The Last of the Mohicans

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"Just and venerable Delaware, on thy wisdom and power we lean for mercy!
Be deaf to yonder artful and remorseless monster, who poisons thy ears
with falsehoods to feed his thirst for blood. Thou that hast lived long,
and that hast seen the evil of the world, should know how to temper its
calamities to the miserable."

The eyes of the old man opened heavily, and he once more looked upward
at the multitude. As the piercing tones of the suppliant swelled on
his ears, they moved slowly in the direction of her person, and finally
settled there in a steady gaze. Cora had cast herself to her knees;
and, with hands clenched in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she
remained like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in
his faded but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence.
Gradually the expression of Tamenund's features changed, and losing
their vacancy in admiration, they lighted with a portion of that
intelligence which a century before had been wont to communicate his
youthful fire to the extensive bands of the Delawares. Rising without
assistance, and seemingly without an effort, he demanded, in a voice
that startled its auditors by its firmness:

"What art thou?"

"A woman. One of a hated race, if thou wilt--a Yengee. But one who has
never harmed thee, and who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who
asks for succor."

"Tell me, my children," continued the patriarch, hoarsely, motioning to
those around him, though his eyes still dwelt upon the kneeling form of
Cora, "where have the Delawares camped?"

"In the mountains of the Iroquois, beyond the clear springs of the
Horican."

"Many parching summers are come and gone," continued the sage, "since
I drank of the water of my own rivers. The children of Minquon* are the
justest white men, but they were thirsty and they took it to themselves.
Do they follow us so far?"

* William Penn was termed Minquon by the Delawares, and, as
he never used violence or injustice in his dealings with
them, his reputation for probity passed into a proverb. The
American is justly proud of the origin of his nation, which
is perhaps unequaled in the history of the world; but the
Pennsylvanian and Jerseyman have more reason to value
themselves in their ancestors than the natives of any other
state, since no wrong was done the original owners of the
soil.

"We follow none, we covet nothing," answered Cora. "Captives against our
wills, have we been brought amongst you; and we ask but permission
to depart to our own in peace. Art thou not Tamenund--the father, the
judge, I had almost said, the prophet--of this people?"

"I am Tamenund of many days."

"'Tis now some seven years that one of thy people was at the mercy of
a white chief on the borders of this province. He claimed to be of the
blood of the good and just Tamenund. 'Go', said the white man, 'for
thy parent's sake thou art free.' Dost thou remember the name of that
English warrior?"

"I remember, that when a laughing boy," returned the patriarch, with the
peculiar recollection of vast age, "I stood upon the sands of the sea
shore, and saw a big canoe, with wings whiter than the swan's, and wider
than many eagles, come from the rising sun."

"Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant, but of favor shown to
thy kindred by one of mine, within the memory of thy youngest warrior."

"Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchmanne fought for the
hunting-grounds of the Delawares? Then Tamenund was a chief, and first
laid aside the bow for the lightning of the pale faces--"

"Not yet then," interrupted Cora, "by many ages; I speak of a thing of
yesterday. Surely, surely, you forget it not."

"It was but yesterday," rejoined the aged man, with touching pathos,
"that the children of the Lenape were masters of the world. The fishes
of the salt lake, the birds, the beasts, and the Mengee of the woods,
owned them for Sagamores."

Cora bowed her head in disappointment, and, for a bitter moment
struggled with her chagrin. Then, elevating her rich features and
beaming eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
unearthly voice of the patriarch himself:

"Tell me, is Tamenund a father?"

The old man looked down upon her from his elevated stand, with a
benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes
slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered:

"Of a nation."

"For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief," she
continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering
her head to droop until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the
maze of dark, glossy tresses that fell in disorder upon her shoulders,
"the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child. But yonder
is one who has never known the weight of Heaven's displeasure until now.
She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their
close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she
is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain."

"I know that the pale faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that
they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their
color is better than the Sachems of the red man. The dogs and crows of
their tribes," continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the
wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the
earth in shame, as he proceeded, "would bark and caw before they would
take a woman to their wigwams whose blood was not of the color of snow.
But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They
entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun.
I have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the
season of blossoms has always come again."

"It is so," said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a
trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with
a kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness of her
countenance; "but why--it is not permitted us to inquire. There is yet
one of thine own people who has not been brought before thee; before
thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak."

Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly, one of his companions
said:

"It is a snake--a red-skin in the pay of the Yengeese. We keep him for
the torture."

"Let him come," returned the sage.

Then Tamenund once more sank into his seat, and a silence so deep
prevailed while the young man prepared to obey his simple mandate, that
the leaves, which fluttered in the draught of the light morning air,
were distinctly heard rustling in the surrounding forest.




CHAPTER 30

"If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
I stand for judgment: answer, shall I have it?"
--Merchant of Venice

The silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes.
Then the waving multitude opened and shut again, and Uncas stood in the
living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the
lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned
on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect,
agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in
which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted,
in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He
cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting
the settled expression of hostility that lowered in the visages of
the chiefs with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive
children. But when, last in this haughty scrutiny, the person of
Tamenund came under his glance, his eye became fixed, as though all
other objects were already forgotten. Then, advancing with a slow and
noiseless step up the area, he placed himself immediately before the
footstool of the sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant
himself, until one of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.

"With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou?" demanded the
patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.

"Like his fathers," Uncas replied; "with the tongue of a Delaware."

At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran
through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl
of the lion, as his choler is first awakened--a fearful omen of the
weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage,
though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if
to exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he
repeated, in his low, guttural tones, the words he had just heard.

"A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from
their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the
hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strong people sweep
woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven have spared! The beasts
that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the trees, have
I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I found a
Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the camps
of his nation."

"The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the
softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has heard their
song."

The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting
sounds of some passing melody.

"Does Tamenund dream!" he exclaimed. "What voice is at his ear! Have
the winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the
Lenape!"

A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from
the lips of the Delaware prophet. His people readily constructed his
unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was
believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence and they
awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause,
however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the
recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of
the presence of the prisoner.

"The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,"
he said. "'Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail."

"And ye," returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, "are dogs that
whine, when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!"

Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their
feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one
of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored
the appearance of quiet. The task might probably have been more
difficult, had not a movement made by Tamenund indicated that he was
again about to speak.

"Delaware!" resumed the sage, "little art thou worthy of thy name. My
people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who
deserts his tribe when hid in clouds is doubly a traitor. The law of the
Manitou is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains stand,
while the blossoms come and go on the trees, it must be so. He is thine,
my children; deal justly by him."

Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than
common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the
lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be,
from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their ruthless
intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief
proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure
the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and
screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of preparation.
Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eye of Hawkeye
began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness;
and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a
suppliant for mercy.

Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved
his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when
the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright
attitude. One among them, if possible more fierce and savage than his
fellows, seized the hunting-shirt of the young warrior, and at a single
effort tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure,
he leaped toward his unresisting victim and prepared to lead him to
the stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the
feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly
as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The
eyeballs of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth
opened and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement.
Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a
finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him in
wonder and every eye was like his own, fastened intently on the figure
of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner,
in a bright blue tint.

For a single instant Uncas enjoyed his triumph, smiling calmly on the
scene. Then motioning the crowd away with a high and haughty sweep of
his arm, he advanced in front of the nation with the air of a king, and
spoke in a voice louder than the murmur of admiration that ran through
the multitude.

"Men of the Lenni Lenape!" he said, "my race upholds the earth! Your
feeble tribe stands on my shell! What fire that a Delaware can light
would burn the child of my fathers," he added, pointing proudly to the
simple blazonry on his skin; "the blood that came from such a stock
would smother your flames! My race is the grandfather of nations!"

"Who art thou?" demanded Tamenund, rising at the startling tones
he heard, more than at any meaning conveyed by the language of the
prisoner.

"Uncas, the son of Chingachgook," answered the captive modestly, turning
from the nation, and bending his head in reverence to the other's
character and years; "a son of the great Unamis."*

* Turtle.

"The hour of Tamenund is nigh!" exclaimed the sage; "the day is come,
at last, to the night! I thank the Manitou, that one is here to fill my
place at the council-fire. Uncas, the child of Uncas, is found! Let the
eyes of a dying eagle gaze on the rising sun."

The youth stepped lightly, but proudly on the platform, where he became
visible to the whole agitated and wondering multitude. Tamenund held him
long at the length of his arm and read every turn in the fine lineaments
of his countenance, with the untiring gaze of one who recalled days of
happiness.

"Is Tamenund a boy?" at length the bewildered prophet exclaimed. "Have
I dreamed of so many snows--that my people were scattered like floating
sands--of Yengeese, more plenty than the leaves on the trees! The arrow
of Tamenund would not frighten the fawn; his arm is withered like the
branch of a dead oak; the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is
Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale faces! Uncas,
the panther of his tribe, the eldest son of the Lenape, the wisest
Sagamore of the Mohicans! Tell me, ye Delawares, has Tamenund been a
sleeper for a hundred winters?"

The calm and deep silence which succeeded these words sufficiently
announced the awful reverence with which his people received the
communication of the patriarch. None dared to answer, though all
listened in breathless expectation of what might follow. Uncas, however,
looking in his face with the fondness and veneration of a favored child,
presumed on his own high and acknowledged rank, to reply.

"Four warriors of his race have lived and died," he said, "since the
friend of Tamenund led his people in battle. The blood of the turtle has
been in many chiefs, but all have gone back into the earth from whence
they came, except Chingachgook and his son."

"It is true--it is true," returned the sage, a flash of recollection
destroying all his pleasing fancies, and restoring him at once to a
consciousness of the true history of his nation. "Our wise men have
often said that two warriors of the unchanged race were in the hills of
the Yengeese; why have their seats at the council-fires of the Delawares
been so long empty?"

At these words the young man raised his head, which he had still kept
bowed a little, in reverence; and lifting his voice so as to be heard
by the multitude, as if to explain at once and forever the policy of his
family, he said aloud:

"Once we slept where we could hear the salt lake speak in its anger.
Then we were rulers and Sagamores over the land. But when a pale face
was seen on every brook, we followed the deer back to the river of our
nation. The Delawares were gone. Few warriors of them all stayed to
drink of the stream they loved. Then said my fathers, 'Here will we
hunt. The waters of the river go into the salt lake. If we go toward
the setting sun, we shall find streams that run into the great lakes of
sweet water; there would a Mohican die, like fishes of the sea, in the
clear springs. When the Manitou is ready and shall say "Come," we will
follow the river to the sea, and take our own again.' Such, Delawares,
is the belief of the children of the Turtle. Our eyes are on the rising
and not toward the setting sun. We know whence he comes, but we know not
whither he goes. It is enough."

The men of the Lenape listened to his words with all the respect that
superstition could lend, finding a secret charm even in the figurative
language with which the young Sagamore imparted his ideas. Uncas himself
watched the effect of his brief explanation with intelligent eyes, and
gradually dropped the air of authority he had assumed, as he perceived
that his auditors were content. Then, permitting his looks to wander
over the silent throng that crowded around the elevated seat of
Tamenund, he first perceived Hawkeye in his bonds. Stepping eagerly
from his stand, he made way for himself to the side of his friend; and
cutting his thongs with a quick and angry stroke of his own knife, he
motioned to the crowd to divide. The Indians silently obeyed, and once
more they stood ranged in their circle, as before his appearance among
them. Uncas took the scout by the hand, and led him to the feet of the
patriarch.

"Father," he said, "look at this pale face; a just man, and the friend
of the Delawares."

"Is he a son of Minquon?"

"Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and feared by the Maquas."

"What name has he gained by his deeds?"

"We call him Hawkeye," Uncas replied, using the Delaware phrase; "for
his sight never fails. The Mingoes know him better by the death he gives
their warriors; with them he is 'The Long Rifle'."

"La Longue Carabine!" exclaimed Tamenund, opening his eyes, and
regarding the scout sternly. "My son has not done well to call him
friend."

"I call him so who proves himself such," returned the young chief, with
great calmness, but with a steady mien. "If Uncas is welcome among the
Delawares, then is Hawkeye with his friends."

"The pale face has slain my young men; his name is great for the blows
he has struck the Lenape."

"If a Mingo has whispered that much in the ear of the Delaware, he has
only shown that he is a singing-bird," said the scout, who now believed
that it was time to vindicate himself from such offensive charges,
and who spoke as the man he addressed, modifying his Indian figures,
however, with his own peculiar notions. "That I have slain the Maquas
I am not the man to deny, even at their own council-fires; but that,
knowingly, my hand has never harmed a Delaware, is opposed to the reason
of my gifts, which is friendly to them, and all that belongs to their
nation."

A low exclamation of applause passed among the warriors who exchanged
looks with each other like men that first began to perceive their error.

"Where is the Huron?" demanded Tamenund. "Has he stopped my ears?"

Magua, whose feelings during that scene in which Uncas had triumphed may
be much better imagined than described, answered to the call by stepping
boldly in front of the patriarch.

"The just Tamenund," he said, "will not keep what a Huron has lent."

"Tell me, son of my brother," returned the sage, avoiding the dark
countenance of Le Subtil, and turning gladly to the more ingenuous
features of Uncas, "has the stranger a conqueror's right over you?"

"He has none. The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he
is strong, and knows how to leap through them."

"La Longue Carabine?"

"Laughs at the Mingoes. Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear."

"The stranger and white maiden that come into my camp together?"

"Should journey on an open path."

"And the woman that Huron left with my warriors?"

Uncas made no reply.

"And the woman that the Mingo has brought into my camp?" repeated
Tamenund, gravely.

"She is mine," cried Magua, shaking his hand in triumph at Uncas.
"Mohican, you know that she is mine."

"My son is silent," said Tamenund, endeavoring to read the expression of
the face that the youth turned from him in sorrow.

"It is so," was the low answer.

A short and impressive pause succeeded, during which it was very
apparent with what reluctance the multitude admitted the justice of the
Mingo's claim. At length the sage, on whom alone the decision depended,
said, in a firm voice:

"Huron, depart."

"As he came, just Tamenund," demanded the wily Magua, "or with hands
filled with the faith of the Delawares? The wigwam of Le Renard Subtil
is empty. Make him strong with his own."

The aged man mused with himself for a time; and then, bending his head
toward one of his venerable companions, he asked:

"Are my ears open?"

"It is true."

"Is this Mingo a chief?"

"The first in his nation."

"Girl, what wouldst thou? A great warrior takes thee to wife. Go! thy
race will not end."

"Better, a thousand times, it should," exclaimed the horror-struck Cora,
"than meet with such a degradation!"

"Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers. An unwilling maiden
makes an unhappy wigwam."

"She speaks with the tongue of her people," returned Magua, regarding
his victim with a look of bitter irony.

"She is of a race of traders, and will bargain for a bright look. Let
Tamenund speak the words."

"Take you the wampum, and our love."

"Nothing hence but what Magua brought hither."

"Then depart with thine own. The Great Manitou forbids that a Delaware
should be unjust."

Magua advanced, and seized his captive strongly by the arm; the
Delawares fell back, in silence; and Cora, as if conscious that
remonstrance would be useless, prepared to submit to her fate without
resistance.

"Hold, hold!" cried Duncan, springing forward; "Huron, have mercy! her
ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known
to be."

"Magua is a red-skin; he wants not the beads of the pale faces."

"Gold, silver, powder, lead--all that a warrior needs shall be in thy
wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief."

"Le Subtil is very strong," cried Magua, violently shaking the hand
which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; "he has his revenge!"

"Mighty ruler of Providence!" exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands
together in agony, "can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I
appeal for mercy."

"The words of the Delaware are said," returned the sage, closing his
eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and
his bodily exertion. "Men speak not twice."

"That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what has once
been spoken is wise and reasonable," said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan
to be silent; "but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well
before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I
love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor
at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end,
many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your
judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that
into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would
greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands."

"Will 'The Long Rifle' give his life for the woman?" demanded Magua,
hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion toward quitting the place
with his victim.

"No, no; I have not said so much as that," returned Hawkeye, drawing
back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which
Magua listened to his proposal. "It would be an unequal exchange, to
give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best
woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter quarters, now
--at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn--on condition you will
release the maiden."

Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.

"Well, then," added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not
half made up his mind; "I will throw 'killdeer' into the bargain. Take
the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween
the provinces."