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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
*** 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."
(FOOTNOTE: 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." Magua still disdained to reply, continuing
his efforts to disperse the crowd.
"Perhaps," added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness exactly in proportion
as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, "if I should condition to
teach your young men the real virtue of the
we'pon, it would smoothe the little differences in our judgments."
Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an impenetrable belt
around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable proposal, to open his path,
threatening, by the glance of his eye,
another appeal to the infallible justice of their "prophet."
"What is ordered must sooner or later arrive," continued Hawkeye, turning with a
sad and humbled look to Uncas.
"The varlet knows his advantage and will keep it!
God bless you, boy; you have found friends among your natural kin, and I hope they
will prove as true as some you have met who had no Indian cross.
As for me, sooner or later, I must die; it is, therefore, fortunate there are but few
to make my death-howl.
After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp, so a day or two
will make no great difference in the everlasting reckoning of time.
God bless you," added the rugged woodsman, bending his head aside, and then instantly
changing its direction again, with a wistful look toward the youth; "I loved
both you and your father, Uncas, though our
skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are somewhat different.
Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my greatest trouble; and, as for you,
think of me sometimes when on a lucky trail, and depend on it, boy, whether there
be one heaven or two, there is a path in
the other world by which honest men may come together again.
You'll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep it for my sake; and,
harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don't deny you the use of vengeance, use it a
little freely on the Mingoes; it may
unburden griefs at my loss, and ease your mind.
Huron, I accept your offer; release the woman.
I am your prisoner!"
A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation ran through the crowd at this
generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware warriors manifesting
pleasure at the manliness of the intended sacrifice.
Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he doubted; then, casting
his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which ferocity and admiration were
strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed forever.
He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his head, and said, in
a steady and settled voice:
"Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind.
Come," he added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive
to urge her onward; "a Huron is no tattler; we will go."
The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled, while
the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into her very
temples, at the indignity.
"I am your prisoner, and, at a fitting time shall be ready to follow, even to my death.
But violence is unnecessary," she coldly said; and immediately turning to Hawkeye,
added: "Generous hunter! from my soul I thank you.
Your offer is vain, neither could it be accepted; but still you may serve me, even
more than in your own noble intention. Look at that drooping humbled child!
Abandon her not until you leave her in the habitations of civilized men.
I will not say," wringing the hard hand of the scout, "that her father will reward
you--for such as you are above the rewards of men--but he will thank you and bless
And, believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight of Heaven.
Would to God I could hear one word from his lips at this awful moment!"
Her voice became choked, and, for an instant, she was silent; then, advancing a
step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her unconscious sister, she continued, in
more subdued tones, but in which feeling
and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle: "I need not tell you to
cherish the treasure you will possess. You love her, Heyward; that would conceal a
thousand faults, though she had them.
She is kind, gentle, sweet, good, as mortal may be.
There is not a blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken.
She is fair--oh! how surpassingly fair!" laying her own beautiful, but less
brilliant, hand in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead of Alice, and
parting the golden hair which clustered
about her brows; "and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin!
I could say much--more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will
spare you and myself--" Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over the
form of her sister.
After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and with features of the hue of death, but
without even a tear in her feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage,
with all her former elevation of manner:
"Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will follow."
"Ay, go," cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl; "go, Magua, go.
These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to detain you; but I--I have no
such obligation. Go, malignant monster--why do you delay?"
It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua listened to
this threat to follow.
There was at first a fierce and manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly
subdued in a look of cunning coldness. "The words are open," he was content with
answering, "'The Open Hand' can come."
"Hold," cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by violence;
"you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an ambushment, and
your death--"
"Huron," interrupted Uncas, who submissive to the stern customs of his people, had
been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed; "Huron, the justice of the
Delawares comes from the Manitou.
Look at the sun. He is now in the upper branches of the
hemlock. Your path is short and open.
When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your trail."
"I hear a crow!" exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh.
"Go!" he added, shaking his hand at the crowd, which had slowly opened to admit his
passage. "Where are the petticoats of the Delawares!
Let them send their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to
eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves--I spit on you!"
His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with these
biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested into the forest,
followed by his passive captive, and
protected by the inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.