The Last of the Mohicans

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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.




CHAPTER 33

"They fought, like brave men, long and well,
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered--but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their loud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun."
--Halleck.

The sun found the Lenape, on the succeeding day, a nation of mourners.
The sounds of the battle were over, and they had fed fat their ancient
grudge, and had avenged their recent quarrel with the Mengwe, by the
destruction of a whole community. The black and murky atmosphere that
floated around the spot where the Hurons had encamped, sufficiently
announced of itself, the fate of that wandering tribe; while hundreds of
ravens, that struggled above the summits of the mountains, or swept, in
noisy flocks, across the wide ranges of the woods, furnished a frightful
direction to the scene of the combat. In short, any eye at all practised
in the signs of a frontier warfare might easily have traced all those
unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attend an Indian
vengeance.

Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners. No shouts
of success, no songs of triumph, were heard, in rejoicings for their
victory. The latest straggler had returned from his fell employment,
only to strip himself of the terrific emblems of his bloody calling,
and to join in the lamentations of his countrymen, as a stricken people.
Pride and exultation were supplanted by humility, and the fiercest
of human passions was already succeeded by the most profound and
unequivocal demonstrations of grief.

The lodges were deserted; but a broad belt of earnest faces encircled a
spot in their vicinity, whither everything possessing life had repaired,
and where all were now collected, in deep and awful silence. Though
beings of every rank and age, of both sexes, and of all pursuits, had
united to form this breathing wall of bodies, they were influenced by a
single emotion. Each eye was riveted on the center of that ring, which
contained the objects of so much and of so common an interest.

Six Delaware girls, with their long, dark, flowing tresses falling
loosely across their bosoms, stood apart, and only gave proof of their
existence as they occasionally strewed sweet-scented herbs and forest
flowers on a litter of fragrant plants that, under a pall of Indian
robes, supported all that now remained of the ardent, high-souled,
and generous Cora. Her form was concealed in many wrappers of the same
simple manufacture, and her face was shut forever from the gaze of
men. At her feet was seated the desolate Munro. His aged head was
bowed nearly to the earth, in compelled submission to the stroke of
Providence; but a hidden anguish struggled about his furrowed brow,
that was only partially concealed by the careless locks of gray that
had fallen, neglected, on his temples. Gamut stood at his side, his
meek head bared to the rays of the sun, while his eyes, wandering and
concerned, seemed to be equally divided between that little volume,
which contained so many quaint but holy maxims, and the being in whose
behalf his soul yearned to administer consolation. Heyward was also
nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavoring to keep down
those sudden risings of sorrow that it required his utmost manhood to
subdue.

But sad and melancholy as this group may easily be imagined, it was far
less touching than another, that occupied the opposite space of the same
area. Seated, as in life, with his form and limbs arranged in grave and
decent composure, Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments
that the wealth of the tribe could furnish. Rich plumes nodded above
his head; wampum, gorgets, bracelets, and medals, adorned his person
in profusion; though his dull eye and vacant lineaments too strongly
contradicted the idle tale of pride they would convey.

Directly in front of the corpse Chingachgook was placed, without arms,
paint or adornment of any sort, except the bright blue blazonry of his
race, that was indelibly impressed on his naked bosom. During the long
period that the tribe had thus been collected, the Mohican warrior had
kept a steady, anxious look on the cold and senseless countenance of his
son. So riveted and intense had been that gaze, and so changeless his
attitude, that a stranger might not have told the living from the dead,
but for the occasional gleamings of a troubled spirit, that shot athwart
the dark visage of one, and the deathlike calm that had forever settled
on the lineaments of the other. The scout was hard by, leaning in a
pensive posture on his own fatal and avenging weapon; while Tamenund,
supported by the elders of his nation, occupied a high place at hand,
whence he might look down on the mute and sorrowful assemblage of his
people.

Just within the inner edge of the circle stood a soldier, in the
military attire of a strange nation; and without it was his warhorse, in
the center of a collection of mounted domestics, seemingly in readiness
to undertake some distant journey. The vestments of the stranger
announced him to be one who held a responsible situation near the person
of the captain of the Canadas; and who, as it would now seem, finding
his errand of peace frustrated by the fierce impetuosity of his allies,
was content to become a silent and sad spectator of the fruits of a
contest that he had arrived too late to anticipate.

The day was drawing to the close of its first quarter, and yet had the
multitude maintained its breathing stillness since its dawn.

No sound louder than a stifled sob had been heard among them, nor had
even a limb been moved throughout that long and painful period, except
to perform the simple and touching offerings that were made, from time
to time, in commemoration of the dead. The patience and forbearance of
Indian fortitude could alone support such an appearance of abstraction,
as seemed now to have turned each dark and motionless figure into stone.

At length, the sage of the Delawares stretched forth an arm, and leaning
on the shoulders of his attendants, he arose with an air as feeble as
if another age had already intervened between the man who had met his
nation the preceding day, and him who now tottered on his elevated
stand.

"Men of the Lenape!" he said, in low, hollow tones, that sounded like a
voice charged with some prophetic mission: "the face of the Manitou
is behind a cloud! His eye is turned from you; His ears are shut; His
tongue gives no answer. You see him not; yet His judgments are before
you. Let your hearts be open and your spirits tell no lie. Men of the
Lenape! the face of the Manitou is behind a cloud."

As this simple and yet terrible annunciation stole on the ears of the
multitude, a stillness as deep and awful succeeded as if the venerated
spirit they worshiped had uttered the words without the aid of human
organs; and even the inanimate Uncas appeared a being of life, compared
with the humbled and submissive throng by whom he was surrounded. As the
immediate effect, however, gradually passed away, a low murmur of voices
commenced a sort of chant in honor of the dead. The sounds were those of
females, and were thrillingly soft and wailing. The words were connected
by no regular continuation, but as one ceased another took up the
eulogy, or lamentation, whichever it might be called, and gave vent to
her emotions in such language as was suggested by her feelings and the
occasion. At intervals the speaker was interrupted by general and loud
bursts of sorrow, during which the girls around the bier of Cora plucked
the plants and flowers blindly from her body, as if bewildered with
grief. But, in the milder moments of their plaint, these emblems of
purity and sweetness were cast back to their places, with every sign
of tenderness and regret. Though rendered less connected by many and
general interruptions and outbreakings, a translation of their language
would have contained a regular descant, which, in substance, might have
proved to possess a train of consecutive ideas.

A girl, selected for the task by her rank and qualifications,
commenced by modest allusions to the qualities of the deceased warrior,
embellishing her expressions with those oriental images that the
Indians have probably brought with them from the extremes of the other
continent, and which form of themselves a link to connect the ancient
histories of the two worlds. She called him the "panther of his tribe";
and described him as one whose moccasin left no trail on the dews; whose
bound was like the leap of a young fawn; whose eye was brighter than
a star in the dark night; and whose voice, in battle, was loud as the
thunder of the Manitou. She reminded him of the mother who bore him, and
dwelt forcibly on the happiness she must feel in possessing such a son.
She bade him tell her, when they met in the world of spirits, that the
Delaware girls had shed tears above the grave of her child, and had
called her blessed.

Then, they who succeeded, changing their tones to a milder and still
more tender strain, alluded, with the delicacy and sensitiveness of
women, to the stranger maiden, who had left the upper earth at a time
so near his own departure, as to render the will of the Great Spirit too
manifest to be disregarded. They admonished him to be kind to her, and
to have consideration for her ignorance of those arts which were so
necessary to the comfort of a warrior like himself. They dwelled upon
her matchless beauty, and on her noble resolution, without the taint of
envy, and as angels may be thought to delight in a superior excellence;
adding, that these endowments should prove more than equivalent for any
little imperfection in her education.

After which, others again, in due succession, spoke to the maiden
herself, in the low, soft language of tenderness and love. They exhorted
her to be of cheerful mind, and to fear nothing for her future welfare.
A hunter would be her companion, who knew how to provide for her
smallest wants; and a warrior was at her side who was able to protect
he against every danger. They promised that her path should be pleasant,
and her burden light. They cautioned her against unavailing regrets for
the friends of her youth, and the scenes where her father had dwelt;
assuring her that the "blessed hunting grounds of the Lenape," contained
vales as pleasant, streams as pure; and flowers as sweet, as the "heaven
of the pale faces." They advised her to be attentive to the wants of her
companion, and never to forget the distinction which the Manitou had so
wisely established between them. Then, in a wild burst of their chant
they sang with united voices the temper of the Mohican's mind. They
pronounced him noble, manly and generous; all that became a warrior, and
all that a maid might love. Clothing their ideas in the most remote
and subtle images, they betrayed, that, in the short period of their
intercourse, they had discovered, with the intuitive perception of their
sex, the truant disposition of his inclinations. The Delaware girls had
found no favor in his eyes! He was of a race that had once been lords on
the shores of the salt lake, and his wishes had led him back to a
people who dwelt about the graves of his fathers. Why should not such
a predilection be encouraged! That she was of a blood purer and richer
than the rest of her nation, any eye might have seen; that she was
equal to the dangers and daring of a life in the woods, her conduct
had proved; and now, they added, the "wise one of the earth" had
transplanted her to a place where she would find congenial spirits, and
might be forever happy.

Then, with another transition in voice and subject, allusions were
made to the virgin who wept in the adjacent lodge. They compared her to
flakes of snow; as pure, as white, as brilliant, and as liable to melt
in the fierce heats of summer, or congeal in the frosts of winter. They
doubted not that she was lovely in the eyes of the young chief, whose
skin and whose sorrow seemed so like her own; but though far from
expressing such a preference, it was evident they deemed her less
excellent than the maid they mourned. Still they denied her no need
her rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the
exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of heavens,
and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun, was
admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.

During these and similar songs nothing was audible but the murmurs of
the music; relieved, as it was, or rather rendered terrible, by those
occasional bursts of grief which might be called its choruses. The
Delawares themselves listened like charmed men; and it was very
apparent, by the variations of their speaking countenances, how deep and
true was their sympathy. Even David was not reluctant to lend his ears
to the tones of voices so sweet; and long ere the chant was ended, his
gaze announced that his soul was enthralled.

The scout, to whom alone, of all the white men, the words were
intelligible, suffered himself to be a little aroused from his
meditative posture, and bent his face aside, to catch their meaning, as
the girls proceeded. But when they spoke of the future prospects of
Cora and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their
simple creed, and resuming his reclining attitude, he maintained it
until the ceremony, if that might be called a ceremony, in which feeling
was so deeply imbued, was finished. Happily for the self-command of both
Heyward and Munro, they knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they
heard.

Chingachgook was a solitary exception to the interest manifested by the
native part of the audience. His look never changed throughout the whole
of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at
the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and
senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but
that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their
final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now
about to be closed forever from his view.

In this stage of the obsequies, a warrior much renowned for deed in
arms, and more especially for services in the recent combat, a man of
stern and grave demeanor, advanced slowly from the crowd, and placed
himself nigh the person of the dead.

"Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?" he said, addressing
himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
faculties of the animated man; "thy time has been like that of the sun
when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
briers from thy path to the world of the spirits. Who that saw thee in
battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and
thy voice like the Manitou when He speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
Uttawa is weak," he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
"and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
left us?"

He was succeeded by others, in due order, until most of the high and
gifted men of the nation had sung or spoken their tribute of praise over
the manes of the deceased chief. When each had ended, another deep and
breathing silence reigned in all the place.