The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
character, and the suspicious circumstances of his visit, it produced no
visible sensation. So far, the terrible scene that had just occurred proved
favorable to his views, and he required no other prompter than his own feelings
to convince him of the expediency of profiting by so unexpected an advantage.
Without seeming to hesitate, he walked into the lodge, and took his seat with a
gravity that accorded admirably with the deportment of his hosts. A hasty but
searching glance sufficed to tell him that, though Uncas still remained where
he had left him, David had not reappeared. No other restraint was imposed on
the former than the watchful looks of a young Huron, who had placed himself at
hand; though an armed warrior leaned against the post that formed one side of
the narrow doorway. In every other respect, the captive seemed at liberty;
still he was excluded from all participation in the discourse, and possessed
much more of the air of some finely molded statue than a man having life and
volition.
Heyward had too recently witnessed a frightful instance of the prompt
punishments of the people into whose hands he had fallen to hazard an exposure
by any officious boldness. He would greatly have preferred silence and
meditation to speech, when a discovery of his real condition might prove so
instantly fatal. Unfortunately for this prudent resolution, his entertainers
appeared otherwise disposed. He had not long occupied the seat wisely taken a
little in the shade, when another of the elder warriors, who spoke the French
language, addressed him:
“My Canada father does not forget his children,” said the chief;
“I thank him. An evil spirit lives in the wife of one of my young men.
Can the cunning stranger frighten him away?”
Heyward possessed some knowledge of the mummery practised among the Indians, in
the cases of such supposed visitations. He saw, at a glance, that the
circumstance might possibly be improved to further his own ends. It would,
therefore, have been difficult, just then to have uttered a proposal that would
have given him more satisfaction. Aware of the necessity of preserving the
dignity of his imaginary character, however, he repressed his feelings, and
answered with suitable mystery:
“Spirits differ; some yield to the power of wisdom, while others are too
strong.”
“My brother is a great medicine,” said the cunning savage;
“he will try?”
A gesture of assent was the answer. The Huron was content with the assurance,
and, resuming his pipe, he awaited the proper moment to move. The impatient
Heyward, inwardly execrating the cold customs of the savages, which required
such sacrifices to appearance, was fain to assume an air of indifference, equal
to that maintained by the chief, who was, in truth, a near relative of the
afflicted woman. The minutes lingered, and the delay had seemed an hour to the
adventurer in empiricism, when the Huron laid aside his pipe and drew his robe
across his breast, as if about to lead the way to the lodge of the invalid.
Just then, a warrior of powerful frame, darkened the door, and stalking
silently among the attentive group, he seated himself on one end of the low
pile of brush which sustained Duncan. The latter cast an impatient look at his
neighbor, and felt his flesh creep with uncontrollable horror when he found
himself in actual contact with Magua.
The sudden return of this artful and dreaded chief caused a delay in the
departure of the Huron. Several pipes, that had been extinguished, were lighted
again; while the newcomer, without speaking a word, drew his tomahawk from his
girdle, and filling the bowl on its head began to inhale the vapors of the weed
through the hollow handle, with as much indifference as if he had not been
absent two weary days on a long and toilsome hunt. Ten minutes, which appeared
so many ages to Duncan, might have passed in this manner; and the warriors were
fairly enveloped in a cloud of white smoke before any of them spoke.
“Welcome!” one at length uttered; “has my friend found the
moose?”
“The young men stagger under their burdens,” returned Magua.
“Let ‘Reed-that-bends’ go on the hunting path; he will meet
them.”
A deep and awful silence succeeded the utterance of the forbidden name. Each
pipe dropped from the lips of its owner as though all had inhaled an impurity
at the same instant. The smoke wreathed above their heads in little eddies, and
curling in a spiral form it ascended swiftly through the opening in the roof of
the lodge, leaving the place beneath clear of its fumes, and each dark visage
distinctly visible. The looks of most of the warriors were riveted on the
earth; though a few of the younger and less gifted of the party suffered their
wild and glaring eyeballs to roll in the direction of a white-headed savage,
who sat between two of the most venerated chiefs of the tribe. There was
nothing in the air or attire of this Indian that would seem to entitle him to
such a distinction. The former was rather depressed, than remarkable for the
bearing of the natives; and the latter was such as was commonly worn by the
ordinary men of the nation. Like most around him for more than a minute his
look, too, was on the ground; but, trusting his eyes at length to steal a
glance aside, he perceived that he was becoming an object of general attention.
Then he arose and lifted his voice in the general silence.
“It was a lie,” he said; “I had no son. He who was called by
that name is forgotten; his blood was pale, and it came not from the veins of a
Huron; the wicked Chippewas cheated my squaw. The Great Spirit has said, that
the family of Wiss-entush should end; he is happy who knows that the evil of
his race dies with himself. I have done.”
The speaker, who was the father of the recreant young Indian, looked round and
about him, as if seeking commendation of his stoicism in the eyes of the
auditors. But the stern customs of his people had made too severe an exaction
of the feeble old man. The expression of his eye contradicted his figurative
and boastful language, while every muscle in his wrinkled visage was working
with anguish. Standing a single minute to enjoy his bitter triumph, he turned
away, as if sickening at the gaze of men, and, veiling his face in his blanket,
he walked from the lodge with the noiseless step of an Indian seeking, in the
privacy of his own abode, the sympathy of one like himself, aged, forlorn and
childless.
The Indians, who believe in the hereditary transmission of virtues and defects
in character, suffered him to depart in silence. Then, with an elevation of
breeding that many in a more cultivated state of society might profitably
emulate, one of the chiefs drew the attention of the young men from the
weakness they had just witnessed, by saying, in a cheerful voice, addressing
himself in courtesy to Magua, as the newest comer:
“The Delawares have been like bears after the honey pots, prowling around
my village. But who has ever found a Huron asleep?”
The darkness of the impending cloud which precedes a burst of thunder was not
blacker than the brow of Magua as he exclaimed:
“The Delawares of the Lakes!”
“Not so. They who wear the petticoats of squaws, on their own river. One
of them has been passing the tribe.”
“Did my young men take his scalp?”
“His legs were good, though his arm is better for the hoe than the
tomahawk,” returned the other, pointing to the immovable form of Uncas.
Instead of manifesting any womanish curiosity to feast his eyes with the sight
of a captive from a people he was known to have so much reason to hate, Magua
continued to smoke, with the meditative air that he usually maintained, when
there was no immediate call on his cunning or his eloquence. Although secretly
amazed at the facts communicated by the speech of the aged father, he permitted
himself to ask no questions, reserving his inquiries for a more suitable
moment. It was only after a sufficient interval that he shook the ashes from
his pipe, replaced the tomahawk, tightened his girdle, and arose, casting for
the first time a glance in the direction of the prisoner, who stood a little
behind him. The wary, though seemingly abstracted Uncas, caught a glimpse of
the movement, and turning suddenly to the light, their looks met. Near a minute
these two bold and untamed spirits stood regarding one another steadily in the
eye, neither quailing in the least before the fierce gaze he encountered. The
form of Uncas dilated, and his nostrils opened like those of a tiger at bay;
but so rigid and unyielding was his posture, that he might easily have been
converted by the imagination into an exquisite and faultless representation of
the warlike deity of his tribe. The lineaments of the quivering features of
Magua proved more ductile; his countenance gradually lost its character of
defiance in an expression of ferocious joy, and heaving a breath from the very
bottom of his chest, he pronounced aloud the formidable name of:
“Le Cerf Agile!”
Each warrior sprang upon his feet at the utterance of the well-known
appellation, and there was a short period during which the stoical constancy of
the natives was completely conquered by surprise. The hated and yet respected
name was repeated as by one voice, carrying the sound even beyond the limits of
the lodge. The women and children, who lingered around the entrance, took up
the words in an echo, which was succeeded by another shrill and plaintive howl.
The latter was not yet ended, when the sensation among the men had entirely
abated. Each one in presence seated himself, as though ashamed of his
precipitation; but it was many minutes before their meaning eyes ceased to roll
toward their captive, in curious examination of a warrior who had so often
proved his prowess on the best and proudest of their nation. Uncas enjoyed his
victory, but was content with merely exhibiting his triumph by a quiet
smile—an emblem of scorn which belongs to all time and every nation.
Magua caught the expression, and raising his arm, he shook it at the captive,
the light silver ornaments attached to his bracelet rattling with the trembling
agitation of the limb, as, in a tone of vengeance, he exclaimed, in English:
“Mohican, you die!”
“The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life,”
returned Uncas, in the music of the Delawares; “the tumbling river washes
their bones; their men are squaws: their women owls. Go! call together the
Huron dogs, that they may look upon a warrior, My nostrils are offended; they
scent the blood of a coward.”
The latter allusion struck deep, and the injury rankled. Many of the Hurons
understood the strange tongue in which the captive spoke, among which number
was Magua. This cunning savage beheld, and instantly profited by his advantage.
Dropping the light robe of skin from his shoulder, he stretched forth his arm,
and commenced a burst of his dangerous and artful eloquence. However much his
influence among his people had been impaired by his occasional and besetting
weakness, as well as by his desertion of the tribe, his courage and his fame as
an orator were undeniable. He never spoke without auditors, and rarely without
making converts to his opinions. On the present occasion, his native powers
were stimulated by the thirst of revenge.
He again recounted the events of the attack on the island at Glenn’s, the
death of his associates and the escape of their most formidable enemies. Then
he described the nature and position of the mount whither he had led such
captives as had fallen into their hands. Of his own bloody intentions toward
the maidens, and of his baffled malice he made no mention, but passed rapidly
on to the surprise of the party by “La Longue Carabine,” and its