The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
the plunder of that unlucky fortress. In the midst of this confusion he found
her he sought, pale, anxious and terrified, but lovely. David had prepared her
for such a visit.
“Duncan!” she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to tremble at the
sounds created by itself.
“Alice!” he answered, leaping carelessly among trunks, boxes, arms,
and furniture, until he stood at her side.
“I knew that you would never desert me,” she said, looking up with
a momentary glow on her otherwise dejected countenance. “But you are
alone! Grateful as it is to be thus remembered, I could wish to think you are
not entirely alone.”
Duncan, observing that she trembled in a manner which betrayed her inability to
stand, gently induced her to be seated, while he recounted those leading
incidents which it has been our task to accord. Alice listened with breathless
interest; and though the young man touched lightly on the sorrows of the
stricken father; taking care, however, not to wound the self-love of his
auditor, the tears ran as freely down the cheeks of the daughter as though she
had never wept before. The soothing tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted
the first burst of her emotions, and she then heard him to the close with
undivided attention, if not with composure.
“And now, Alice,” he added, “you will see how much is still
expected of you. By the assistance of our experienced and invaluable friend,
the scout, we may find our way from this savage people, but you will have to
exert your utmost fortitude. Remember that you fly to the arms of your
venerable parent, and how much his happiness, as well as your own, depends on
those exertions.”
“Can I do otherwise for a father who has done so much for me?”
“And for me, too,” continued the youth, gently pressing the hand he
held in both his own.
The look of innocence and surprise which he received in return convinced Duncan
of the necessity of being more explicit.
“This is neither the place nor the occasion to detain you with selfish
wishes,” he added; “but what heart loaded like mine would not wish
to cast its burden? They say misery is the closest of all ties; our common
suffering in your behalf left but little to be explained between your father
and myself.”
“And, dearest Cora, Duncan; surely Cora was not forgotten?”
“Not forgotten! no; regretted, as woman was seldom mourned before. Your
venerable father knew no difference between his children; but I—Alice,
you will not be offended when I say, that to me her worth was in a degree
obscured—”
“Then you knew not the merit of my sister,” said Alice, withdrawing
her hand; “of you she ever speaks as of one who is her dearest
friend.”
“I would gladly believe her such,” returned Duncan, hastily;
“I could wish her to be even more; but with you, Alice, I have the
permission of your father to aspire to a still nearer and dearer tie.”
Alice trembled violently, and there was an instant during which she bent her
face aside, yielding to the emotions common to her sex; but they quickly passed
away, leaving her mistress of her deportment, if not of her affections.
“Heyward,” she said, looking him full in the face with a touching
expression of innocence and dependency, “give me the sacred presence and
the holy sanction of that parent before you urge me further.”
“Though more I should not, less I could not say,” the youth was
about to answer, when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder.
Starting to his feet, he turned, and, confronting the intruder, his looks fell
on the dark form and malignant visage of Magua. The deep guttural laugh of the
savage sounded, at such a moment, to Duncan, like the hellish taunt of a demon.
Had he pursued the sudden and fierce impulse of the instant, he would have cast
himself on the Huron, and committed their fortunes to the issue of a deadly
struggle. But, without arms of any description, ignorant of what succor his
subtle enemy could command, and charged with the safety of one who was just
then dearer than ever to his heart, he no sooner entertained than he abandoned
the desperate intention.
“What is your purpose?” said Alice, meekly folding her arms on her
bosom, and struggling to conceal an agony of apprehension in behalf of Heyward,
in the usual cold and distant manner with which she received the visits of her
captor.
The exulting Indian had resumed his austere countenance, though he drew warily
back before the menacing glance of the young man’s fiery eye. He regarded
both his captives for a moment with a steady look, and then, stepping aside, he
dropped a log of wood across a door different from that by which Duncan had
entered. The latter now comprehended the manner of his surprise, and, believing
himself irretrievably lost, he drew Alice to his bosom, and stood prepared to
meet a fate which he hardly regretted, since it was to be suffered in such
company. But Magua meditated no immediate violence. His first measures were
very evidently taken to secure his new captive; nor did he even bestow a second
glance at the motionless forms in the center of the cavern, until he had
completely cut off every hope of retreat through the private outlet he had
himself used. He was watched in all his movements by Heyward, who, however,
remained firm, still folding the fragile form of Alice to his heart, at once
too proud and too hopeless to ask favor of an enemy so often foiled. When Magua
had effected his object he approached his prisoners, and said in English:
“The pale faces trap the cunning beavers; but the red-skins know how to
take the Yengeese.”
“Huron, do your worst!” exclaimed the excited Heyward, forgetful
that a double stake was involved in his life; “you and your vengeance are
alike despised.”
“Will the white man speak these words at the stake?” asked Magua;
manifesting, at the same time, how little faith he had in the other’s
resolution by the sneer that accompanied his words.
“Here; singly to your face, or in the presence of your nation.”
“Le Renard Subtil is a great chief!” returned the Indian; “he
will go and bring his young men, to see how bravely a pale face can laugh at
tortures.”
He turned away while speaking, and was about to leave the place through the
avenue by which Duncan had approached, when a growl caught his ear, and caused
him to hesitate. The figure of the bear appeared in the door, where it sat,
rolling from side to side in its customary restlessness. Magua, like the father
of the sick woman, eyed it keenly for a moment, as if to ascertain its
character. He was far above the more vulgar superstitions of his tribe, and so
soon as he recognized the well-known attire of the conjurer, he prepared to
pass it in cool contempt. But a louder and more threatening growl caused him
again to pause. Then he seemed as if suddenly resolved to trifle no longer, and
moved resolutely forward.
The mimic animal, which had advanced a little, retired slowly in his front,
until it arrived again at the pass, when, rearing on his hinder legs, it beat
the air with its paws, in the manner practised by its brutal prototype.
“Fool!” exclaimed the chief, in Huron, “go play with the
children and squaws; leave men to their wisdom.”
He once more endeavored to pass the supposed empiric, scorning even the parade
of threatening to use the knife, or tomahawk, that was pendent from his belt.
Suddenly the beast extended its arms, or rather legs, and inclosed him in a
grasp that might have vied with the far-famed power of the “bear’s
hug” itself. Heyward had watched the whole procedure, on the part of
Hawkeye, with breathless interest. At first he relinquished his hold of Alice;
then he caught up a thong of buckskin, which had been used around some bundle,
and when he beheld his enemy with his two arms pinned to his side by the iron
muscles of the scout, he rushed upon him, and effectually secured them there.
Arms, legs, and feet were encircled in twenty folds of the thong, in less time
than we have taken to record the circumstance. When the formidable Huron was
completely pinioned, the scout released his hold, and Duncan laid his enemy on
his back, utterly helpless.
Throughout the whole of this sudden and extraordinary operation, Magua, though
he had struggled violently, until assured he was in the hands of one whose
nerves were far better strung than his own, had not uttered the slightest
exclamation. But when Hawkeye, by way of making a summary explanation of his
conduct, removed the shaggy jaws of the beast, and exposed his own rugged and
earnest countenance to the gaze of the Huron, the philosophy of the latter was
so far mastered as to permit him to utter the never failing:
“Hugh!”
“Ay, you’ve found your tongue,” said his undisturbed
conqueror; “now, in order that you shall not use it to our ruin, I must
make free to stop your mouth.”
As there was no time to be lost, the scout immediately set about effecting so
necessary a precaution; and when he had gagged the Indian, his enemy might
safely have been considered as “hors de combat.”
“By what place did the imp enter?” asked the industrious scout,
when his work was ended. “Not a soul has passed my way since you left
me.”
Duncan pointed out the door by which Magua had come, and which now presented
too many obstacles to a quick retreat.
“Bring on the gentle one, then,” continued his friend; “we
must make a push for the woods by the other outlet.”
“’Tis impossible!” said Duncan; “fear has overcome her,
and she is helpless. Alice! my sweet, my own Alice, arouse yourself; now is the
moment to fly. ’Tis in vain! she hears, but is unable to follow. Go,
noble and worthy friend; save yourself, and leave me to my fate.”
“Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!”
returned the scout. “There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all
of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it will
betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow. Leave the
rest to me.”
Duncan, as may be gathered from the words of his companion, was eagerly
obeying; and, as the other finished speaking, he took the light person of Alice
in his arms, and followed in the footsteps of the scout. They found the sick
woman as they had left her, still alone, and passed swiftly on, by the natural
gallery, to the place of entrance. As they approached the little door of bark,
a murmur of voices without announced that the friends and relatives of the
invalid were gathered about the place, patiently awaiting a summons to
re-enter.
“If I open my lips to speak,” Hawkeye whispered, “my English,
which is the genuine tongue of a white-skin, will tell the varlets that an
enemy is among them. You must give ’em your jargon, major; and say that
we have shut the evil spirit in the cave, and are taking the woman to the woods
in order to find strengthening roots. Practise all your cunning, for it is a
lawful undertaking.”
The door opened a little, as if one without was listening to the proceedings
within, and compelled the scout to cease his directions. A fierce growl
repelled the eavesdropper, and then the scout boldly threw open the covering of
bark, and left the place, enacting the character of a bear as he proceeded.
Duncan kept close at his heels, and soon found himself in the center of a
cluster of twenty anxious relatives and friends.
The crowd fell back a little, and permitted the father, and one who appeared to
be the husband of the woman, to approach.
“Has my brother driven away the evil spirit?” demanded the former.
“What has he in his arms?”
“Thy child,” returned Duncan, gravely; “the disease has gone
out of her; it is shut up in the rocks. I take the woman to a distance, where I
will strengthen her against any further attacks. She will be in the wigwam of