The Last of the Mohicans

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"What says he, dearest Cora?" asked the trembling voice of Alice. "Did
he speak of sending me to our father?"

For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a
countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions.
At length she spoke, though her tones had lost their rich and calm
fullness, in an expression of tenderness that seemed maternal.

"Alice," she said, "the Huron offers us both life, nay, more than both;
he offers to restore Duncan, our invaluable Duncan, as well as you, to
our friends--to our father--to our heart-stricken, childless father, if
I will bow down this rebellious, stubborn pride of mine, and consent--"

Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands, she looked upward, as
if seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite.

"Say on," cried Alice; "to what, dearest Cora? Oh! that the proffer were
made to me! to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore Duncan,
how cheerfully could I die!"

"Die!" repeated Cora, with a calmer and firmer voice, "that were easy!
Perhaps the alternative may not be less so. He would have me," she
continued, her accents sinking under a deep consciousness of the
degradation of the proposal, "follow him to the wilderness; go to the
habitations of the Hurons; to remain there; in short, to become his
wife! Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections! sister of my love! And
you, too, Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel. Is life
to be purchased by such a sacrifice? Will you, Alice, receive it at my
hands at such a price? And you, Duncan, guide me; control me between
you; for I am wholly yours!"

"Would I!" echoed the indignant and astonished youth. "Cora! Cora! you
jest with our misery! Name not the horrid alternative again; the thought
itself is worse than a thousand deaths."

"That such would be your answer, I well knew!" exclaimed Cora, her
cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the
lingering emotions of a woman. "What says my Alice? for her will I
submit without another murmur."

Although both Heyward and Cora listened with painful suspense and the
deepest attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the
delicate and sensitive form of Alice would shrink into itself, as she
listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her,
the fingers moving in slight convulsions; her head dropped upon her
bosom, and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking
like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of
animation and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head
began to move slowly, in a sign of deep, unconquerable disapprobation.

"No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!"

"Then die!" shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at the
unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no
longer be bridled at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he
believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of
Heyward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered
in the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation.
Collecting all his energies in one effort he snapped the twigs which
bound him and rushed upon another savage, who was preparing, with loud
yells and a more deliberate aim, to repeat the blow. They encountered,
grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked body of his
antagonist afforded Heyward no means of holding his adversary, who
glided from his grasp, and rose again with one knee on his chest,
pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the
knife gleaming in the air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and
was rather accompanied than followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. He
felt his breast relieved from the load it had endured; he saw the savage
expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant
wildness, when the Indian fell dead on the faded leaves by his side.




CHAPTER 12

"Clo.--I am gone, sire,
And anon, sire, I'll be with you again."
--Twelfth Night

The Hurons stood aghast at this sudden visitation of death on one of
their band. But as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had
dared to immolate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name
of "La Longue Carabine" burst simultaneously from every lip, and was
succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered
by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had
piled their arms; and at the next moment, Hawkeye, too eager to load
the rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the
clubbed weapon, and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold
and rapid as was the progress of the scout, it was exceeded by that of
a light and vigorous form which, bounding past him, leaped, with
incredible activity and daring, into the very center of the Hurons,
where it stood, whirling a tomahawk, and flourishing a glittering knife,
with fearful menaces, in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could
follow those unexpected and audacious movements, an image, armed in the
emblematic panoply of death, glided before their eyes, and assumed a
threatening attitude at the other's side. The savage tormentors recoiled
before these warlike intruders, and uttered, as they appeared in such
quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamations of
surprise, followed by the well-known and dreaded appellations of:

"Le Cerf Agile! Le Gros Serpent!"

But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily
disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he
comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his
followers by his voice as well as by his example, he unsheathed his
long and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud whoop upon the expected
Chingachgook. It was the signal for a general combat. Neither party had
firearms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner,
hand to hand, with weapons of offense, and none of defense.

Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single,
well-directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward
tore the weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly toward
the fray. As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an
opponent from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury
of a whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another
enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable
weapon he beat down the slight and inartificial defenses of his
antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the blow. Heyward ventured
to hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment
of closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead,
and checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight
advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon
his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him
of the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully
engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the
desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to
foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and
succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron
grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long.
In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting:

"Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!"

At the next moment, the breech of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head
of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as
he sank from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless.

When Uncas had brained his first antagonist, he turned, like a hungry
lion, to seek another. The fifth and only Huron disengaged at the first
onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were
employed in the deadly strife, he had sought, with hellish vengeance,
to complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph, he
sprang toward the defenseless Cora, sending his keen axe as the dreadful
precursor of his approach. The tomahawk grazed her shoulder, and cutting
the withes which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at liberty to
fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless of her own
safety, threw herself on the bosom of Alice, striving with convulsed
and ill-directed fingers, to tear asunder the twigs which confined the
person of her sister. Any other than a monster would have relented at
such an act of generous devotion to the best and purest affection; but
the breast of the Huron was a stranger to sympathy. Seizing Cora by the
rich tresses which fell in confusion about her form, he tore her from
her frantic hold, and bowed her down with brutal violence to her knees.
The savage drew the flowing curls through his hand, and raising them
on high with an outstretched arm, he passed the knife around the
exquisitely molded head of his victim, with a taunting and exulting
laugh. But he purchased this moment of fierce gratification with the
loss of the fatal opportunity. It was just then the sight caught the eye
of Uncas. Bounding from his footsteps he appeared for an instant darting
through the air and descending in a ball he fell on the chest of his
enemy, driving him many yards from the spot, headlong and prostrate. The
violence of the exertion cast the young Mohican at his side. They arose
together, fought, and bled, each in his turn. But the conflict was soon
decided; the tomahawk of Heyward and the rifle of Hawkeye descended
on the skull of the Huron, at the same moment that the knife of Uncas
reached his heart.

The battle was now entirely terminated with the exception of the
protracted struggle between "Le Renard Subtil" and "Le Gros Serpent."
Well did these barbarous warriors prove that they deserved those
significant names which had been bestowed for deeds in former wars.
When they engaged, some little time was lost in eluding the quick and
vigorous thrusts which had been aimed at their lives. Suddenly darting
on each other, they closed, and came to the earth, twisted together like
twining serpents, in pliant and subtle folds. At the moment when the
victors found themselves unoccupied, the spot where these experienced
and desperate combatants lay could only be distinguished by a cloud of
dust and leaves, which moved from the center of the little plain toward
its boundary, as if raised by the passage of a whirlwind. Urged by the
different motives of filial affection, friendship and gratitude, Heyward
and his companions rushed with one accord to the place, encircling the
little canopy of dust which hung above the warriors. In vain did Uncas
dart around the cloud, with a wish to strike his knife into the heart
of his father's foe; the threatening rifle of Hawkeye was raised and
suspended in vain, while Duncan endeavored to seize the limbs of the
Huron with hands that appeared to have lost their power. Covered as they
were with dust and blood, the swift evolutions of the combatants seemed
to incorporate their bodies into one. The death-like looking figure of
the Mohican, and the dark form of the Huron, gleamed before their eyes
in such quick and confused succession, that the friends of the former
knew not where to plant the succoring blow. It is true there were short
and fleeting moments, when the fiery eyes of Magua were seen glittering,
like the fabled organs of the basilisk through the dusty wreath by which
he was enveloped, and he read by those short and deadly glances the fate
of the combat in the presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile
hand could descend on his devoted head, its place was filled by the
scowling visage of Chingachgook. In this manner the scene of the combat
was removed from the center of the little plain to its verge. The
Mohican now found an opportunity to make a powerful thrust with his
knife; Magua suddenly relinquished his grasp, and fell backward without
motion, and seemingly without life. His adversary leaped on his feet,
making the arches of the forest ring with the sounds of triumph.

"Well done for the Delawares! victory to the Mohicans!" cried Hawkeye,
once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle; "a finishing
blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor
rob him of his right to the scalp."

But at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of
descending, the subtle Huron rolled swiftly from beneath the danger,
over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet, was seen
leaping, with a single bound, into the center of a thicket of low
bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed
their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were
following with speed and clamor, like hounds in open view of the deer,
when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their
purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill.

"'Twas like himself!" cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices
contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all
matters which concerned the Mingoes; "a lying and deceitful varlet as
he is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain
still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to
life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go--let him go; 'tis but
one man, and he without rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French
commerades; and like a rattler that lost his fangs, he can do no further
mischief, until such time as he, and we too, may leave the prints of our
moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. See, Uncas," he added, in
Delaware, "your father is flaying the scalps already. It may be well to
go round and feel the vagabonds that are left, or we may have another of
them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay that has been
winged."

So saying the honest but implacable scout made the circuit of the dead,
into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much
coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had,
however, been anticipated by the elder Mohican, who had already torn the
emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain.

But Uncas, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with
instinctive delicacy, accompanied by Heyward, to the assistance of the
females, and quickly releasing Alice, placed her in the arms of Cora. We
shall not attempt to describe the gratitude to the Almighty Disposer
of Events which glowed in the bosoms of the sisters, who were thus
unexpectedly restored to life and to each other. Their thanksgivings
were deep and silent; the offerings of their gentle spirits burning
brightest and purest on the secret altars of their hearts; and their
renovated and more earthly feelings exhibiting themselves in long and
fervent though speechless caresses. As Alice rose from her knees, where
she had sunk by the side of Cora, she threw herself on the bosom of the
latter, and sobbed aloud the name of their aged father, while her soft,
dove-like eyes, sparkled with the rays of hope.

"We are saved! we are saved!" she murmured; "to return to the arms of
our dear, dear father, and his heart will not be broken with grief. And
you, too, Cora, my sister, my more than sister, my mother; you, too,
are spared. And Duncan," she added, looking round upon the youth with a
smile of ineffable innocence, "even our own brave and noble Duncan has
escaped without a hurt."

To these ardent and nearly innocent words Cora made no other answer than
by straining the youthful speaker to her heart, as she bent over her
in melting tenderness. The manhood of Heyward felt no shame in dropping
tears over this spectacle of affectionate rapture; and Uncas stood,
fresh and blood-stained from the combat, a calm, and, apparently, an
unmoved looker-on, it is true, but with eyes that had already lost their
fierceness, and were beaming with a sympathy that elevated him far
above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before, the
practises of his nation.

During this display of emotions so natural in their situation, Hawkeye,
whose vigilant distrust had satisfied itself that the Hurons, who
disfigured the heavenly scene, no longer possessed the power to
interrupt its harmony, approached David, and liberated him from the
bonds he had, until that moment, endured with the most exemplary
patience.

"There," exclaimed the scout, casting the last withe behind him, "you
are once more master of your own limbs, though you seem not to use them
with much greater judgment than that in which they were first fashioned.
If advice from one who is not older than yourself, but who, having
lived most of his time in the wilderness, may be said to have experience
beyond his years, will give no offense, you are welcome to my thoughts;
and these are, to part with the little tooting instrument in your jacket
to the first fool you meet with, and buy some we'pon with the money, if
it be only the barrel of a horseman's pistol. By industry and care, you
might thus come to some prefarment; for by this time, I should think,
your eyes would plainly tell you that a carrion crow is a better bird
than a mocking-thresher. The one will, at least, remove foul sights
from before the face of man, while the other is only good to brew
disturbances in the woods, by cheating the ears of all that hear them."

"Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving
to the victory!" answered the liberated David. "Friend," he added,
thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand toward Hawkeye, in kindness,
while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee that the hairs
of my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence; for,
though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever
found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not
join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the
bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skillful hast thou proved thyself in
the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge
other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well
worthy of a Christian's praise."

"The thing is but a trifle, and what you may often see if you tarry long
among us," returned the scout, a good deal softened toward the man of
song, by this unequivocal expression of gratitude. "I have got back my
old companion, 'killdeer'," he added, striking his hand on the breech of
his rifle; "and that in itself is a victory. These Iroquois are cunning,
but they outwitted themselves when they placed their firearms out of
reach; and had Uncas or his father been gifted with only their common
Indian patience, we should have come in upon the knaves with three
bullets instead of one, and that would have made a finish of the whole
pack; yon loping varlet, as well as his commerades. But 'twas all
fore-ordered, and for the best."

"Thou sayest well," returned David, "and hast caught the true spirit
of Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is
predestined to be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth,
and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer."

The scout, who by this time was seated, examining into the state of his
rifle with a species of parental assiduity, now looked up at the other
in a displeasure that he did not affect to conceal, roughly interrupting
further speech.

"Doctrine or no doctrine," said the sturdy woodsman, "'tis the belief of
knaves, and the curse of an honest man. I can credit that yonder Huron
was to fall by my hand, for with my own eyes I have seen it; but nothing
short of being a witness will cause me to think he has met with any
reward, or that Chingachgook there will be condemned at the final day."

"You have no warranty for such an audacious doctrine, nor any covenant
to support it," cried David who was deeply tinctured with the subtle
distinctions which, in his time, and more especially in his province,
had been drawn around the beautiful simplicity of revelation, by
endeavoring to penetrate the awful mystery of the divine nature,
supplying faith by self-sufficiency, and by consequence, involving those
who reasoned from such human dogmas in absurdities and doubt; "your
temple is reared on the sands, and the first tempest will wash away its
foundation. I demand your authorities for such an uncharitable assertion
(like other advocates of a system, David was not always accurate in his
use of terms). Name chapter and verse; in which of the holy books do you
find language to support you?"

"Book!" repeated Hawkeye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do
you take me for a whimpering boy at the apronstring of one of your old
gals; and this good rifle on my knee for the feather of a goose's
wing, my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a
cross-barred handkercher to carry my dinner? Book! what have such as I,
who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to
do with books? I never read but in one, and the words that are written
there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may
boast that of forty long and hard-working years."

"What call you the volume?" said David, misconceiving the other's
meaning.

"'Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it
is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who
read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man
may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so
clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If
any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the
windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a
fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the
level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power."

The instant David discovered that he battled with a disputant who
imbibed his faith from the lights of nature, eschewing all subtleties
of doctrine, he willingly abandoned a controversy from which he believed
neither profit nor credit was to be derived. While the scout was
speaking, he had also seated himself, and producing the ready little
volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a
duty, which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his
orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of
the western continent--of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted
bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but
after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared
to exercise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or rather in
thanksgiving for, the recent victory. He waited patiently for Hawkeye to
cease, then lifting his eyes, together with his voice, he said, aloud:

"I invite you, friends, to join in praise for this signal deliverance
from the hands of barbarians and infidels, to the comfortable and solemn
tones of the tune called 'Northampton'."

He next named the page and verse where the rhymes selected were to be
found, and applied the pitch-pipe to his lips, with the decent gravity
that he had been wont to use in the temple. This time he was, however,
without any accompaniment, for the sisters were just then pouring out
those tender effusions of affection which have been already alluded
to. Nothing deterred by the smallness of his audience, which, in
truth, consisted only of the discontented scout, he raised his voice,
commencing and ending the sacred song without accident or interruption
of any kind.

Hawkeye listened while he coolly adjusted his flint and reloaded his
rifle; but the sounds, wanting the extraneous assistance of scene and
sympathy, failed to awaken his slumbering emotions. Never minstrel,
or by whatever more suitable name David should be known, drew upon his
talents in the presence of more insensible auditors; though considering
the singleness and sincerity of his motive, it is probable that no bard
of profane song ever uttered notes that ascended so near to that throne
where all homage and praise is due. The scout shook his head, and
muttering some unintelligible words, among which "throat" and "Iroquois"
were alone audible, he walked away, to collect and to examine into the
state of the captured arsenal of the Hurons. In this office he was now
joined by Chingachgook, who found his own, as well as the rifle of his
son, among the arms. Even Heyward and David were furnished with weapons;
nor was ammunition wanting to render them all effectual.

When the foresters had made their selection, and distributed their
prizes, the scout announced that the hour had arrived when it was
necessary to move. By this time the song of Gamut had ceased, and the
sisters had learned to still the exhibition of their emotions. Aided by
Duncan and the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous
sides of that hill which they had so lately ascended under so very
different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of
their massacre. At the foot they found the Narragansetts browsing the
herbage of the bushes, and having mounted, they followed the movements
of a guide, who, in the most deadly straits, had so often proved himself
their friend. The journey was, however, short. Hawkeye, leaving the
blind path that the Hurons had followed, turned short to his right,
and entering the thicket, he crossed a babbling brook, and halted in a
narrow dell, under the shade of a few water elms. Their distance from
the base of the fatal hill was but a few rods, and the steeds had been
serviceable only in crossing the shallow stream.