“But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid.”
—Pope.
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 nowhere 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 Hawkeye, whose duty 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 collected, the scout threw “killdeer”
into the hollow of his arm, and making a silent signal that he would be
followed, he led them many rods toward 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. Hawkeye, 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
favored 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:
“You 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 Goliath,” returned
David, drawing a sling from beneath his parti-colored 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 Hawkeye, 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 fire; and as you have hitherto been favored—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 to signify his acquiescence with the terms; and then
Hawkeye, 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, 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 eyes upward 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. Everything is favorable; 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 to our cover; the beavers 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.”
Hawkeye 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. Everywhere along its bands were the moldering 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 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 specters, and silently arranged
themselves around him. Pointing in the direction he wished to proceed, Hawkeye
advanced, the band breaking off in single files, and following so accurately in
his footsteps, as to leave it, 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 in to the air, like a
wounded deer, fell at his whole length, 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 made
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 unfavorable to
Hawkeye and his band. The quick-sighted scout perceived 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 embarrassing moment, when
they began to think the whole of the hostile tribe was gradually encircling
them, 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 Hawkeye 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 toward the
village, and by an instant falling off in the number of their assailants, who
rushed to assist in maintaining the front, and, as it now proved to be, the
principal point of defense.
Animating his followers by his voice, and his own example, Hawkeye 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 maneuver 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, Hawkeye 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
“killdeer” 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 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[1],”
continued the scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; “horse, I am
ashamed to say must sooner or later decide these scrimmages. 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.”
[1]
The American forest admits of the passage of horses, there being little
underbrush, and few tangled brakes. The plan of Hawkeye is the one which has
always proved the most successful in the battles between the whites and the
Indians. Wayne, in his celebrated campaign on the Miami, received the fire of
his enemies in line; and then causing his dragoons to wheel round his flanks,
the Indians were driven from their covers before they had time to load. One of
the most conspicuous of the chiefs who fought in the battle of Miami assured
the writer, that the red men could not fight the warriors with “long
knives and leather stockings”; meaning the dragoons with their sabers and
boots.
“This is a subject that might better be discussed at 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 replied. “As to 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 got rid of.”
Then, turning with a prompt and decided air, 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. Without stopping to
breathe, the Delawares leaped in long bounds toward the wood, like so many
panthers springing upon their prey. Hawkeye 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 practiced 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 the 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 Hawkeye, 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 an assault from a
quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, the warriors uttered a common
yell of disappointment, and breaking off in a body, they spread themselves
across the opening, heedless of every 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 Munro. A few brief and
hurried words served to explain the state of things to both parties; and then
Hawkeye, 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 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 away rather precipitately 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, frightened from their secluded nests; and here and
there a light vapory cloud, which seemed already blending with the atmosphere,
arose above the trees, and indicated some spot where the struggle had been
fierce and stationary.
“The fight is coming up the ascent,” said Duncan, pointing in the
direction of a new explosion of firearms; “we are too much in the center
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 scrimmage with warriors of my own color. You know me,
Mohican; not a Huron of them all shall cross the swell, into your rear, without
the notice of ‘killdeer’.”
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 hail which precede the bursting of the tempest. Hawkeye and his three
companions withdrew a few paces to a shelter, and awaited the issue with
calmness that nothing but great practise could impart in such a scene.
It was not long before the reports of the rifles began 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 has 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 into the center of 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 a yell passed through the air that sounded
as if a thousand throats were united in a common effort. The Hurons staggered,
deserting the center of their line, and Uncas issued from the forest through
the opening they left, at the head of a hundred warriors.
Waving his hands right and left, the young chief pointed out the enemy to his
followers, who separated in 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 of 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 Hawkeye 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 favored 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 fury of
despair. The onset and the issue were like the passage and destruction of a
whirlwind. The tomahawk of Uncas, the blows of Hawkeye, 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 favored 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 melee, bounded forward in pursuit;
Hawkeye, 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 intention as 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. Hawkeye, 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 flitting 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 further 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 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
afterward, admonished of his 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 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 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 further!” cried Cora, stopping unexpectedly on a
ledge of rock, 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 further.”
The supporters of the maiden raised their ready tomahawks with the impious joy
that fiends are thought to take in mischief, but Magua stayed the 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, “chose; the wigwam or the knife of Le
Subtil!”
Cora regarded him not, but dropping on her knees, she raised her eyes and
stretched her arms toward heaven, saying in a meek and yet confiding voice:
“I am thine; do with me as thou seest best!”
“Woman,” repeated Magua, hoarsely, and endeavoring 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
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 Cora.
The Huron sprang like a tiger on his offending and already retreating country
man, 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 from 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 a burst from the lips of the scout,
whose tall person was just then seen moving swiftly toward him, along those
dangerous crags, with steps as bold and reckless as if he possessed the power
to move in 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 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
Hawkeye 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 Hawkeye 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 on. 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 a hand in grim defiance. But
his hold loosened, and his dark person was seen cutting the air with its head
downward, for a fleeting instant, until it glided past the fringe of shrubbery
which clung to the mountain, in its rapid flight to destruction.