University of Virginia Library

1. THE
LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

1. CHAPTER I.

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

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.

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.

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,

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

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,

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

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 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!”

“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

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 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

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

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

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

her sister! We know that the first has been here,
but where are the signs of the other? Let us push
deeper on the trail, and if nothing offers, we must go
back to the plain, and strike another scent. Move on,
Uncas, and keep your eyes on the dried leaves. I
will watch the bushes, while your father shall run
with a low nose to the ground. Move on, friends;
the sun is getting behind the hills.”

“Is there nothing that I can do?” demanded
the anxious Heyward.

“You!” repeated the scout, who, with his red
friends, was already advancing in the order he had
prescribed; “yes, you can keep in our rear, and be
careful not to cross the trail.”

Before they had proceeded many rods, the Indians
stopped, and appeared to gaze at some signs on the
earth, with more than their usual keenness. Both
father and son spoke quick and loud, now looking at
the object of their mutual admiration, and now regarding
each other with the most unequivocal pleasure.

“They have found the little foot!” exclaimed the
scout, moving forward, without attending further to
his own portion of the duty. “What have we here!
An ambushment has been planted in the spot! No,
by the truest rifle on the frontiers, here have been
them one-sided horses again! Now the whole secret
is out, and all is plain as the north star at midnight.
Yes, here they have mounted. There the
beasts have been bound to a sapling, in waiting;
and yonder runs the broad path away to the north,
in full sweep for the Canadas.”

“But still there are no signs of Alice—of the
younger Miss Munro,” said Duncan.

“Unless the shining bauble Uncas has just lifted
from the ground, should prove one. Pass it this
way, lad, that we may look at it.”

Heyward instantly knew it for a trinket, that Alice
was fond of wearing, and which he recollected, with
the tenacious memory of a lover, to have seen
on the fatal morning of the massacre, dangling from
the fair neck of his mistress. He seized the highly
prized jewel, and as he proclaimed the fact, it vanished
from the eyes of the wondering scout, who in
vain looked for it on the ground, long after it was
warmly pressed against the beating heart of Duncan.

“Pshaw!” said the disappointed 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,

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.