University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

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

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

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

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 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

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

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 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

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

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,

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

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,

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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 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.