University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

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

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.”

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

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

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.

“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

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

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.

“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

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

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

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.”

“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

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

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,

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 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

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.