The Last of the Mohicans

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When the travelers reached the verge of the precipices they saw, at
a glance, the truth of the scout's declaration, and the admirable
foresight with which he had led them to their commanding station.

The mountain on which they stood, elevated perhaps a thousand feet in
the air, was a high cone that rose a little in advance of that range
which stretches for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
meeting its sisters miles beyond the water, it ran off toward the
Canadas, in confused and broken masses of rock, thinly sprinkled with
evergreens. Immediately at the feet of the party, the southern shore
of the Horican swept in a broad semicircle from mountain to mountain,
marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat
elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared
from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the "holy lake," indented
with numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted
with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the
water became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of vapor
that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning air.
But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills pointed out the
passage by which they found their way still further north, to spread
their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute
into the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather
broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction,
the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and
sandy lands, across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their
double journey. Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light vapor were rising in
spiral wreaths from the uninhabited woods, looking like the smoke of
hidden cottages; or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle with
the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary, snow-white cloud floated
above the valley, and marked the spot beneath which lay the silent pool
of the "bloody pond."

Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its western than to its
eastern margin, lay the extensive earthen ramparts and low buildings
of William Henry. Two of the sweeping bastions appeared to rest on
the water which washed their bases, while a deep ditch and extensive
morasses guarded its other sides and angles. The land had been cleared
of wood for a reasonable distance around the work, but every other part
of the scene lay in the green livery of nature, except where the limpid
water mellowed the view, or the bold rocks thrust their black and naked
heads above the undulating outline of the mountain ranges. In its front
might be seen the scattered sentinels, who held a weary watch against
their numerous foes; and within the walls themselves, the travelers
looked down upon men still drowsy with a night of vigilance. Toward the
southeast, but in immediate contact with the fort, was an entrenched
camp, posted on a rocky eminence, that would have been far more eligible
for the work itself, in which Hawkeye pointed out the presence of
those auxiliary regiments that had so recently left the Hudson in their
company. From the woods, a little further to the south, rose numerous
dark and lurid smokes, that were easily to be distinguished from the
purer exhalations of the springs, and which the scout also showed to
Heyward, as evidences that the enemy lay in force in that direction.

But the spectacle which most concerned the young soldier was on the
western bank of the lake, though quite near to its southern termination.
On a strip of land, which appeared from his stand too narrow to contain
such an army, but which, in truth, extended many hundreds of yards from
the shores of the Horican to the base of the mountain, were to be seen
the white tents and military engines of an encampment of ten thousand
men. Batteries were already thrown up in their front, and even while the
spectators above them were looking down, with such different emotions,
on a scene which lay like a map beneath their feet, the roar of
artillery rose from the valley, and passed off in thundering echoes
along the eastern hills.

"Morning is just touching them below," said the deliberate and musing
scout, "and the watchers have a mind to wake up the sleepers by the
sound of cannon. We are a few hours too late! Montcalm has already
filled the woods with his accursed Iroquois."

"The place is, indeed, invested," returned Duncan; "but is there no
expedient by which we may enter? capture in the works would be far
preferable to falling again into the hands of roving Indians."

"See!" exclaimed the scout, unconsciously directing the attention of
Cora to the quarters of her own father, "how that shot has made the
stones fly from the side of the commandant's house! Ay! these Frenchers
will pull it to pieces faster than it was put together, solid and thick
though it be!"

"Heyward, I sicken at the sight of danger that I cannot share," said
the undaunted but anxious daughter. "Let us go to Montcalm, and demand
admission: he dare not deny a child the boon."

"You would scarce find the tent of the Frenchman with the hair on your
head"; said the blunt scout. "If I had but one of the thousand boats
which lie empty along that shore, it might be done! Ha! here will soon
be an end of the firing, for yonder comes a fog that will turn day to
night, and make an Indian arrow more dangerous than a molded cannon.
Now, if you are equal to the work, and will follow, I will make a push;
for I long to get down into that camp, if it be only to scatter some
Mingo dogs that I see lurking in the skirts of yonder thicket of birch."

"We are equal," said Cora, firmly; "on such an errand we will follow to
any danger."

The scout turned to her with a smile of honest and cordial approbation,
as he answered:

"I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs and quick eyes, that
feared death as little as you! I'd send them jabbering Frenchers back
into their den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so many
fettered hounds or hungry wolves. But, sir," he added, turning from her
to the rest of the party, "the fog comes rolling down so fast, we shall
have but just the time to meet it on the plain, and use it as a cover.
Remember, if any accident should befall me, to keep the air blowing on
your left cheeks--or, rather, follow the Mohicans; they'd scent their
way, be it in day or be it at night."

He then waved his hand for them to follow, and threw himself down the
steep declivity, with free, but careful footsteps. Heyward assisted
the sisters to descend, and in a few minutes they were all far down a
mountain whose sides they had climbed with so much toil and pain.

The direction taken by Hawkeye soon brought the travelers to the level
of the plain, nearly opposite to a sally-port in the western curtain of
the fort, which lay itself at the distance of about half a mile from
the point where he halted to allow Duncan to come up with his charge.
In their eagerness, and favored by the nature of the ground, they had
anticipated the fog, which was rolling heavily down the lake, and it
became necessary to pause, until the mists had wrapped the camp of the
enemy in their fleecy mantle. The Mohicans profited by the delay, to
steal out of the woods, and to make a survey of surrounding objects.
They were followed at a little distance by the scout, with a view to
profit early by their report, and to obtain some faint knowledge for
himself of the more immediate localities.

In a very few moments he returned, his face reddened with vexation,
while he muttered his disappointment in words of no very gentle import.

"Here has the cunning Frenchman been posting a picket directly in our
path," he said; "red-skins and whites; and we shall be as likely to fall
into their midst as to pass them in the fog!"

"Cannot we make a circuit to avoid the danger," asked Heyward, "and come
into our path again when it is passed?"

"Who that once bends from the line of his march in a fog can tell when
or how to find it again! The mists of Horican are not like the curls
from a peace-pipe, or the smoke which settles above a mosquito fire."

He was yet speaking, when a crashing sound was heard, and a cannon-ball
entered the thicket, striking the body of a sapling, and rebounding to
the earth, its force being much expended by previous resistance.
The Indians followed instantly like busy attendants on the terrible
messenger, and Uncas commenced speaking earnestly and with much action,
in the Delaware tongue.

"It may be so, lad," muttered the scout, when he had ended; "for
desperate fevers are not to be treated like a toothache. Come, then, the
fog is shutting in."

"Stop!" cried Heyward; "first explain your expectations."

"'Tis soon done, and a small hope it is; but it is better than nothing.
This shot that you see," added the scout, kicking the harmless iron with
his foot, "has plowed the 'arth in its road from the fort, and we shall
hunt for the furrow it has made, when all other signs may fail. No more
words, but follow, or the fog may leave us in the middle of our path, a
mark for both armies to shoot at."

Heyward perceiving that, in fact, a crisis had arrived, when acts were
more required than words, placed himself between the sisters, and drew
them swiftly forward, keeping the dim figure of their leader in his eye.
It was soon apparent that Hawkeye had not magnified the power of the
fog, for before they had proceeded twenty yards, it was difficult for
the different individuals of the party to distinguish each other in the
vapor.

They had made their little circuit to the left, and were already
inclining again toward the right, having, as Heyward thought, got over
nearly half the distance to the friendly works, when his ears were
saluted with the fierce summons, apparently within twenty feet of them,
of:

"Qui va la?"

"Push on!" whispered the scout, once more bending to the left.

"Push on!" repeated Heyward; when the summons was renewed by a dozen
voices, each of which seemed charged with menace.

"C'est moi," cried Duncan, dragging rather than leading those he
supported swiftly onward.

"Bete!--qui?--moi!"

"Ami de la France."

"Tu m'as plus l'air d'un ennemi de la France; arrete ou pardieu je te
ferai ami du diable. Non! feu, camarades, feu!"

The order was instantly obeyed, and the fog was stirred by the explosion
of fifty muskets. Happily, the aim was bad, and the bullets cut the
air in a direction a little different from that taken by the fugitives;
though still so nigh them, that to the unpractised ears of David and the
two females, it appeared as if they whistled within a few inches of the
organs. The outcry was renewed, and the order, not only to fire again,
but to pursue, was too plainly audible. When Heyward briefly explained
the meaning of the words they heard, Hawkeye halted and spoke with quick
decision and great firmness.

"Let us deliver our fire," he said; "they will believe it a sortie, and
give way, or they will wait for reinforcements."

The scheme was well conceived, but failed in its effects. The instant
the French heard the pieces, it seemed as if the plain was alive with
men, muskets rattling along its whole extent, from the shores of the
lake to the furthest boundary of the woods.

"We shall draw their entire army upon us, and bring on a general
assault," said Duncan: "lead on, my friend, for your own life and ours."

The scout seemed willing to comply; but, in the hurry of the moment, and
in the change of position, he had lost the direction. In vain he turned
either cheek toward the light air; they felt equally cool. In this
dilemma, Uncas lighted on the furrow of the cannon ball, where it had
cut the ground in three adjacent ant-hills.

"Give me the range!" said Hawkeye, bending to catch a glimpse of the
direction, and then instantly moving onward.

Cries, oaths, voices calling to each other, and the reports of muskets,
were now quick and incessant, and, apparently, on every side of them.
Suddenly a strong glare of light flashed across the scene, the fog
rolled upward in thick wreaths, and several cannons belched across the
plain, and the roar was thrown heavily back from the bellowing echoes of
the mountain.

"'Tis from the fort!" exclaimed Hawkeye, turning short on his tracks;
"and we, like stricken fools, were rushing to the woods, under the very
knives of the Maquas."

The instant their mistake was rectified, the whole party retraced the
error with the utmost diligence. Duncan willingly relinquished the
support of Cora to the arm of Uncas and Cora as readily accepted the
welcome assistance. Men, hot and angry in pursuit, were evidently on
their footsteps, and each instant threatened their capture, if not their
destruction.

"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to
direct the operations of the enemy.

"Stand firm, and be ready, my gallant Sixtieths!" suddenly exclaimed
a voice above them; "wait to see the enemy, fire low and sweep the
glacis."

"Father! father!" exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist: "it is I!
Alice! thy own Elsie! Spare, oh! save your daughters!"

"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn
echo. "'Tis she! God has restored me to my children! Throw open the
sally-port; to the field, Sixtieths, to the field; pull not a trigger,
lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel."

Duncan heard the grating of the rusty hinges, and darting to the spot,
directed by the sound, he met a long line of dark red warriors, passing
swiftly toward the glacis. He knew them for his own battalion of the
Royal Americans, and flying to their head, soon swept every trace of his
pursuers from before the works.

For an instant, Cora and Alice had stood trembling and bewildered by
this unexpected desertion; but before either had leisure for speech, or
even thought, an officer of gigantic frame, whose locks were bleached
with years and service, but whose air of military grandeur had been
rather softened than destroyed by time, rushed out of the body of mist,
and folded them to his bosom, while large scalding tears rolled down his
pale and wrinkled cheeks, and he exclaimed, in the peculiar accent of
Scotland:

"For this I thank thee, Lord! Let danger come as it will, thy servant is
now prepared!"




CHAPTER 15

"Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Which I could, with ready guess, declare,
Before the Frenchmen speak a word of it."
--King Henry V

A few succeeding days were passed amid the privations, the uproar,
and the dangers of the siege, which was vigorously pressed by a
power, against whose approaches Munro possessed no competent means of
resistance. It appeared as if Webb, with his army, which lay slumbering
on the banks of the Hudson, had utterly forgotten the strait to which
his countrymen were reduced. Montcalm had filled the woods of the
portage with his savages, every yell and whoop from whom rang through
the British encampment, chilling the hearts of men who were already but
too much disposed to magnify the danger.

Not so, however, with the besieged. Animated by the words, and
stimulated by the examples of their leaders, they had found their
courage, and maintained their ancient reputation, with a zeal that did
justice to the stern character of their commander. As if satisfied with
the toil of marching through the wilderness to encounter his enemy, the
French general, though of approved skill, had neglected to seize the
adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might have been exterminated
with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of the country,
would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of contempt
for eminences, or rather dread of the labor of ascending them, might
have been termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It
originated in the simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the
nature of the combats, and the density of the forests, fortresses were
rare, and artillery next to useless. The carelessness engendered by
these usages descended even to the war of the Revolution and lost the
States the important fortress of Ticonderoga opening a way for the army
of Burgoyne into what was then the bosom of the country. We look back at
this ignorance, or infatuation, whichever it may be called, with wonder,
knowing that the neglect of an eminence, whose difficulties, like those
of Mount Defiance, have been so greatly exaggerated, would, at the
present time, prove fatal to the reputation of the engineer who had
planned the works at their base, or to that of the general whose lot it
was to defend them.

The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of
nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the
scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health,
or pleasure, or floats steadily toward his object on those artificial
waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman* who
has dared to stake his political character on the hazardous issue, is
not to suppose that his ancestors traversed those hills, or struggled
with the same currents with equal facility. The transportation of a
single heavy gun was often considered equal to a victory gained; if
happily, the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it
from its necessary concomitant, the ammunition, as to render it no more
than a useless tube of unwieldy iron.

* Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of
New York in 1828.

The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
resolute Scotsman who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the
plain, and caused them to be served with vigor and skill. Against
this assault, the besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty
preparations of a fortress in the wilderness.

It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of
his own service in it, that Major Heyward profited by a parley that
had just been beaten, by repairing to the ramparts of one of the water
bastions, to breathe the cool air from the lake, and to take a survey
of the progress of the siege. He was alone, if the solitary sentinel who
paced the mound be excepted; for the artillerists had hastened also to
profit by the temporary suspension of their arduous duties. The evening
was delightfully calm, and the light air from the limpid water fresh and
soothing. It seemed as if, with the termination of the roar of artillery
and the plunging of shot, nature had also seized the moment to assume
her mildest and most captivating form. The sun poured down his parting
glory on the scene, without the oppression of those fierce rays that
belong to the climate and the season. The mountains looked green,
and fresh, and lovely, tempered with the milder light, or softened in
shadow, as thin vapors floated between them and the sun. The numerous
islands rested on the bosom of the Horican, some low and sunken, as if
embedded in the waters, and others appearing to hover about the element,
in little hillocks of green velvet; among which the fishermen of the
beleaguering army peacefully rowed their skiffs, or floated at rest on
the glassy mirror in quiet pursuit of their employment.

The scene was at once animated and still. All that pertained to nature
was sweet, or simply grand; while those parts which depended on the
temper and movements of man were lively and playful.

Two little spotless flags were abroad, the one on a salient angle of the
fort, and the other on the advanced battery of the besiegers; emblems of
the truth which existed, not only to the acts, but it would seem, also,
to the enmity of the combatants.

Behind these again swung, heavily opening and closing in silken folds,
the rival standards of England and France.

A hundred gay and thoughtless young Frenchmen were drawing a net to the
pebbly beach, within dangerous proximity to the sullen but silent cannon
of the fort, while the eastern mountain was sending back the loud shouts
and gay merriment that attended their sport. Some were rushing eagerly
to enjoy the aquatic games of the lake, and others were already toiling
their way up the neighboring hills, with the restless curiosity of their
nation. To all these sports and pursuits, those of the enemy who watched
the besieged, and the besieged themselves, were, however, merely the
idle though sympathizing spectators. Here and there a picket had,
indeed, raised a song, or mingled in a dance, which had drawn the
dusky savages around them, from their lairs in the forest. In short,
everything wore rather the appearance of a day of pleasure, than of
an hour stolen from the dangers and toil of a bloody and vindictive
warfare.

Duncan had stood in a musing attitude, contemplating this scene a few
minutes, when his eyes were directed to the glacis in front of the
sally-port already mentioned, by the sounds of approaching footsteps. He
walked to an angle of the bastion, and beheld the scout advancing,
under the custody of a French officer, to the body of the fort. The
countenance of Hawkeye was haggard and careworn, and his air dejected,
as though he felt the deepest degradation at having fallen into the
power of his enemies. He was without his favorite weapon, and his arms
were even bound behind him with thongs, made of the skin of a deer. The
arrival of flags to cover the messengers of summons, had occurred so
often of late, that when Heyward first threw his careless glance on this
group, he expected to see another of the officers of the enemy, charged
with a similar office but the instant he recognized the tall person and
still sturdy though downcast features of his friend, the woodsman, he
started with surprise, and turned to descend from the bastion into the
bosom of the work.

The sounds of other voices, however, caught his attention, and for a
moment caused him to forget his purpose. At the inner angle of the mound
he met the sisters, walking along the parapet, in search, like himself,
of air and relief from confinement. They had not met from that painful
moment when he deserted them on the plain, only to assure their safety.
He had parted from them worn with care, and jaded with fatigue; he now
saw them refreshed and blooming, though timid and anxious. Under such an
inducement it will cause no surprise that the young man lost sight for
a time, of other objects in order to address them. He was, however,
anticipated by the voice of the ingenuous and youthful Alice.

"Ah! thou tyrant! thou recreant knight! he who abandons his damsels
in the very lists," she cried; "here have we been days, nay, ages,
expecting you at our feet, imploring mercy and forgetfulness of your
craven backsliding, or I should rather say, backrunning--for verily you
fled in the manner that no stricken deer, as our worthy friend the scout
would say, could equal!"

"You know that Alice means our thanks and our blessings," added the
graver and more thoughtful Cora. "In truth, we have a little wonder why
you should so rigidly absent yourself from a place where the gratitude
of the daughters might receive the support of a parent's thanks."

"Your father himself could tell you, that, though absent from your
presence, I have not been altogether forgetful of your safety," returned
the young man; "the mastery of yonder village of huts," pointing to the
neighboring entrenched camp, "has been keenly disputed; and he who holds
it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My
days and nights have all been passed there since we separated, because
I thought that duty called me thither. But," he added, with an air of
chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal, "had
I been aware that what I then believed a soldier's conduct could be so
construed, shame would have been added to the list of reasons."

"Heyward! Duncan!" exclaimed Alice, bending forward to read his
half-averted countenance, until a lock of her golden hair rested on her
flushed cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her
eye; "did I think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would
silence it forever. Cora can say, if Cora would, how justly we have
prized your services, and how deep--I had almost said, how fervent--is
our gratitude."

"And will Cora attest the truth of this?" cried Duncan, suffering the
cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure.
"What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of
the knight in the duty of a soldier?"

Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face toward the water, as
if looking on the sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes
on the young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish
that at once drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his
mind.