The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
The young man was relieved from the awkwardness of making any further
protestations of his own demerits, by an exclamation from Chingachgook, and the
attitude of riveted attention assumed by his son.
“The Mohicans hear an enemy!” whispered Hawkeye, who, by this time,
in common with the whole party, was awake and stirring. “They scent
danger in the wind!”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Heyward. “Surely we have had enough
of bloodshed!”
While he spoke, however, the young soldier seized his rifle, and advancing
toward the front, prepared to atone for his venial remissness, by freely
exposing his life in defense of those he attended.
“’Tis some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of
food,” he said, in a whisper, as soon as the low, and apparently distant
sounds, which had startled the Mohicans, reached his own ears.
“Hist!” returned the attentive scout; “’tis man; even I
can now tell his tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an
Indian’s! That Scampering Huron has fallen in with one of
Montcalm’s outlying parties, and they have struck upon our trail. I
shouldn’t like, myself, to spill more human blood in this spot,” he
added, looking around with anxiety in his features, at the dim objects by which
he was surrounded; “but what must be, must! Lead the horses into the
blockhouse, Uncas; and, friends, do you follow to the same shelter. Poor and
old as it is, it offers a cover, and has rung with the crack of a rifle afore
to-night!”
He was instantly obeyed, the Mohicans leading the Narrangansetts within the
ruin, whither the whole party repaired with the most guarded silence.
The sound of approaching footsteps were now too distinctly audible to leave any
doubts as to the nature of the interruption. They were soon mingled with voices
calling to each other in an Indian dialect, which the hunter, in a whisper,
affirmed to Heyward was the language of the Hurons. When the party reached the
point where the horses had entered the thicket which surrounded the blockhouse,
they were evidently at fault, having lost those marks which, until that moment,
had directed their pursuit.
It would seem by the voices that twenty men were soon collected at that one
spot, mingling their different opinions and advice in noisy clamor.
“The knaves know our weakness,” whispered Hawkeye, who stood by the
side of Heyward, in deep shade, looking through an opening in the logs,
“or they wouldn’t indulge their idleness in such a squaw’s
march. Listen to the reptiles! each man among them seems to have two tongues,
and but a single leg.”
Duncan, brave as he was in the combat, could not, in such a moment of painful
suspense, make any reply to the cool and characteristic remark of the scout. He
only grasped his rifle more firmly, and fastened his eyes upon the narrow
opening, through which he gazed upon the moonlight view with increasing
anxiety. The deeper tones of one who spoke as having authority were next heard,
amid a silence that denoted the respect with which his orders, or rather
advice, was received. After which, by the rustling of leaves, and crackling of
dried twigs, it was apparent the savages were separating in pursuit of the lost
trail. Fortunately for the pursued, the light of the moon, while it shed a
flood of mild luster upon the little area around the ruin, was not sufficiently
strong to penetrate the deep arches of the forest, where the objects still lay
in deceptive shadow. The search proved fruitless; for so short and sudden had
been the passage from the faint path the travelers had journeyed into the
thicket, that every trace of their footsteps was lost in the obscurity of the
woods.
It was not long, however, before the restless savages were heard beating the
brush, and gradually approaching the inner edge of that dense border of young
chestnuts which encircled the little area.
“They are coming,” muttered Heyward, endeavoring to thrust his
rifle through the chink in the logs; “let us fire on their
approach.”
“Keep everything in the shade,” returned the scout; “the
snapping of a flint, or even the smell of a single karnel of the brimstone,
would bring the hungry varlets upon us in a body. Should it please God that we
must give battle for the scalps, trust to the experience of men who know the
ways of the savages, and who are not often backward when the war-whoop is
howled.”
Duncan cast his eyes behind him, and saw that the trembling sisters were
cowering in the far corner of the building, while the Mohicans stood in the
shadow, like two upright posts, ready, and apparently willing, to strike when
the blow should be needed. Curbing his impatience, he again looked out upon the
area, and awaited the result in silence. At that instant the thicket opened,
and a tall and armed Huron advanced a few paces into the open space. As he
gazed upon the silent blockhouse, the moon fell upon his swarthy countenance,
and betrayed its surprise and curiosity. He made the exclamation which usually
accompanies the former emotion in an Indian, and, calling in a low voice, soon
drew a companion to his side.
These children of the woods stood together for several moments pointing at the
crumbling edifice, and conversing in the unintelligible language of their
tribe. They then approached, though with slow and cautious steps, pausing every
instant to look at the building, like startled deer whose curiosity struggled
powerfully with their awakened apprehensions for the mastery. The foot of one
of them suddenly rested on the mound, and he stopped to examine its nature. At
this moment, Heyward observed that the scout loosened his knife in its sheath,
and lowered the muzzle of his rifle. Imitating these movements, the young man
prepared himself for the struggle which now seemed inevitable.
The savages were so near, that the least motion in one of the horses, or even a
breath louder than common, would have betrayed the fugitives. But in
discovering the character of the mound, the attention of the Hurons appeared
directed to a different object. They spoke together, and the sounds of their
voices were low and solemn, as if influenced by a reverence that was deeply
blended with awe. Then they drew warily back, keeping their eyes riveted on the
ruin, as if they expected to see the apparitions of the dead issue from its
silent walls, until, having reached the boundary of the area, they moved slowly
into the thicket and disappeared.
Hawkeye dropped the breech of his rifle to the earth, and drawing a long, free
breath, exclaimed, in an audible whisper:
“Ay! they respect the dead, and it has this time saved their own lives,
and, it may be, the lives of better men too.”
Heyward lent his attention for a single moment to his companion, but without
replying, he again turned toward those who just then interested him more. He
heard the two Hurons leave the bushes, and it was soon plain that all the
pursuers were gathered about them, in deep attention to their report. After a
few minutes of earnest and solemn dialogue, altogether different from the noisy
clamor with which they had first collected about the spot, the sounds grew
fainter and more distant, and finally were lost in the depths of the forest.
Hawkeye waited until a signal from the listening Chingachgook assured him that
every sound from the retiring party was completely swallowed by the distance,
when he motioned to Heyward to lead forth the horses, and to assist the sisters
into their saddles. The instant this was done they issued through the broken
gateway, and stealing out by a direction opposite to the one by which they
entered, they quitted the spot, the sisters casting furtive glances at the
silent, grave and crumbling ruin, as they left the soft light of the moon, to
bury themselves in the gloom of the woods.
CHAPTER XIV.
“Guard.—Qui est la?
Puc. —Paisans, pauvres gens de France.”
—King Henry VI
The scout resumed his post in the advance
During the rapid movement from the blockhouse, and until the party was deeply
buried in the forest, each individual was too much interested in the escape to
hazard a word even in whispers. The scout resumed his post in advance, though
his steps, after he had thrown a safe distance between himself and his enemies,
were more deliberate than in their previous march, in consequence of his utter
ignorance of the localities of the surrounding woods. More than once he halted
to consult with his confederates, the Mohicans, pointing upward at the moon,
and examining the barks of the trees with care. In these brief pauses, Heyward
and the sisters listened, with senses rendered doubly acute by the danger, to
detect any symptoms which might announce the proximity of their foes. At such
moments, it seemed as if a vast range of country lay buried in eternal sleep;
not the least sound arising from the forest, unless it was the distant and
scarcely audible rippling of a water-course. Birds, beasts, and man, appeared
to slumber alike, if, indeed, any of the latter were to be found in that wide
tract of wilderness. But the sounds of the rivulet, feeble and murmuring as
they were, relieved the guides at once from no trifling embarrassment, and
toward it they immediately held their way.
When the banks of the little stream were gained, Hawkeye made another halt; and
taking the moccasins from his feet, he invited Heyward and Gamut to follow his
example. He then entered the water, and for near an hour they traveled in the
bed of the brook, leaving no trail. The moon had already sunk into an immense
pile of black clouds, which lay impending above the western horizon, when they
issued from the low and devious water-course to rise again to the light and
level of the sandy but wooded plain. Here the scout seemed to be once more at
home, for he held on this way with the certainty and diligence of a man who
moved in the security of his own knowledge. The path soon became more uneven,
and the travelers could plainly perceive that the mountains drew nigher to them
on each hand, and that they were, in truth, about entering one of their gorges.
Suddenly, Hawkeye made a pause, and, waiting until he was joined by the whole
party, he spoke, though in tones so low and cautious, that they added to the
solemnity of his words, in the quiet and darkness of the place.
“It is easy to know the pathways, and to find the licks and water-courses
of the wilderness,” he said; “but who that saw this spot could
venture to say, that a mighty army was at rest among yonder silent trees and
barren mountains?”
“We are, then, at no great distance from William Henry?” said
Heyward, advancing nigher to the scout.
“It is yet a long and weary path, and when and where to strike it is now
our greatest difficulty. See,” he said, pointing through the trees toward
a spot where a little basin of water reflected the stars from its placid bosom,
“here is the ‘bloody pond’; and I am on ground that I have
not only often traveled, but over which I have fou’t the enemy, from the
rising to the setting sun.”
“Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is the sepulcher of the
brave men who fell in the contest. I have heard it named, but never have I
stood on its banks before.”
“Three battles did we make with the Dutch-Frenchman[1]
in a day,” continued Hawkeye, pursuing the train of his own thoughts,
rather than replying to the remark of Duncan. “He met us hard by, in our
outward march to ambush his advance, and scattered us, like driven deer,
through the defile, to the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our fallen
trees, and made head against him, under Sir William—who was made Sir
William for that very deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace of the