The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long seemed dry, and followed
each other down those cheeks, that had oftener felt the storms of heaven than
any testimonials of weakness. The singers were dwelling on one of those low,
dying chords, which the ear devours with such greedy rapture, as if conscious
that it is about to lose them, when a cry, that seemed neither human nor
earthly, rose in the outward air, penetrating not only the recesses of the
cavern, but to the inmost hearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a
stillness apparently as deep as if the waters had been checked in their furious
progress, at such a horrid and unusual interruption.
“What is it?” murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible
suspense.
“What is it?” murmured Alice, after a few
moments of terrible suspense.
“What is it?” repeated Hewyard aloud.
Neither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if expecting
the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed their own
astonishment. At length they spoke together, earnestly, in the Delaware
language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed aperture,
cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first spoke in English.
“What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell, though two of us have
ranged the woods for more than thirty years. I did believe there was no cry
that Indian or beast could make, that my ears had not heard; but this has
proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal.”
“Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to
intimidate their enemies?” asked Cora who stood drawing her veil about
her person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.
“No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound; but
when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for anything else.
Well, Uncas!” speaking in Delaware to the young chief as he re-entered,
“what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?”
The answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same tongue.
“There is nothing to be seen without,” continued Hawkeye, shaking
his head in discontent; “and our hiding-place is still in darkness. Pass
into the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be afoot
long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to Edward, while the
Mingoes are taking their morning nap.”
Cora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the more
timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place, however, she
whispered a request to Duncan, that he would follow. Uncas raised the blanket
for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank him for this act of
attention, they saw the scout seated again before the dying embers, with his
face resting on his hands, in a manner which showed how deeply he brooded on
the unaccountable interruption which had broken up their evening devotions.
Heyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through the
narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable position, he
joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him for the first time
since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort Edward.
“Leave us not, Duncan,” said Alice: “we cannot sleep in such
a place as this, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears.”
“First let us examine into the security of your fortress,” he
answered, “and then we will speak of rest.”
He approached the further end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like the
others, was concealed by blankets; and removing the thick screen, breathed the
fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the river flowed through a
deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn in the soft rock, directly
beneath his feet, forming an effectual defense, as he believed, against any
danger from that quarter; the water, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing,
and sweeping along in its most violent and broken manner.
“Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side,” he
continued, pointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current
before he dropped the blanket; “and as you know that good men and true
are on guard in front I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should
be disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is
necessary to you both.”
“Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion though she cannot put it
in practice,” returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by the
side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; “there would be other causes to
chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this mysterious noise.
Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the anxiety a father must endure,
whose children lodge he knows not where or how, in such a wilderness, and in
the midst of so many perils?”
“He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the
woods.”
“He is a father, and cannot deny his nature.”
“How kind has he ever been to all my follies, how tender and indulgent to
all my wishes!” sobbed Alice. “We have been selfish, sister, in
urging our visit at such hazard.”
“I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much
embarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might
neglect him in his strait his children at least were faithful.”
“When he heard of your arrival at Edward,” said Heyward, kindly,
“there was a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though
the latter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly
prevailed. ‘It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them,
Duncan’, he said, ‘and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he
who holds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but
half her firmness!’”
“And did he not speak of me, Heyward?” demanded Alice, with jealous
affection; “surely, he forgot not altogether his little Elsie?”
“That were impossible,” returned the young man; “he called
you by a thousand endearing epithets, that I may not presume to use, but to the
justice of which, I can warmly testify. Once, indeed, he said—”
Duncan ceased speaking; for while his eyes were riveted on those of Alice, who
had turned toward him with the eagerness of filial affection, to catch his
words, the same strong, horrid cry, as before, filled the air, and rendered him
mute. A long, breathless silence succeeded, during which each looked at the
others in fearful expectation of hearing the sound repeated. At length, the
blanket was slowly raised, and the scout stood in the aperture with a
countenance whose firmness evidently began to give way before a mystery that
seemed to threaten some danger, against which all his cunning and experience
might prove of no avail.
CHAPTER VII.
“They do not sleep,
On yonder cliffs, a grizzly band,
I see them sit.”—Gray
“’Twould be neglecting a warning that is given for our good to lie
hid any longer,” said Hawkeye “when such sounds are raised in the
forest. These gentle ones may keep close, but the Mohicans and I will watch
upon the rock, where I suppose a major of the Sixtieth would wish to keep us
company.”
“Is, then, our danger so pressing?” asked Cora.
“He who makes strange sounds, and gives them out for man’s
information, alone knows our danger. I should think myself wicked, unto
rebellion against His will, was I to burrow with such warnings in the air! Even
the weak soul who passes his days in singing is stirred by the cry, and, as he
says, is ‘ready to go forth to the battle’ If ’twere only a
battle, it would be a thing understood by us all, and easily managed; but I
have heard that when such shrieks are atween heaven and ’arth, it
betokens another sort of warfare!”
“If all our reasons for fear, my friend, are confined to such as proceed
from supernatural causes, we have but little occasion to be alarmed,”
continued the undisturbed Cora, “are you certain that our enemies have
not invented some new and ingenious method to strike us with terror, that their
conquest may become more easy?”
“Lady,” returned the scout, solemnly, “I have listened to all
the sounds of the woods for thirty years, as a man will listen whose life and
death depend on the quickness of his ears. There is no whine of the panther, no
whistle of the catbird, nor any invention of the devilish Mingoes, that can
cheat me! I have heard the forest moan like mortal men in their affliction;
often, and again, have I listened to the wind playing its music in the branches
of the girdled trees; and I have heard the lightning cracking in the air like
the snapping of blazing brush as it spitted forth sparks and forked flames; but
never have I thought that I heard more than the pleasure of him who sported
with the things of his hand. But neither the Mohicans, nor I, who am a white
man without a cross, can explain the cry just heard. We, therefore, believe it
a sign given for our good.”
“It is extraordinary!” said Heyward, taking his pistols from the
place where he had laid them on entering; “be it a sign of peace or a
signal of war, it must be looked to. Lead the way, my friend; I follow.”
On issuing from their place of confinement, the whole party instantly
experienced a grateful renovation of spirits, by exchanging the pent air of the
hiding-place for the cool and invigorating atmosphere which played around the
whirlpools and pitches of the cataract. A heavy evening breeze swept along the
surface of the river, and seemed to drive the roar of the falls into the
recesses of their own cavern, whence it issued heavily and constant, like
thunder rumbling beyond the distant hills. The moon had risen, and its light
was already glancing here and there on the waters above them; but the extremity
of the rock where they stood still lay in shadow. With the exception of the
sounds produced by the rushing waters, and an occasional breathing of the air,
as it murmured past them in fitful currents, the scene was as still as night
and solitude could make it. In vain were the eyes of each individual bent along
the opposite shores, in quest of some signs of life, that might explain the
nature of the interruption they had heard. Their anxious and eager looks were
baffled by the deceptive light, or rested only on naked rocks, and straight and
immovable trees.
“Here is nothing to be seen but the gloom and quiet of a lovely
evening,” whispered Duncan; “how much should we prize such a scene,
and all this breathing solitude, at any other moment, Cora! Fancy yourselves in
security, and what now, perhaps, increases your terror, may be made conducive
to enjoyment—”
“Listen!” interrupted Alice.
The caution was unnecessary. Once more the same sound arose, as if from the bed
of the river, and having broken out of the narrow bounds of the cliffs, was
heard undulating through the forest, in distant and dying cadences.
“Can any here give a name to such a cry?” demanded Hawkeye, when
the last echo was lost in the woods; “if so, let him speak; for myself, I
judge it not to belong to ’arth!”
“Here, then, is one who can undeceive you,” said Duncan; “I
know the sound full well, for often have I heard it on the field of battle, and
in situations which are frequent in a soldier’s life. ’Tis the
horrid shriek that a horse will give in his agony; oftener drawn from him in
pain, though sometimes in terror. My charger is either a prey to the beasts of
the forest, or he sees his danger, without the power to avoid it. The sound
might deceive me in the cavern, but in the open air I know it too well to be
wrong.”
The scout and his companions listened to this simple explanation with the
interest of men who imbibe new ideas, at the same time that they get rid of old