The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
opposite sides of the path, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such
cautious movements, that their steps were inaudible.
“Now, go you back,” said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward,
“and hold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without
breaking his paint.”
“Nay,” said Heyward, proudly, “I will seize him
myself.”
“Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the
bushes!”
“I will dismount.”
“And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he
would wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to deal with
the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to prosper in his
undertakings. Go, then; talk openly to the miscreant, and seem to believe him
the truest friend you have on ’arth.”
Heyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of the
office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed upon him a
conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered his invaluable
trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun had already
disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his light[1],
were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the hour the savage
usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless acts of vengeance or
hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by apprehension, he left the
scout, who immediately entered into a loud conversation with the stranger that
had so unceremoniously enlisted himself in the party of travelers that morning.
In passing his gentler companions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement,
and was pleased to find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day,
they appeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was
other than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was merely
employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he spurred his charger,
and drew the reins again when the animal had carried him within a few yards of
the place where the sullen runner still stood, leaning against the tree.
[1]
The scene of this tale was in the 42d degree of latitude, where the twilight
is never of long continuation.
“You may see, Magua,” he said, endeavoring to assume an air of
freedom and confidence, “that the night is closing around us, and yet we
are no nearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with
the rising sun.
“You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate. But, happily,
we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking to the singer, that
is acquainted with the deerpaths and by-ways of the woods, and who promises to
lead us to a place where we may rest securely till the morning.”
The Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his imperfect
English, “Is he alone?”
“Alone!” hesitatingly answered Heyward, to whom deception was too
new to be assumed without embarrassment. “Oh! not alone, surely, Magua,
for you know that we are with him.”
“Then Le Renard Subtil will go,” returned the runner, coolly
raising his little wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet;
“and the pale faces will see none but their own color.”
“Go! Whom call you Le Renard?”
“’Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua,”
returned the runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction.
“Night is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him.”
“And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry
concerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman that
his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be one?”
“Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will
not hear him, nor feel him, in the woods.”
“But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid
him stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted with
the business of a man.”
“Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones
of his fathers,” was the answer of the unmoved runner.
“Enough, Magua,” said Heyward; “are we not friends? Why
should there be bitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your
services when performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your
weary limbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to spare;
let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the ladies are
refreshed we will proceed.”
“The pale faces make themselves dogs to their women,” muttered the
Indian, in his native language, “and when they want to eat, their
warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness.”
“What say you, Renard?”
“Le Subtil says it is good.”
The Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of Heyward,
but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and seating himself
deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of some former repast,
and began to eat, though not without first bending his looks slowly and
cautiously around him.
“This is well,” continued Heyward; “and Le Renard will have
strength and sight to find the path in the morning”; he paused, for
sounds like the snapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose
from the adjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,
“we must be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our
path, and shut us out from the fortress.”
The hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his eyes were
fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his nostrils expanded, and
his ears seemed even to stand more erect than usual, giving to him the
appearance of a statue that was made to represent intense attention.
Heyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly extricated
one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand toward the bear-skin
covering of his holsters.
Every effort to detect the point most regarded by the runner was completely
frustrated by the tremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a
single instant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be
hardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil cautiously
raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and guarded, that not
the slightest noise was produced by the change. Heyward felt it had now become
incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg over the saddle, he dismounted, with
a determination to advance and seize his treacherous companion, trusting the
result to his own manhood. In order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he
still preserved an air of calmness and friendship.
“Le Renard Subtil does not eat,” he said, using the appellation he
had found most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. “His corn is not
well parched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be found
among my own provisions that will help his appetite.”
Magua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered their
hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his riveted
attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward moving gently
along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the young man, and, uttering
a piercing cry, he darted beneath it, and plunged, at a single bound, into the
opposite thicket. At the next instant the form of Chingachgook appeared from
the bushes, looking like a specter in its paint, and glided across the path in
swift pursuit. Next followed the shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by
a sudden flash, that was accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter’s
rifle.
CHAPTER V.
...”In such a night
Did This be fearfully o’ertrip the dew;
And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself.”—Merchant of Venice
The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the pursuers,
caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive surprise. Then
recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he dashed aside the
surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend his aid in the chase.
Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards, he met the three foresters
already returning from their unsuccessful pursuit.
“Why so soon disheartened!” he exclaimed; “the scoundrel must
be concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not
safe while he goes at large.”
“Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?” returned the
disappointed scout; “I heard the imp brushing over the dry leaves, like a
black snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag’in yon big pine,
I pulled as it might be on the scent; but ’twouldn’t do! and yet
for a reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should
call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in these
matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its leaves are red,
though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow blossom in the month of
July!”
“’Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!”
“No, no,” returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this
opinion, “I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped
the longer for it. A rifle bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks him,
much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens motion, and
puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But when it cuts the
ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly, a stagnation of further
leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!”
“We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!”
“Is life grievous to you?” interrupted the scout. “Yonder red
devil would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you
were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so often
slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece within sound
of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation! ’twas very
natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such fashion, too, as
will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent, or our scalps will be
drying in the wind in front of Montcalm’s marquee, ag’in this hour
to-morrow.”
This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool assurance of
a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face the danger, served
to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge with which he himself had
been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with a vain effort to pierce the
gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy arches of the forest, he felt as
if, cut off from human aid, his unresisting companions would soon lie at the
entire mercy of those barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited
till the gathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His
awakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each waving
bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and twenty times
he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his lurking foes, peering
from their hiding places, in never ceasing watchfulness of the movements of his
party. Looking upward, he found that the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had
painted on the blue sky, were already losing their faintest tints of
rose-color, while the imbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he
stood, was to be traced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.
“What is to be done!” he said, feeling the utter helplessness of
doubt in such a pressing strait; “desert me not, for God’s sake!
remain to defend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!”
His companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe, heeded not
this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was maintained in low and