THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. CHAPTER I.
“Why, any thing:
An honourable murderer, if you will;
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.”
—Othello.
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The bloody and inhuman scene which we have
rather incidentally mentioned than described, in the
close of the preceding volume, 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
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show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence
beneath the chilling ascendency of mistaken
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 fanciful 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 our sister muse, we shall at once retire from
her sacred precincts, within the proper limits of our
own humbler 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, emphatically, 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 and negligent disorder.
A frightful change had also occurred in the season.
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The sun had hid its warmth behind an impenetrable
mass of vapour, 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 was wont about 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 favouring light, and in a genial temperature,
had been found so lovely, appeared now like some
pictured allegory of life, in which the objects were
arrayed in their harshest but truest colours, and without
the relief of any shadowing.
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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 vapour.
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 stooped, at random, to that hideous haven,
where their revolting food so freely abounded.
In short, it was a scene of wildness and desolation;
and it appeared as if all who had profanely entered
it, had been stricken, at a blow, by the powerful and
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 dreary 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,
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as though they entered with reluctance amid the
horrors of the spot, or dreaded the renewal of some
of its frightful incidents. A light figure preceded
the rest of the party, with all 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 they should
pursue. Nor were those in the rear wanting in every
caution and foresight known to forest warfare. One
among them, and he also was an Indian, moved a
little on one flank, and watched the neighbouring
margin of the woods, with eyes long accustomed to
read the smallest sign of approaching danger. The
remaining three were white, though clad in vestments
strikingly adapted, both in quality and colour,
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 the natural emotions he endured,
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 groupes 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
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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 rough 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 indulge, without fear of observation
or dread of consequences, in the feelings he experienced.
But with him, the offence seemed rather
given to the intellectual than to the physical man.
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 moral enormity of such a butchery.
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 groupe of females, who
lay in a cluster, a confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding
the revolting horror of the exhibition,
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Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap,
endeavouring, 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-coloured garments. The father
and the 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. Eyeing the sad
spectacle with an angry and flushed countenance, the
sturdy woodsman, for the first time since entering the
plain, spoke intelligibly and aloud.
“I have been on many a shocking field, and have
followed a trail of blood for weary 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
red 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
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his sheath; and then turning calmly from the slight,
his countenance settled into a repose as deep as if
he never knew the influence or instigations 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 their mortal infirmities. Wo betide the
wretch who is born to behold this plain, with the judgment
hanging above his soul! Ha—as I am a man of
white blood, yonder lies a red-skin, 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
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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 raven
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 away 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 `kill-deer'
would take an uncommon range to-day!”
Uncas, without making any reply, bounded away
from the spot, and in the next instant 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, once more, about him.
“My child!” said Munro, speaking quick and
wildly; “give me my child!”
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“Uncas will try,” was the short and touching answer.
The simple, but meaning assurance was lost on the
agitated father, who seized the piece of the veil, and
crushed it in his hand, while his eyes roamed fearfully
among the adjacent bushes, as if he equally dreaded
and hoped for the secrets they might reveal.
“Here are no dead!” said Heyward, in a voice
that was hollow and nearly stifled by apprehension;
“the storm seems not to have passed this way.”
“That's manifest; and clearer than the heavens
above our heads,” returned the cool and 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 frighted fawn, to the wood;
none who could fly would remain to be murdered!
Let us have a 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 forset. 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
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trouble. We have them though; that much is beyond
denial!”
“Bless ye, bless ye! worthy man!” exclaimed
the agitated father; “whither then have they fled,
and where are my babes?”
“The path they have taken depends on many
chances. If they have gone alone, as they are quite
as likely to move in a circle as straight, 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 trial, and we'll
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
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wider trail. I would wager fifty beaver skins to 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 that 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, as if satisfied with the
result of the examination.
“Well, boy,” demanded the attentive scout,
“what does it say? can you make any thing of
the tell-tale?”
“Le Renard Subtil!”
“Ha! that rampaging devil again! there never
will be an end of his loping, till `kill-deer' 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
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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 on 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, whether of a 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 varments from Glenn's to the health-springs.
Chingachgook complied, and after finishing his
short examination, he arose, and with a quiet and
grave demeanour, he merely pronounced, though
with a foreign accent, the word—
“Magua.”
“Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here then have passed
the dark hair and Magua.”
“And not Alice?” demanded the startled 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 youthful Indian warrior had complied,
the scout received the prize, and holding it on high,
he laughed in his silent but heartfelt manner, before
he said—
“'Tis the tooting we'pon of the singer! now we shall
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have a trail a priest might travel. 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, perhaps, 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 Hawk-eye, 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 cat-bird he meets
is the cleverest fellow of the two. Well, boy, any
signs of such a foundation?”
“Here is something like the footstep of one who
has worn a shoe,” said Heyward, gladly changing the
discourse from the abuse of David, to whom he now
felt the strongest tie of gratitude; “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 heighth and grand appearance! The
singer would cover it with his heel!”
“Where! let me look on the footsteps of my
child!” said Munro, eagerly 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 very plainly
visible. The aged soldier examined it with eyes
that grew dim as he gazed; nor did he rise from his
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stooping posture, until Heyward saw that he had
watered the graceful trace of his daughter's passage,
with a scalding and heavy 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 Hawk-eye, without moving
his eyes from considering 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 footsteps would be.”
Heyward drew back, all his ardour to proceed
seeming to vanish on the instant. Without attending
to this sudden change in the other's humour, 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
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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.”
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“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 Hawk-eye, 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 Mingoes. 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, even the Great
Lakes, 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,
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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 honour 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 instantly 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.
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CHAPTER II.
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.”
Shakspeare.
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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 demeanour, 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 impressively toward his
rude hut, when his labour 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 into the open air, too much excited
himself to seek the repose he had recommended
to his veteran friend.
While Hawk-eye and the Indians lighted their
fire, and took their evening's repast, a frugal mean of
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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 vapour, 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 reposed the
dead. 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
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to divert his attention to the mimic stars, that dimly
glimmered along 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. Hawk-eye threw his rifle across an arm,
and complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm,
as to prove how much he accounted on the security
of their position.
“Listen,” said Duncan, when the other had 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 a 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,
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
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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 red-skin, 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 Hawk-eye, 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 red-skin 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
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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 humour 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, as you have
mentioned?”
Hawk-eye slowly shook his head, and beckoned
for Duncan to follow him to a spot, whither 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
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meaning of an owl, and springing on his feet, he looked
toward 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.
Hawk-eye 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 intently 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 Mingoes 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 then think that Montcalm has not called off
all his Indians! Let us give the alarm to our companions,
that we may stand by our arms. Here are
five of us, who are not unused to meet an enemy.”
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“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 to be 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 of anxiety in his
manner 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 Mingoes;
his Indian nature will teach him how to act.”
The scout then 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 was
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
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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 Hawk-eye,
pressing the arm of Heyward; “he knows that a
look, or a motion, might disconsart our wisdom,
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 mean time, the scout had
thrown forward his rifle, like one prepared for instant
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 Hawk-eye pointed out the
-- 027 --
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“scampering of the wolves,” as if they fled precipitately
before the passage of some intruders on their
proper domains. After an impatient and breathless
pause of several minutes, a plunge was heard into the
water, and was immediately succeeded 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 coolly across his arm again, and following Chingachgook,
who just then re-appeared within the circle
of light, into the bosom of the works. “How is
it, Sagamore! Are the Mingoes upon us in earnest,
or is it only one of those reptyles 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 Hawk-eye,
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[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
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 skrimmage. 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 all 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 endeavoured 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
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[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
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 his victory. Chingachgook laid his
hand on the scalp, and considered it for a moment
with deep attention. Then dropping it, with powerful
disgust depicted in his strong and expressive features,
he exclaimed—
“Hugh! 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 our 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, musical voice—
“Oneida.”
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[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
“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 them 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 Hawk-eye, “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 Mingoes, while the greater part
are in the Canadas, out of natural enmity to the
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Maquas—thus throwing every thing 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,” said the scout, “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 colour and my religion—
though I will just repeat, it may have been owing to
the night that `kill-deer' 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, now, of their
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[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
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 Hawk-eye 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 honoured
member.
It was, of course, with a perfect understanding of
the minute and intricate interests, 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
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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 Hawk-eye, 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 for the occasion.
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 to speak. 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 Hawk-eye, 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
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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, none 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 colour, he
rather affected the cold and inartificial 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 Hawk-eye's arm toward the Horican,
denoted that he advocated 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.
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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 the appellation
of the “open hand;” a name his liberality
had purchased of all the friendly tribes. Then came
the 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 Hawk-eye'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 candour, that, had they been the representatives
of some great and civilized people, would
have infallibly worked their political ruin, by destroying,
for ever, their reputation for consistency.
The instant the matter in discussion was decided,
the debate, and every thing connected with it,
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[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
except the result, appeared to be forgotten. Hawk-eye,
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 demeanour 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
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of a desire to carry destruction and desolation 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.
-- 038 --
CHAPTER III.
“Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!”
Childe Harold.
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
The heavens were still studded with stars, when
Hawk-eye 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 one of them
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the reasons of all this extraordinary precaution were
yet a mystery. When they were in the low cavity,
that surrounded the earthen fort on three of its 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
Dutchers 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, every thing was studiously restored to
its former disorder; and then Hawk-eye 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 mountains, on the
glossy surface of the lake; then he demanded—
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“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 reptyle 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 the
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 sacred 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 deep
and heavy 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.
-- 041 --
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“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 now appeared to be 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 Hawk-eye, 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,
distinguished as he was for spirit, differed in some
degree from that of the scout, for, instead of replying,
he now sat in silence, while the canoe glided over
-- 042 --
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several miles of water. Just as the day dawned,
they entered the narrows of the lake, 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 paddles 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
-- 043 --
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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 that 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 vapour 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
hazle? '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 Hawk-eye,
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,
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
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 Hawk-eye, making a
hasty sign to repress his ardour; “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 topling
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 have'nt yet got their eyes out of the mist, or
we should hear the accursed whoop. Together,
friends—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
-- 045 --
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into the canoes, which were soon dancing over the
water, in swift 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 Hawk-eye,
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 `kill-deer'
has a barrel on which a man may safely 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 Hawk-eye; “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
-- 046 --
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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 mean
time, 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 the dull apathy into which he was plunged by
the weight of his misfortunes.
“Let us make for the rocks on the main,” he
said, with the firm mien of a tried 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 Louises!”
“He who wishes to prosper in Indian warfare,”
returned the busy 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.”
Hawk-eye 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
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
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,
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
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 a 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?”
“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
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
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 warwhoop
of the Mohicans, and then lent his own
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 “kill-deer”
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—
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
“The knaves love to hear the sounds of their
pieces; but the eye is not to be found among the
Mingoes 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 Hawk-eye'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 `kill-deer' 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 Hawk-eye 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
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
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 `kill-deer' 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
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
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 labour, 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. Hawk-eye
and Heyward ascended an adjacent bluff, where the
former, after considering the expanse of water
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
beneath him, attentively, for many minutes, pointed
out to the latter a small black object, hovering under
a head-land, 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 Mingoes! 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
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
than ours see it, and know its meaning! Well,
words will not mend the matter, and it is time that
we were doing.”
Hawk-eye 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 head land, 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, favoured by the darkness,
pushed silently and vigorously toward the
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
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.
-- 056 --
CHAPTER IV.
“If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death.”
Merry Wines of Windsor.
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
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 of 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 rude and wild recesses.
As Hawk-eye 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,
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
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 had 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
Hawk-eye, who led the advance, became more deliberate
and watchful. He often stopped to examine
the tress; nor did he cross a rivulet, without attentively
considering the quantity, the velocity, and the
colour 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 chieftain,
and demand his opinion of their progress; but
the calm and dignified demeanour 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
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
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 quick glance at his
father, but instantly recovering 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
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
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 favoured, greatly favoured,
and can follow with high noses. Ay, here are
both your wadding 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
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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 an 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 swift 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 long and closely 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 tracks 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 endeavoured
to trace the route of the horses, came upon a sign
-- 061 --
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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 re-appeared, 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 prove?” 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 knave 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 colour, 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.”
Hawk-eye and the Mohicans now applied
-- 062 --
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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
Hawk-eye, 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, labouring 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
-- 063 --
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success of the young warrior. The whole party crowded
to the spot, where Uncas pointed out the impression
of a moccasin in the rich and moist alluvion.
“The lad will be an honour to his people!” said
Hawk-eye, regarding the trail with as much admiration
as a naturalist would expend on the tusk of a
mammoth, or the rib of a mastoden; “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, ag'in the hill side.”
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
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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 neighbouring
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 no
better chance of learning from the open hand of
Providence, than yon idle boy has with an old gal.
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.”
-- 065 --
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“Will this assist in explaining the difficulty?”
said Heyward, pointing towards the fragments of
a sort of hand-barrow, that had been rudely constructed
of boughs, and bound together with withes,
and which now seemed carelessly cast aside as useless.
“'Tis all explained!” cried the delighted Hawk-eye.
“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 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 buck-skin,
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
attentive 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
-- 066 --
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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 and slight repast.
When the meal was ended, the scout cast a glance
upward at the setting sun, and pushed forward with
a rapidity, to equal which compelled Heyward and
the still vigorous Munro to exert all their muscles.
Their route, now, lay along the bottom which has
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 Hawk-eye sensibly abated, and his head,
instead of maintaing 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 awaited 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 hill side, to the right;
Uncas will bend along the brook to the left, while I
-- 067 --
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will try the trail. If any thing 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
deeming any reply necessary, while Hawk-eye 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 flowed 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
-- 068 --
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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, which ever 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 humours 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
-- 069 --
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
its inhabitants. It was impossible to discover the expression
of his features, through the grotesque masque
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 briars. The feet
were, however, covered with a pair of good bear-skin
moccasins. Altogether, the appearance of the individual
was forlorn and miserable.
Duncan was still curiously observing the person of
his neighbour, 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.”
Hawk-eye started, and dropped his rifle, when, 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,
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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?”
Hawk-eye 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
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[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
scout. Then he re-appeared, 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 mean time, the uplifted hand
of Hawk-eye 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 Hawk-eye 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.”
-- 072 --
CHAPTER V.
Hot.“Are we all met?”
Qui.“Pat—pat; and here's a marvellous
Convenient place for our rehearsal.”
—Shakspeare.
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
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 Hawk-eye 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
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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 `kill-deer' 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
upward 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!”
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“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 further into
these forests, and nigher to the borders of Canada.
The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighbouring
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 ax, 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 endeavours, 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
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[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
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.”
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Though the figurative language of David was not
very intelligible to all who heard him, 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 grave 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 endeavours 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, and
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 it compatible
with the grave functions he exercised, to exhibit.
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,
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
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
-- 078 --
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
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 far too ignorant of the customs and history of
the natives, to be able to declare any thing 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 cornfeast—
or can you say any thing of the totems of their
tribe?”
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
“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 behe 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 colour, that would make the warrior
bow down before images of his own creation. It
is true, they endeavour to make truces with the wicked
one—as who would not with an enemy he cannot
conquer—but they look up for favour 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, savoured 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 the
air of one who had made an important, but by no
means 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.
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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
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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 dull 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 ardour 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 whip-poor-will?”
“'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 whippoor-will's
call three times repeated, you are to come
into the bushes, where the bird might be supposed—”
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“Stop,” interrupted Heyward; “I will accompany
him.”
“You!” exclaimed the astonished Hawk-eye;
“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 pervart the gift.”
“I too can play the madman, the fool, the hero;
in short, any or every thing, to rescue her I love from
such a captivity. Name your objections no longer;
I am resolved.”
Hawk-eye 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 loftiness of 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 any
thing—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
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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 dilated, and became imposing
under its influence. Hawk-eye, though too
much accustomed to Indian artifices not to foresee
all 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 daily 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 humour suddenly altered, and he lent
himself to its execution.
“Come,” he said, with a good humoured 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
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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 a wish for 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
and feeling; 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
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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
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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
immates, that even the brutes of these vast
wilds were possessed of an instinct nearly commensurate
with his own practised 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 faded
before her loveliness. Cheering David with his voice,
he moved more swiftly onward, with the light and vigorous
step of youth and enterprise.
After making nearly a semi-circle 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
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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 their 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,
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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 way-side.”
“The tribes are fonder of the chase, than of the
arts of men of labour,” returned the unconscious
Duncan, still gazing at the objects of his wonder.
“It is rather joy than labour 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 inmost soul!”
“Of whom speak you?”
“Of those children of the devil, who waste their
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 yells just then rang shrilly through the forest;
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and Duncan, suffering his lip to curl in a proud
smile, as in mockery at his own momentary superstition,
said firmly—
“We will proceed.”
Without removing the safeguards from his ears, the
master of song complied, and together they pursued
their way, boldly, towards what David was sometimes
wont to call “the tents of the Philistines.”
-- 090 --
CHAPTER VI.
—“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;
Whoever recked, where, how, or when,
The prowling fox was trapped or slain.”
—Lady of the Lake.
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
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 king 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 busy children, who played
the antics already mentioned, it was without the
least previous intimation of their approach. But
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so soon as they were observed, the whole of the juvenile
pack raised, by common consent, a single
shrill and warning whoop; and then sunk, as it were,
by magic, from before the sight of their visiters.
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
had permitted Duncan to bend his own wondering
looks more curiously about the spot, he found
them every where met by dark, quick, and rolling
eye-balls.
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
gladly have retreated. It was, however, too late to
appear even 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 groupe, gravely awaiting the nearer approach
of those who had thus 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
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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, endeavouring,
as he proceeded, to rally his thoughts for
the occasion. His blood had stagnated for a moment,
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 visiter 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, in
their ordinary manner, 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 wavered, incostantly, in the currents of
air. Duncan profited by its light, to read, with
jealous looks, the probable character of his reception,
in the countenances of his hosts. But his ingenuity
availed him little, against the cold artifices of
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the people he had encountered. The chiefs in front
scarce cast a glance at his person, keeping their
eyes fastened 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 its secret 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
arduous duties of manhood, advanced from out 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 head 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
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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 amongst
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 slight patois 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 colour 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 valiant.”
“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.”
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“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 long and deep 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 favourably 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 the usual
brief exclamation of pleasure. Duncan began to
breathe more freely, believing that the weight of his
examination was past; and as he had already
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[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
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 every thing, 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 the organs of Duncan
occasionally announced, 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 every thing 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,
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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 “deathhalloo;”
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 disaggreeable sensation
was quieted, in inward congratulations, 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 ecstacy 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 on high,
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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 by 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
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the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and
active frame, he endeavoured 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.
Those forms in the back ground, 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,
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were rendered fearfully distinct, by the gleams that
shot athwart their dusky but inflamed visages.
It will easily be understood, that amid such a concourse
of vindictive enemies, no breathing time was
permitted to 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 irretrievably 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
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children in front, and bore them to the earth. The
stranger re-appeared 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
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protecting post, and breathing thick and hard, after his incredible
exertions, but still 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
foretel 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 many and
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,
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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 loud burst of savage and taunting 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
proudly towards the dusky forms of the warriors,
who stalked in the back ground, 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 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
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woman. Then, indeed, the captive turned his face
towards the light, and looked down on the stripling
with a loftiness of expression, that was even superior
to contempt. At the next moment, he resumed his
quiet and reclining attitude against the post. But
the action and the change of posture had permitted
Duncan to exchange glances with the firm and piercing
eyes of Uncas.
Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed
with the critical situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled
before the look, trembling lest its meaning expression
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 back ground, presenting a dark
outline to the picture, of swarthy and sternly marked
visages. In the very centre of the lodge,
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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
all 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 a breathing 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
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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 words shall be spoken to you.”
“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 confident
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
towards 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 powerful sensation among his auditors.
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Every eye rolled sullenly toward 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 mean time, 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
deep and impressive 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 and erect 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.
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Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in
such a manner, as to cast its red glare on his person,
and expose the slightest emotion of his countenance.
The Mohican chief 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 deep 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
colour of your eyes. Three times have they called
on you to come, and as often did you forget to
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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 fearfully
in its speaking lineaments. His eye, which was
contracted with inward anguish, gleamed around 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 every thing in
darkness. The whole shuddering groupe 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.
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CHAPTER VII.
“Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
Dissolve the council, and their chief obey.”
Pope's Iliad.
[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]
A single moment, however, served to convince
the youth that he was mistaken. A hand was laid,
with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and then 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
Hawk-eye is not asleep. Go—Uncas and the `open
hand' are now strangers. It is enough.”
Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a
timely effort from his friend, urged him toward 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 darkness
of the lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas,
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still maintaining its upright attitude above the dead
body of the Huron.
A knot of warriors soon entered the place again,
and re-issuing, they bore the senseless remains into
the adjacent woods. After this solemn termination
of the scene, Duncan wandered among the lodges,
unquestioned and unnoticed, endeavouring 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 disappointments,
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 doubts that were becoming painful.
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 re-assembled, 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 favourable to
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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 re-appeared. 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 of 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 he had 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
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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 ends. 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 a sacrifice
to appearances, 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 groupe, he seated himself
on one end of that low pile of brush, which
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sustained Duncan on its other. The latter cast an impatient
look at his neighbour, 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 intended departure of the Huron.
Several pipes, that had been extinguished,
were lighted again; while the new comer, without
speaking a word, drew his tomahawk from his girdle,
and filling the bowl on its head, began to inhale the
vapours 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 could of white smoke,
before one of them uttered the significant word—
“Welcome! Has my friend found the moose?”
“The young men stagger under their burthens,”
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 eyes 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
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glaring balls to roll in the direction of a white headed
savage, who sate 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 proud 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 amid 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 came not from the veins of a Huron;
the wicked Chippewas cheated my squaw! The
Great Spirit has said, that the family of Wiss-en-tush
should end—he is happy who knows that the evil
of his race dies with himself! I have done.”
The father then looked round and about him, as
if seeking commendation for 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 swarthy and wrinkled visage was working with
inward 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, and sought, in the privacy of his own abode,
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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 betrayed in the speech of
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the aged father, he permitted himself to ask no questions,
reserving all 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 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 oy, and heaving a breath
from the very bottom of his chest, he pronounced
aloud the 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
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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 and proud
curl of the lip; an emblem of scorn that 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
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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 keenest thirst for 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 by the
party of “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;
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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 red skin 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 burthen, 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
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comes from the veins of an Indian. Let, then, 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 instant 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 continued and deadly look of
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 short 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
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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 every 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 soft and musical tongue.
“No!” said Magua, after satisfying himself of the
safety of the captive; “the sun must shine upon 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
gloomy, 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 that might have proved so fatal to the
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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 in the ordinary succession to every
scene of violence and commotion, amongst those beings,
who were alike so impetuous, and yet so selfrestrained.
When the chief who had solicited the aid of Duncan
had 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
toward 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
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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 downward 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
eye-balls might be seen, it gave no other indication 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
found domesticated among the Indians, followed the
example of his companion, believing that some
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favourite 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 visiter, was now
content with proceeding without wasting a moment
in further examination; but Heyward was unable to
prevent his eyes from looking backward, in a sort of
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 though 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
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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
bed-side, 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
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appeased at the sight, and he began, busily, 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 visiters 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 and 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, sounds, 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.
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CHAPTER VIII.
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's Night Dream.
[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]
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 allusion. 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
groupe of female attendants, that had clustered there,
in lively curiosity, 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.”
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Thus unequivocally called on to exercise the functions
of his assumed character, Heyward was apprehensive
that the smallest delay might prove dangerous.
Endeavouring then to collect his ideas, he
prepared to commence that species of incantation,
and those uncouth rites, under which the Indian
conjurers are accustomed to conceal their actual 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 instantly 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
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make a resistance, worthy of his reputation, against
the attack he now seriously expected.
It seemed, however, as if the humour 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 though it were 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 nor-west Indians, not having as yet got the traders
much among them, continue to venerate the
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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.”
“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 `longue 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 `kill-deer' 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 conjuror 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!”
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“And dearly has he paid for the weakness!” exclaimed
Duncan.
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 skrimmages
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 favour, but lead me to the very spot
where one of the most famous conjurors 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 judgematical rap, over the
head, stiffened the lying impostor for a time, and
leaving him a bit of walnut for his supper, to prevent
any uproar, and stringing him up atween two saplings,
I made free with his finery, and took the part
of a 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
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beast! Had it been now a catamount, or even a full
sized painter, 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 over
acted! 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 divide whole settlements.
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
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monster might well 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 manifest 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 favoured look, major,” returned
the scout, dryly; “your streaked countenances
are not ill judged of by the squaws, but
young women of white blood give the preference to
their own colour. 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 conjuror 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 fine and polished 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
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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 the maiden, pale, anxious,
and terrified, but still 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, Duncan, that you would never desert
me,” she said, looking up with a momentary glow of
pleasure beaming 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 an inability to continue standing, 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
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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, sweet Alice,” he
added; “but what heart loaded like mine would not
wish to cast its burthen! 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!”
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“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 dearest 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.”
The maiden trembled violently, and there was an
instant, during which she bent her face aside, yielding
to the emotions common to her sensitive sex; but
they quickly passed away, leaving her completely
mistress of her deportment, if not of her affections.
“Heyward,” she said, looking him full in the eye,
with a touching expression of innocence and dependency,
“give me the sacred presence and the holy
sanction of that parent, before you urge me farther.”
“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
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to the issue of a deadly struggle. But, without arms
of any description, ignorant of what succours 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 irretrivably
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
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hopeless to ask favour 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 red-skins 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,” continued the undaunted
Heyward, “or in the presence of your assembled
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 low, menacing growl, caught
his ear, and caused him to hesitate. The figure of the
bear appeared in the door, where it sate 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 recognised the well known attire of the
conjuror, 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
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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 more
brutal prototype.
“Fool!” exclaimed the chief, in Huron, “go play
with the children and squaws; leave men to their
wisdom.”
He once more endeavoured to pass the supposed
empyric, scorning even the parade of threatening to
use the keen knife, or glittering tomahawk, that was
pendant from his belt. Suddenly, the beast extended
its arms, or rather legs, and enclosed 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 Hawk-eye, 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 encirled 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
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whose nerves were far better strung than his own,
had not uttered the slightest exclamation. But when
Hawk-eye, 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
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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,” Hawk-eye 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
instantly repelled the eves-dropper, and then the
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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
soon 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 this 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 groupe, 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
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him down with clubs. He is cunning, and will bury
himself in the mountain, therefore, when he sees
how many are prepared 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 favourable moment the counterfeit conjurors
disappeared.
Hawk-eye, 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
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mental powers had been the subject of her 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 the reluctant Heyward was compelled to part
with his precious burthen. 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, as they had made
such diligent progress in their flight. 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 throughly the master.
“This path will lead you to the brook,” he said;
“follow its northern bank until you come to a fall;
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;
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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 favour. 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 such little hopes 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 colour dwell;
but such may be the gifts of natur 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 skrimmage; and so long as I could
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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 colour 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 `kill-deer' become as
harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!”
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 his mistress, took their way together towards
the distant village of the Delawares.
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CHAPTER IX.
Bot.“Let me play the lion too.”
—Midsummer's Night Dream
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Notwithstanding the high resolution of Hawk-eye,
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 colour of his skin saved the lives of
Magua and the conjuror, who would have been the
first victims to his 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,
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and appeared as though it had been deserted when
half completed—most probably on account of failing
in some of the more important requisites; such as of
wood or water. A faint light glimmered through its
cracks, however, and announced, that notwithstanding
its imperfect structure, it was not now 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 his main
attack.
Throwing himself into a suitable posture for the
beast he represented, Hawk-eye 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 Balaam's
ass to speak, he was somewhat sceptical 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
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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 Hawk-eye, who recalled the hasty
manner in which the other had abandoned his post
at the bed-side 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 visiters, he ventured through its low
door, into the very presence of Gamut. The position
of the latter brought the fire between them;
and when Hawk-eye 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
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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 in an inexplicable
emotion, and then a well-known voice replied—
“Put up your tooting we'pon, and teach your
throat modesty. Five words of plain and comprehendible
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 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 Hawk-eye, 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
the heaven and the sun has not bestowed. Now let
us to business.”
“First tell me of the maiden, and of the youth
who so bravely sought her,” interrupted David.
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“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
is his death 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 Hawk-eye,
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 favour 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 conversion.
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, assuredly, 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
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sufficiently explained to the reader in the due 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 Hawk-eye 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 now 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
conjuror, they readily made a passage to the entrance.
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.
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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 conjuror 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 further 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
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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 Hawk-eye 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 preconcerted 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 but, and closed his eyes, as if willing to exclude
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such contemptible and disagreeable objects 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, the usual exclamation—
“Hugh!”
“Cut his bands,” said Hawk-eye 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 hurriedly, and presently
the scout arose to his feet, in his 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 Hawk-eye 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.
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“Whither?”
“To the Tortosies—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 has a little changed its colour!
What shall we do with the Mingoes 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
Hawk-eye, 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 will put
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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, in
some surprise, “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 Hawk-eye, 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 Hawk-eye, 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,
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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 in 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. Hawk-eye was not long
in assuming his borrowed garments; and when his
keen, 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-compossur 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 time as the
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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 deeply.
“There is a principle in that,” he said, “different
from the law of the woods! and yet it is fair and
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noble to reflect upon!” Then, heaving a heavy
sigh, probably among the last he ever drew in pining
for the condition he had so long abandoned, he added—
“It is what I would wish to practyse 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 Hawk-eye 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 groupe of 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
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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. Hawk-eye,
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 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 conjuror
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
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act by superstition or watchfulness. They were
not, however, interrupted; the darkness of the hour,
and the boldness 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
their wonderment.”
He had no occasion to delay, for at 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 lofty and
beautiful proportions. Hawk-eye 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
`kill-deer' as he handed Uncas a 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.
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CHAPTER X.
.Int.“I shall remember:
When Cæsar says, do this, it is performed.
Julius Cæsar
[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]
The impatience of the savages who lingered about
the prison of Uncas, as has been seen, had overcome
their dread of the conjuror'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 Hawk-eye 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 stern and 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
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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
now 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 endeavoured to smooth 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 any thing 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 mean time, 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
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order to ascertain that their suspected neighbours,
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 clamour 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 conjuror, who had
been left so long by the scout in such a painful duresse.
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 gravity and cunning of the
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,
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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 had
just affirmed they had seen her borne to the woods,
by 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 still
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.
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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
frightfully on end, exhibited the distorted, but
still fierce and sullen, features of Magua. The discovery
was succeeded by a loud and 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 every where 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 keenly 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!”
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“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, bitterly;
“'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 fran
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tically, as if the object of their resentment was 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 a
little 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 their 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 Hawk-eye, 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—sate 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
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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 neighbouring
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
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his neighbours, 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 favour of their powerful and most
dangerous neighbour. The result of his experiments
had answered all the expectations of his policy—for
the Hurons were in no degree exempt from that
governing principle of our 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 thus, at a
single blow, placed all his prisoners beyond his control,
and he now found himself reduced to the necessity
of suing for favours 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
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prisoners by the same blow; for all agreed that their
honour, 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 risque 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
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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
such 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, as to flatter the propensities of both parties,
and to leave to each subject for 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 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
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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 favour 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
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presence, on those few occasions when they met,
with the contemptuous indifference of a haughty superiority.
Hither, then, Magua retired, when his labours of
policy were ended. While others slept, however,
he neither knew nor sought any 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 flame 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,
in profound silence, 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,
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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 favours,
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
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expediency of bestowing on their relative a portion of
that wisdom for which they were so renowned.
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, was uninhabited.
Such an extraordinary sign of confidence
was received by the orator as a highly favourable
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
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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 and attentive features of Chingachgook
from his mask of fur.
-- 180 --
CHAPTER XI.
“Brief, I pray you; for you see, 'tis a busy time with me.”
Much Ado About Nothing.
[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]
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 neighbours, 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 Iroquois 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
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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 though 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 groupes,
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
might be seen examining his arms, with an attention
that is rarely bestowed on the implements,
when no other enemy than the beasts of the forest
are expected to be encountered. And, occasionally,
the eyes of a whole groupe 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 that platform
of rock which formed the level of the village. He
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was without arms, and his paint tended rather to
soften than increase the natural sternness of his
austere and marked 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, as though he
deemed their favour, in the present enterprise, of no
importance. When he had reached the groupe, 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
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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 `suc-ca-tush' 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 their 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
any sign or syllable.
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 thing 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 the last importance to
themselves. When the appetites of the whole were
appeased, the squaws removed the trenchers and
gourds, and the two parties began to prepare themselves
for a keen and subtle trial of their wits.
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“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 his `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
neighbours!”
The other acknowledged the pacific compliment
by a graceful 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 opening, effort to regain
possession of Cora.
“Do my young men leave the Delawares room
on the mountains for their hunts?” he, at length,
continued.
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“The Lenape are rulers of their own hills,” returned
the other, a little haughtily.
“It is well. Justice is the master of a red-skin!
Why should they brighten their tomahawks, and
sharpen their knives against each other! Are there
not pale-faces for enemies!”
“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 warpath,
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
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consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered
from the slaughtered and captured 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 its instantaneous results.
The Delawares lost their stern gravity, in a much
more cordial expression of features; 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
coloured by the same sun, and their just men will
hunt in the same grounds after death. The red-skins
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-cœur-dur,” forgot that
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obduracy of purpose, which had probably obtained
him so significant a title. His countenance grew
very sensibly less stern, and he 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 their 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 all their future movements.
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Their distant villages, their hunting grounds, and
hundreds of their women and children, together with
a material part of their physical force, were all 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-cœur-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, they now learnt,
for the first time, that one so famous among the
Indian allies of France, was within their power.
“What does my brother mean?” demanded Le-c
œur-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.
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“Let the Delawares count their prisoners; they
will find one whose skin is neither red nor pale.”
A long and musing pause succeeded. Then 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 labours, 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 their feelings.
When the excitement had a little abated, the old
men disposed themselves seriously to a consideration
of that which it became the honour 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
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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 sate 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
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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
for ever. It rested solely with the oldest and
most experienced of the men to lay the subject of their
conference before the people. Until such an 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 instant, the door of the lodge in question opened,
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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 his 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 ancles, 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 silver diadem, which,
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[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]
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 colour 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 human passions. The colour
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
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[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]
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 intreat a blessing. The
younger men were content with touching his robe,
or even with 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 a deep and breathing 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 re-appeared,
escorting the individuals who had caused all
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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.
-- 196 --
CHAPTER XII.
“The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,
Achilles thus the king of men address'd.”
Pope's Homer.
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
Cora stood foremost among the prisoners, entwining
her arms in those of Alice, in the fondest 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 favour of her whom he most loved. Hawk-eye
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
among them.
When perfect silence was again restored, and
after the usual, long, impressive pause, one of the
two aged chiefs, who sate at the side of the patriarch,
arose, and demanded aloud, in very intelligible English—
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“Which of my prisoners is la Longue Carabine?”
Neither Duncan nor the scout made any answer.
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
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a sky without clouds, and the Delawares are the enemies,
and not the friends, of the Yengeese. Go—
your mouth has spoken, while your heart has 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
boldly to the front, and assumed the task of explaining.
“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 Mingoes to bestow a name on one, whose friends
have been mindful of his gifts, in this particular; especially,
as their title is all a lie; `kill-deer' being a
genuine grooved barrel, and no carabyne. I am the
man, however, that got the name of Nathaniel from
my kin; the compliment of Hawk-eye 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 so distinguished an appellation.
It was in no degree remarkable, that there
should be found two who were willing to claim so
great an honour, for impostors, though rare, were
not unknown amongst the natives; but it was altogether
material to the just and severe intentions of the
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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 visiter 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, but continued
silent.
“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
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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 such a
competition with the scout, though he determined to
persevere in the deception, until apprised of the designs
of Magua. Raising his rifle, then, 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 singular proof of great skill in the use of the weapon.
Even Hawk-eye 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 deep thought. From this reverie
he was, however, speedily 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 though it were a
reed; “yes, Huron, I could strike you now, and no
power of 'arth 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
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of my colour 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 intense expectation; but Magua
himself, even while he distrusted the forbearance of
his enemy, remained as immovable and calm, where
he stood, wedged in by the crowd, as though he grew
to the fatal spot.
“Beat it,” repeated the young Delaware at the
elbow of the scout.
“Beat what; fool!—what!”—exclaimed Hawk-eye,
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 tauntingly, and aloud—a noise
that produced the startling effect of unnatural sounds
on Heyward—and then dropping the piece, heavily,
into his extended left hand, it was discharged, apparently
by the shock, driving the fragments of the vessel
high into the air, and scattering them on every side
of the stump. Almost at the same instant, the heavy
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
deep and engrossing admiration. Then a low, but
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increasing murmur, ran through the multitude, and
finally swelled into sounds, that denoted lively opposition
in the sentiments of the spectators. While some
openly testified their satisfaction at such 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 favourable to his own
pretensions.
“It was all a 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 colour, 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 Hawk-eye 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
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the marksman with jealous eyes, any further cause
for apprehension.
“Now let it be proved, in the face of this tribe of
Delawares, who 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 find that you
can 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 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 and 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
Hawk-eye, laughing once more in his own silent,
heartfelt, manner; “but had my gun often turned so
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much from the true line, many a martin, whose skin
is in a lady's muff, would now 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, instead of breaking it!” returned
Hawk-eye, perfectly undisturbed by the other's manner.
“Fools, if you would find the bullet of a sharp-shooter
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
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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
Hawk-eye 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, endeavouring 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
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slowly along the whole living boundary of earnest
faces, as if to temper his expressions to the capacities
of his audience. On Hawk-eye 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, coloured them differently,”
commenced the subtle Huron. “Some
are blacker than the sluggish bear. These he
said should be slaves; and he ordered them to
work for ever, 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
water, 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
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get together the goods of the earth; and his arms enclose
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 upward 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 every where with
eyes riveted on his own, heads erect, and nostrils
expanded, as though 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
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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 favoured 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 the 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, but my ears
are open.”
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, nor had scarcely
a sign of life escaped him. He had sate, 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 sounds of
Magua's voice, however, he had betrayed some
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evidence of consciousness, and once or twice he had
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 Manitto 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 Mingoes 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—
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“Justice is the law of the Great Manitto. 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 burthen,
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
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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 younder
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 upward at the multitude. As the
full, 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, riveted 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
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who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who
asks for succour.”
“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 waters of
my own river. The children of Miquon 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
the ardent Cora. “Captives, against our wills,
have we been brought amongst 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—”
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“Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant;
but of favour shown to thy kindred by one of mine,
within the memory of thy youngest warrior.”
“Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchemanne
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—”
“Nor yet then,” interrupted Cora again, “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 a touching pathos in his hollow voice, “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 the anguish of 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
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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 colour is
better than the Sachems of the red man. 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 colour of snow.
But let them not boast before the face of the Manitto
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.”
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Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly,
one of his companions said—
“It is a snake—a red-skin in the pay of the Yengeese.
We keep him for the torture.”
“Let him come,” returned the sage.
Then Tamenund once more sunk 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.
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CHAPTER XIII.
“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?
Shakspeare.
[figure description] Page 216.[end figure description]
The silence continued unbroken by human sounds
for many anxious minutes. Then the waving multitude
opened, and shut again, and Uncas stood environed
by 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 keen and haughty scrutiny, the person of
Tamenund came under his glance, his eye became as
fixed, as though all other objects were already forgotten.
Then advancing with a slow and noiseless
step, up the area, he placed himself immediately
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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
Manitto?” 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 and deeply 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.”
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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 readily 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 secret awe. After a long and 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 possibly 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
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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 Manitto 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 fierce and 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 instant preparation. Heyward struggled
madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawk-eye
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 supplicant
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
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a single effort, tore it from his body. Then, with a
yell of frantic pleasure, he leaped toward 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 eye-balls 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! 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.
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“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 Unâmis.” *
“The hour of Tamenund is nigh!” exclaimed the
sage; “the day is come, at last, to the night! I
thank the Manitto, 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 and lofty lineaments of his countenance,
with the untiring gaze of one who recalled the
days of his own happiness by the examination.
“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 young fawn; his arm is withered like the branch
of the dying 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
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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 favoured 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 for ever, 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
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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
the sweet water; there would a Mohican die, like
fishes of the sea, in the clear springs. When the Manitto
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
Hawk-eye, in his bonds. Stepping eagerly
from his stand, he made a 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 grave and attentive Indians
silently obeyed, and once more they stood ranged in
their circle, as before his appearance among them.
Uncas then took the scout by the hand, and led
him to the feet of the patriarch.
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“Father,” he said, “look at this pale-face; a
just man, and the friend of the Delawares.”
“Is he a son of Miquon?”*
“Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and
feared by the Maquas.”
“What name has he gained by his deeds?”
“We call him Hawk-eye,” Uncas replied, using
the Delaware phrase; “for his sight never fails.
The Mingoes 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 Hawk-eye 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 manifested that he is a singing-bird,”
said the scout, who now believed 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
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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, now 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 colour 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 the 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
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triumph at Uncas. “Mohican, you know that she is
mine.”
“My son is silent,” said Tamenund, endeavouring
to read the expression of the face that the youth
turned from him, in sorrow.
“It is so,” was the low and brief reply.
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, on 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
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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 Manitto
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 red-skin; 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.”
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“That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying
what has once been spoken, is wise and reasonable,”
said Hawk-eye, 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
favour 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 lady 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
Hawk-eye, 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 in cold disdain, 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 `kill-deer' into the bargain. Take the
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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 Hawk-eye, 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, with quivering
muscles, and then instantly changing its direction
again, with a wistful look towards the youth;
“I loved both you and your father, Uncas, though
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our skins are not altogether of a colour, 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
dont deny you the use of vengeance, use it a little
freely on the Mingoes; it may unburthen your grief
at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept
your offer; release the lady. 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 for ever.
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 warrior is no tattler; we will
go.”
The maiden drew back in lofty, womanly reserve,
and her dark eye kindled, while the rich blood shot,
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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 Hawk-eye, added, “generous hunter! from
my soul I thank you. Your offer is 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 habitations 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
her feelings, 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 as kind, as gentle, as sweet, as
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—Oh! 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
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clustered about her brows; “and yet her soul is as pure
and spotless as her skin! I could say much—more,
perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will
spare both 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 of
features 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 follow.”
“Hold,” cried Hawk-eye, 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 Manitto.
Look at the sun. He is now in the upper
branches of the hemlock. Your path is short and
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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.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Flue.“Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly against the law of arms
'tis as arrant a piece of knevery, mark you now, as can be offered in the 'orld.”
King Henry V.
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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 colours
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.
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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” trunk. A third coloured the
post 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,
devested 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
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language in which he spoke, the ode might read
something like the following—
Manitto! Manitto! Manitto!
Thou art great—thou art good—thou art wise—
Manitto! Manitto!
Thou art just!
In the heavens, in the clouds, Oh! I see!
Many spots—many dark—many red—
In the heavens, Oh! I see!
Many clouds.
In the woods, in the air, Oh! I hear!
The whoop, the long yell, and the cry—
In the woods, Oh! I hear!
The loud whoop!
Manitto! Manitto! Manitto!
I am weak—thou art strong—I am slow—
Manitto! Manitto!
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, meek, 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
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similar character. Warrior after warrior enlisted in
the dance, until all of any renown and authority
were to be 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 the 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 though they were the actual 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 it was soon apparent the expedition
was unqualifiedly 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 at 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
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cry, and the whole of the excited multitude abandoned
their mimic warfare, with shrill and loud yells
of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment
of the reality.
The whole face of the encampment was now 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 mean time, Duncan
saw Alice to a place of safety, and then sought the
scout, with features that denoted how eagerly he,
also, panted for the approaching contest.
But Hawk-eye 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
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embraced every fighting man in the nation. After
this material point was so satisfactorily decided, he
despatched an Indian boy, in quest of “kill-deer”
and the rifle of Uncas, to the place, in the margin of
the forest, 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,
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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 one of his prizes 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 honoured him by so glorious
a commission.
Notwithstanding the lively interest Hawk-eye had
taken in the fate of his messenger, he received “kill-deer”
with a satisfaction that, momentarily, drove all
other recollections from his mind. After examining
the piece with a keen and 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.
“Ay! 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 mean time, I
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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 honourable
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
riband; 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, were 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
Hawk-eye as a warrior, often tried, and always
found deserving of confidence. When he found his
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friend met with a favourable 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 now 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. A halt was then ordered,
and the chiefs were assembled in front 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
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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 some 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.
“Hawk-eye,” 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 any thing 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 `kill-deer.”'
So saying, Hawk-eye laid aside his rifle, and
crawling through the bushes, until within hearing of
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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 Hawk-eye to produce a
similar noise,) and, consequently, having once before
heard the sounds, he now knew whence they
proceeded. The poor fellow appeared instantly
relieved from a state of great embarrassment; for,
immediately 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 face of a battery—
he soon discovered the hidden songster, who
produced such melodious strains.
“I wonder what the Hurons will think of that!”
said the scout, laughing, as he took his companion
by the arm, and urged him swiftly towards the rear.
“If the knaves lie within ear-shot, they will say there
are two non-compossurs, 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, as I fear, with evil intent. There
has been much howling and ungodly revelry, together
with such sounds as it is profanity to
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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 drily. “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 proud glance along the range of trees
which concealed his own band, and then 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 Hawk-eye?”
“Give me my 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,
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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 that the
release of Cora was the primary object in the mind of
the scout; “I like it much. Let it then 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.
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CHAPTER XV.
“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.
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During the time Uncas was making this disposition
of his forces, the woods were as 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 no where
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
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which it lay. But Hawk-eye, whose duty now 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 again collected, the
scout threw “kill-deer” 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 upward 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. Hawk-eye, who
comprehended their meaning glances, turned, and
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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 favoured 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—
“Yon know not the use of any we'pon. You
carry no rifle; and believe me, what the Mingoes
take, they will freely give again.”
“Though not a vaunting and bloodily disposed
Goliah,” returned David, drawing a sling from beneath
his parti-coloured and uncouth attire, “I have
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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 Hawk-eye, 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 a fire; and as you have hitherto been favoured—
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 Hawk-eye, 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
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precipitous banks, and the thick shrubbery which skirted
the stream, for the whole distance, 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. Every thing is favourable; 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 beaver 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.”
Hawk-eye 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
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land, forming little areas, that might be termed ponds.
Every where 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 now 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
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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, Hawk-eye advanced, the band
breaking off in single files, and following so accurately
in his footsteps, as to leave, 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
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combatants, and imitating the necessary caution of his
companions, he supported 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 unfavourable to
Hawk-eye and his band. The quick sighted scout
perceived all 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 embarrasing moment, when they began to
think the whole of the hostile tribe was gradually encircling
them, to their destruction, 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 Hawk-eye 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 upward towards
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the village, and by an instant falling off in the number
of their assailants, who rushed to assist in maintaining
their front, and, as it now proved to be, their principal
point of defence.
Animating his followers by his voice, and his own
example, Hawk-eye 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 manœuvre
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, Hawk-eye 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 `kill-deer' 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
Mingoes. 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
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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,” continued the
scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; “horse,
I am ashamed to say, must, sooner or later, decide
these skrimmages. The brutes are better than men,
and to horse must we come at last! Put a shodden
hoof on the moccasin of a red-skin, and if his rifle be
once emptied, he will never stop to load it again.”
“This is a subject that might better be discussed
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 mildly 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 now gotten rid of!”
Then turning, with a prompt and decided air, from
Duncan, 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. Then, without stopping
to breathe, the Delawares leaped, in long bounds,
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towards the wood, like so many panthers springing
upon their prey. Hawk-eye 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 their 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 a 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 Hawk-eye,
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 so unexpected an assault, from a
quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, their
warriors uttered a common yell of disappointment
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and despair, and breaking off in a body, they spread
themselves across the opening, heedless of every
other 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 the anxious father
of his mistress. A few brief and hurried words served
to explain the state of things to both parties; and
then Hawk-eye, 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 so
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 off
rather precipitously 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,
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to the sounds of the combat. A few birds hovered
over the leafy bosom of the valley, as if frightened
from their secluded nests, and here and there a light
vapoury cloud, which seemed already blending with
the atmosphere, arose above the trees, and indicated
some spot where the struggle had been more fierce
and stationary than usual.
“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 skrimmage with
warriors of my own colour! You know me, Mohican;
not a Huron of them all shall cross the swell,
into your rear, without the notice of `kill-deer.”'
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 bail which precede
the bursting of the tempest. Hawk-eye and
his three companions withdrew a few paces to a
sheltered spot, and awaited the issue with that sort
of calmness that nothing but great practice could impart,
in such a scene.
It was not long before the reports of the rifles be
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gan 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 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 Delaware 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 in 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 then a yell passed
through the air, that sounded as though a thousand
throats were united in a common effort. The Hurons
staggered, deserting the centre of their line, and
Uncas issued, through the opening they left, from the
forest, at the head of a hundred warriors.
Waving his hands right and left, the young chief
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pointed out the enemy to his followers, who instantly
separated in the 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
eye 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 in 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
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of his friends, continued the pursuit with the velocity
of the wind. In vain Hawk-eye 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 favoured both
in the distance and the ground, 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 desperation
of despair. The onset and the issue were
like the passage and destruction of a whirlwind.
The tomahawk of Uncas, the blows of Hawk-eye,
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 favoured 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.
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But Uncas, who had vainly sought him in the
mélé, bounded forward in pursuit; Hawk-eye, 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 intentions so 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. Hawk-eye, 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
fitting 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
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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, bounding 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 now 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
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against an opening in the sky, and then they disappeared.
Nearly frantic with disappointment.
Uncas and Heyward increased efforts that already
seemed superhuman, 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 rapidly 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, stopping 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 suddenly
stayed their uplifted arms. The Huron chief, after
casting the weapons he had wrested from his companions
over the rock, drew his knife, and turned to
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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, with a rich glow suffusing itself over her features,
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 endeavouring
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 wild and 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 the maiden.
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
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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 an appalling 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 middle 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 fierce 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
Hawk-eye was raised, but a rock, which fell on the
head of one of the fugitives below, exposed the
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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 hands grasped a
shrub on the verge of the height. The form of
Hawk-eye 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 upon. 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
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relentless look on his enemy, he shook his hand at him, 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.
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CHAPTER XVI.
“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.
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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 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 fatal 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,
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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
every thing possessing life had repaired, and
where all were now collected, in a 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, highsouled, and generous Cora. Her form
was concealed in many wrappers of the same simple
manufacture, and her face was shut for ever from the
gaze of human eyes. 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 there was a hidden anguish that
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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, with 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 their consolation. Heyward was also
nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavouring
to keep down those sudden risings of sorrow,
that it required his utmost manhood to subdue.
But sad and melancholy as this groupe 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
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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 for ever 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 the appearance of early 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
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sweetness of the maiden. 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
some rigid being carved in 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 Manitto 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 Manitto 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 now surrounded.
As the immediate effect, however, gradually
passed away, a low murmur of voices commenced
a sort of chant in honour 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
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took up the eulogy, or lamentation, which ever 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 Manitto.
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
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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 peculiar delicacy and sensitiveness of women,
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 her 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 burthen 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
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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 Manitto
had so wisely established between them. Then, in a
wild burst of their chant, they sung, 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 favour 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 for ever 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
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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 chorusses.
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 the tones of voices so sweet; and
long ere the chant was ended, his eager and attentive
gaze announced that his soul was entirely 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.
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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
dark and rigid countenance, even at the wildest,
or 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 for ever from his
view.
In this stage of the funeral obsequies, a warrior,
much renowned for his deeds in arms, and more
especially for his services in the recent combat, a
man of stern and grave demeanour, 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 though the empty clay still 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 noon-day. Thou art gone, youthful
warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
briars from thy path to the world of spirits. Who that
saw thee in battle, would believe that thou couldst
die! Who before thee hast 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 Manitto, when he
speaks in the clouds. The tongue of Uttawa is
weak,” he added, looking about him with a
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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 chieftain. 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 which was now about to be uttered.
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 drunk 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 sunk 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
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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 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 soft, low, and
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 though the last trumpet had
sounded its blast 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 burthen 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
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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 burthen, 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 favour, 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 labours 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 farther
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
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raiment—their gifts being according to the heaven of
their colour. 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 as though
they 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 all 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.
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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
heart-broken 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 colour!”
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 of 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 sunken upon his chest,
and he was again fast relapsing into his brooding
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 groupe of
young Indians, who approached with a light, but
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closely covered litter, and then pointed upward, impressively,
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 heart-broken 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 entirely 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 Hawk-eye, passed from before the eyes
of the Delawares, and were soon buried in the vast
forests of that region.
But the tic which, through their common calamity,
had united the feelings of these simple dwellers in the
woods with the strangers who had thus transiently
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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 of their
weariness, or to animate their youthful and brave
with a desire for vengeance against their natural
enemies. Neither were the secondary actors in
all these momentous incidents immediately 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
happy and joyous nature.
But these were events of a time later than that
which concerns our tale. Deserted by all of his colour,
Hawk-eye 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 enclosing 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
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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 general 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 heard, 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
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a young man has gone to the happy hunting grounds!
that a chief has filled his time with honour! He was
good. He was dutiful. He was brave. Who can
deny it? The Manitto 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 Hawk-eye, 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 colours 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 red-skin
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 colour or our gifts, forget me. The boy has left
us for a time, but, Sagamore, you are not alone!”
Chingachgook grasped the hands that, in the warmth
of his 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
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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 Manitto is not done.
Why should Tamenund stay? The pale-faces are
masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men
has not yet come again. My day has been too long.
In the morning I saw the sons of Unâmis 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!”
THE END.
Back matter
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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851 [1826], The last of the Mohicans, volume 2 (H. C. Carey & I. Lea, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf056v2].
