."
+
+The men of the Lenape listened to his words with all the respect that
+superstition could lend, finding a secret charm even in the figurative
+language with which the young Sagamore imparted his ideas. Uncas himself
+watched the effect of his brief explanation with intelligent eyes, and
+gradually dropped the air of authority he had assumed, as he perceived
+that his auditors were content. Then permitting his looks to wander over
+the silent throng that crowded around the elevated seat of Tamenund, he
+first perceived Hawkeye in his bonds. Stepping eagerly from his stand,
+he made way for himself to the side of his friend; and cutting his
+thongs with a quick and angry stroke of his own knife, he motioned to
+the crowd to divide. The Indians silently obeyed, and once more they
+stood ranged in their circle, as before his appearance among them. Uncas
+took the scout by the hand, and led him to the feet of the patriarch.
+
+"Father," he said, "look at this pale-face; a just man, and the friend
+of the Delawares."
+
+"Is he a son of Minquon?"
+
+"Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and feared by the Maquas."
+
+"What name has he gained by his deeds?"
+
+"We call him Hawkeye," Uncas replied, using the Delaware phrase; "for
+his sight never fails. The Mingos know him better by the death he gives
+their warriors; with them he is 'The Long Rifle.'"
+
+"La Longue Carabine!" exclaimed Tamenund, opening his eyes, and
+regarding the scout sternly. "My son has not done well to call him
+friend."
+
+"I call him so who proves himself such," returned the young chief, with
+great calmness, but with a steady mien. "If Uncas is welcome among the
+Delawares, then is Hawkeye with his friends."
+
+"The pale-face has slain my young men; his name is great for the blows
+he has struck the Lenape."
+
+"If a Mingo has whispered that much in the ear of the Delaware, he has
+only shown that he is a singing-bird," said the scout, who now believed
+that it was time to vindicate himself from such offensive charges, and
+who spoke in the tongue of the man he addressed, modifying his Indian
+figures, however, with his own peculiar notions. "That I have slain the
+Maquas I am not the man to deny, even at their own council-fires; but
+that, knowingly, my hand has ever harmed a Delaware, is opposed to the
+reason of my gifts, which is friendly to them, and all that belongs to
+their nation."
+
+A low exclamation of applause passed among the warriors, who exchanged
+looks with each other like men that first began to perceive their error.
+
+"Where is the Huron?" demanded Tamenund. "Has he stopped my ears?"
+
+Magua, whose feelings during that scene in which Uncas had triumphed may
+be much better imagined than described, answered to the call by stepping
+boldly in front of the patriarch.
+
+"The just Tamenund," he said, "will not keep what a Huron has lent."
+
+"Tell me, son of my brother," returned the sage, avoiding the dark
+countenance of Le Subtil, and turning gladly to the more ingenuous
+features of Uncas, "has the stranger a conqueror's right over you?"
+
+"He has none. The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he
+is strong, and knows how to leap through them."
+
+"La Longue Carabine?"
+
+"Laughs at the Mingoes. Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear."
+
+"The stranger and the white maiden that came into my camp together?"
+
+"Should journey on an open path."
+
+"And the woman that Huron left with my warriors?"
+
+Uncas made no reply.
+
+"And the woman that the Mingo has brought into my camp," repeated
+Tamenund, gravely.
+
+"She is mine," cried Magua, shaking his hand in triumph at Uncas.
+"Mohican, you know that she is mine."
+
+"My son is silent," said Tamenund, endeavoring to read the expression of
+the face that the youth turned from him in sorrow.
+
+"It is so," was the low answer.
+
+A short and impressive pause succeeded, during which it was very
+apparent with what reluctance the multitude admitted the justice of the
+Mingo's claim. At length the sage, in whom alone the decision depended,
+said, in a firm voice,--
+
+"Huron, depart."
+
+"As he came, just Tamenund," demanded the wily Magua; "or with hands
+filled with the faith of the Delawares? The wigwam of Le Renard Subtil
+is empty. Make him strong with his own."
+
+The aged man mused with himself for a time; and then bending his head
+towards one of his venerable companions, he asked,--
+
+"Are my ears open?"
+
+"It is true."
+
+"Is this Mingo a chief?"
+
+"The first in his nation."
+
+"Girl, what wouldst thou? A great warrior takes thee to wife. Go! thy
+race will not end."
+
+"Better, a thousand times, it should," exclaimed the horror-struck
+Cora, "than meet with such a degradation!"
+
+"Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers. An unwilling maiden
+makes an unhappy wigwam."
+
+"She speaks with the tongue of her people," returned Magua, regarding
+his victim with a look of bitter irony. "She is of a race of traders,
+and will bargain for a bright look. Let Tamenund speak the words."
+
+"Take you the wampum, and our love."
+
+"Nothing hence but what Magua brought hither."
+
+"Then depart with thine own. The great Manitou forbids that a Delaware
+should be unjust."
+
+Magua advanced, and seized his captive strongly by the arm; the
+Delawares fell back, in silence; and Cora, as if conscious that
+remonstrance would be useless, prepared to submit to her fate without
+resistance.
+
+"Hold, hold!" cried Duncan, springing forward; "Huron, have mercy! her
+ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known
+to be."
+
+"Magua is a redskin; he wants not the beads of the pale-faces."
+
+"Gold, silver, powder, lead--all that a warrior needs shall be in thy
+wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief."
+
+"Le Subtil is very strong," cried Magua, violently shaking the hand
+which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; "he has his revenge!"
+
+"Mighty ruler of providence!" exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands
+together in agony, "can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I
+appeal for mercy."
+
+"The words of the Delaware are said," returned the sage, closing his
+eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and
+his bodily exertion. "Men speak not twice."
+
+"That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what had once
+been spoken, is wise and reasonable," said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan
+to be silent; "but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well
+before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I
+love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor
+at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end,
+many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your
+judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that
+into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would
+greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands."
+
+"Will 'The Long Rifle' give his life for the woman?" demanded Magua,
+hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion towards quitting the
+place with his victim.
+
+"No, no; I have not said so much as that," returned Hawkeye, drawing
+back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which
+Magua listened to his proposal. "It would be an unequal exchange, to
+give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best
+woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter-quarters,
+now--at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn--on condition you
+will release the maiden."
+
+Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.
+
+"Well, then," added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not
+half made up his mind, "I will throw 'Killdeer' into the bargain. Take
+the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween
+the provinces."
+
+Magua still disdained to reply, continuing his efforts to disperse the
+crowd.
+
+"Perhaps," added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness, exactly in
+proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, "if
+I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the
+we'pon, it would smooth the little differences in our judgments."
+
+Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an
+impenetrable belt around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable
+proposal, to open his path, threatening, by the glance of his eye,
+another appeal to the infallible justice of their "prophet."
+
+"What is ordered must sooner or later arrive," continued Hawkeye,
+turning with a sad and humbled look to Uncas. "The varlet knows his
+advantage, and will keep it! God bless you, boy; you have found friends
+among your natural kin and I hope they will prove as true as some you
+have met who had no Indian cross. As for me, sooner or later, I must
+die; it is therefore fortunate there are but few to make my death-howl.
+After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp,
+so a day or two will make no great difference in the everlasting
+reckoning of time. God bless you," added the rugged woodsman, bending
+his head aside, and then instantly changing its direction again, with a
+wistful look towards the youth; "I loved both you and your father,
+Uncas, though our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are
+somewhat different. Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my
+greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky
+trail; and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there
+is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together
+again. You'll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep
+it for my sake; and harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don't deny you
+the use of vengeance, use it a little freely on the Mingos; it may
+unburden grief at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept your
+offer; release the woman. I am your prisoner!"
+
+A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation, ran through the
+crowd at this generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware
+warriors manifesting pleasure at the manliness of the intended
+sacrifice. Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he
+doubted; then casting his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which
+ferocity and admiration were strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed
+forever.
+
+He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his
+head, and said, in a steady and settled voice,--
+
+"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind. Come," he
+added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive to
+urge her onward; "a Huron is no tattler; we will go."
+
+The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled,
+while the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into
+her very temples, at the indignity.
+
+"I am your prisoner, and at a fitting time shall be ready to follow,
+even to my death. But violence is unnecessary," she coldly said; and
+immediately turning to Hawkeye, added, "Generous hunter! from my soul I
+thank you. Your offer is in vain, neither could it be accepted; but
+still you may serve me, even more than in your own noble intention. Look
+at that drooping, humbled child! Abandon her not until you leave her in
+the habitation of civilized men. I will not say," wringing the hard hand
+of the scout, "that her father will reward you--for such as you are
+above the rewards of men--but he will thank you, and bless you. And,
+believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight
+of Heaven. Would to God, I could hear one from his lips at this awful
+moment!" Her voice became choked, and, for an instant, she was silent;
+then advancing a step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her
+unconscious sister, she continued, in more subdued tones, but in which
+feeling and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle,--"I
+need not tell you to cherish the treasure you will possess. You love
+her, Heyward; that would conceal a thousand faults, though she had them.
+She is kind, gentle, sweet, good, as mortal may be. There is not a
+blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken.
+She is fair--O! how surpassingly fair!" laying her own beautiful, but
+less brilliant hand, in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead
+of Alice, and parting the golden hair which clustered about her brows;
+"and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin! I could say
+much--more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will spare
+you and myself"--Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over
+the form of her sister. After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and
+with features of the hue of death, but without even a tear in her
+feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage, with all her
+former elevation of manner,--"Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will
+follow."
+
+"Ay, go," cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl;
+"go, Magua, go. These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to
+detain you; but I--I have no such obligation. Go, malignant monster--why
+do you delay?"
+
+It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua
+listened to this threat to follow. There was at first a fierce and
+manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly subdued in a look of
+cunning coldness.
+
+"The woods are open," he was content with answering. "'The Open Hand'
+can come."
+
+"Hold," cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by
+violence; "you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an
+ambushment, and your death--"
+
+"Huron," interrupted Uncas, who, submissive to the stern customs of his
+people, had been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed;
+"Huron, the justice of the Delawares comes from the Manitou. Look at the
+sun. He is now in the upper branches of the hemlock. Your path is short
+and open. When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your
+trail."
+
+"I hear a crow!" exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh. "Go!" he added,
+shaking his hand at the crowd, which had slowly opened to admit his
+passage,--"Where are the petticoats of the Delawares! Let them send
+their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to
+eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves--I spit on you!"
+
+His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with
+these biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested
+into the forest, followed by his passive captive, and protected by the
+inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_"Flue._--Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
+  law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be
+  offered in the world."
+
+  _King Henry V._
+
+
+So long as their enemy and his victim continued in sight, the multitude
+remained motionless as beings charmed to the place by some power that
+was friendly to the Huron; but the instant he disappeared, it became
+tossed and agitated by fierce and powerful passion. Uncas maintained his
+elevated stand, keeping his eyes on the form of Cora, until the colors
+of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest; when he
+descended, and moving silently through the throng, he disappeared in
+that lodge from which he had so recently issued. A few of the graver and
+more attentive warriors, who caught the gleams of anger that shot from
+the eyes of the young chief in passing, followed him to the place he had
+selected for his meditations. After which, Tamenund and Alice were
+removed, and the women and children were ordered to disperse. During the
+momentous hour that succeeded, the encampment resembled a hive of
+troubled bees, who only awaited the appearance and example of their
+leader to take some distant and momentous flight.
+
+A young warrior at length issued from the lodge of Uncas; and moving
+deliberately, with a sort of grave march, towards a dwarf pine that grew
+in the crevices of the rocky terrace, he tore the bark from its body,
+and then returned whence he came without speaking. He was soon followed
+by another, who stripped the sapling of its branches, leaving it a naked
+and blazed[28] trunk. A third colored the posts with stripes of a dark
+red paint; all which indications of a hostile design in the leaders of
+the nation were received by the men without in a gloomy and ominous
+silence. Finally, the Mohican himself reappeared, divested of all his
+attire except his girdle and leggings, and with one-half of his fine
+features hid under a cloud of threatening black.
+
+Uncas moved with a slow and dignified tread towards the post, which he
+immediately commenced encircling with a measured step, not unlike an
+ancient dance, raising his voice, at the same time, in the wild and
+irregular chant of his war-song. The notes were in the extremes of human
+sounds; being sometimes melancholy and exquisitely plaintive, even
+rivalling the melody of birds--and then, by sudden and startling
+transitions, causing the auditors to tremble by their depth and energy.
+The words were few and often repeated, proceeding gradually from a sort
+of invocation, or hymn to the Deity, to an intimation of the warrior's
+object, and terminating as they commenced with an acknowledgment of his
+own dependence on the Great Spirit. If it were possible to translate the
+comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might
+read something like the following:
+
+  "Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise:
+  Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art just.
+
+  "In the heavens, in the clouds, O, I see
+  Many spots--many dark, many red:
+  In the heavens, O, I see
+  Many clouds.
+
+  "In the woods, in the air, O, I hear
+  The whoop, the long yell, and the cry:
+  In the woods, O, I hear
+  The loud whoop!
+
+  "Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
+  Thou art weak--thou art strong; I am slow:
+  Manitou! Manitou!
+  Give me aid."
+
+At the end of what might be called each verse he made a pause, by
+raising a note louder and longer than common, that was peculiarly suited
+to the sentiment just expressed. The first close was solemn, and
+intended to convey the idea of veneration; the second descriptive,
+bordering on the alarming; and the third was the well known and terrific
+war-whoop, which burst from the lips of the young warrior, like a
+combination of all the frightful sounds of battle. The last was like the
+first, humble and imploring. Three times did he repeat this song, and as
+often did he encircle the post in his dance.
+
+At the close of the first turn, a grave and highly esteemed chief of
+the Lenape followed his example, singing words of his own, however, to
+music of a similar character. Warrior after warrior enlisted in the
+dance, until all of any renown and authority were numbered in its mazes.
+The spectacle now became wildly terrific; the fierce-looking and
+menacing visages of the chiefs receiving additional power from the
+appalling strains in which they mingled their guttural tones. Just then
+Uncas struck his tomahawk deep into the post, and raised his voice in a
+shout, which might be termed his own battle-cry. The act announced that
+he had assumed the chief authority in the intended expedition.
+
+It was a signal that awakened all the slumbering passions of a nation. A
+hundred youths, who had hitherto been restrained by the diffidence of
+their years, rushed in a frantic body on the fancied emblem of their
+enemy, and severed it asunder, splinter by splinter, until nothing
+remained of the trunk but its roots in the earth. During this moment of
+tumult, the most ruthless deeds of war were performed on the fragments
+of the tree, with as much apparent ferocity as if they were the living
+victims of their cruelty. Some were scalped; some received the keen and
+trembling axe; and others suffered by thrusts from the fatal knife. In
+short, the manifestations of zeal and fierce delight were so great and
+unequivocal, that the expedition was declared to be a war of the nation.
+
+The instant Uncas had struck the blow, he moved out of the circle, and
+cast his eyes up to the sun, which was just gaining the point, when the
+truce with Magua was to end. The fact was soon announced by a
+significant gesture, accompanied by a corresponding cry; and the whole
+of the excited multitude abandoned their mimic warfare, with shrill
+yells of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment of the
+reality.
+
+The whole face of the encampment was instantly changed. The warriors,
+who were already armed and painted, became as still as if they were
+incapable of any uncommon burst of emotion. On the other hand, the women
+broke out of the lodges, with the songs of joy and those of lamentation,
+so strangely mingled, that it might have been difficult to have said
+which passion preponderated. None, however, were idle. Some bore their
+choicest articles, others their young, and some their aged and infirm,
+into the forest, which spread itself like a verdant carpet of bright
+green against the side of the mountain. Thither Tamenund also retired,
+with calm composure, after a short and touching interview with Uncas;
+from whom the sage separated with the reluctance that a parent would
+quit a long lost and just recovered child. In the meantime, Duncan saw
+Alice to a place of safety, and then sought the scout, with a
+countenance that denoted how eagerly he also panted for the approaching
+contest.
+
+But Hawkeye was too much accustomed to the war-song and the enlistments
+of the natives, to betray any interest in the passing scene. He merely
+cast an occasional look at the number and quality of the warriors, who,
+from time to time, signified their readiness to accompany Uncas to the
+field. In this particular he was soon satisfied; for, as has been
+already seen, the power of the young chief quickly embraced every
+fighting man in the nation. After this material point was so
+satisfactorily decided, he despatched an Indian boy in quest of
+"Killdeer" and the rifle of Uncas, to the place where they had deposited
+the weapons on approaching the camp of the Delawares; a measure of
+double policy, inasmuch as it protected the arms from their own fate, if
+detained as prisoners, and gave them the advantage of appearing among
+the strangers rather as sufferers than as men provided with the means of
+defence and subsistence. In selecting another to perform the office of
+reclaiming his highly prized rifle, the scout had lost sight of none of
+his habitual caution. He knew that Magua had not come unattended, and he
+also knew that Huron spies watched the movements of their new enemies,
+along the whole boundary of the woods. It would, therefore, have been
+fatal to himself to have attempted the experiment; a warrior would have
+fared no better; but the danger of a boy would not be likely to commence
+until after his object was discovered. When Heyward joined him, the
+scout was coolly awaiting the result of this experiment.
+
+The boy, who had been well instructed, and was sufficiently crafty,
+proceeded, with a bosom that was swelling with the pride of such a
+confidence, and all the hopes of young ambition, carelessly across the
+clearing to the wood, which he entered at a point at some little
+distance from the place where the guns were secreted. The instant,
+however, he was concealed by the foliage of the bushes, his dusky form
+was to be seen gliding, like that of a serpent, towards the desired
+treasure. He was successful; and in another moment he appeared flying
+across the narrow opening that skirted the base of the terrace on which
+the village stood, with the velocity of an arrow, and bearing a prize
+in each hand. He had actually gained the crags, and was leaping up their
+sides with incredible activity, when a shot from the woods showed how
+accurate had been the judgment of the scout. The boy answered it with a
+feeble but contemptuous shout; and immediately a second bullet was sent
+after him from another part of the cover. At the next instant he
+appeared on the level above, elevating his guns in triumph, while he
+moved with the air of a conqueror towards the renowned hunter who had
+honored him by so glorious a commission.
+
+Notwithstanding the lively interest Hawkeye had taken in the fate of his
+messenger, he received "Killdeer" with a satisfaction that, momentarily,
+drove all other recollections from his mind. After examining the piece
+with an intelligent eye, and opening and shutting the pan some ten or
+fifteen times, and trying sundry other equally important experiments on
+the lock, he turned to the boy, and demanded with great manifestations
+of kindness, if he was hurt. The urchin looked proudly up in his face,
+but made no reply.
+
+"Ah! I see, lad, the knaves have barked your arm!" added the scout,
+taking up the limb of the patient sufferer, across which a deep flesh
+wound had been made by one of the bullets; "but a little bruised alder
+will act like a charm. In the meantime I will wrap it in a badge of
+wampum! You have commenced the business of a warrior early, my brave
+boy, and are likely to bear a plenty of honorable scars to your grave. I
+know many young men that have taken scalps who cannot show such a mark
+as this. Go!" having bound up the arm; "you will be a chief!"
+
+The lad departed, prouder of his flowing blood than the vainest courtier
+could be of his blushing ribbon; and stalked among the fellows of his
+age, an object of general admiration and envy.
+
+But in a moment of so many serious and important duties, this single act
+of juvenile fortitude did not attract the general notice and
+commendation it would have received under milder auspices. It had,
+however, served to apprise the Delawares of the position and the
+intentions of their enemies. Accordingly a party of adventurers, better
+suited to the task than the weak though spirited boy, was ordered to
+dislodge the skulkers. The duty was soon performed; for most of the
+Hurons retired of themselves when they found they had been discovered.
+The Delawares followed to a sufficient distance from their own
+encampment, and then halted for orders, apprehensive of being led into
+an ambush. As both parties secreted themselves, the woods were again as
+still and quiet as a mild summer morning and deep solitude could render
+them.
+
+The calm but still impatient Uncas now collected his chiefs, and divided
+his power. He presented Hawkeye as a warrior, often tried, and always
+found deserving of confidence. When he found his friend met with a
+favorable reception, he bestowed on him the command of twenty men, like
+himself, active, skilful, and resolute. He gave the Delawares to
+understand the rank of Heyward among the troops of the Yengeese, and
+then tendered to him a trust of equal authority. But Duncan declined the
+charge, professing his readiness to serve as a volunteer by the side of
+the scout. After this disposition, the young Mohican appointed various
+native chiefs to fill the different situations of responsibility, and
+the time pressing, he gave forth the word to march. He was cheerfully,
+but silently, obeyed by more than two hundred men.
+
+Their entrance into the forest was perfectly unmolested; nor did they
+encounter any living objects, that could either give the alarm, or
+furnish the intelligence they needed, until they came upon the lairs of
+their own scouts. Here a halt was ordered, and the chiefs were assembled
+to hold a "whispering council."
+
+At this meeting divers plans of operation were suggested, though none of
+a character to meet the wishes of their ardent leader. Had Uncas
+followed the promptings of his own inclinations, he would have led his
+followers to the charge without a moment's delay, and put the conflict
+to the hazard of an instant issue; but such a course would have been in
+opposition to all the received practices and opinions of his countrymen.
+He was, therefore, fain to adopt a caution that in the present temper of
+his mind he execrated, and to listen to advice at which his fiery spirit
+chafed, under the vivid recollection of Cora's danger and Magua's
+insolence.
+
+After an unsatisfactory conference of many minutes, a solitary
+individual was seen advancing from the side of the enemy, with such
+apparent haste, as to induce the belief he might be a messenger charged
+with pacific overtures. When within a hundred yards, however, of the
+cover behind which the Delaware council had assembled, the stranger
+hesitated, appeared uncertain what course to take, and finally halted.
+All eyes were now turned on Uncas, as if seeking directions how to
+proceed.
+
+"Hawkeye," said the young chief, in a low voice, "he must never speak to
+the Hurons again."
+
+"His time has come," said the laconic scout, thrusting the long barrel
+of his rifle through the leaves, and taking his deliberate and fatal
+aim. But, instead of pulling the trigger he lowered the muzzle again,
+and indulged himself in a fit of his peculiar mirth. "I took the imp for
+a Mingo, as I'm a miserable sinner!" he said; "but when my eye ranged
+along his ribs for a place to get the bullet in--would you think it,
+Uncas--I saw the musicianer's blower; and so, after all, it is the man
+they call Gamut, whose death can profit no one, and whose life, if his
+tongue can do anything but sing, may be made serviceable to our own
+ends. If sounds have not lost their virtue, I'll soon have a discourse
+with the honest fellow, and that in a voice he'll find more agreeable
+than the speech of 'Killdeer.'"
+
+So saying, Hawkeye laid aside his rifle; and crawling through the bushes
+until within hearing of David, he attempted to repeat the musical
+effort, which had conducted himself, with so much safety and _eclat_,
+through the Huron encampment. The exquisite organs of Gamut could not
+readily be deceived (and, to say the truth, it would have been difficult
+for any other than Hawkeye to produce a similar noise), and
+consequently, having once before heard the sounds, he now knew whence
+they proceeded. The poor fellow appeared relieved from a state of great
+embarrassment; for pursuing the direction of the voice--a task that to
+him was not much less arduous than it would have been to have gone up in
+the face of a battery--he soon discovered the hidden songster.
+
+"I wonder what the Hurons will think of that!" said the scout, laughing,
+as he took his companion by the arm, and urged him towards the rear. "If
+the knaves lie within ear-shot, they will say there are two
+non-compossers instead of one! But here we are safe," he added, pointing
+to Uncas and his associates. "Now give us the history of the Mingo
+inventions in natural English, and without any ups and downs of voice."
+
+David gazed about him, at the fierce and wild-looking chiefs, in mute
+wonder; but assured by the presence of faces that he knew, he soon
+rallied his faculties so far as to make an intelligent reply.
+
+"The heathen are abroad in goodly numbers," said David, "and, I fear,
+with evil intent. There has been much howling and ungodly revelry,
+together with such sounds as it is profanity to utter, in their
+habitations within the past hour; so much so, in truth, that I have fled
+to the Delawares in search of peace."
+
+"Your ears might not have profited much by the exchange, had you been
+quicker of foot," returned the scout, a little dryly. "But let that be
+as it may; where are the Hurons?"
+
+"They lie hid in the forest, between this spot and their village, in
+such force, that prudence would teach you instantly to return."
+
+Uncas cast a glance along the range of trees which concealed his own
+band and mentioned the name of--
+
+"Magua?"
+
+"Is among them. He brought in the maiden that had sojourned with the
+Delawares, and leaving her in the cave, has put himself, like a raging
+wolf, at the head of his savages. I know not what has troubled his
+spirit so greatly!"
+
+"He has left her, you say, in the cave!" interrupted Heyward; "'tis well
+that we know its situation! May not something be done for her instant
+relief?"
+
+Uncas looked earnestly at the scout, before he asked,--
+
+"What says Hawkeye?"
+
+"Give me twenty rifles, and I will turn to the right, along the stream;
+and passing by the huts of the beaver, will join the Sagamore and the
+colonel. You shall then hear the whoop from that quarter; with this wind
+one may easily send it a mile. Then, Uncas, do you drive in their front;
+when they come within range of our pieces, we will give them a blow
+that, I pledge the good name of an old frontiersman, shall make their
+line bend like an ashen bow. After which, we will carry their village,
+and take the woman from the cave; when the affair may be finished with
+the tribe, according to a white man's battle, by a blow and a victory;
+or, in the Indian fashion, with dodge and cover. There may be no great
+learning, major, in this plan, but with courage and patience it can all
+be done."
+
+"I like it much," cried Duncan, who saw the release of Cora was the
+primary object in the mind of the scout; "I like it much. Let it be
+instantly attempted."
+
+After a short conference, the plan was matured, and rendered more
+intelligible to the several parties; the different signals were
+appointed, and the chiefs separated, each to his allotted station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+  "But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
+  Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
+  To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid."
+
+  POPE.
+
+
+During the time Uncas was making this disposition of his forces, the
+woods were still, and, with the exception of those who had met in
+council, apparently as much untenanted, as when they came fresh from the
+hands of their Almighty Creator. The eye could range, in every
+direction, through the long and shadowed vistas of the trees; but
+nowhere was any object to be seen that did not properly belong to the
+peaceful and slumbering scenery. Here and there a bird was heard
+fluttering among the branches of the beeches, and occasionally a
+squirrel dropped a nut, drawing the startled looks of the party, for a
+moment, to the place; but the instant the casual interruption ceased,
+the passing air was heard murmuring above their heads, along that
+verdant and undulating surface of forest, which spread itself unbroken,
+unless by stream or lake, over such a vast region of country. Across the
+tract of wilderness, which lay between the Delawares and the village of
+their enemies, it seemed as if the foot of man had never trodden, so
+breathing and deep was the silence in which it lay. But Hawkeye, whose
+duty led him foremost in the adventure, knew the character of those with
+whom he was about to contend too well to trust the treacherous quiet.
+
+When he saw his little band collected, the scout threw "Killdeer" into
+the hollow of his arm, and making a silent signal that he would be
+followed, he led them many rods towards the rear, into the bed of a
+little brook which they had crossed in advancing. Here he halted; and
+after waiting for the whole of his grave and attentive warriors to close
+about him, he spoke in Delaware, demanding--
+
+"Do any of my young men know whither this run will lead us?"
+
+A Delaware stretched forth a hand, with the two fingers separated, and
+indicating the manner in which they were joined at the root, he
+answered,--
+
+"Before the sun could go his own length, the little water will be in
+the big." Then he added, pointing in the direction of the place he
+mentioned, "the two make enough for the beavers."
+
+"I thought as much," returned the scout, glancing his eye upwards at the
+opening in the tree-tops, "from the course it takes, and the bearings of
+the mountains. Men, we will keep within the cover of its banks till we
+scent the Hurons."
+
+His companions gave the usual brief exclamation of assent, but
+perceiving that their leader was about to lead the way in person, one or
+two made signs that all was not as it should be. Hawkeye, who
+comprehended their meaning glances, turned, and perceived that his party
+had been followed thus far by the singing-master.
+
+"Do you know, friend," asked the scout gravely, and perhaps with a
+little of the pride of conscious deserving in his manner, "that this is
+a band of rangers chosen for the most desperate service, and put under
+the command of one who, though another might say it with a better face,
+will not be apt to leave them idle. It may not be five, it cannot be
+thirty minutes before we tread on the body of a Huron, living or dead."
+
+"Though not admonished of your intentions in words," returned David,
+whose face was a little flushed, and whose ordinarily quiet and
+unmeaning eyes glimmered with an expression of unusual fire, "your men
+have reminded me of the children of Jacob going out to battle against
+the Shechemites, for wickedly aspiring to wedlock with a woman of a race
+that was favored of the Lord. Now, I have journeyed far, and sojourned
+much in good and evil with the maiden ye seek; and though not a man of
+war, with my loins girded and my sword sharpened, yet would I gladly
+strike a blow in her behalf."
+
+The scout hesitated, as if weighing the chances of such a strange
+enlistment in his mind before he answered,--
+
+"You know not the use of any we'pon. You carry no rifle; and believe me,
+what the Mingos take they will freely give again."
+
+"Though not a vaunting and bloodily disposed Goliath," returned David,
+drawing a sling from beneath his parti-colored and uncouth attire, "I
+have not forgotten the example of the Jewish boy. With this ancient
+instrument of war have I practised much in my youth, and peradventure
+the skill has not entirely departed from me."
+
+"Ay!" said Hawkeye, considering the deer-skin thong and apron, with a
+cold and discouraging eye; "the thing might do its work among arrows, or
+even knives; but these Mengwe have been furnished by the Frenchers with
+a good grooved barrel a man. However, it seems to be your gift to go
+unharmed amid fire; and as you have hitherto been favored--major, you
+have left your rifle at a cock; a single shot before the time would be
+just twenty scalps lost to no purpose--singer, you can follow; we may
+find use for you in the shoutings."
+
+"I thank you, friend," returned David, supplying himself, like his royal
+namesake, from among the pebbles of the brook; "though not given to the
+desire to kill, had you sent me away my spirit would have been
+troubled."
+
+"Remember," added the scout, tapping his own head significantly on that
+spot where Gamut was yet sore, "we come to fight, and not to musickate.
+Until the general whoop is given, nothing speaks but the rifle."
+
+David nodded, as much as to signify his acquiescence with the terms; and
+then Hawkeye, casting another observant glance over his followers, made
+the signal to proceed.
+
+Their route lay, for the distance of a mile, along the bed of the
+water-course. Though protected from any great danger of observation by
+the precipitous banks, and the thick shrubbery which skirted the stream,
+no precaution known to an Indian attack was neglected. A warrior rather
+crawled than walked on each flank, so as to catch occasional glimpses
+into the forest; and every few minutes the band came to a halt, and
+listened for hostile sounds, with an acuteness of organs that would be
+scarcely conceivable to a man in a less natural state. Their march was,
+however, unmolested, and they reached the point where the lesser stream
+was lost in the greater, without the smallest evidence that their
+progress had been noted. Here the scout again halted, to consult the
+signs of the forest.
+
+"We are likely to have a good day for a fight," he said, in English,
+addressing Heyward, and glancing his eye upwards at the clouds, which
+began to move in broad sheets across the firmament; "a bright sun and a
+glittering barrel are no friends to true sight. Everything is favorable;
+they have the wind, which will bring down their noises and their smoke
+too, no little matter in itself; whereas, with us it will be first a
+shot, and then a clear view. But here is an end of our cover; the
+beavers have had the range of this stream for hundreds of years, and
+what atween their food and their dams, there is, as you see, many a
+girdled stub, but few living trees."
+
+Hawkeye had, in truth, in these few words, given no bad description of
+the prospect that now lay in their front. The brook was irregular in its
+width, sometimes shooting through narrow fissures in the rocks, and at
+others spreading over acres of bottom land, forming little areas that
+might be termed ponds. Everywhere along its banks were the mouldering
+relics of dead trees, in all the stages of decay, from those that
+groaned on their tottering trunks to such as had recently been robbed of
+those rugged coats that so mysteriously contain their principle of life.
+A few long, low, and moss-covered piles were scattered among them, like
+the memorials of a former and long-departed generation.
+
+All these minute particulars were noted by the scout, with a gravity and
+interest that they probably had never before attracted. He knew that the
+Huron encampment lay a short half mile up the brook; and, with the
+characteristic anxiety of one who dreaded a hidden danger, he was
+greatly troubled at not finding the smallest trace of the presence of
+his enemy. Once or twice he felt induced to give the order for a rush,
+and to attempt the village by surprise; but his experience quickly
+admonished him of the danger of so useless an experiment. Then he
+listened intently, and with painful uncertainty, for the sounds of
+hostility in the quarter where Uncas was left; but nothing was audible
+except the sighing of the wind, that began to sweep over the bosom of
+the forest in gusts which threatened a tempest. At length, yielding
+rather to his unusual impatience than taking counsel from his knowledge,
+he determined to bring matters to an issue, by unmasking his force, and
+proceeding cautiously, but steadily, up the stream.
+
+The scout had stood, while making his observations, sheltered by a
+brake, and his companions still lay in the bed of the ravine, through
+which the smaller stream debouched; but on hearing his low, though
+intelligible signal, the whole party stole up the bank, like so many
+dark spectres, and silently arranged themselves around him. Pointing in
+the direction he wished to proceed, Hawkeye advanced, the band breaking
+off in single files, and following so accurately in his footsteps, as if
+to leave it, if we except Heyward and David, the trail of but a single
+man.
+
+The party was, however, scarcely uncovered before a volley from a dozen
+rifles was heard in their rear; and a Delaware leaping high into the
+air, like a wounded deer, fell at his whole length, perfectly dead.
+
+"Ah! I feared some deviltry like this!" exclaimed the scout, in English;
+adding, with the quickness of thought, in his adopted tongue, "To cover,
+men, and charge!"
+
+The band dispersed at the word, and before Heyward had well recovered
+from his surprise, he found himself standing alone with David. Luckily,
+the Hurons had already fallen back, and he was safe from their fire. But
+this state of things was evidently to be of short continuance; for the
+scout set the example of pressing on their retreat, by discharging his
+rifle, and darting from tree to tree, as his enemy slowly yielded
+ground.
+
+It would seem that the assault had been made by a very small party of
+the Hurons, which, however, continued to increase in numbers, as it
+retired on its friends, until the return fire was very nearly, if not
+quite, equal to that maintained by the advancing Delawares. Heyward
+threw himself among the combatants, and imitating the necessary caution
+of his companions, he made quick discharges with his own rifle. The
+contest now grew warm and stationary. Few were injured, as both parties
+kept their bodies as much protected as possible by the trees; never,
+indeed, exposing any part of their persons except in the act of taking
+aim. But the chances were gradually growing unfavorable to Hawkeye and
+his band. The quick-sighted scout perceived his danger, without knowing
+how to remedy it. He saw it was more dangerous to retreat than to
+maintain his ground; while he found his enemy throwing out men on his
+flank, which rendered the task of keeping themselves covered so very
+difficult to the Delawares, as nearly to silence their fire. At this
+embarrassing moment, when they began to think the whole of the hostile
+tribe was gradually encircling them, they heard the yell of combatants,
+and the rattling of arms, echoing under the arches of the wood, at the
+place where Uncas was posted; a bottom which, in a manner, lay beneath
+the ground on which Hawkeye and his party were contending.
+
+The effects of this attack were instantaneous, and to the scout and his
+friends greatly relieving. It would seem that, while his own surprise
+had been anticipated, and had consequently failed, the enemy, in their
+turn, having been deceived in its object and in his numbers, had left
+too small a force to resist the impetuous onset of the young Mohican.
+This fact was doubly apparent, by the rapid manner in which the battle
+in the forest rolled upwards towards the village, and by an instant
+falling off in the number of their assailants, who rushed to assist in
+maintaining the front, and, as it now proved to be, the principal point
+of defence.
+
+Animating his followers by his voice, and his own example, Hawkeye then
+gave the word to bear down upon their foes. The charge, in that rude
+species of warfare, consisted merely in pushing from cover to cover,
+nigher to the enemy; and in this manoeuvre he was instantly and
+successfully obeyed. The Hurons were compelled to withdraw, and the
+scene of the contest rapidly changed from the more open ground on which
+it had commenced, to a spot where the assailed found a thicket to rest
+upon. Here the struggle was protracted, arduous, and seemingly of
+doubtful issue; the Delawares, though none of them fell, beginning to
+bleed freely, in consequence of the disadvantage at which they were
+held.
+
+In this crisis, Hawkeye found means to get behind the same tree as that
+which served for a cover to Heyward; most of his own combatants being
+within call, a little on his right, where they maintained rapid, though
+fruitless, discharges on their sheltered enemies.
+
+"You are a young man, major," said the scout, dropping the butt of
+"Killdeer" to the earth, and leaning on the barrel, a little fatigued
+with his previous industry; "and it may be your gift to lead armies at
+some future day ag'in these imps the Mingos, You may here see the
+philosophy of an Indian fight. It consists mainly in a ready hand, a
+quick eye, and a good cover. Now, if you had a company of the Royal
+Americans here, in what manner would you set them to work in this
+business?"
+
+"The bayonet would make a road."
+
+"Ay, there is white reason in what you say; but a man must ask himself,
+in this wilderness, how many lives he can spare. No--horse,"[29]
+continued the scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; "horse, I am
+ashamed to say, must, sooner or later, decide these scrimmages. The
+brutes are better than men, and to horse must we come at last. Put a
+shodden hoof on the moccasin of a redskin; and if his rifle be once
+emptied, he will never stop to load it again."
+
+"This is a subject that might better be discussed at another time,"
+returned Heyward; "shall we charge?"
+
+"I see no contradiction to the gifts of any man, in passing his
+breathing spells in useful reflections," the scout replied. "As to a
+rush, I little relish such a measure; for a scalp or two must be thrown
+away in the attempt. And yet," he added, bending his head aside, to
+catch the sounds of the distant combat, "if we are to be of use to
+Uncas, these knaves in our front must be got rid of!"
+
+Then turning, with a prompt and decided air, he called aloud to his
+Indians, in their own language. His words were answered by a shout; and,
+at a given signal, each warrior made a swift movement around his
+particular tree. The sight of so many dark bodies, glancing before their
+eyes at the same instant, drew a hasty, and consequently an ineffectual
+fire from the Hurons. Without stopping to breathe, the Delawares leaped,
+in long bounds, towards the wood, like so many panthers springing upon
+their prey. Hawkeye was in front, brandishing his terrible rifle, and
+animating his followers by his example. A few of the older and more
+cunning Hurons, who had not been deceived by the artifice which had been
+practised to draw their fire, now made a close and deadly discharge of
+their pieces, and justified the apprehensions of the scout, by felling
+three of his foremost warriors. But the shock was insufficient to repel
+the impetus of the charge. The Delawares broke into the cover with the
+ferocity of their natures, and swept away every trace of resistance by
+the fury of the onset.
+
+The combat endured only for an instant, hand to hand, and then the
+assailed yielded ground rapidly, until they reached the opposite margin
+of the thicket, where they clung to the cover, with the sort of
+obstinacy that is so often witnessed in hunted brutes. At this critical
+moment, when the success of the struggle was again becoming doubtful,
+the crack of the rifle was heard behind the Hurons, and a bullet came
+whizzing from among some beaver lodges, which were situated in the
+clearing, in their rear, and was followed by the fierce and appalling
+yell of the war-whoop.
+
+"There speaks the Sagamore!" shouted Hawkeye, answering the cry with
+his own stentorian voice; "we have them now in face and back!"
+
+The effect on the Hurons was instantaneous. Discouraged by an assault
+from a quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, their warriors
+uttered a common yell of disappointment, and breaking off in a body,
+they spread themselves across the opening, heedless of every
+consideration but flight. Many fell, in making the experiment, under the
+bullets and the blows of the pursuing Delawares.
+
+We shall not pause to detail the meeting between the scout and
+Chingachgook, or the more touching interview that Duncan held with
+Munro. A few brief and hurried words served to explain the state of
+things to both parties; and then Hawkeye pointing out the Sagamore to
+his band, resigned the chief authority into the hands of the Mohican
+chief. Chingachgook assumed the station to which his birth and
+experience gave him so distinguished a claim, with the grave dignity
+that always gives force to the mandates of a native warrior. Following
+the footsteps of the scout, he led the party back through the thicket,
+his men scalping the fallen Hurons, and secreting the bodies of their
+own dead as they proceeded, until they gained a point where the former
+was content to make a halt.
+
+The warriors, who had breathed themselves freely in the preceding
+struggle, were now posted on a bit of level ground, sprinkled with trees
+in sufficient numbers to conceal them. The land fell away rather
+precipitately in front, and beneath their eyes stretched, for several
+miles, a narrow, dark, and wooded vale. It was through this dense and
+dark forest that Uncas was still contending with the main body of the
+Hurons.
+
+The Mohican and his friends advanced to the brow of the hill, and
+listened, with practised ears, to the sounds of the combat. A few birds
+hovered over the leafy bosom of the valley, frightened from their
+secluded nests; and here and there a light vapory cloud, which seemed
+already blending with the atmosphere, arose above the trees, and
+indicated some spot where the struggle had been fierce and stationary.
+
+"The fight is coming up the ascent," said Duncan, pointing in the
+direction of a new explosion of fire-arms; "we are too much in the
+centre of their line to be effective."
+
+"They will incline into the hollow, where the cover is thicker," said
+the scout, "and that will leave us well on their flank. Go, Sagamore;
+you will hardly be in time to give the whoop, and lead on the young men.
+I will fight this scrimmage with warriors of my own color. You know me,
+Mohican; not a Huron of them all shall cross the swell, into your rear,
+without the notice of 'Killdeer.'"
+
+The Indian chief paused another moment to consider the signs of the
+contest, which was now rolling rapidly up the ascent, a certain evidence
+that the Delawares triumphed; nor did he actually quit the place until
+admonished of the proximity of his friends, as well as enemies, by the
+bullets of the former, which began to patter among the dried leaves on
+the ground, like the bits of falling hail which precede the bursting of
+the tempest. Hawkeye and his three companions withdrew a few paces to a
+shelter, and awaited the issue with calmness, that nothing but great
+practice could impart in such a scene.
+
+It was not long before the reports of the rifles began to lose the
+echoes of the woods, and to sound like weapons discharged in the open
+air. Then a warrior appeared, here and there, driven to the skirts of
+the forest, and rallying as he entered the clearing, as at the place
+where the final stand was to be made. These were soon joined by the
+others, until a long line of swarthy figures was to be seen clinging to
+the cover with the obstinacy of desperation. Heyward began to grow
+impatient, and turned his eyes anxiously in the direction of
+Chingachgook. The chief was seated on a rock, with nothing visible but
+his calm visage, considering the spectacle with an eye as deliberate as
+if he were posted there merely to view the struggle.
+
+"The time is come for the Delawares to strike!" said Duncan.
+
+"Not so, not so," returned the scout; "when he scents his friends, he
+will let them know that he is here. See, see; the knaves are getting in
+that clump of pines, like bees settling after their flight. By the Lord,
+a squaw might put a bullet into the centre of such a knot of dark
+skins!"
+
+At that instant the whoop was given, and a dozen Hurons fell by a
+discharge from Chingachgook and his band. The shout that followed was
+answered by a single war-cry from the forest, and a yell passed through
+the air that sounded as if a thousand throats were united in a common
+effort. The Hurons staggered, deserting the centre of their line, and
+Uncas issued from the forest through the opening they left, at the head
+of a hundred warriors.
+
+Waving his hands right and left, the young chief pointed out the enemy
+to his followers, who separated in pursuit. The war now divided, both
+wings of the broken Hurons seeking protection in the woods again, hotly
+pressed by the victorious warriors of the Lenape. A minute might have
+passed, but the sounds were already receding in different directions,
+and gradually losing their distinctness beneath the echoing arches of
+the woods. One little knot of Hurons, however, had disdained to seek a
+cover, and were retiring, like lions at bay, slowly and sullenly up the
+acclivity which Chingachgook and his band had just deserted, to mingle
+more closely in the fray. Magua was conspicuous in this party, both by
+his fierce and savage mien, and by the air of haughty authority he yet
+maintained.
+
+In his eagerness to expedite the pursuit, Uncas had left himself nearly
+alone; but the moment his eyes caught the figure of Le Subtil, every
+other consideration was forgotten. Raising his cry of battle, which
+recalled some six or seven warriors, and reckless of the disparity of
+their numbers, he rushed upon his enemy. Le Renard, who watched the
+movement, paused to receive him with secret joy. But at the moment when
+he thought the rashness of his impetuous young assailant had left him at
+his mercy, another shout was given, and La Longue Carabine was seen
+rushing to the rescue, attended by all his white associates. The Huron
+instantly turned, and commenced a rapid retreat up the ascent.
+
+There was no time for greetings or congratulations; for Uncas, though
+unconscious of the presence of his friends, continued the pursuit with
+the velocity of the wind. In vain Hawkeye called to him to respect the
+covers; the young Mohican braved the dangerous fire of his enemies, and
+soon compelled them to a flight as swift as his own headlong speed. It
+was fortunate that the race was of short continuance, and that the white
+men were much favored by their position, or the Delaware would soon have
+outstripped all his companions, and fallen a victim to his own temerity.
+But ere such a calamity could happen, the pursuers and pursued entered
+the Wyandot village, within striking distance of each other.
+
+Excited by the presence of their dwellings, and tired of the chase, the
+Hurons now made a stand, and fought around their council-lodge with the
+fury of despair. The onset and the issue were like the passage and
+destruction of a whirlwind. The tomahawk of Uncas, the blows of
+Hawkeye, and even the still nervous arm of Munro, were all busy for that
+passing moment, and the ground was quickly strewed with their enemies.
+Still Magua, though daring and much exposed, escaped from every effort
+against his life, with that sort of fabled protection that was made to
+overlook the fortunes of favored heroes in the legends of ancient
+poetry. Raising a yell that spoke volumes of anger and disappointment,
+the subtle chief, when he saw his comrades fallen, darted away from the
+place, attended by his two only surviving friends, leaving the Delawares
+engaged in stripping the dead of the bloody trophies of their victory.
+
+But Uncas, who had vainly sought him in the _melee_ bounded forward in
+pursuit; Hawkeye, Heyward, and David still pressing on his footsteps.
+The utmost that the scout could effect, was to keep the muzzle of his
+rifle a little in advance of his friend, to whom, however, it answered
+every purpose of a charmed shield. Once Magua appeared disposed to make
+another and a final effort to revenge his losses; but, abandoning his
+intention as soon as demonstrated, he leaped into a thicket of bushes,
+through which he was followed by his enemies, and suddenly entered the
+mouth of the cave already known to the reader. Hawkeye, who had only
+forborne to fire in tenderness to Uncas, raised a shout of success, and
+proclaimed aloud, that now they were certain of their game. The pursuers
+dashed into the long and narrow entrance, in time to catch a glimpse of
+the retreating forms of the Hurons. Their passage through the natural
+galleries and subterraneous apartments of the cavern was preceded by the
+shrieks and cries of hundreds of women and children. The place, seen by
+its dim and uncertain light, appeared like the shades of the infernal
+regions, across which unhappy ghosts and savage demons were flitting in
+multitudes.
+
+Still Uncas kept his eye on Magua, as if life to him possessed but a
+single object. Heyward and the scout still pressed on his rear,
+actuated, though possibly in a less degree, by a common feeling. But
+their way was becoming intricate, in those dark and gloomy passages, and
+the glimpses of the retiring warriors less distinct and frequent; and
+for a moment the trace was believed to be lost, when a white robe was
+seen fluttering in the farther extremity of a passage that seemed to
+lead up the mountain.
+
+"'Tis Cora!" exclaimed Heyward, in a voice in which horror and delight
+were wildly mingled.
+
+"Cora! Cora!" echoed Uncas, bending forward like a deer.
+
+"'Tis the maiden!" shouted the scout, "Courage, lady; we come!--we
+come!"
+
+The chase was renewed with a diligence rendered tenfold encouraging by
+this glimpse of the captive. But the way was rugged, broken, and in
+spots nearly impassable. Uncas abandoned his rifle, and leaped forward
+with headlong precipitation. Heyward rashly imitated his example, though
+both were, a moment afterwards, admonished of its madness, by hearing
+the bellowing of a piece, that the Hurons found time to discharge down
+the passage in the rocks, the bullet from which even gave the young
+Mohican a slight wound.
+
+"We must close!" said the scout, passing his friends by a desperate
+leap; "the knaves will pick us all off at this distance; and see, they
+hold the maiden so as to shield themselves!"
+
+Though his words were unheeded, or rather unheard, his example was
+followed by his companions, who, by incredible exertions, got near
+enough to the fugitives to perceive that Cora was borne along between
+the two warriors, while Magua prescribed the direction and manner of
+their flight. At this moment the forms of all four were strongly drawn
+against an opening in the sky, and they disappeared. Nearly frantic with
+disappointment, Uncas and Heyward increased efforts that already seemed
+super-human, and they issued from the cavern on the side of the
+mountain, in time to note the route of the pursued. The course lay up
+the ascent, and still continued hazardous and laborious.
+
+Encumbered by his rifle, and, perhaps, not sustained by so deep an
+interest in the captive as his companions, the scout suffered the latter
+to precede him a little, Uncas, in his turn, taking the lead of Heyward.
+In this manner, rocks, precipices, and difficulties were surmounted in
+an incredibly short space, that at another time, and under other
+circumstances, would have been deemed almost insuperable. But the
+impetuous young men were rewarded, by finding that, encumbered with
+Cora, the Hurons were losing ground in the race.
+
+"Stay, dog of the Wyandots!" exclaimed Uncas, shaking his bright
+tomahawk at Magua; "a Delaware girl calls stay!"
+
+"I will go no farther," cried Cora, stepping unexpectedly on a ledge of
+rocks, that overhung a deep precipice, at no great distance from the
+summit of the mountain. "Kill me if thou wilt, detestable Huron; I will
+go no farther."
+
+The supporters of the maiden raised their ready tomahawks with the
+impious joy that fiends are thought to take in mischief, but Magua
+stayed the uplifted arms. The Huron chief, after casting the weapons he
+had wrested from his companions over the rock, drew his knife, and
+turned to his captive, with a look in which conflicting passions
+fiercely contended.
+
+"Woman," he said, "choose; the wigwam or the knife of Le Subtil!"
+
+Cora regarded him not, but dropping on her knees, she raised her eyes
+and stretched her arms towards heaven, saying, in a meek and yet
+confiding voice,--
+
+"I am thine! do with me as thou seest best!"
+
+"Woman," repeated Magua, hoarsely, and endeavoring in vain to catch a
+glance from her serene and beaming eye, "choose!"
+
+But Cora neither heard nor heeded his demand. The form of the Huron
+trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on high, but dropped it
+again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted. Once more he
+struggled with himself and lifted the keen weapon again; but just then a
+piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping
+frantically, from a fearful height, upon the ledge. Magua recoiled a
+step; and one of his assistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his
+own knife in the bosom of Cora.
+
+The Huron sprang like a tiger on his offending and already retreating
+countryman, but the falling form of Uncas separated the unnatural
+combatants. Diverted from his object by this interruption, and maddened
+by the murder he had just witnessed, Magua buried his weapon in the back
+of the prostrate Delaware, uttering an unearthly shout as he committed
+the dastardly deed. But Uncas arose from the blow, as the wounded
+panther turns upon his foe, and struck the murderer of Cora to his feet,
+by an effort in which the last of his failing strength was expended.
+Then, with a stern and steady look, he turned to Le Subtil, and
+indicated by the expression of his eye, all that he would do, had not
+the power deserted him. The latter seized the nerveless arm of the
+unresisting Delaware, and passed his knife into his bosom three several
+times, before his victim, still keeping his gaze riveted on his enemy
+with a look of inextinguishable scorn, fell dead at his feet.
+
+"Mercy! mercy! Huron," cried Heyward, from above, in tones nearly
+choked by horror; "give mercy, and thou shalt receive it!"
+
+Whirling the bloody knife up at the imploring youth, the victorious
+Magua uttered a cry so fierce, so wild, and yet so joyous, that it
+conveyed the sounds of savage triumph to the ears of those who fought in
+the valley, a thousand feet below. He was answered by a burst from the
+lips of the scout, whose tall person was just then seen moving swiftly
+towards him, along those dangerous crags, with steps as bold and
+reckless as if he possessed the power to move in air. But when the
+hunter reached the scene of the ruthless massacre, the ledge was
+tenanted only by the dead.
+
+His keen eye took a single look at the victims, and then shot its
+glances over the difficulties of the ascent in his front. A form stood
+at the brow of the mountain, on the very edge of the giddy height, with
+uplifted arms, in an awful attitude of menace. Without stopping to
+consider his person, the rifle of Hawkeye was raised; but a rock, which
+fell on the head of one of the fugitives below exposed the indignant and
+glowing countenance of the honest Gamut. Then Magua issued from a
+crevice, and stepping with calm indifference over the body of the last
+of his associates, he leaped a wide fissure, and ascended the rocks at a
+point where the arm of David could not reach him. A single bound would
+carry him to the brow of the precipice, and assure his safety. Before
+taking the leap, however, the Huron paused, and shaking his hand at the
+scout, he shouted,--
+
+"The pale-faces are dogs! the Delawares women! Magua leaves them on the
+rocks, for the crows!"
+
+Laughing hoarsely, he made a desperate leap, and fell short of his mark;
+though his hand grasped a shrub on the verge of the height. The form of
+Hawkeye had crouched like a beast about to take its spring, and his
+frame trembled so violently with eagerness, that the muzzle of the
+half-raised rifle played like a leaf fluttering in the wind. Without
+exhausting himself with fruitless efforts, the cunning Magua suffered
+his body to drop to the length of his arms, and found a fragment for his
+feet to rest on. Then summoning all his powers, he renewed the attempt,
+and so far succeeded, as to draw his knees on the edge of the mountain.
+It was now, when the body of his enemy was most collected together, that
+the agitated weapon of the scout was drawn to his shoulder. The
+surrounding rocks themselves were not steadier than the piece became,
+for the single instant that it poured out its contents. The arms of the
+Huron relaxed, and his body fell back a little, while his knees still
+kept their position. Turning a relentless look on his enemy, he shook a
+hand in grim defiance. But his hold loosened, and his dark person was
+seen cutting the air with its head downwards, for a fleeting instant,
+until it glided past the fringe of shrubbery which clung to the
+mountain, in its rapid flight to destruction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+  "They fought, like brave men, long and well,
+    They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
+  They conquered--but Bozzaris fell,
+    Bleeding at every vein.
+  His few surviving comrades saw
+  His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
+    And the red field was won;
+  Then saw in death his eyelids close
+  Calmly, as to a night's repose,
+  Like flowers at set of sun."
+
+  HALLECK.
+
+
+The sun found the Lenape, on the succeeding day, a nation of mourners.
+The sounds of the battle were over, and they had fed fat their ancient
+grudge, and had avenged their recent quarrel with the Mengwe, by the
+destruction of a whole community. The black and murky atmosphere that
+floated around the spot where the Hurons had encamped, sufficiently
+announced, of itself, the fate of that wandering tribe; while hundreds
+of ravens, that struggled above the bleak summits of the mountains, or
+swept, in noisy flocks, across the wide ranges of the woods, furnished a
+frightful direction to the scene of the combat. In short, any eye, at
+all practised in the signs of a frontier warfare, might easily have
+traced all those unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attend
+an Indian vengeance.
+
+Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners. No shouts of
+success, no songs of triumph, were heard, in rejoicings for their
+victory. The latest straggler had returned from his fell employment,
+only to strip himself of the terrific emblems of his bloody calling, and
+to join in the lamentations of his countrymen, as a stricken people.
+Pride and exultation were supplanted by humility, and the fiercest of
+human passions was already succeeded by the most profound and
+unequivocal demonstrations of grief.
+
+The lodges were deserted; but a broad belt of earnest faces encircled a
+spot in their vicinity, whither everything possessing life had repaired,
+and where all were now collected, in deep and awful silence. Though
+beings of every rank and age, of both sexes, and of all pursuits, had
+united to form this breathing wall of bodies, they were influenced by a
+single emotion. Each eye was riveted on the centre of that ring, which
+contained the objects of so much, and of so common, an interest.
+
+Six Delaware girls, with their long, dark, flowing tresses falling
+loosely across their bosoms, stood apart, and only gave proofs of their
+existence as they occasionally strewed sweet-scented herbs and forest
+flowers on a litter of fragrant plants, that, under a pall of Indian
+robes, supported all that now remained of the ardent, high-souled, and
+generous Cora. Her form was concealed in many wrappers of the same
+simple manufacture, and her face was shut forever from the gaze of men.
+At her feet was seated the desolate Munro. His aged head was bowed
+nearly to the earth, in compelled submission to the stroke of
+Providence; but a hidden anguish struggled about his furrowed brow, that
+was only partially concealed by the careless locks of gray that had
+fallen, neglected, on his temples. Gamut stood at his side, his meek
+head bared to the rays of the sun, while his eyes, wandering and
+concerned, seemed to be equally divided between that little volume,
+which contained so many quaint but holy maxims, and the being in whose
+behalf his soul yearned to administer consolation. Heyward was also
+nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavoring to keep down
+those sudden risings of sorrow that it required his utmost manhood to
+subdue.
+
+But sad and melancholy as this group may easily be imagined, it was far
+less touching than another, that occupied the opposite space of the same
+area. Seated, as in life, with his form and limbs arranged in grave and
+decent composure, Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments
+that the wealth of the tribe could furnish. Rich plumes nodded above his
+head; wampum, gorgets, bracelets, and medals, adorned his person in
+profusion; though his dull eye and vacant lineaments too strongly
+contradicted the idle tale of pride they would convey.
+
+Directly in front of the corpse Chingachgook was placed, without arms,
+paint, or adornment of any sort, except the bright blue blazonry of his
+race, that was indelibly impressed on his naked bosom. During the long
+period that the tribe had been thus collected, the Mohican warrior had
+kept a steady, anxious look on the cold and senseless countenance of his
+son. So riveted and intense had been that gaze, and so changeless his
+attitude, that a stranger might not have told the living from the dead,
+but for the occasional gleamings of a troubled spirit that shot athwart
+the dark visage of one, and the death-like calm that had forever settled
+on the lineaments of the other.
+
+The scout was hard by, leaning in a pensive posture on his own fatal and
+avenging weapon; while Tamenund, supported by the elders of his nation,
+occupied a high place at hand, whence he might look down on the mute and
+sorrowful assemblage of his people.
+
+Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the
+military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his war-horse,
+in the centre of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in
+readiness to undertake some distant journey. The vestments of the
+stranger announced him to be one who held a responsible situation near
+the person of the captain of the Canadas; and who, as it would now seem,
+finding his errand of peace frustrated by the fierce impetuosity of his
+allies, was content to become a silent and sad spectator of the fruits
+of a contest that he had arrived too late to anticipate.
+
+The day was drawing to the close of its first quarter, and yet had the
+multitude maintained its breathing stillness since its dawn. No sound
+louder than a stifled sob had been heard among them, nor had even a limb
+been moved throughout that long and painful period, except to perform
+the simple and touching offerings that were made, from time to time, in
+commemoration of the dead. The patience and forbearance of Indian
+fortitude could alone support such an appearance of abstraction, as
+seemed now to have turned each dark and motionless figure into stone.
+
+At length, the sage of the Delawares stretched forth an arm, and leaning
+on the shoulders of his attendants, he arose with an air as feeble as if
+another age had already intervened between the man who had met his
+nation the preceding day, and him who now tottered on his elevated
+stand.
+
+"Men of the Lenape!" he said, in hollow tones that sounded like a voice
+charged with some prophetic mission; "the face of the Manitou is behind
+a cloud! His eye is turned from you; His ears are shut; His tongue gives
+no answer. You see Him not; yet His judgments are before you. Let your
+hearts be open and your spirits tell no lie. Men of the Lenape! the face
+of the Manitou is behind a cloud."
+
+As this simple and yet terrible annunciation stole on the ears of the
+multitude, a stillness as deep and awful succeeded as if the venerated
+spirit they worshipped had uttered the words without the aid of human
+organs; and even the inanimate Uncas appeared a being of life, compared
+with the humbled and submissive throng by whom he was surrounded. As the
+immediate effect, however, gradually passed away, a low murmur of voices
+commenced a sort of chant in honor of the dead. The sounds were those of
+females, and were thrillingly soft and wailing. The words were connected
+by no regular continuation, but as one ceased another took up the
+eulogy, or lamentation, whichever it might be called, and gave vent to
+her emotions in such language as was suggested by her feelings and the
+occasion. At intervals the speaker was interrupted by general and loud
+bursts of sorrow, during which the girls around the bier of Cora plucked
+the plants and flowers blindly from her body, as if bewildered with
+grief. But, in the milder moments of their plaint, these emblems of
+purity and sweetness were cast back to their places, with every sign of
+tenderness and regret. Though rendered less connected by many and
+general interruptions and outbreakings, a translation of their language
+would have contained a regular descant, which, in substance, might have
+proved to possess a train of consecutive ideas.
+
+A girl, selected for the task by her rank and qualifications, commenced
+by modest allusions to the qualities of the deceased warrior,
+embellishing her expressions with those oriental images that the Indians
+have probably brought with them from the extremes of the other
+continent, and which form of themselves a link to connect the ancient
+histories of the two worlds. She called him the "panther of his tribe";
+and described him as one whose moccasin left no trail on the dews; whose
+bound was like the leap of the young fawn; whose eye was brighter than a
+star in the dark night; and whose voice, in battle, was loud as the
+thunder of the Manitou. She reminded him of the mother who bore him, and
+dwelt forcibly on the happiness she must feel in possessing such a son.
+She bade him tell her, when they met in the world of spirits, that the
+Delaware girls had shed tears above the grave of her child, and had
+called her blessed.
+
+Then, they who succeeded, changing their tones to a milder and still
+more tender strain, alluded, with the delicacy and sensitiveness of
+woman, to the stranger maiden, who had left the upper earth at a time so
+near his own departure, as to render the will of the Great Spirit too
+manifest to be disregarded. They admonished him to be kind to her, and
+to have consideration for her ignorance of those arts which were so
+necessary to the comfort of a warrior like himself. They dwelt upon her
+matchless beauty, and on her noble resolution, without the taint of
+envy, and as angels may be thought to delight in a superior excellence;
+adding, that these endowments should prove more than equivalent for any
+little imperfections in her education.
+
+After which, others again, in due succession, spoke to the maiden
+herself, in the low, soft language of tenderness and love. They exhorted
+her to be of cheerful mind, and to fear nothing for future welfare. A
+hunter would be her companion, who knew how to provide for her smallest
+wants; and a warrior was at her side who was able to protect her against
+every danger. They promised that her path should be pleasant, and her
+burden light. They cautioned her against unavailing regrets for the
+friends of her youth, and the scenes where her fathers had dwelt;
+assuring her that the "blessed hunting-grounds of the Lenape" contained
+vales as pleasant, streams as pure, and flowers as sweet, as the "heaven
+of the pale-faces." They advised her to be attentive to the wants of her
+companion, and never to forget the distinction which the Manitou had so
+wisely established between them. Then, in a wild burst of their chant,
+they sang with united voices the temper of the Mohican's mind. They
+pronounced him noble, manly and generous; all that became a warrior, and
+all that a maid might love. Clothing their ideas in the most remote and
+subtle images, they betrayed, that, in the short period of their
+intercourse, they had discovered, with the intuitive perception of their
+sex, the truant disposition of his inclinations. The Delaware girls had
+found no favor in his eyes! He was of a race that had once been lords on
+the shores of the salt lake, and his wishes had led him back to a people
+who dwelt about the graves of his fathers. Why should not such a
+predilection be encouraged! That she was of a blood purer and richer
+than the rest of her nation, any eye might have seen; that she was equal
+to the dangers and daring of a life in the woods, her conduct had
+proved; and now, they added, the "wise one of the earth" had
+transplanted her to a place where she would find congenial spirits, and
+might be forever happy.
+
+Then, with another transition in voice and subject, allusions were made
+to the virgin who wept in the adjacent lodge. They compared her to
+flakes of snow; as pure, as white, as brilliant, and as liable to melt
+in the fierce heats of summer, or congeal in the frosts of winter. They
+doubted not that she was lovely in the eyes of the young chief, whose
+skin and whose sorrow seemed so like her own; but, though far from
+expressing such a preference, it was evident they deemed her less
+excellent than the maid they mourned. Still they denied her no meed her
+rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the
+exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of the
+heavens, and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun,
+was admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.
+
+During these and similar songs nothing was audible but the murmurs of
+the music; relieved, as it was, or rather rendered terrible, by those
+occasional bursts of grief which might be called its choruses. The
+Delawares themselves listened like charmed men; and it was very
+apparent, by the variations of their speaking countenances, how deep and
+true was their sympathy. Even David was not reluctant to lend his ears
+to tones of voices so sweet; and long ere the chant was ended, his gaze
+announced that his soul was enthralled.
+
+The scout, to whom alone, of all the white men, the words were
+intelligible, suffered himself to be a little aroused from his
+meditative posture, and bent his face aside, to catch their meaning, as
+the girls proceeded. But when they spoke of the future prospects of Cora
+and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their
+simple creed, and resuming his reclining attitude, he maintained it
+until the ceremony--if that might be called a ceremony, in which feeling
+was so deeply imbued--was finished. Happily for the self-command of both
+Heyward and Munro, they knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they
+heard.
+
+Chingachgook was a solitary exception to the interest manifested by the
+native part of the audience. His look never changed throughout the whole
+of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at
+the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and
+senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but
+that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their
+final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now
+about to be closed forever from his view.
+
+In this stage of the funeral obsequies, a warrior much renowned for
+deeds in arms, and more especially for services in the recent combat, a
+man of stern and grave demeanor, advanced slowly from the crowd, and
+placed himself nigh the person of the dead.
+
+"Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?" he said, addressing
+himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
+faculties of the animated man; "thy time has been like that of the sun
+when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
+art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
+briers from thy path to the world of spirits. Who that saw thee in
+battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
+shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
+eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and thy
+voice like the Manitou when he speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
+Uttawa is weak," he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
+"and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
+left us?"
+
+He was succeeded by others, in due order, until most of the high and
+gifted men of the nation had sung or spoken their tribute of praise over
+the _manes_ of the deceased chief. When each had ended, another deep and
+breathing silence reigned in all the place.
+
+Then a low, deep sound was heard, like the suppressed accompaniment of
+distant music, rising just high enough on the air to be audible, and yet
+so indistinctly, as to leave its character, and the place whence it
+proceeded, alike matters of conjecture. It was, however, succeeded by
+another and another strain, each in a higher key, until they grew on the
+ear, first in long drawn and often repeated interjections, and finally
+in words. The lips of Chingachgook had so far parted, as to announce
+that it was the monody of the father. Though not an eye was turned
+towards him, nor the smallest sign of impatience exhibited, it was
+apparent, by the manner in which the multitude elevated their heads to
+listen, that they drank in the sounds with an intenseness of attention,
+that none but Tamenund himself had ever before commanded. But they
+listened in vain. The strains rose just so loud as to become
+intelligible, and then grew fainter and more trembling, until they
+finally sank on the ear, as if borne away by a passing breath of wind.
+The lips of the Sagamore closed, and he remained silent in his seat,
+looking, with his riveted eye and motionless form, like some creature
+that had been turned from the Almighty hand with the form but without
+the spirit of a man. The Delawares, who knew by these symptoms that the
+mind of their friend was not prepared for so mighty an effort of
+fortitude, relaxed in their attention; and, with an innate delicacy,
+seemed to bestow all their thoughts on the obsequies of the stranger
+maiden.
+
+A signal was given, by one of the elder chiefs, to the women who crowded
+that part of the circle near which the body of Cora lay. Obedient to the
+sign, the girls raised the bier to the elevation of their heads, and
+advanced with slow and regulated steps, chanting, as they proceeded,
+another wailing song in praise of the deceased. Gamut, who had been a
+close observer of rites he deemed so heathenish, now bent his head over
+the shoulder of the unconscious father, whispering,--
+
+"They move with the remains of thy child; shall we not follow, and see
+them interred with Christian burial?"
+
+Munro started, as if the last trumpet had sounded in his ear, and
+bestowing one anxious and hurried glance around him, he arose and
+followed in the simple train, with the mien of a soldier, but bearing
+the full burden of a parent's suffering. His friends pressed around him
+with a sorrow that was too strong to be termed sympathy--even the young
+Frenchman joining in the procession, with the air of a man who was
+sensibly touched at the early and melancholy fate of one so lovely. But
+when the last and humblest female of the tribe had joined in the wild,
+and yet ordered array, the men of the Lenape contracted their circle,
+and formed again around the person of Uncas, as silent, as grave, and as
+motionless as before.
+
+The place which had been chosen for the grave of Cora was a little
+knoll, where a cluster of young and healthful pines had taken root,
+forming of themselves a melancholy and appropriate shade over the spot.
+On reaching it the girls deposited their burden, and continued for many
+minutes waiting, with characteristic patience, and native timidity, for
+some evidence that they whose feelings were most concerned were content
+with the arrangement. At length the scout, who alone understood their
+habits, said, in their own language,--
+
+"My daughters have done well; the white men thank them."
+
+Satisfied with this testimony in their favor, the girls proceeded to
+deposit the body in a shell, ingeniously, and not inelegantly,
+fabricated of the bark of the birch; after which they lowered it into
+its dark and final abode. The ceremony of covering the remains, and
+concealing the marks of the fresh earth, by leaves and other natural
+and customary objects, was conducted with the same simple and silent
+forms. But when the labors of the kind beings who had performed these
+sad and friendly offices were so far completed, they hesitated, in a way
+to show that they knew not how much further they might proceed. It was
+in this stage of the rites that the scout again addressed them:--
+
+"My young women have done enough," he said; "the spirit of a pale-face
+has no need of food or raiment, their gifts being according to the
+heaven of their color. I see," he added, glancing an eye at David, who
+was preparing his book in a manner that indicated an intention to lead
+the way in sacred song, "that one who better knows the Christian
+fashions is about to speak."
+
+The females stood modestly aside, and, from having been the principal
+actors in the scene, they now became the meek and attentive observers of
+that which followed. During the time David was occupied in pouring out
+the pious feelings of his spirit in this manner, not a sign of surprise,
+nor a look of impatience, escaped them. They listened like those who
+knew the meaning of the strange words, and appeared as if they felt the
+mingled emotions of sorrow, hope, and resignation, they were intended to
+convey.
+
+Excited by the scene he had just witnessed, and perhaps influenced by
+his own secret emotions, the master of song exceeded his usual efforts.
+His full, rich voice was not found to suffer by a comparison with the
+soft tones of the girls; and his more modulated strains possessed, at
+least for the ears of those to whom they were peculiarly addressed, the
+additional power of intelligence. He ended the anthem, as he had
+commenced it, in the midst of a grave and solemn stillness.
+
+When, however, the closing cadence had fallen on the ears of his
+auditors, the secret, timorous glances of the eyes, and the general, and
+yet subdued movement of the assemblage, betrayed that something was
+expected from the father of the deceased. Munro seemed sensible that the
+time was come for him to exert what is, perhaps, the greatest effort of
+which human nature is capable. He bared his gray locks, and looked
+around the timid and quiet throng by which he was encircled with a firm
+and collected countenance. Then motioning with his hand for the scout to
+listen, he said,--
+
+"Say to these kind and gentle females, that a heartbroken and failing
+man returns them his thanks. Tell them, that the Being we all worship,
+under different names, will be mindful of their charity; and that the
+time shall not be distant when we may assemble around his throne without
+distinction of sex, or rank, or color."
+
+The scout listened to the tremulous voice in which the veteran delivered
+these words, and shook his head slowly when they were ended, as one who
+doubted their efficacy.
+
+"To tell them this," he said, "would be to tell them that the snows come
+not in the winter, or that the sun shines fiercest when the trees are
+stripped of their leaves."
+
+Then turning to the women, he made such a communication of the other's
+gratitude as he deemed most suited to the capacities of his listeners.
+The head of Munro had already sunk upon his chest, and he was again fast
+relapsing into melancholy, when the young Frenchman before named
+ventured to touch him lightly on the elbow. As soon as he had gained the
+attention of the mourning old man, he pointed towards a group of young
+Indians, who approached with a light but closely covered litter, and
+then pointed upward towards the sun.
+
+"I understand you, sir," returned Munro, with a voice of forced
+firmness; "I understand you. It is the will of Heaven, and I submit.
+Cora, my child! if the prayers of a heartbroken father could avail thee
+now, how blessed shouldst thou be! Come, gentlemen," he added, looking
+about him with an air of lofty composure, though the anguish that
+quivered in his faded countenance was far too powerful to be concealed,
+"our duty here is ended; let us depart."
+
+Heyward gladly obeyed a summons that took them from a spot where, each
+instant, he felt his self-control was about to desert him. While his
+companions were mounting, however, he found time to press the hand of
+the scout, and to repeat the terms of an engagement they had made, to
+meet again within the posts of the British army. Then gladly throwing
+himself into the saddle, he spurred his charger to the side of the
+litter, whence low and stifled sobs alone announced the presence of
+Alice. In this manner, the head of Munro again dropping on his bosom,
+with Heyward and David following in sorrowing silence, and attended by
+the aide of Montcalm with his guard, all the white men, with the
+exception of Hawkeye, passed from before the eyes of the Delawares, and
+were soon buried in the vast forests of that region.
+
+But the tie which, through their common calamity, had united the
+feelings of these simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who
+had thus transiently visited them, was not so easily broken. Years
+passed away before the traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the
+young warrior of the Mohicans, ceased to beguile the long nights and
+tedious marches, or to animate their youthful and brave with a desire
+for vengeance. Neither were the secondary actors in these momentous
+incidents forgotten. Through the medium of the scout, who served for
+years afterwards as a link between them and civilized life, they
+learned, in answer to their inquiries, that the "Gray Head" was speedily
+gathered to his fathers--borne down, as was erroneously believed, by his
+military misfortunes; and that the "Open Hand" had conveyed his
+surviving daughter far into the settlements of the "pale-faces," where
+her tears had at last ceased to flow, and had been succeeded by the
+bright smiles which were better suited to her joyous nature.
+
+But these were events of a time later than that which concerns our tale.
+Deserted by all of his color, Hawkeye returned to the spot where his own
+sympathies led him, with a force that no ideal bond of union could
+bestow. He was just in time to catch a parting look of the features of
+Uncas, whom the Delawares were already inclosing in his last vestments
+of skins. They paused to permit the longing and lingering gaze of the
+sturdy woodsman, and when it was ended, the body was enveloped, never to
+be unclosed again. Then came a procession like the other, and the whole
+nation was collected about the temporary grave of the chief--temporary,
+because it was proper that, at some future day, his bones should rest
+among those of his own people.
+
+The movement, like the feeling, had been simultaneous and general. The
+same grave expression of grief, the same rigid silence, and the same
+deference to the principal mourner, were observed around the place of
+interment as have been already described. The body was deposited in an
+attitude of repose, facing the rising sun, with the implements of war
+and of the chase at hand, in readiness for the final journey. An opening
+was left in the shell, by which it was protected from the soil, for the
+spirit to communicate with its earthly tenement, when necessary; and the
+whole was concealed from the instinct, and protected from the ravages of
+the beasts of prey, with an ingenuity peculiar to the natives. The
+manual rites then ceased, and all present reverted to the more spiritual
+part of the ceremonies.
+
+Chingachgook became once more the object of the common attention. He
+had not yet spoken, and something consolatory and instructive was
+expected from so renowned a chief on an occasion of such interest.
+Conscious of the wishes of the people, the stern and self-restrained
+warrior raised his face, which had latterly been buried in his robe, and
+looked about him with a steady eye. His firmly compressed and expressive
+lips then severed, and for the first time during the long ceremonies his
+voice was distinctly audible.
+
+"Why do my brothers mourn!" he said, regarding the dark race of dejected
+warriors by whom he was environed; "why do my daughters weep! that a
+young man has gone to the happy hunting-grounds; that a chief has filled
+his time with honor! He was good; he was dutiful; he was brave. Who can
+deny it? The Manitou had need of such a warrior, and He has called him
+away. As for me, the son and the father of Uncas, I am a blazed pine, in
+a clearing of the pale-faces. My race has gone from the shores of the
+salt lake, and the hills of the Delawares. But who can say that the
+Serpent of his tribe has forgotten his wisdom? I am alone--"
+
+"No, no," cried Hawkeye, who had been gazing with a yearning look at the
+rigid features of his friend, with something like his own self-command,
+but whose philosophy could endure no longer; "no, Sagamore, not alone.
+The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to
+journey in the same path. I have no kin, and I may also say, like you,
+no people. He was your son, and a redskin by nature; and it may be that
+your blood was nearer--but if ever I forget the lad who has so often
+fou't at my side in war, and slept at my side in peace, may He who made
+us all, whatever may be our color or our gifts, forget me! The boy has
+left us for a time; but, Sagamore, you are not alone."
+
+Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout
+had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship
+these two sturdy and intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while
+scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like
+drops of falling rain.
+
+In the midst of the awful stillness with which such a burst of feeling,
+coming, as it did, from the two most renowned warriors of that region,
+was received, Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the multitude.
+
+"It is enough," he said. "Go, children of the Lenape, the anger of the
+Manitou is not done. Why should Tamenund stay? The pale-faces are
+masters of the earth, and the time of the redmen has not yet come again.
+My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy
+and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the
+last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] As each nation of the Indians had either its language or its
+dialect, they usually gave different names to the same places, though
+nearly all of their appellations were descriptive of the object. Thus, a
+literal translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of water, used
+by the tribe that dwelt on its banks would be "The Tail of the Lake."
+Lake George, as it is vulgarly, and now indeed legally called, forms a
+sort of tail to Lake Champlain, when viewed on the map. Hence the name.
+
+[2] Washington: who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of
+the danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of
+the British army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The
+reputation earned by Washington in this battle was the principal cause
+of his being selected to command the American armies at a later day. It
+is a circumstance worthy of observation, that, while all America rang
+with his well-merited reputation, his name does not occur in any
+European account of the battle; at least, the author has searched for it
+without success. In this manner does the mother country absorb even the
+fame, under that system of rule.
+
+[3] There existed for a long time a confederation among the Indian
+tribes which occupied the northwestern part of the colony of New York,
+which was at first known as the "Five Nations." At a later day it
+admitted another tribe, when the appellation was changed to that of the
+"Six Nations." The original confederation consisted of the Mohawks, the
+Oneidas, the Senecas, the Cayugas, and the Onondagas. The sixth tribe
+was the Tuscaroras. There are remnants of all these people still living
+on lands secured to them by the State; but they are daily disappearing,
+either by deaths or by removals to scenes more congenial to their
+habits. In a short time there will be no remains of these extraordinary
+people, in those regions in which they dwelt for centuries, but their
+names. The State of New York has counties named after all of them but
+the Mohawks and the Tuscaroras. The second river of that State is called
+the Mohawk.
+
+[4] In the State of Rhode Island there is a bay called Narragansett, so
+named after a powerful tribe of Indians, which formerly dwelt on its
+banks. Accident, or one of those unaccountable freaks which nature
+sometimes plays in the animal world, gave rise to a breed of horses
+which were once well known in America by the name of the Narragansetts.
+They were small, commonly of the color called sorrel in America, and
+distinguished by their habit of pacing. Horses of this race were, and
+are still, in much request as saddle-horses, on account of their
+hardiness and the ease of their movements. As they were also sure of
+foot, the Narragansetts were greatly sought for by females who were
+obliged to travel over the roots and holes in the "new countries."
+
+[5] The North American warrior caused the hair to be plucked from his
+whole body; a small tuft, only, was left on the crown of his head in
+order that his enemy might avail himself of it, in wrenching off the
+scalp in the event of his fall. The scalp was the only admissible trophy
+of victory. Thus, it was deemed more important to obtain the scalp than
+to kill the man. Some tribes lay great stress on the honor of striking a
+dead body. These practices have nearly disappeared among the Indians of
+the Atlantic States.
+
+[6] The hunting-shirt is a picturesque smock frock, being shorter, and
+ornamented with fringes and tassels. The colors are intended to imitate
+the hues of the wood with a view to concealment. Many corps of American
+riflemen have been thus attired; and the dress is one of the most
+striking of modern times. The hunting-shirt is frequently white.
+
+[7] The rifle of the army is short; that of the hunter is always long.
+
+[8] The Mississippi. The scout alludes to a tradition which is very
+popular among the tribes of the Atlantic States. Evidence of their
+Asiatic origin is deduced from the circumstances, though great
+uncertainty hangs over the whole history of the Indians.
+
+[9] The scene of this tale was in the 42d degree of latitude, where the
+twilight is never of long continuance.
+
+[10] The reader will remember that New York was originally a colony of
+the Dutch.
+
+[11] The principal villages of the Indians are still called "castles" by
+the whites of New York. "Oneida castle" is no more than a scattered
+hamlet; but the name is in general use.
+
+[12] In vulgar parlance the condiments of a repast are called by the
+American "a relish," substituting the thing for its effect. These
+provincial terms are frequently put in the mouths of the speakers,
+according to their several conditions in life. Most of them are of local
+use, and others quite peculiar to the particular class of men to which
+the character belongs. In the present instance, the scout uses the word
+with immediate reference to the salt, with which his own party was so
+fortunate as to be provided.
+
+[13] Glenn's Falls are on the Hudson, some forty or fifty miles above
+the head of tide, or the place where that river becomes navigable for
+sloops. The description of this picturesque and remarkable little
+cataract, as given by the scout, is sufficiently correct, though the
+application of the water to the uses of civilized life has materially
+injured its beauties. The rocky island and the two caverns are well
+known to every traveller, since the former sustains a pier of a bridge,
+which is now thrown across the river, immediately above the fall. In
+explanation of the taste of Hawkeye, it should be remembered that men
+always prize that most which is least enjoyed. Thus, in a new country,
+the woods and other objects, which in an old country would be maintained
+at great cost, are got rid of, simply with a view of "improving," as it
+is called.
+
+[14] The meaning of Indian words is much governed by the emphasis and
+tones.
+
+[15] Mingo was the Delaware term for the Five Nations. Maquas was the
+name given them by the Dutch. The French, from their first intercourse
+with them, called them Iroquois.
+
+[16] It has long been a practice with the whites to conciliate the
+important men of the Indians, by presenting medals, which are worn in
+the place of their own rude ornaments. Those given by the English
+generally bear the impression of the reigning king, and those given by
+the Americans that of the president.
+
+[17] Many of the animals of the American forests resort to those spots
+where salt springs are found. These are called "licks" or "salt licks,"
+in the language of the country, from the circumstance that the quadruped
+is often obliged to lick the earth, in order to obtain the saline
+particles. These licks are great places of resort with the hunters, who
+waylay their game near the paths that lead to them.
+
+[18] The scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where the
+village of Ballston now stands; one of the two principal watering-places
+of America.
+
+[19] Some years since, the writer was shooting in the vicinity of the
+ruins of Fort Oswego, which stands on the shores of Lake Ontario. His
+game was deer, and his chase a forest that stretched with little
+interruption, fifty miles inland. Unexpectedly he came upon six or eight
+ladders lying in the woods within a short distance of each other. They
+were rudely made, and much decayed. Wondering what could have assembled
+so many of these instruments in such a place, he sought an old man who
+resided near for the explanation.
+
+During the war of 1776 Fort Oswego was held by the British. An
+expedition had been sent two hundred miles through the wilderness to
+surprise the fort. It appears that the Americans, on reaching the spot
+named, which was within a mile or two of the fort, first learned that
+they were expected, and in great danger of being cut off. They threw
+away their scaling-ladders, and made a rapid retreat. These ladders had
+lain unmolested thirty years, in the spot where they had thus been cast.
+
+[20] Baron Dieskau, a German, in the service of France. A few years
+previous to the period of the tale, this officer was defeated by Sir
+William Johnson of Johnstown, New York, on the shores of Lake George.
+See Appendix, Note H.
+
+[21] Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of New York
+in 1828.
+
+[22] The powers of the American mocking-bird are generally known. But
+the true mocking-bird is not found so far north as the State of New
+York, where it has, however, two substitutes of inferior excellence; the
+catbird, so often named by the scout, and the bird vulgarly called
+ground-thresher. Either of these two last birds is superior to the
+nightingale, or the lark, though, in general, the American birds are
+less musical than those of Europe.
+
+[23] The beauties of Lake George are well known to every American
+tourist. In the height of the mountains which surround it, and in
+artificial accessories, it is inferior to the finest of the Swiss and
+Italian lakes, while in outline and purity of water it is fully their
+equal; and in the number and disposition of its isles and islets much
+superior to them all together. There are said to be some hundreds of
+islands in a sheet of water less than thirty miles long. The narrows
+which connect what may be called, in truth, two lakes, are crowded with
+islands to such a degree as to leave passages between them frequently of
+only a few feet in width. The lake itself varies in breadth from one to
+three miles.
+
+The State of New York is remarkable for the number and beauty of its
+lakes. One of its frontiers lies on the vast sheet of Ontario, while
+Champlain stretches nearly a hundred miles along another. Oneida,
+Cayuga, Canandaigua, Seneca, and George, are all lakes of thirty miles
+in length, while those of a size smaller are without number. On most of
+these lakes there are now beautiful villages, and on many of them
+steamboats.
+
+[24] These harangues of the beasts are frequent among the Indians. They
+often address their victims in this way, reproaching them for cowardice,
+or commending their resolution, as they may happen to exhibit fortitude,
+or the reverse in suffering.
+
+[25] A dish composed of cracked corn and beans. It is much used also by
+the whites. By corn is meant maize.
+
+[26] William Penn was termed Minquon by the Delawares, and, as he never
+used violence or injustice in his dealings with them, his reputation for
+probity passed into a proverb. The American is justly proud of the
+origin of his nation, which is perhaps unequalled in the history of the
+world; but the Pennsylvanian and Jerseyman have more reason to value
+themselves in their ancestors than the natives of any other State, since
+no wrong was done the original owners of the soil.
+
+[27] Turtle.
+
+[28] A tree which has been partially or entirely stripped of its bark is
+said, in the language of the country, to be "blazed." The term is
+strictly English; for a horse is said to be blazed when it has a white
+mark.
+
+[29] The American forest admits of the passage of horse, there being
+little underbush, and few tangled brakes. The plan of Hawkeye is the one
+which has always proved the most successful in the battles between the
+whites and the Indians. Wayne, in his celebrated campaign on the Miami,
+received the fire of his enemies in line; and then causing his dragoons
+to wheel round his flanks, the Indians were driven from their covers
+before they had time to load. One of the most conspicuous of the chiefs
+who fought in the battle of Miami assured the writer, that the redmen
+could not fight the warriors with "long knives and leather-stockings";
+meaning the dragoons with their sabres and boots.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
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