The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
useless obstinacy. Monsieur would wish to see my camp, and witness for himself
our numbers, and the impossibility of his resisting them with success?”
“I know that the king of France is well served,” returned the
unmoved Scotsman, as soon as Duncan ended his translation; “but my own
royal master has as many and as faithful troops.”
“Though not at hand, fortunately for us,” said Montcalm, without
waiting, in his ardor, for the interpreter. “There is a destiny in war,
to which a brave man knows how to submit with the same courage that he faces
his foes.”
“Had I been conscious that Monsieur Montcalm was master of the English, I
should have spared myself the trouble of so awkward a translation,” said
the vexed Duncan, dryly; remembering instantly his recent by-play with Munro.
“Your pardon, monsieur,” rejoined the Frenchman, suffering a slight
color to appear on his dark cheek. “There is a vast difference between
understanding and speaking a foreign tongue; you will, therefore, please to
assist me still.” Then, after a short pause, he added: “These hills
afford us every opportunity of reconnoitering your works, messieurs, and I am
possibly as well acquainted with their weak condition as you can be
yourselves.”
“Ask the French general if his glasses can reach to the Hudson,”
said Munro, proudly; “and if he knows when and where to expect the army
of Webb.”
“Let General Webb be his own interpreter,” returned the politic
Montcalm, suddenly extending an open letter toward Munro as he spoke;
“you will there learn, monsieur, that his movements are not likely to
prove embarrassing to my army.”
The veteran seized the offered paper, without waiting for Duncan to translate
the speech, and with an eagerness that betrayed how important he deemed its
contents. As his eye passed hastily over the words, his countenance changed
from its look of military pride to one of deep chagrin; his lip began to
quiver; and suffering the paper to fall from his hand, his head dropped upon
his chest, like that of a man whose hopes were withered at a single blow.
Duncan caught the letter from the ground, and without apology for the liberty
he took, he read at a glance its cruel purport. Their common superior, so far
from encouraging them to resist, advised a speedy surrender, urging in the
plainest language, as a reason, the utter impossibility of his sending a single
man to their rescue.
“Here is no deception!” exclaimed Duncan, examining the billet both
inside and out; “this is the signature of Webb, and must be the captured
letter.”
“The man has betrayed me!” Munro at length bitterly exclaimed;
“he has brought dishonor to the door of one where disgrace was never
before known to dwell, and shame has he heaped heavily on my gray hairs.”
“Say not so,” cried Duncan; “we are yet masters of the fort,
and of our honor. Let us, then, sell our lives at such a rate as shall make our
enemies believe the purchase too dear.”
“Boy, I thank thee,” exclaimed the old man, rousing himself from
his stupor; “you have, for once, reminded Munro of his duty. We will go
back, and dig our graves behind those ramparts.”
“Messieurs,” said Montcalm, advancing toward them a step, in
generous interest, “you little know Louis de St. Veran if you believe him
capable of profiting by this letter to humble brave men, or to build up a
dishonest reputation for himself. Listen to my terms before you leave
me.”
“What says the Frenchman?” demanded the veteran, sternly;
“does he make a merit of having captured a scout, with a note from
headquarters? Sir, he had better raise this siege, to go and sit down before
Edward if he wishes to frighten his enemy with words.”
Duncan explained the other’s meaning.
“Monsieur de Montcalm, we will hear you,” the veteran added, more
calmly, as Duncan ended.
“To retain the fort is now impossible,” said his liberal enemy;
“it is necessary to the interests of my master that it should be
destroyed; but as for yourselves and your brave comrades, there is no privilege
dear to a soldier that shall be denied.”
“Our colors?” demanded Heyward.
“Carry them to England, and show them to your king.”
“Our arms?”
“Keep them; none can use them better.”
“Our march; the surrender of the place?”
“Shall all be done in a way most honorable to yourselves.”
Duncan now turned to explain these proposals to his commander, who heard him
with amazement, and a sensibility that was deeply touched by so unusual and
unexpected generosity.
“Go you, Duncan,” he said; “go with this marquess, as,
indeed, marquess he should be; go to his marquee and arrange it all. I have
lived to see two things in my old age that never did I expect to behold. An
Englishman afraid to support a friend, and a Frenchman too honest to profit by
his advantage.”
So saying, the veteran again dropped his head to his chest, and returned slowly
toward the fort, exhibiting, by the dejection of his air, to the anxious
garrison, a harbinger of evil tidings.
From the shock of this unexpected blow the haughty feelings of Munro never
recovered; but from that moment there commenced a change in his determined
character, which accompanied him to a speedy grave. Duncan remained to settle
the terms of the capitulation. He was seen to re-enter the works during the
first watches of the night, and immediately after a private conference with the
commandant, to leave them again. It was then openly announced that hostilities
must cease—Munro having signed a treaty by which the place was to be
yielded to the enemy, with the morning; the garrison to retain their arms, the
colors and their baggage, and, consequently, according to military opinion,
their honor.
CHAPTER XVII.
“Weave we the woof.
The thread is spun.
The web is wove.
The work is done.”—Gray
The hostile armies, which lay in the wilds of the Horican, passed the night of
the ninth of August, 1757, much in the manner they would, had they encountered
on the fairest field of Europe. While the conquered were still, sullen, and
dejected, the victors triumphed. But there are limits alike to grief and joy;
and long before the watches of the morning came the stillness of those
boundless woods was only broken by a gay call from some exulting young
Frenchman of the advanced pickets, or a menacing challenge from the fort, which
sternly forbade the approach of any hostile footsteps before the stipulated
moment. Even these occasional threatening sounds ceased to be heard in that
dull hour which precedes the day, at which period a listener might have sought
in vain any evidence of the presence of those armed powers that then slumbered
on the shores of the “holy lake.”
It was during these moments of deep silence that the canvas which concealed the
entrance to a spacious marquee in the French encampment was shoved aside, and a
man issued from beneath the drapery into the open air. He was enveloped in a
cloak that might have been intended as a protection from the chilling damps of
the woods, but which served equally well as a mantle to conceal his person. He
was permitted to pass the grenadier, who watched over the slumbers of the
French commander, without interruption, the man making the usual salute which
betokens military deference, as the other passed swiftly through the little
city of tents, in the direction of William Henry. Whenever this unknown
individual encountered one of the numberless sentinels who crossed his path,
his answer was prompt, and, as it appeared, satisfactory; for he was uniformly
allowed to proceed without further interrogation.
With the exception of such repeated but brief interruptions, he had moved
silently from the center of the camp to its most advanced outposts, when he
drew nigh the soldier who held his watch nearest to the works of the enemy. As
he approached he was received with the usual challenge:
“Qui vive?”
“France,” was the reply.
“Le mot d’ordre?”
“La victorie,” said the other, drawing so nigh as to be heard in a
loud whisper.
“C’est bien,” returned the sentinel, throwing his musket from
the charge to his shoulder; “vous promenez bien matin, monsieur!”
“Il est necessaire d’être vigilant, mon enfant,” the other
observed, dropping a fold of his cloak, and looking the soldier close in the
face as he passed him, still continuing his way toward the British
fortification. The man started; his arms rattled heavily as he threw them
forward in the lowest and most respectful salute; and when he had again
recovered his piece, he turned to walk his post, muttering between his teeth:
“Il faut être vigilant, en vérité! je crois que nous avons là, un caporal
qui ne dort jamais!”
The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped the
sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause until he had reached the low
strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the western water bastion of
the fort. The light of an obscure moon was just sufficient to render objects,
though dim, perceptible in their outlines. He, therefore, took the precaution
to place himself against the trunk of a tree, where he leaned for many minutes,
and seemed to contemplate the dark and silent mounds of the English works in
profound attention. His gaze at the ramparts was not that of a curious or idle
spectator; but his looks wandered from point to point, denoting his knowledge
of military usages, and betraying that his search was not unaccompanied by
distrust. At length he appeared satisfied; and having cast his eyes impatiently
upward toward the summit of the eastern mountain, as if anticipating the
approach of the morning, he was in the act of turning on his footsteps, when a
light sound on the nearest angle of the bastion caught his ear, and induced him
to remain.
Just then a figure was seen to approach the edge of the rampart, where it
stood, apparently contemplating in its turn the distant tents of the French
encampment. Its head was then turned toward the east, as though equally anxious
for the appearance of light, when the form leaned against the mound, and seemed
to gaze upon the glassy expanse of the waters, which, like a submarine
firmament, glittered with its thousand mimic stars. The melancholy air, the
hour, together with the vast frame of the man who thus leaned, musing, against
the English ramparts, left no doubt as to his person in the mind of the
observant spectator. Delicacy, no less than prudence, now urged him to retire;
and he had moved cautiously round the body of the tree for that purpose, when
another sound drew his attention, and once more arrested his footsteps. It was
a low and almost inaudible movement of the water, and was succeeded by a
grating of pebbles one against the other. In a moment he saw a dark form rise,
as it were, out of the lake, and steal without further noise to the land,
within a few feet of the place where he himself stood. A rifle next slowly rose
between his eyes and the watery mirror; but before it could be discharged his
own hand was on the lock.
“Hugh!” exclaimed the savage, whose treacherous aim was so
singularly and so unexpectedly interrupted.
Without making any reply, the French officer laid his hand on the shoulder of
the Indian, and led him in profound silence to a distance from the spot, where
their subsequent dialogue might have proved dangerous, and where it seemed that
one of them, at least, sought a victim. Then throwing open his cloak, so as to
expose his uniform and the cross of St. Louis which was suspended at his
breast, Montcalm sternly demanded:
“What means this? Does not my son know that the hatchet is buried between
the English and his Canadian Father?”
“What can the Hurons do?” returned the savage, speaking also,
though imperfectly, in the French language.