The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
boy, was ordered to dislodge the skulkers. The duty was soon performed; for
most of the Hurons retired of themselves when they found they had been
discovered. The Delawares followed to a sufficient distance from their own
encampment, and then halted for orders, apprehensive of being led into an
ambush. As both parties secreted themselves, the woods were again as still and
quiet as a mild summer morning and deep solitude could render them.
The calm but still impatient Uncas now collected his chiefs, and divided his
power. He presented Hawkeye as a warrior, often tried, and always found
deserving of confidence. When he found his friend met with a favorable
reception, he bestowed on him the command of twenty men, like himself, active,
skillful and resolute. He gave the Delawares to understand the rank of Heyward
among the troops of the Yengeese, and then tendered to him a trust of equal
authority. But Duncan declined the charge, professing his readiness to serve as
a volunteer by the side of the scout. After this disposition, the young Mohican
appointed various native chiefs to fill the different situations of
responsibility, and, the time pressing, he gave forth the word to march. He was
cheerfully, but silently obeyed by more than two hundred men.
Their entrance into the forest was perfectly unmolested; nor did they encounter
any living objects that could either give the alarm, or furnish the
intelligence they needed, until they came upon the lairs of their own scouts.
Here a halt was ordered, and the chiefs were assembled to hold a
“whispering council.”
At this meeting divers plans of operation were suggested, though none of a
character to meet the wishes of their ardent leader. Had Uncas followed the
promptings of his own inclinations, he would have led his followers to the
charge without a moment’s delay, and put the conflict to the hazard of an
instant issue; but such a course would have been in opposition to all the
received practises and opinions of his countrymen. He was, therefore, fain to
adopt a caution that in the present temper of his mind he execrated, and to
listen to advice at which his fiery spirit chafed, under the vivid recollection
of Cora’s danger and Magua’s insolence.
After an unsatisfactory conference of many minutes, a solitary individual was
seen advancing from the side of the enemy, with such apparent haste, as to
induce the belief he might be a messenger charged with pacific overtures. When
within a hundred yards, however, of the cover behind which the Delaware council
had assembled, the stranger hesitated, appeared uncertain what course to take,
and finally halted. All eyes were turned now on Uncas, as if seeking directions
how to proceed.
“Hawkeye,” said the young chief, in a low voice, “he must
never speak to the Hurons again.”
“His time has come,” said the laconic scout, thrusting the long
barrel of his rifle through the leaves, and taking his deliberate and fatal
aim. But, instead of pulling the trigger, he lowered the muzzle again, and
indulged himself in a fit of his peculiar mirth. “I took the imp for a
Mingo, as I’m a miserable sinner!” he said; “but when my eye
ranged along his ribs for a place to get the bullet in—would you think
it, Uncas—I saw the musicianer’s blower; and so, after all, it is
the man they call Gamut, whose death can profit no one, and whose life, if this
tongue can do anything but sing, may be made serviceable to our own ends. If
sounds have not lost their virtue, I’ll soon have a discourse with the
honest fellow, and that in a voice he’ll find more agreeable than the
speech of ‘killdeer’.”
So saying, Hawkeye laid aside his rifle; and, crawling through the bushes until
within hearing of David, he attempted to repeat the musical effort, which had
conducted himself, with so much safety and eclat, through the Huron encampment.
The exquisite organs of Gamut could not readily be deceived (and, to say the
truth, it would have been difficult for any other than Hawkeye to produce a
similar noise), and, consequently, having once before heard the sounds, he now
knew whence they proceeded. The poor fellow appeared relieved from a state of
great embarrassment; for, pursuing the direction of the voice—a task that
to him was not much less arduous that it would have been to have gone up in the
face of a battery—he soon discovered the hidden songster.
“I wonder what the Hurons will think of that!” said the scout,
laughing, as he took his companion by the arm, and urged him toward the rear.
“If the knaves lie within earshot, they will say there are two
non-compossers instead of one! But here we are safe,” he added, pointing
to Uncas and his associates. “Now give us the history of the Mingo
inventions in natural English, and without any ups and downs of voice.”
David gazed about him, at the fierce and wild-looking chiefs, in mute wonder;
but assured by the presence of faces that he knew, he soon rallied his
faculties so far as to make an intelligent reply.
“The heathen are abroad in goodly numbers,” said David; “and,
I fear, with evil intent. There has been much howling and ungodly revelry,
together with such sounds as it is profanity to utter, in their habitations
within the past hour, so much so, in truth, that I have fled to the Delawares
in search of peace.”
“Your ears might not have profited much by the exchange, had you been
quicker of foot,” returned the scout a little dryly. “But let that
be as it may; where are the Hurons?”
“They lie hid in the forest, between this spot and their village in such
force, that prudence would teach you instantly to return.”
Uncas cast a glance along the range of trees which concealed his own band and
mentioned the name of:
“Magua?”
“Is among them. He brought in the maiden that had sojourned with the
Delawares; and, leaving her in the cave, has put himself, like a raging wolf,
at the head of his savages. I know not what has troubled his spirit so
greatly!”
“He has left her, you say, in the cave!” interrupted Heyward;
“’tis well that we know its situation! May not something be done
for her instant relief?”
Uncas looked earnestly at the scout, before he asked:
“What says Hawkeye?”
“Give me twenty rifles, and I will turn to the right, along the stream;
and, passing by the huts of the beaver, will join the Sagamore and the colonel.
You shall then hear the whoop from that quarter; with this wind one may easily
send it a mile. Then, Uncas, do you drive in the front; when they come within
range of our pieces, we will give them a blow that, I pledge the good name of
an old frontiersman, shall make their line bend like an ashen bow. After which,
we will carry the village, and take the woman from the cave; when the affair
may be finished with the tribe, according to a white man’s battle, by a
blow and a victory; or, in the Indian fashion, with dodge and cover. There may
be no great learning, major, in this plan, but with courage and patience it can
all be done.”
“I like it very much,” cried Duncan, who saw that the release of
Cora was the primary object in the mind of the scout; “I like it much.
Let it be instantly attempted.”
After a short conference, the plan was matured, and rendered more intelligible
to the several parties; the different signals were appointed, and the chiefs
separated, each to his allotted station.
CHAPTER XXXII.
“But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid.”
—Pope.
During the time Uncas was making this disposition of his forces, the woods were
as still, and, with the exception of those who had met in council, apparently
as much untenanted as when they came fresh from the hands of their Almighty
Creator. The eye could range, in every direction, through the long and shadowed
vistas of the trees; but nowhere was any object to be seen that did not
properly belong to the peaceful and slumbering scenery.
Here and there a bird was heard fluttering among the branches of the beeches,
and occasionally a squirrel dropped a nut, drawing the startled looks of the
party for a moment to the place; but the instant the casual interruption
ceased, the passing air was heard murmuring above their heads, along that
verdant and undulating surface of forest, which spread itself unbroken, unless
by stream or lake, over such a vast region of country. Across the tract of
wilderness which lay between the Delawares and the village of their enemies, it
seemed as if the foot of man had never trodden, so breathing and deep was the
silence in which it lay. But Hawkeye, whose duty led him foremost in the
adventure, knew the character of those with whom he was about to contend too
well to trust the treacherous quiet.
When he saw his little band collected, the scout threw “killdeer”
into the hollow of his arm, and making a silent signal that he would be
followed, he led them many rods toward the rear, into the bed of a little brook
which they had crossed in advancing. Here he halted, and after waiting for the
whole of his grave and attentive warriors to close about him, he spoke in
Delaware, demanding:
“Do any of my young men know whither this run will lead us?”
A Delaware stretched forth a hand, with the two fingers separated, and
indicating the manner in which they were joined at the root, he answered:
“Before the sun could go his own length, the little water will be in the
big.” Then he added, pointing in the direction of the place he mentioned,
“the two make enough for the beavers.”
“I thought as much,” returned the scout, glancing his eye upward at
the opening in the tree-tops, “from the course it takes, and the bearings
of the mountains. Men, we will keep within the cover of its banks till we scent
the Hurons.”
His companions gave the usual brief exclamation of assent, but, perceiving that
their leader was about to lead the way in person, one or two made signs that
all was not as it should be. Hawkeye, who comprehended their meaning glances,
turned and perceived that his party had been followed thus far by the
singing-master.
“Do you know, friend,” asked the scout, gravely, and perhaps with a
little of the pride of conscious deserving in his manner, “that this is a
band of rangers chosen for the most desperate service, and put under the
command of one who, though another might say it with a better face, will not be
apt to leave them idle. It may not be five, it cannot be thirty minutes, before
we tread on the body of a Huron, living or dead.”
“Though not admonished of your intentions in words,” returned
David, whose face was a little flushed, and whose ordinarily quiet and
unmeaning eyes glimmered with an expression of unusual fire, “your men
have reminded me of the children of Jacob going out to battle against the
Shechemites, for wickedly aspiring to wedlock with a woman of a race that was
favored of the Lord. Now, I have journeyed far, and sojourned much in good and
evil with the maiden ye seek; and, though not a man of war, with my loins
girded and my sword sharpened, yet would I gladly strike a blow in her
behalf.”
The scout hesitated, as if weighing the chances of such a strange enlistment in
his mind before he answered:
“You know not the use of any we’pon. You carry no rifle; and
believe me, what the Mingoes take they will freely give again.”
“Though not a vaunting and bloodily disposed Goliath,” returned
David, drawing a sling from beneath his parti-colored and uncouth attire,
“I have not forgotten the example of the Jewish boy. With this ancient
instrument of war have I practised much in my youth, and peradventure the skill
has not entirely departed from me.”
“Ay!” said Hawkeye, considering the deer-skin thong and apron, with