The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
cautious sounds, but little above a whisper, Heyward, who now approached, could
easily distinguish the earnest tones of the younger warrior from the more
deliberate speeches of his seniors. It was evident that they debated on the
propriety of some measure, that nearly concerned the welfare of the travelers.
Yielding to his powerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that
seemed fraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the
dusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more
definite, when the white man, motioning with his hand, as if he conceded the
disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy, and in the English
tongue:
“Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless
things to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place forever. If
you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the worst of serpents,
gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor resolution to throw away!”
“How can such a wish be doubted! Have I not already offered—”
“Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the
cunning of the devils who fill these woods,” calmly interrupted the
scout, “but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to
realize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man’s
thoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were never
made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any other
recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings. First, you must
promise two things, both in your own name and for your friends, or without
serving you we shall only injure ourselves!”
“Name them.”
“The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen
and the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a secret
from all mortal men.”
“I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled.”
“Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the
heart’s blood to a stricken deer!”
Heyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through the
increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps, swiftly,
toward the place where he had left the remainder of the party. When they
rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly acquainted them with the
conditions of their new guide, and with the necessity that existed for their
hushing every apprehension in instant and serious exertions. Although his
alarming communication was not received without much secret terror by the
listeners, his earnest and impressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of
the danger, succeeded in bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and
unusual trial. Silently, and without a moment’s delay, they permitted him
to assist them from their saddles, and when they descended quickly to the
water’s edge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more
by the agency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.
“What to do with these dumb creatures!” muttered the white man, on
whom the sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; “it
would be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river; and to
leave them here would be to tell the Mingoes that they have not far to seek to
find their owners!”
“Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods,”
Heyward ventured to suggest.
“No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they
must equal a horse’s speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will
blind their fireballs of eyes! Chingach—Hist! what stirs the bush?”
“The colt.”
“That colt, at least, must die,” muttered the scout, grasping at
the mane of the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; “Uncas, your
arrows!”
“Hold!” exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud,
without regard to the whispering tones used by the others; “spare the
foal of Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would
willingly injure naught.”
“When men struggle for the single life God has given them,” said
the scout, sternly, “even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of
the wood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
Draw to your arrow’s head, Uncas; we have no time for second
blows.”
The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible, when the
wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward to its knees.
It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its throat quicker than
thought, and then precipitating the motions of the struggling victim, he dashed
into the river, down whose stream it glided away, gasping audibly for breath
with its ebbing life. This deed of apparent cruelty, but of real necessity,
fell upon the spirits of the travelers like a terrific warning of the peril in
which they stood, heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of
the actors in the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,
while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had just
drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge and those
dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before the bosom of the
forest.
The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles, they led
the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.
At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed by the
projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a direction
opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the scout drew a canoe
of bark from its place of concealment beneath some low bushes, whose branches
were waving with the eddies of the current, into which he silently motioned for
the females to enter. They complied without hesitation, though many a fearful
and anxious glance was thrown behind them, toward the thickening gloom, which
now lay like a dark barrier along the margin of the stream.
So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the
element, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and posting
himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream, followed by the
dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they proceeded, for many rods,
in a silence that was only interrupted by the rippling of the water, as its
eddies played around them, or the low dash made by their own cautious
footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of the canoe implicitly to the scout,
who approached or receded from the shore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or
deeper parts of the river, with a readiness that showed his knowledge of the
route they held. Occasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing
stillness, that the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to
render more impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any
sounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that all was
still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practiced senses, any sign
of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume his slow and guarded
progress. At length they reached a point in the river where the roving eye of
Heyward became riveted on a cluster of black objects, collected at a spot where
the high bank threw a deeper shadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating
to advance, he pointed out the place to the attention of his companion.
“Ay,” returned the composed scout, “the Indians have hid the
beasts with the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl’s
eyes would be blinded by the darkness of such a hole.”
The whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held between
the scout and his new comrades, during which, they, whose fates depended on the
faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a little leisure to observe
their situation more minutely.
The river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which impended
above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were surmounted by tall
trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the precipice, it gave the
stream the appearance of running through a deep and narrow dell. All beneath
the fantastic limbs and ragged tree tops, which were, here and there, dimly
painted against the starry zenith, lay alike in shadowed obscurity. Behind
them, the curvature of the banks soon bounded the view by the same dark and
wooded outline; but in front, and apparently at no great distance, the water
seemed piled against the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which
issued those sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,
in truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a soothing
impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic though not unappalling
beauties. A general movement among their conductors, however, soon recalled
them from a contemplation of the wild charms that night had assisted to lend
the place to a painful sense of their real peril.
The horses had been secured to some scattering shrubs that grew in the fissures
of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to pass the night.
The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate fellow travelers to seat
themselves in the forward end of the canoe, and took possession of the other
himself, as erect and steady as if he floated in a vessel of much firmer
materials. The Indians warily retraced their steps toward the place they had
left, when the scout, placing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove,
sent his frail bark directly into the turbulent stream. For many minutes the
struggle between the light bubble in which they floated and the swift current
was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand, and almost afraid to
breath, lest they should expose the frail fabric to the fury of the stream, the
passengers watched the glancing waters in feverish suspense. Twenty times they
thought the whirling eddies were sweeping them to destruction, when the
master-hand of their pilot would bring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid.
A long, a vigorous, and, as it appeared to the females, a desperate effort,
closed the struggle. Just as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the
impression that they were about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of
the cataract, the canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that
lay on a level with the water.
“Where are we, and what is next to be done!” demanded Heyward,
perceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.
“You are at the foot of Glenn’s,” returned the other,
speaking aloud, without fear of consequences within the roar of the cataract;
“and the next thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset,
and you should go down again the hard road we have traveled faster than you
came up; ’tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;
and five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in a hurry-skurry, with a little
birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will bring up the
Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without his scalp, than
famish in the midst of plenty.”
His passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot touched
the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form of the scout
was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before it disappeared in
the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of the river. Left by their
guide, the travelers remained a few minutes in helpless ignorance, afraid even
to move along the broken rocks, lest a false step should precipitate them down
some one of the many deep and roaring caverns, into which the water seemed to