 | CHAPTER XIV. The deerslayer: or, The first war-path |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
Nor how the cruel mastiffs do him tear;
The stag lay still, unroused from the brake,
The foamy boar feared not the hunter's spear:
All thing was still in desert, bush, and briar.”
Lord Dorset.
It was one of the common expedients of the savages, on
such occasions, to put the nerves of their victims to the severest
proofs. On the other hand, it was a matter of Indian
pride, to betray no yielding to terror, or pain; but for the
prisoner to provoke his enemies to such acts of violence as
would soonest produce death. Many a warrior had been
known to bring his own sufferings to a more speedy termination,
by taunting reproaches and reviling language, when
he found that his physical system was giving way under the
agony of sufferings, produced by a hellish ingenuity, that
might well eclipse all that has been said of the infernal devices
of religious persecution. This happy expedient of
taking refuge from the ferocity of his foes, in their passions,
was denied Deerslayer, however, by his peculiar notions of
the duty of a white man; and he had stoutly made up his
mind to endure every thing, in preference to disgracing his
colour.
No sooner did the young men understand that they were
at liberty to commence, than some of the boldest and most
forward among them sprang into the arena, tomahawk in
hand. Here they prepared to throw that dangerous weapon,
the object being to strike the tree, as near as possible to the
victim's head, without absolutely hitting him. This was so
hazardous an experiment, that none but those who were
known to be exceedingly expert with the weapon, were allowed
to enter the lists, at all, lest an early death might interfere
with the expected entertainment. In the truest hands,
it was seldom that the captive escaped injury in these trials;
and it often happened that death followed, even when the
hero, Rivenoak and the older warriors were apprehensive
that the example of the Panther's fate, might prove a motive
with some fiery spirit, suddenly to sacrifice his conqueror,
when the temptation of effecting it in precisely the same manner,
and possibly with the identical weapon with which the
warrior had fallen, offered. This circumstance, of itself,
rendered the ordeal of the tomahawk, doubly critical for the
Deerslayer.
It would seem, however, that all who now entered, what
we shall call the lists, were more disposed to exhibit their
own dexterity, than to resent the deaths of their comrades.
Each prepared himself for the trial, with the feelings of rivalry,
rather than with the desire for vengeance; and for
the first few minutes, the prisoner had little more connection
with the result, than grew out of the interest that necessarily
attached itself to a living target. The young men were
eager, instead of being fierce, and Rivenoak thought he still
saw signs of being able to save the life of the captive, when
the vanity of the young men had been gratified; always admitting,
that it was not sacrificed to the delicate experiments
that were about to be made.
The first youth who presented himself for the trial, was
called The Raven, having as yet had no opportunity of obtaining
a more warlike sobriquet. He was remarkable for
high pretension, rather than for skill, or exploits; and those
who knew his character, thought the captive in imminent
danger, when he took his stand, and poised the tomahawk.
Nevertheless, the young man was good-natured, and no
thought was uppermost in his mind, other than the desire to
make a better cast, than any of his fellows. Deerslayer got
an inkling of this warrior's want of reputation, by the injunctions
that he had received from the seniors; who, indeed,
would have objected to his appearing in the arena, at all, but
for an influence derived from his father, an aged warrior of
great merit, who was then in the lodges of the tribe. Still,
our hero maintained an appearance of self-possession. He
had made up his mind that his hour was come, and it would
have been a mercy, instead of a calamity, to fall by the unsteadiness
of the first hand that was raised against him.
After a suitable number of flourishes, and gesticulations, that
the tomahawk quit his hand. The weapon whirled through
the air, with the usual evolutions, cut a chip from the sapling
to which the prisoner was bound, within a few inches
of his cheek, and stuck in a large oak that grew several
yards behind him. This was decidedly a bad effort, and a
common sneer proclaimed as much, to the great mortification
of the young man. On the other hand, there was a
general, but suppressed murmur of admiration, at the steadiness
with which the captive stood the trial. The head was
the only part he could move, and this had been purposely
left free, that the tormentors might have the amusement, and
the tormented endure the shame, of dodging, and otherwise
attempting to avoid the blows. Deerslayer disappointed
these hopes, by a command of nerve that rendered his whole
body as immovable as the tree to which it was bound. Nor
did he even adopt the natural and usual expedient of shutting
his eyes; the firmest and oldest warrior of the red men
never having more disdainfully denied himself this advantage,
under similar circumstances.
The Raven had no sooner made his unsuccessful and
puerile effort, than he was succeeded by le Daim-Mose, or
The Moose; a middle-aged warrior, who was particularly
skilful in the use of the tomahawk, and from whose attempt
the spectators confidently looked for gratification. This
man had none of the good-nature of the Raven, but he
would gladly have sacrificed the captive to his hatred of the
pale-faces generally, were it not for the greater interest he
felt in his own success as one particularly skilful in the use
of this weapon. He took his stand quietly, but with an air
of confidence, poised his little axe but a single instant, advanced
a foot with a quick motion, and threw. Deerslayer
saw the keen instrument whirling towards him, and believed
all was over; still, he was not touched. The tomahawk
had actually bound the head of the captive to the
tree, by carrying before it some of his hair; having buried
itself deep beneath the soft bark. A general yell expressed
the delight of the spectators, and the Moose felt his heart
soften a little towards the prisoner, whose steadiness of
nerve alone, enabled him to give this evidence of his consummate
skill.
Le Daim-Mose was succeeded by the Bounding Boy, or
le Garçon qui Bondi, who came leaping into the circle, like
a hound, or a goat, at play. This was one of those elastic
youths, whose muscles seemed always in motion, and who
either affected, or who from habit was actually unable to
move in any other manner, than by showing the antics just
mentioned. Nevertheless, he was both brave and skilful,
and had gained the respect of his people, by deeds in war,
as well as success in the hunts. A far nobler name would
long since have fallen to his share, had not a Frenchman
of rank inadvertently given him this sobriquet, which he
religiously preserved as coming from his great father, who
lived beyond the wide salt lake. The Bounding Boy skipped
about in front of the captive, menacing him with his
tomahawk, now on one side, and now on another, and then
again in front, in the vain hope of being able to extort some
sign of fear, by this parade of danger. At length Deerslayer's
patience became exhausted by all this mummery,
and he spoke, for the first time since the trial had actually
commenced.
“Throw away, Huron!” he cried, “or your tomahawk
will forget its ar'n'd. Why do you keep loping about like
a fa'a'n that's showing its dam how well it can skip, when
you're a warrior grown, yourself, and a warrior grown defies
you and all your silly antics? Throw, or the Huron
gals will laugh in your face.”
Although not intended to produce such an effect, the last
words aroused the “Bounding” warrior to fury. The same
nervous excitability which rendered him so active in his
person, made it difficult to repress his feelings, and the
words were scarcely past the lips of the speaker, than the
tomahawk left the hand of the Indian. Nor was it cast
without good-will, and a fierce determination to slay. Had
the intention been less deadly, the danger might have been
greater. The aim was uncertain, and the weapon glanced
near the cheek of the captive, slightly cutting the shoulder,
in its evolutions. This was the first instance in which any
other object, than that of terrifying the prisoner, and of displaying
skill, had been manifested; and the Bounding Boy
was immediately led from the arena, and was warmly rebuked
defeating all the hopes of the band.
To this irritable person succeeded several other young
warriors, who not only hurled the tomahawk but who cast
the knife, a far more dangerous experiment, with reckless
indifference; yet they always manifested a skill that prevented
any injury to the captive. Several times Deerslayer
was grazed, but in no instance did he receive what might
be termed a wound. The unflinching firmness with which
he faced his assailants, more especially in the sort of rally
with which this trial terminated, excited a profound respect
in the spectators; and when the chiefs announced that the
prisoner had well withstood the trials of the knife and the
tomahawk, there was not a single individual in the band
who really felt any hostility towards him, with the exception
of Sumach and the Bounding Boy. These two discontented
spirits got together, it is true, feeding each other's ire;
but, as yet, their malignant feelings were confined very
much to themselves, though there existed the danger that
the others, ere long, could not fail to be excited by their own
efforts into that demoniacal state which usually accompanied
all similar scenes among the red-men.
Rivenoak now told his people that the pale-face had proved
himself to be a man. He might live with the Delawares,
but he had not been made woman with that tribe. He wished
to know whether it was the desire of the Hurons to proceed
any further. Even the gentlest of the females, however,
had received too much satisfaction in the late trials
to forego their expectations of a gratifying exhibition;
and there was but one voice in the request to proceed. The
politic chief, who had some such desire to receive so celebrated
a hunter into his tribe, as a European minister has
to devise a new and available means of taxation, sought
every plausible means of arresting the trial in season; for
he well knew, if permitted to go far enough to arouse the
more ferocious passions of the tormentors, it would be as
easy to dam the waters of the great lakes of his own region,
as to attempt to arrest them in their bloody career.
He therefore called four or five of the best marksmen to
him, and bid them put the captive to the proof of the rifle,
while, at the same time, he cautioned them touching the necessity
attention to the manner of exhibiting their skill.
When Deerslayer saw the chosen warriors step into the
circle, with their arms prepared for service, he felt some
such relief as the miserable sufferer, who has long endured
the agonies of disease, feels at the certain approach of death.
Any trifling variance in the aim of this formidable weapon
would prove fatal; since, the head being the target, or rather
the point it was desired to graze without injury, an inch
or two of difference in the line of projection, must at once
determine the question of life or death.
In the torture by the rifle there was none of the latitude
permitted that appeared in the case of even Gesler's apple,
a hair's-breadth being, in fact, the utmost limits that an expert
marksman would allow himself on an occasion like
this. Victims were frequently shot through the head by
too eager or unskilful hands; and it often occurred that,
exasperated by the fortitude and taunts of the prisoner,
death was dealt intentionally in a moment of ungovernable
irritation. All this Deerslayer well knew, for it was in relating
the traditions of such scenes, as well as of the battles
and victories of their people, that the old men beguiled the
long winter evenings in their cabins. He now fully expected
the end of his career, and experienced a sort of melancholy
pleasure in the idea that he was to fall by a weapon
as much beloved as the rifle. A slight interruption, however,
took place before the business was allowed to proceed.
Hetty Hutter witnessed all that passed, and the scene at
first had pressed upon her feeble mind in a way to paralyze
it entirely; but, by this time, she had rallied, and was growing
indignant at the unmerited suffering the Indians were
inflicting on her friend. Though timid, and shy as the
young of the deer, on so many occasions, this right-feeling
girl was always intrepid in the cause of humanity; the lessons
of her mother, and the impulses of her own heart,—
perhaps we might say the promptings of that unseen and
pure spirit that seemed ever to watch over and direct her
actions—uniting to keep down the apprehensions of woman,
and to impel her to be bold and resolute. She now appeared
in the circle, gentle, feminine, even bashful in mien, as
like one who knew herself to be sustained by the high authority
of God.
“Why do you torment Deerslayer, red men?” she asked.
“What has he done that you trifle with his life; who has
given you the right to be his judges? Suppose one of your
knives, or tomahawks, had hit him; what Indian among you
all could cure the wound you would make. Besides, in
harming Deerslayer, you injure your own friend; when
father and Hurry Harry came after your scalps, he refused
to be of the party, and staid in the canoe by himself. You
are tormenting your friend, in tormenting this young man!”
The Hurons listened with grave attention, and one among
them, who understood English, translated what had been
said into their native tongue. As soon as Rivenoak was made
acquainted with the purport of her address, he answered it
in his own dialect; the interpreter conveying it to the girl
in English.
“My daughter is very welcome to speak,” said the stern
old orator, using gentle intonations and smiling as kindly
as if addressing a child—“the Hurons are glad to hear her
voice; they listen to what she says. The Great Spirit often
speaks to men with such tongues. This time her eyes have
not been open wide enough, to see all that has happened.
Deerslayer did not come for our scalps, that is true; why
did he not come? Here they are, on our heads; the war-locks
are ready to be taken hold of; a bold enemy ought to
stretch out his hand to seize them. The Iroquois are too
great a nation to punish men that take scalps. What they
do themselves, they like to see others do. Let my daughter
look around her, and count my warriors. Had I as
many hands as four warriors, their fingers would be fewer
than my people, when they came into your hunting-grounds.
Now, a whole hand is missing. Where are the fingers?
Two have been cut off by this pale-face; my Hurons wish
to see if he did this by means of a stout heart, or by treachery;
like a skulking fox, or like a leaping panther.”
“You know yourself, Huron, how one of them fell. I
saw it, and you all saw it, too. 'T was too bloody to look
at; but it was not Deerslayer's fault. Your warrior sought
his life, and he defended himself. I don't know whether the
Come, if you want to know which of you can shoot best,
give Deerslayer a rifle, and then you will find how much
more expert he is, than any of your warriors; yes, than all
of them together!”
Could one have looked upon such a scene with indifference,
he would have been amused at the gravity with which
the savages listened to the translation of this unusual request.
No taunt, no smile mingled with their surprise; for
Hetty had a character and manner too saintly to subject her
infirmity to the mockings of the rude and ferocious. On
the contrary, she was answered with respectful attention.
“My daughter does not always talk like a chief at a
council-fire,” returned Rivenoak, “or she would not have
said this. Two of my warriors have fallen by the blows of
our prisoner; their grave is too small to hold a third. The
Hurons do not like to crowd their dead. If there is another
spirit about to set out for the far-off world, it must not be
the spirit of a Huron; it must be the spirit of a pale-face.
Go, daughter, and sit by Sumach, who is in grief; let the
Huron warriors show how well they can shoot; let the paleface
show how little he cares for their bullets.”
Hetty's mind was unequal to a sustained discussion, and,
accustomed to defer to the directions of her seniors, she did
as told, seating herself passively on a log by the side of the
Sumach, and averting her face from the painful scene that
was occurring within the circle.
The warriors, as soon as this interruption had ceased, resumed
their places, and again prepared to exhibit their skill,
as there was a double object in view, that of putting the constancy
of the captive to the proof, and that of showing how
steady were the hands of the marksmen under circumstances
of excitement. The distance was small, and, in one sense,
safe. But in diminishing the distance taken by the tormentors,
the trial to the nerves of the captive was essentially increased.
The face of Deerslayer, indeed, was just removed
sufficiently from the ends of the guns to escape the effects
of the flash, and his steady eye was enabled to look directly
into their muzzles, as it might be, in anticipation of the fatal
messenger that was to issue from each. The cunning Hurons
well knew this fact; and scarce one levelled his piece
forehead of the prisoner, in the hope that his fortitude would
fail him, and that the band would enjoy the triumph of seeing
a victim quail under their ingenious cruelty. Nevertheless,
each of the competitors was still careful not to injure,
the disgrace of striking prematurely being second only
to that of failing altogether in attaining the object. Shot
after shot was made; all the bullets coming in close proximity
to the Deerslayer's head, without touching it. Still no one
could detect even the twitching of a muscle on the part of
the captive, or the slightest winking of an eye. This indomitable
resolution, which so much exceeded every thing
of its kind that any present had before witnessed, might be
referred to three distinct causes. The first was resignation
to his fate, blended with natural steadiness of deportment;
for our hero had calmly made up his mind that he must die,
and preferred this mode to any other; the second was his
great familiarity with this particular weapon, which deprived
it of all the terror that is usually connected with the mere
form of the danger; and the third was this familiarity carried
out in practice, to a degree so nice as to enable the intended
victim to tell, within an inch, the precise spot where
each bullet must strike, for he calculated its range by looking
in at the bore of the piece. So exact was Deerslayer's
estimation of the line of fire, that his pride of feeling finally
got the better of his resignation, and, when five or six had
discharged their bullets into the tree, he could not refrain
from expressing his contempt at their want of hand and eye.
“You may call this shooting, Mingos,” he exclaimed,
“but we've squaws among the Delawares, and I've known
Dutch gals on the Mohawk, that could outdo your greatest
indivours. Ondo these arms of mine, put a rifle into my
hands, and I'll pin the thinnest warlock in your party, to
any tree you can show me; and this at a hundred yards:
ay, or at two hundred, if the object can be seen, nineteen
shots in twenty: or, for that matter, twenty in twenty, if
the piece is creditable and trusty!”
A low menacing murmur followed this cool taunt; the
ire of the warriors kindled at listening to such a reproach
from one who so far disdained their efforts as to refuse even
to wink, when a rifle was discharged as near his face as
the moment was critical, and, still retaining his hope of
adopting so noted a hunter in his tribe, the politic old chief
interposed in time, probably, to prevent an immediate resort
to that portion of the torture which must necessarily have
produced death, through extreme bodily suffering, if in no
other manner. Moving into the centre of the irritated group,
he addressed them with his usual wily logic and plausible
manner, at once suppressing the fierce movement that had
commenced.
“I see how it is,” he said. “We have been like the
pale-faces when they fasten their doors at night, out of fear
of the red-man. They use so many bars, that the fire
comes and burns them, before they can get out. We have
bound the Deerslayer too tight; the thongs keep his limbs
from shaking, and his eyes from shutting. Loosen him;
let us see what his own body is really made of.”
It is often the case, when we are thwarted in a cherished
scheme, that any expedient, however unlikely to succeed, is
gladly resorted to, in preference to a total abandonment of
the project. So it was with the Hurons. The proposal of
the chief found instant favour; and several hands were immediately
at work, cutting and tearing the ropes of bark
from the body of our hero. In half a minute, Deerslayer
stood as free from bonds, as when, an hour before, he had
commenced his flight on the side of the mountain. Some
little time was necessary that he should recover the use of
his limbs; the circulation of the blood having been checked
by the tightness of the ligatures; and this was accorded to
him by the politic Rivenoak, under the pretence that his
body would be more likely to submit to apprehension, if its
true tone were restored; though really with a view to give
time to the fierce passions which had been awakened in the
bosoms of his young men, to subside. This ruse succeeded;
and Deerslayer, by rubbing his limbs, stamping his
feet, and moving about, soon regained the circulation;—recovering
all his physical powers, as effectually as if nothing
had occurred to disturb them.
It is seldom men think of death in the pride of their health
and strength. So it was with Deerslayer. Having been
helplessly bound, and, as he had every reason to suppose,
so unexpectedly liberated, in possession of his strength,
and with a full command of limb, acted on him like a sudden
restoration to life, reanimating hopes that he had once absolutely
abandoned. From that instant all his plans changed.
In this, he simply obeyed a law of nature; for while we
have wished to represent our hero as being resigned to his
fate, it has been far from our intention to represent him as
anxious to die. From the instant that his buoyancy of feeling
revived, his thoughts were keenly bent on the various
projects that presented themselves as modes of evading the
designs of his enemies; and he again became the quick-witted,
ingenious, and determined woodsman, alive to all his
own powers and resources. The change was so great, that
his mind resumed its elasticity; and, no longer thinking
of submission, it dwelt only on the devices of the sort of
warfare in which he was engaged.
As soon as Deerslayer was released, the band divided itself
in a circle around him, in order to hedge him in; and
the desire to break down his spirit grew in them, precisely as
they saw proofs of the difficulty there would be in subduing
it. The honour of the band was now involved in the
issue; and even the sex lost all its sympathy with suffering,
in the desire to save the reputation of the tribe. The voices
of the girls, soft and melodious as nature had made them,
were heard mingling with the menaces of the men; and the
wrongs of Sumach suddenly assumed the character of injuries
inflicted on every Huron female. Yielding to this
rising tumult, the men drew back a little, signifying to the
females, that they left the captive, for a time, in their
hands; it being a common practice, on such occasions, for
the women to endeavour to throw the victim into a rage, by
their taunts and revilings, and then to turn him suddenly
over to the men, in a state of mind that was little favourable
to resisting the agony of bodily suffering. Nor was this
party without the proper instruments for effecting such a
purpose. Sumach had a notoriety as a scold; and one or
two crones, like the She Bear, had come out with the party,
most probably as the conservators of its decency and moral
discipline; such things occurring in savage as well as civilized
life. It is unnecessary to repeat all that ferocity and
between this outbreaking of feminine anger, and a
similar scene among ourselves, consisting in the figures of
speech and the epithets; the Huron women calling their
prisoner by the names of the lower and least respected animals
that were known to themselves.
But Deerslayer's mind was too much occupied, to permit
him to be disturbed by the abuse of excited hags; and their
rage necessarily increasing with his indifference, as his indifference
increased with their rage, the furies soon rendered
themselves impotent by their own excesses. Perceiving that
the attempt was a complete failure, the warriors interfered to
put a stop to this scene; and this so much the more, because
preparations were now seriously making for the commencement
of the real tortures, or that which would put the fortitude
of the sufferer to the test of severe bodily pain. A sudden
and unlooked-for announcement, that proceeded from
one of the look-outs, a boy of ten or twelve years old, however,
put a momentary check to the whole proceedings. As
this interruption has a close connection with the dénouement
of our story, it shall be given in a separate chapter.
| CHAPTER XIV. The deerslayer: or, The first war-path | |