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CHAPTER 5
..."In such a night Did This be fearfully o'ertrip the dew; And saw the lion's shadow
ere himself." --Merchant of Venice
The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the pursuers, caused
Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive surprise.
Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he dashed aside the
surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend his aid in the chase.
Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards, he met the three foresters already
returning from their unsuccessful pursuit.
"Why so soon disheartened!" he exclaimed; "the scoundrel must be concealed behind
some of these trees, and may yet be secured.
We are not safe while he goes at large."
"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed scout; "I heard
the imp brushing over the dry leaves, like a black snake, and blinking a glimpse of
him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I pulled
as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a reasoning aim, if anybody
but myself had touched the trigger, I should call it a quick sight; and I may be
accounted to have experience in these matters, and one who ought to know.
Look at this sumach; its leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the
yellow blossom in the month of July!"
"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!"
"No, no," returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion, "I rubbed
the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the longer for it.
A rifle bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks him, much the same as one of
your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens motion, and puts life into the flesh,
instead of taking it away.
But when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly, a
stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!"
"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!"
"Is life grievous to you?" interrupted the scout.
"Yonder red devil would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades,
before you were heated in the chase.
It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so often slept with the war-whoop ringing
in the air, to let off his piece within sound of an ambushment!
But then it was a natural temptation!
'twas very natural!
Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such fashion, too, as will throw the
cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent, or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front
of Montcalm's marquee, ag'in this hour to- morrow."
This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool assurance of a man
who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face the danger, served to remind
Heyward of the importance of the charge with which he himself had been intrusted.
Glancing his eyes around, with a vain effort to pierce the gloom that was
thickening beneath the leafy arches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human
aid, his unresisting companions would soon
lie at the entire mercy of those barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only
waited till the gathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain.
His awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each waving
bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and twenty times he
fancied he could distinguish the horrid
visages of his lurking foes, peering from their hiding places, in never ceasing
watchfulness of the movements of his party.
Looking upward, he found that the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on
the blue sky, were already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the
imbedded stream, which glided past the spot
where he stood, was to be traced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.
"What is to be done!" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt in such a
pressing strait; "desert me not, for God's sake! remain to defend those I escort, and
freely name your own reward!"
His companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe, heeded not this
sudden and earnest appeal.
Though their dialogue was maintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a
whisper, Heyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones of the
younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.
It was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure, that nearly
concerned the welfare of the travelers.
Yielding to his powerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that
seemed fraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the
dusky group, with an intention of making
his offers of compensation more definite, when the white man, motioning with his
hand, as if he conceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,
and in the English tongue:
"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless things to their
fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place forever.
If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the worst of serpents,
gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor resolution to throw away!"
"How can such a wish be doubted!
Have I not already offered--"
"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the cunning of the
devils who fill these woods," calmly interrupted the scout, "but spare your
offers of money, which neither you may live to realize, nor I to profit by.
These Mohicans and I will do what man's thoughts can invent, to keep such flowers,
which, though so sweet, were never made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without
hope of any other recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.
First, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your friends, or
without serving you we shall only injure ourselves!"
"Name them."
"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen and the other
is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a secret from all mortal men."
"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled."
"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the heart's blood
to a stricken deer!"
Heyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through the
increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps, swiftly, toward the
place where he had left the remainder of the party.
When they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly acquainted them
with the conditions of their new guide, and with the necessity that existed for their
hushing every apprehension in instant and serious exertions.
Although his alarming communication was not received without much secret terror by the
listeners, his earnest and impressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the
danger, succeeded in bracing their nerves
to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.
Silently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist them from
their saddles, and when they descended quickly to the water's edge, where the
scout had collected the rest of the party,
more by the agency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.
"What to do with these dumb creatures!" muttered the white man, on whom the sole
control of their future movements appeared to devolve; "it would be time lost to cut
their throats, and cast them into the
river; and to leave them here would be to tell the Mingoes that they have not far to
seek to find their owners!"
"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods," Heyward ventured to
suggest.
"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they must equal
a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will blind their fireballs of
eyes!
Chingach--Hist! what stirs the bush?" "The colt."
"That colt, at least, must die," muttered the scout, grasping at the mane of the
nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; "Uncas, your arrows!"
"Hold!" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without regard to
the whispering tones used by the others; "spare the foal of Miriam! it is the comely
offspring of a faithful dam, and would willingly injure naught."
"When men struggle for the single life God has given them," said the scout, sternly,
"even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood.
If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
Draw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows."
The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible, when
the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward to its knees.
It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its throat quicker than
thought, and then precipitating the motions of the struggling victim, he dashed into
the river, down whose stream it glided
away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life.
This deed of apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the
travelers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood, heightened as it
was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors in the scene.
The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other, while Heyward instinctively
laid his hand on one of the pistols he had just drawn from their holsters, as he
placed himself between his charge and those
dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before the *** of the
forest.
The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles, they led
the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.
At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed by the
projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a direction opposite
to the course of the waters.
In the meantime, the scout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath
some low bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current, into which
he silently motioned for the females to enter.
They complied without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was
thrown behind them, toward the thickening gloom, which now lay like a dark barrier
along the margin of the stream.
So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the element,
directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and posting himself at the
other, they bore it up against the stream,
followed by the dejected owner of the dead foal.
In this manner they proceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only
interrupted by the rippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the
low dash made by their own cautious footsteps.
Heyward yielded the guidance of the canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or
receded from the shore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the
river, with a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.
Occasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness, that the
dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render more impressive, he
would listen with painful intenseness, to
catch any sounds that might arise from the slumbering forest.
When assured that all was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practiced
senses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume his slow and
guarded progress.
At length they reached a point in the river where the roving eye of Heyward became
riveted on a cluster of black objects, collected at a spot where the high bank
threw a deeper shadow than usual on the dark waters.
Hesitating to advance, he pointed out the place to the attention of his companion.
"Ay," returned the composed scout, "the Indians have hid the beasts with the
judgment of natives!
Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes would be blinded by the darkness of such a
hole."
The whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held between the
scout and his new comrades, during which, they, whose fates depended on the faith and
ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a
little leisure to observe their situation more minutely.
The river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which impended above
the spot where the canoe rested.
As these, again, were surmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the
brows of the precipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep
and narrow dell.
All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree tops, which were, here and there,
dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay alike in shadowed obscurity.
Behind them, the curvature of the banks soon bounded the view by the same dark and
wooded outline; but in front, and apparently at no great distance, the water
seemed piled against the heavens, whence it
tumbled into caverns, out of which issued those sullen sounds that had loaded the
evening atmosphere.
It seemed, in truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a
soothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic though not
unappalling beauties.
A general movement among their conductors, however, soon recalled them from a
contemplation of the wild charms that night had assisted to lend the place to a painful
sense of their real peril.
The horses had been secured to some scattering shrubs that grew in the fissures
of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to pass the night.
The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate fellow travelers to seat
themselves in the forward end of the canoe, and took possession of the other himself,
as erect and steady as if he floated in a vessel of much firmer materials.
The Indians warily retraced their steps toward the place they had left, when the
scout, placing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail bark
directly into the turbulent stream.
For many minutes the struggle between the light bubble in which they floated and the
swift current was severe and doubtful.
Forbidden to stir even a hand, and almost afraid to breath, lest they should expose
the frail fabric to the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters
in feverish suspense.
Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were sweeping them to destruction,
when the master-hand of their pilot would bring the bows of the canoe to stem the
rapid.
A long, a vigorous, and, as it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the
struggle.
Just as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they were about
to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract, the canoe floated,
stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a level with the water.
"Where are we, and what is next to be done!" demanded Heyward, perceiving that
the exertions of the scout had ceased.
"You are at the foot of Glenn's," returned the other, speaking aloud, without fear of
consequences within the roar of the cataract; "and the next thing is to make a
steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and
you should go down again the hard road we have traveled faster than you came up; 'tis
a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled; and five is an unnatural
number to keep dry, in a hurry-skurry, with a little birchen bark and gum.
There, go you all on the rock, and I will bring up the Mohicans with the venison.
A man had better sleep without his scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty."
His passengers gladly complied with these directions.
As the last foot touched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the
tall form of the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before
it disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of the river.
Left by their guide, the travelers remained a few minutes in helpless ignorance, afraid
even to move along the broken rocks, lest a false step should precipitate them down
some one of the many deep and roaring
caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of them.
Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for, aided by the skill of the natives, the
canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at the side of the low rock, before
they thought the scout had even time to rejoin his companions.
"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned," cried Heyward cheerfully,
"and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance.
How, now, my vigilant sentinel, can see anything of those you call the Iroquois, on
the main land!"
"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign tongue, is
accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!
If Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the tribes of the
Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and Oneidas, with their six nations
of varlets, where in nature they belong, among the French!"
"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend!
I have heard that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
called women!"
"Aye, shame on the Hollanders and Iroquois, who circumvented them by their deviltries,
into such a treaty!
But I have known them for twenty years, and I call him liar that says cowardly blood
runs in the veins of a Delaware.
You have driven their tribes from the seashore, and would now believe what their
enemies say, that you may sleep at night upon an easy pillow.
No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign tongue is an Iroquois, whether the
castle (FOOTNOTE: The principal villages of the Indians are still called "castles"
by the whites of New York.
"Oneida castle" is no more than a scattered hamlet; but the name is in general use.)
-of his tribe be in Canada, or be in York."
Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the cause of his
friends the Delawares, or Mohicans, for they were branches of the same numerous
people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion, changed the subject.
"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well that your two companions are brave and cautious
warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our enemies!"
"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen," returned the scout, ascending the
rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down.
"I trust to other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the
trail of the Mingoes." "Do your ears tell you that they have
traced our retreat?"
"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout courage
might hold for a smart scrimmage.
I will not deny, however, but the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they
scented the wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian
ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."
"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the dead colt?
Ha! what noise is that?"
"Poor Miriam!" murmured the stranger; "thy foal was foreordained to become a prey to
ravenous beasts!"
Then, suddenly lifting up his voice, amid the eternal din of the waters, he sang
aloud: "First born of Egypt, smite did he, Of mankind, and of beast also: O, Egypt!
wonders sent 'midst thee, On Pharaoh and his servants too!"
"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner," said the scout; "but
it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.
He has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will happen;
and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits to the rationality of
killing a four-footed beast to save the lives of human men.
It may be as you say," he continued, reverting to the purport of Heyward's last
remark; "and the greater the reason why we should cut our steaks, and let the carcass
drive down the stream, or we shall have the
pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.
Besides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the Iroquois, the cunning
varlets are quick enough at understanding the reason of a wolf's howl."
The scout, while making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain necessary
implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of travelers,
accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to
comprehend his intentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared
in succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a perpendicular rock that
rose to the height of a few yards, within as many feet of the water's edge.