CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
It is believed that the scene of this tale, and most of the information
necessary to understand its allusions, are rendered sufficiently obvious to the
reader in the text itself, or in the accompanying notes. Still there is so much
obscurity in the Indian traditions, and so much confusion in the Indian names,
as to render some explanation useful.
Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater
antithesis of character, than the native warrior of North America. In war, he
is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in
peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and
commonly chaste. These are qualities, it is true, which do not distinguish all
alike; but they are so far the predominating traits of these remarkable people
as to be characteristic.
It is generally believed that the Aborigines of the American continent have an
Asiatic origin. There are many physical as well as moral facts which
corroborate this opinion, and some few that would seem to weigh against it.
The color of the Indian, the writer believes, is peculiar to himself, and while
his cheek-bones have a very striking indication of a Tartar origin, his eyes
have not. Climate may have had great influence on the former, but it is
difficult to see how it can have produced the substantial difference which
exists in the latter. The imagery of the Indian, both in his poetry and in his
oratory, is oriental; chastened, and perhaps improved, by the limited range of
his practical knowledge. He draws his metaphors from the clouds, the seasons,
the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, perhaps, he does no
more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do, being compelled to
set bounds to fancy by experience; but the North American Indian clothes his
ideas in a dress which is different from that of the African, and is oriental
in itself. His language has the richness and sententious fullness of the
Chinese. He will express a phrase in a word, and he will qualify the meaning of
an entire sentence by a syllable; he will even convey different significations
by the simplest inflections of the voice.
Philologists have said that there are but two or three languages, properly
speaking, among all the numerous tribes which formerly occupied the country
that now composes the United States. They ascribe the known difficulty one
people have to understand another to corruptions and dialects. The writer
remembers to have been present at an interview between two chiefs of the Great
Prairies west of the Mississippi, and when an interpreter was in attendance who
spoke both their languages. The warriors appeared to be on the most friendly
terms, and seemingly conversed much together; yet, according to the account of
the interpreter, each was absolutely ignorant of what the other said. They were
of hostile tribes, brought together by the influence of the American
government; and it is worthy of remark, that a common policy led them both to
adopt the same subject. They mutually exhorted each other to be of use in the
event of the chances of war throwing either of the parties into the hands of
his enemies. Whatever may be the truth, as respects the root and the genius of
the Indian tongues, it is quite certain they are now so distinct in their words
as to possess most of the disadvantages of strange languages; hence much of the
embarrassment that has arisen in learning their histories, and most of the
uncertainty which exists in their traditions.
Like nations of higher pretensions, the American Indian gives a very different
account of his own tribe or race from that which is given by other people. He
is much addicted to overestimating his own perfections, and to undervaluing
those of his rival or his enemy; a trait which may possibly be thought
corroborative of the Mosaic account of the creation.
The whites have assisted greatly in rendering the traditions of the Aborigines
more obscure by their own manner of corrupting names. Thus, the term used in
the title of this book has undergone the changes of Mahicanni, Mohicans, and
Mohegans; the latter being the word commonly used by the whites. When it is
remembered that the Dutch (who first settled New York), the English, and the
French, all gave appellations to the tribes that dwelt within the country which
is the scene of this story, and that the Indians not only gave different names
to their enemies, but frequently to themselves, the cause of the confusion will
be understood.
In these pages, Lenni-Lenape, Lenope, Delawares, Wapanachki, and Mohicans, all
mean the same people, or tribes of the same stock. The Mengwe, the Maquas, the
Mingoes, and the Iroquois, though not all strictly the same, are identified
frequently by the speakers, being politically confederated and opposed to those
just named. Mingo was a term of peculiar reproach, as were Mengwe and Maqua in
a less degree.
The Mohicans were the possessors of the country first occupied by the Europeans
in this portion of the continent. They were, consequently, the first
dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all these people, who
disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the inroads, of
civilization, as the verdure of their native forests falls before the nipping
frosts, is represented as having already befallen them. There is sufficient
historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been made of it.
In point of fact, the country which is the scene of the following tale has
undergone as little change, since the historical events alluded to had place,
as almost any other district of equal extent within the whole limits of the
United States. There are fashionable and well-attended watering-places at and
near the spring where Hawkeye halted to drink, and roads traverse the forests
where he and his friends were compelled to journey without even a path.
Glen’s has a large village; and while William Henry, and even a fortress
of later date, are only to be traced as ruins, there is another village on the
shores of the Horican. But, beyond this, the enterprise and energy of a people
who have done so much in other places have done little here. The whole of that
wilderness, in which the latter incidents of the legend occurred, is nearly a
wilderness still, though the red man has entirely deserted this part of the
state. Of all the tribes named in these pages, there exist only a few
half-civilized beings of the Oneidas, on the reservations of their people in
New York. The rest have disappeared, either from the regions in which their
fathers dwelt, or altogether from the earth.
There is one point on which we would wish to say a word before closing this
preface. Hawkeye calls the Lac du Saint Sacrement, the “Horican.”
As we believe this to be an appropriation of the name that has its origin with
ourselves, the time has arrived, perhaps, when the fact should be frankly
admitted. While writing this book, fully a quarter of a century since, it
occurred to us that the French name of this lake was too complicated, the
American too commonplace, and the Indian too unpronounceable, for either to be
used familiarly in a work of fiction. Looking over an ancient map, it was
ascertained that a tribe of Indians, called “Les Horicans” by the
French, existed in the neighborhood of this beautiful sheet of water. As every
word uttered by Natty Bumppo was not to be received as rigid truth, we took the
liberty of putting the “Horican” into his mouth, as the substitute
for “Lake George.” The name has appeared to find favor, and all
things considered, it may possibly be quite as well to let it stand, instead of
going back to the House of Hanover for the appellation of our finest sheet of
water. We relieve our conscience by the confession, at all events leaving it to
exercise its authority as it may see fit.
CHAPTER I.
“Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:—
Say, is my kingdom lost?”—Shakespeare
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils
and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts
could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the
possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist,
and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in
struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes
of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced
native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem
that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place
so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had
pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and
selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.
Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate frontiers
can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness of the savage
warfare of those periods than the country which lies between the head waters of
the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.
The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the combatants
were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the Champlain
stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the borders of the
neighboring province of New York, forming a natural passage across half the
distance that the French were compelled to master in order to strike their
enemies. Near its southern termination, it received the contributions of
another lake, whose waters were so limpid as to have been exclusively selected
by the Jesuit missionaries to perform the typical purification of baptism, and
to obtain for it the title of lake “du Saint Sacrément.” The less
zealous English thought they conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied
fountains, when they bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of
the house of Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its
wooded scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of
“Horican.”[1]
[1]
As each nation of the Indians had its language or its dialect, they usually
gave different names to the same places, though nearly all of their
appellations were descriptive of the object. Thus a literal translation of the
name of this beautiful sheet of water, used by the tribe that dwelt on its
banks, would be “The Tail of the Lake.” Lake George, as it is
vulgarly, and now, indeed, legally, called, forms a sort of tail to Lake
Champlain, when viewed on the map. Hence, the name.
Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the
“holy lake” extended a dozen leagues still further to the south.
With the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of the
water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the adventurer to
the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual obstructions of the
rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the language of the country, the
river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the
Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not
overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It
became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the
mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different
points that commanded the facilities of the route, and were taken and retaken,
razed and rebuilt, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While the
husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries
of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often
disposed of the scepters of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves
in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown
to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens
rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw
back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reckless
youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a
long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and
France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to
retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in
her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great Britain from the proud
elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her
former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants
were fast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mortifying abasement,
the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the
agents of her blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently
seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had
blindly believed invincible—an army led by a chief who had been selected
from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments,
disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from
annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame
has since diffused itself, with the steady influence of moral truth, to the
uttermost confines of Christendom.[2]
A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more
substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers.
The alarmed colonists believed that the yells of the savages mingled with every
fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west. The
terrific character of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the
natural horrors of warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in
their recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of midnight
murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal and barbarous
actors. As the credulous and excited traveler related the hazardous chances of
the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast
anxious glances even at those children which slumbered within the security of
the largest towns. In short, the magnifying influence of fear began to set at
naught the calculations of reason, and to render those who should have
remembered their manhood, the slaves of the basest passions. Even the most
confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was
becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who
thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America
subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
relentless allies.
[2]
Washington, who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of the
danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of the British
army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The reputation earned by
Washington in this battle was the principal cause of his being selected to
command the American armies at a later day. It is a circumstance worthy of
observation, that while all America rang with his well-merited reputation, his
name does not occur in any European account of the battle; at least the author
has searched for it without success. In this manner does the mother country
absorb even the fame, under that system of rule.
When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort which covered the
southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the lakes, that
Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army “numerous as
the leaves on the trees,” its truth was admitted with more of the craven
reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior should feel, in
finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had been brought, toward
the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent
request from Munro, the commander of a work on the shore of the “holy
lake,” for a speedy and powerful reinforcement. It has already been
mentioned that the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues.
The rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had been
widened for the passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been traveled
by the son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting of a
summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to one of these
forest-fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the other that of Fort
Edward, calling each after a favorite prince of the reigning family. The
veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a
few provincials; a force really by far too small to make head against the
formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen mounds.
At the latter, however, lay General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king
in the northern provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By
uniting the several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising Frenchman, who
had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army but little superior
in numbers.
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men
appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable antagonists,
within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating
the successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on
their advance.
After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a rumor was
spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the
Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the fort itself, that a
chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for
William Henry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage. That which at
first was only rumor, soon became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters
of the commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubts as to the intention
of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces
succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding
his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered
zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a
deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste; though his sober
lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently betrayed that he had no very strong
professional relish for the, as yet, untried and dreaded warfare of the
wilderness. At length the sun set in a flood of glory, behind the distant
western hills, and as darkness drew its veil around the secluded spot the
sounds of preparation diminished; the last light finally disappeared from the
log cabin of some officer; the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds
and the rippling stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that
which reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.
According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the army was
broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling echoes were heard
issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista of the woods, just as day
began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall pines of the vicinity, on the
opening brightness of a soft and cloudless eastern sky. In an instant the whole
camp was in motion; the meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the
departure of his comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the
hour. The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right of the
line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position on its left,
with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The scouts departed;
strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering vehicles that bore the
baggage; and before the gray light of the morning was mellowed by the rays of
the sun, the main body of the combatants wheeled into column, and left the
encampment with a show of high military bearing, that served to drown the
slumbering apprehensions of many a novice, who was now about to make his first
essay in arms. While in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front
and ordered array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter
in distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass which
had slowly entered its bosom.
The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be borne
on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had already
disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of another
departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and accommodations, in front of
which those sentinels paced their rounds, who were known to guard the person of
the English general. At this spot were gathered some half dozen horses,
caparisoned in a manner which showed that two, at least, were destined to bear
the persons of females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the
wilds of the country. A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the
staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling
mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception
of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already waiting the pleasure of those
they served. At a respectful distance from this unusual show, were gathered
divers groups of curious idlers; some admiring the blood and bone of the
high-mettled military charger, and others gazing at the preparations, with the
dull wonder of vulgar curiosity. There was one man, however, who, by his
countenance and actions, formed a marked exception to those who composed the
latter class of spectators, being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.
The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in
any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints of other men,
without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature surpassed that of his
fellows; though seated, he appeared reduced within the ordinary limits of the
race. The same contrariety in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole
man. His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling;
while his hands were small, if not delicate. His legs and thighs were thin,
nearly to emaciation, but of extraordinary length; and his knees would have
been considered tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader
foundations on which this false superstructure of blended human orders was so
profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the individual
only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A sky-blue coat, with
short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long, thin neck, and longer and
thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the evil-disposed. His nether
garment was a yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his
bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use.
Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated
spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or
angle of which was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,
through the vanity or simplicity of its owner.
From beneath the flap of an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk,
heavily ornamented with tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which,
from being seen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for
some mischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon
engine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp, though
several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only without fear, but
with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked hat, like those worn by
clergymen within the last thirty years, surmounted the whole, furnishing
dignity to a good-natured and somewhat vacant countenance, that apparently
needed such artificial aid, to support the gravity of some high and
extraordinary trust.
While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb, the
figure we have described stalked into the center of the domestics, freely
expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the horses, as by
chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.
“This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the blue
water?” he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and sweetness
of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions; “I may speak of
these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at both havens; that
which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named after the capital of Old
England, and that which is called ‘Haven’, with the addition of the
word ‘New’; and have seen the scows and brigantines collecting
their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward bound to the Island
of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in four-footed animals; but
never before have I beheld a beast which verified the true scripture war-horse
like this: ‘He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength; he
goeth on to meet the armed men. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the
shouting.’ It would seem that the stock of the horse of Israel had
descended to our own time; would it not, friend?”
Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it was
delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some sort of
notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the holy book turned to the
silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed himself, and found a new and
more powerful subject of admiration in the object that encountered his gaze.
His eyes fell on the still, upright, and rigid form of the “Indian
runner,” who had borne to the camp the unwelcome tidings of the preceding
evening. Although in a state of perfect repose, and apparently disregarding,
with characteristic stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a
sullen fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to
arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now scanned
him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk and knife of
his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that of a warrior. On the
contrary, there was an air of neglect about his person, like that which might
have proceeded from great and recent exertion, which he had not yet found
leisure to repair. The colors of the war-paint had blended in dark confusion
about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more
savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus
produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star amid
lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness. For a single
instant his searching and yet wary glance met the wondering look of the other,
and then changing its direction, partly in cunning, and partly in disdain, it
remained fixed, as if penetrating the distant air.
It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from the
white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other objects. A
general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of gentle voices,
announced the approach of those whose presence alone was wanted to enable the
cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the war-horse instantly fell back to a
low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that was unconsciously gleaning the faded
herbage of the camp nigh by; where, leaning with one elbow on the blanket that
concealed an apology for a saddle, he became a spectator of the departure,
while a foal was quietly making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the
same animal.
A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two females,
who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to encounter the
fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the more juvenile in her
appearance, though both were young, permitted glimpses of her dazzling
complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue eyes, to be caught, as she
artlessly suffered the morning air to blow aside the green veil which descended
low from her beaver.
The flush which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more
bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day more
cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth, as he
assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share equally in the
attention of the young officer, concealed her charms from the gaze of the
soldiery with a care that seemed better fitted to the experience of four or
five additional years. It could be seen, however, that her person, though
molded with the same exquisite proportions, of which none of the graces were
lost by the traveling dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than
that of her companion.
No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly into
the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb, who in
courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin and turning their
horses’ heads, they proceeded at a slow amble, followed by their train,
toward the northern entrance of the encampment. As they traversed that short
distance, not a voice was heard among them; but a slight exclamation proceeded
from the younger of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her,
unexpectedly, and led the way along the military road in her front. Though this
sudden and startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other,
in the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an
indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye followed
the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were shining and
black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not brown, but it
rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood, that seemed ready to
burst its bounds. And yet there was neither coarseness nor want of shadowing in
a countenance that was exquisitely regular, and dignified and surpassingly
beautiful. She smiled, as if in pity at her own momentary forgetfulness,
discovering by the act a row of teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory;
when, replacing the veil, she bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one
whose thoughts were abstracted from the scene around her.