“Hold, hold!” cried Duncan, springing forward; “Huron, have mercy! her ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known to be.”
“Magua is a redskin; he wants not the beads of the palefaces.”
“Gold, silver, powder, lead—all that a warrior needs shall be in thy wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief.”
“Le Subtil is very strong,” cried Magua, violently shaking the hand which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; “he has his revenge!”
“Mighty ruler of providence!” exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands together in agony, “can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I appeal for mercy.”
“The words of the Delaware are said,” returned the sage, closing his eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and his bodily exertion. “Men speak not twice.”
“That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what had once been spoken, is wise and reasonable,” said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan to be silent; “but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end, many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands.”
“Will ‘The Long Rifle’ give his life for the woman?” demanded Magua, hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion towards quitting the place with his victim.
“No, no; I have not said so much as that,” returned Hawkeye, drawing back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which Magua listened to his proposal. “It would be an unequal exchange, to give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter-quarters, now—at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn—on condition you will release the maiden.”
Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.
“Well, then,” added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not half made up his mind, “I will throw ‘Killdeer’ into the bargain. Take the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween the provinces.”
Magua still disdained to reply, continuing his efforts to disperse the crowd.
“Perhaps,” added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness, exactly in proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, “if I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the we‘pon, it would smooth the little differences in our judgments.”
Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an impenetrable belt around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable proposal, to open his path, threatening, by the glance of his eye, another appeal to the infallible justice of their “prophet.”
“What is ordered must sooner or later arrive,” continued Hawkeye, turning with a sad and humbled look to Uncas. “The varlet knows his advantage, and will keep it! God bless you, boy; you have found friends among your natural kin and I hope they will prove as true as some you have met who had no Indian cross. As for me, sooner or later, I must die; it is therefore fortunate there are but few to make my death-howl. After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp, so a day or two will make no great difference in the everlasting reckoning of time. God bless you,” added the rugged woodsman, bending his head aside, and then instantly changing its direction again, with a wistful look towards the youth; “I loved both you and your father, Uncas, though our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are somewhat different. Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky trail; and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together again. You’ll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep it for my sake; and harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don’t deny you the use of vengeance, use it a little freely on the Mingos; it may unburden grief at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept your offer; release the woman. I am your prisoner! ”
A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation, ran through the crowd at this generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware warriors manifesting pleasure at the manliness of the intended sacrifice. Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he doubted; then casting his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which ferocity and admiration were strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed forever.
He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his head, and said, in a steady and settled voice,—
“Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind. Come,” he added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive to urge her onward; “a Huron is no tattler; we will go.”
The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled, while the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into her very temples, at the indignity.
“I am your prisoner, and at a fitting time shall be ready to follow, even to my death. But violence is unnecessary,” she coldly said; and immediately turning to Hawkeye, added, “Generous hunter! from my soul I thank you. Your offer is in vain, neither could it be accepted; but still you may serve me, even more than in your own noble intention. Look at that drooping, humbled child! Abandon her not until you leave her in the habitation of civilized men. I will not say,” wringing the hard hand of the scout, “that her father will reward you—for such as you are above the rewards of men—but he will thank you, and bless you. And, believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight of Heaven. Would to God, I could hear one from his lips at this awful moment!” Her voice became choked, and, for an instant, she was silent; then advancing a step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her unconscious sister, she continued, in more subdued tones, but in which feeling and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle,—“I need not tell you to cherish the treasure you will possess. You love her, Heyward; that would conceal a thousand faults, though she had them. She is kind, gentle, sweet, good, as mortal may be. There is not a blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken. She is fair—O! how surpassingly fair!” laying her own beautiful, but less brilliant hand, in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead of Alice, and parting the golden hair which clustered about her brows; “and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin! I could say much—more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will spare you and myself”—Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over the form of her sister. After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and with features of the hue of death, but without even a tear in her feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage, with all her former elevation of manner,—“Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will follow.”
“Ay, go,” cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl; “go, Magua, go. These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to detain you; but I—I have no such obligation. Go, malignant monster—why do you delay?”
It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua listened to this threat to follow. There was at first a fierce and manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly subdued in a look of cunning coldness.
“The woods are open,” he was content with answering. “ ‘The Open Hand’ can come.”
“Hold,” cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by violence; “you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an ambushment, and your death—”
“Huron,” interrupted Uncas, who, submissive to the stern customs of his people, had been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed; “Huron, the justice of the Delawares comes from the Manitou. Look at the su
n. He is now in the upper branches of the hemlock. Your path is short and open. When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your trail.”
“I hear a crow!” exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh. “Go!” he added, shaking his hand at the crowd, which had slowly opened to admit his passage,—“Where are the petticoats of the Delawares! Let them send their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves—I spit on you!”
His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with these biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested into the forest, followed by his passive captive, and protected by the inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.
CHAPTER XXXI
“Flue.—Kill the poys and the luggage! ‘Tis expressly against the law of arms; ’tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offered in the world.”
KING HENRY V.
So long as their enemy and his victim continued in sight, the multitude remained motionless as beings charmed to the place by some power that was friendly to the Huron; but the instant he disappeared, it became tossed and agitated by fierce and powerful passion. Uncas maintained his elevated stand, keeping his eyes on the form of Cora, until the colors of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest; when he descended, and moving silently through the throng, he disappeared in that lodge from which he had so recently issued. A few of the graver and more attentive warriors, who caught the gleams of anger that shot from the eyes of the young chief in passing, followed him to the place he had selected for his meditations. After which, Tamenund and Alice were removed, and the women and children were ordered to disperse. During the momentous hour that succeeded, the encampment resembled a hive of troubled bees, who only awaited the appearance and example of their leader to take some distant and momentous flight.
A young warrior at length issued from the lodge of Uncas; and moving deliberately, with a sort of grave march, towards a dwarf pine that grew in the crevices of the rocky terrace, he tore the bark from its body, and then returned whence he came without speaking. He was soon followed by another, who stripped the sapling of its branches, leaving it a naked and blazed1 trunk. A third colored the posts with stripes of a dark red paint; all which indications of a hostile design in the leaders of the nation were received by the men without in a gloomy and ominous silence. Finally, the Mohican himself reappeared, divested of all his attire except his girdle and leggings, and with one-half of his fine features hid under a cloud of threatening black.
Uncas moved with a slow and dignified tread towards the post, which he immediately commenced encircling with a measured step, not unlike an ancient dance, raising his voice, at the same time, in the wild and irregular chant of his war-song. The notes were in the extremes of human sounds; being sometimes melancholy and exquisitely plaintive, even ri valling the melody of birds—and then, by sudden and startling transitions, causing the auditors to tremble by their depth and energy. The words were few and often repeated, proceeding gradually from a sort of invocation, or hymn to the Deity, to an intimation of the warrior’s object, and terminating as they commenced with an acknowledgment of his own dependence on the Great Spirit. If it were possible to translate the comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might read something like the following:
“Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise:
Manitou! Manitou!
Thou art just.
“In the heavens, in the clouds, O, I see
Many spots—many dark, many red:
In the heavens, O, I see
Many clouds.
“In the woods, in the air, O, I hear
The whoop, the long yell, and the cry:
In the woods, O, I hear
The loud whoop!
“Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!
Thou art weak—thou art strong; I am slow:
Manitou! Manitou!
Give me aid.”
At the end of what might be called each verse he made a pause, by raising a note louder and longer than common, that was peculiarly suited to the sentiment just expressed. The first close was solemn, and intended to convey the idea of veneration; the second descriptive, bordering on the alarming; and the third was the well known and terrific war-whoop, which burst from the lips of the young warrior, like a combination of all the frightful sounds of battle. The last was like the first, humble and imploring. Three times did he repeat this song, and as often did he encircle the post in his dance.
At the close of the first turn, a grave and highly esteemed chief of the Lenape followed his example, singing words of his own, however, to music of a similar character. Warrior after warrior enlisted in the dance, until all of any renown and authority were numbered in its mazes. The spectacle now became wildly terrific; the fierce-looking and menacing visages of the chiefs receiving additional power from the appalling strains in which they mingled their guttural tones. Just then Uncas struck his tomahawk deep into the post, and raised his voice in a shout, which might be termed his own battle-cry. The act announced that he had assumed the chief authority in the intended expedition.
It was a signal that awakened all the slumbering passions of a nation. A hundred youths, who had hitherto been restrained by the diffidence of their years, rushed in a frantic body on the fancied emblem of their enemy, and severed it asunder, splinter by splinter, until nothing remained of the trunk but its roots in the earth. During this moment of tumult, the most ruthless deeds of war were performed on the fragments of the tree, with as much apparent ferocity as if they were the living victims of their cruelty. Some were scalped; some received the keen and trembling axe; and others suffered by thrusts from the fatal knife. In short, the manifestations of zeal and fierce delight were so great and unequivocal, that the expedition was declared to be a war of the nation.
The instant Uncas had struck the blow, he moved out of the circle, and cast his eyes up to the sun, which was just gaining the point, when the truce with Magua was to end. The fact was soon announced by a significant gesture, accompanied by a corresponding cry; and the whole of the excited multitude abandoned their mimic warfare, with shrill yells of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment of the reality.
The whole face of the encampment was instantly changed. The warriors, who were already armed and painted, became as still as if they were incapable of any uncommon burst of emotion. On the other hand, the women broke out of the lodges, with the songs of joy and those of lamentation, so strangely mingled, that it might have been difficult to have said which passion preponderated. None, however, were idle. Some bore their choicest articles, others their young, and some their aged and infirm, into the forest, which spread itself like a verdant carpet of bright green against the side of the mountain. Thither Tamenund also retired, with calm composure, after a short and touching interview with Uncas; from whom the sage separated with the reluctance that a parent would quit a long lost and just recovered child. In the meantime, Duncan saw Alice to a place of safety, and then sought the scout, with a countenance that denoted how eagerly he also panted for the approaching contest.
But Hawkeye was too much accustomed to the war-song and the enlistments of the natives, to betray any interest in the passing scene. He merely cast an occasional look at the number and quality of the warriors, who, from time to time, signified their readiness to accompany Uncas to the field. In this particular he was soon satisfied; for, as has been already seen, the power of the young chief quickly embraced every fighting man in the nation. After this material point was so satisfactorily decided, he despatched an Indian boy in quest of “Killdeer” and the rifle of Uncas, to the place where they had deposited the weapons on approaching the camp of the Delawares; a measure of double policy, inasmuch as it protected the arms from their own fate, if detained as prisoners, and gave them the advantage of appearing among the strangers rather as sufferers than as m
en provided with the means of defence and subsistence. In selecting another to perform the office of reclaiming his highly prized rifle, the scout had lost sight of none of his habitual caution. He knew that Magua had not come unattended, and he also knew that Huron spies watched the movements of their new enemies, along the whole boundary of the woods. It would, therefore, have been fatal to himself to have attempted the experiment; a warrior would have fared no better; but the danger of a boy would not be likely to commence until after his object was discovered. When Heyward joined him, the scout was coolly awaiting the result of this experiment.
The boy, who had been well instructed, and was sufficiently crafty, proceeded, with a bosom that was swelling with the pride of such a confidence, and all the hopes of young ambition, carelessly across the clearing to the wood, which he entered at a point at some little distance from the place where the guns were secreted. The instant, however, he was concealed by the foliage of the bushes, his dusky form was to be seen gliding, like that of a serpent, towards the desired treasure. He was successful; and in another moment he appeared flying across the narrow opening that skirted the base of the terrace on which the village stood, with the velocity of an arrow, and bearing a prize in each hand. He had actually gained the crags, and was leaping up their sides with incredible activity, when a shot from the woods showed how accurate had been the judgment of the scout. The boy answered it with a feeble but contemptuous shout; and immediately a second bullet was sent after him from another part of the cover. At the next instant he appeared on the level above, elevating his guns in triumph, while he moved with the air of a conqueror towards the renowned hunter who had honored him by so glorious a commission.
Notwithstanding the lively interest Hawkeye had taken in the fate of his messenger, he received “Killdeer” with a satisfaction that, momentarily, drove all other recollections from his mind. After examining the piece with an intelligent eye, and opening and shutting the pan some ten or fifteen times, and trying sundry other equally important experiments on the lock, he turned to the boy, and demanded with great manifestations of kindness, if he was hurt. The urchin looked proudly up in his face, but made no reply.
Last of the Mohicans (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 43