The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (bts book recommendations .txt) 📖

stand, he made way for himself to the side of his friend; and cutting his thongs with a quick and angry stroke of his own knife, he motioned to the crowd to divide. The Indians silently obeyed, and once more they stood ranged in their circle, as before his appearance among them. Uncas took the scout by the hand, and led him to the feet of the patriarch.

“Father,” he said, “look at this pale face; a just man, and the friend of the Delawares.”

“Is he a son of Minquon?”

“Not so; a warrior known to the Yengeese, and feared by the Maquas.”

“What name has he gained by his deeds?”

“We call him Hawkeye,” Uncas replied, using the Delaware phrase; “for his sight never fails. The Mingoes know him better by the death he gives their warriors; with them he is ‘The Long Rifle’.”

“La Longue Carabine!” exclaimed Tamenund, opening his eyes, and regarding the scout sternly. “My son has not done well to call him friend.”

“I call him so who proves himself such,” returned the young chief, with great calmness, but with a steady mien. “If Uncas is welcome among the Delawares, then is Hawkeye with his friends.”

“The pale face has slain my young men; his name is great for the blows he has struck the Lenape.”

“If a Mingo has whispered that much in the ear of the Delaware, he has only shown that he is a singing-bird,” said the scout, who now believed that it was time to vindicate himself from such offensive charges, and who spoke as the man he addressed, modifying his Indian figures, however, with his own peculiar notions. “That I have slain the Maquas I am not the man to deny, even at their own council-fires; but that, knowingly, my hand has never harmed a Delaware, is opposed to the reason of my gifts, which is friendly to them, and all that belongs to their nation.”

A low exclamation of applause passed among the warriors who exchanged looks with each other like men that first began to perceive their error.

“Where is the Huron?” demanded Tamenund. “Has he stopped my ears?”

Magua, whose feelings during that scene in which Uncas had triumphed may be much better imagined than described, answered to the call by stepping boldly in front of the patriarch.

“The just Tamenund,” he said, “will not keep what a Huron has lent.”

“Tell me, son of my brother,” returned the sage, avoiding the dark countenance of Le Subtil, and turning gladly to the more ingenuous features of Uncas, “has the stranger a conqueror’s right over you?”

“He has none. The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he is strong, and knows how to leap through them.”

“La Longue Carabine?”

“Laughs at the Mingoes. Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear.”

“The stranger and white maiden that come into my camp together?”

“Should journey on an open path.”

“And the woman that Huron left with my warriors?”

Uncas made no reply.

“And the woman that the Mingo has brought into my camp?”

repeated Tamenund, gravely.

“She is mine,” cried Magua, shaking his hand in triumph at Uncas. “Mohican, you know that she is mine.”

“My son is silent,” said Tamenund, endeavoring to read the expression of the face that the youth turned from him in sorrow.

“It is so,” was the low answer.

A short and impressive pause succeeded, during which it was very apparent with what reluctance the multitude admitted the justice of the Mingo’s claim. At length the sage, on whom alone the decision depended, said, in a firm voice: “Huron, depart.”

“As he came, just Tamenund,” demanded the wily Magua, “or with hands filled with the faith of the Delawares? The wigwam of Le Renard Subtil is empty. Make him strong with his own.”

The aged man mused with himself for a time; and then, bending his head toward one of his venerable companions, he asked:

“Are my ears open?”

“It is true.”

“Is this Mingo a chief?”

“The first in his nation.”

“Girl, what wouldst thou? A great warrior takes thee to wife. Go! thy race will not end.”

“Better, a thousand times, it should,” exclaimed the horror-struck Cora, “than meet with such a degradation!”

“Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers. An unwilling maiden makes an unhappy wigwam.”

“She speaks with the tongue of her people,” returned Magua, regarding his victim with a look of bitter irony.

“She is of a race of traders, and will bargain for a bright look. Let Tamenund speak the words.”

“Take you the wampum, and our love.”

“Nothing hence but what Magua brought hither.”

“Then depart with thine own. The Great Manitou forbids that a Delaware should be unjust.”

Magua advanced, and seized his captive strongly by the arm; the Delawares fell back, in silence; and Cora, as if conscious that remonstrance would be useless, prepared to submit to her fate without resistance.

“Hold, hold!” cried Duncan, springing forward; “Huron, have mercy! her ransom shall make thee richer than any of thy people were ever yet known to be.”

“Magua is a red-skin; he wants not the beads of the pale faces.”

“Gold, silver, powder, lead — all that a warrior needs shall be in thy wigwam; all that becomes the greatest chief.”

“Le Subtil is very strong,” cried Magua, violently shaking the hand which grasped the unresisting arm of Cora; “he has his revenge!”

“Mighty ruler of Providence!” exclaimed Heyward, clasping his hands together in agony, “can this be suffered! To you, just Tamenund, I appeal for mercy.”

“The words of the Delaware are said,” returned the sage, closing his eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and his bodily exertion. “Men speak not twice.”

“That a chief should not misspend his time in unsaying what has once been spoken is wise and reasonable,” said Hawkeye, motioning to Duncan to be silent; “but it is also prudent in every warrior to consider well before he strikes his tomahawk into the head of his prisoner. Huron, I love you not; nor can I say that any Mingo has ever received much favor at my hands. It is fair to conclude that, if this war does not soon end, many more of your warriors will meet me in the woods. Put it to your judgment, then, whether you would prefer taking such a prisoner as that into your encampment, or one like myself, who am a man that it would greatly rejoice your nation to see with naked hands.”

“Will ‘The Long Rifle’ give his life for the woman?”

demanded Magua, hesitatingly; for he had already made a motion toward quitting the place with his victim.

“No, no; I have not said so much as that,” returned Hawkeye, drawing back with suitable discretion, when he noted the eagerness with which Magua listened to his proposal. “It would be an unequal exchange, to give a warrior, in the prime of his age and usefulness, for the best woman on the frontiers. I might consent to go into winter quarters, now — at least six weeks afore the leaves will turn — on condition you will release the maiden.”

Magua shook his head, and made an impatient sign for the crowd to open.

“Well, then,” added the scout, with the musing air of a man who had not half made up his mind; “I will throw ‘killdeer’

into the bargain. Take the word of an experienced hunter, the piece has not its equal atween the provinces.”

Magua still disdained to reply, continuing his efforts to disperse the crowd.

“Perhaps,” added the scout, losing his dissembled coolness exactly in proportion as the other manifested an indifference to the exchange, “if I should condition to teach your young men the real virtue of the we’pon, it would smoothe the little differences in our judgments.”

Le Renard fiercely ordered the Delawares, who still lingered in an impenetrable belt around him, in hopes he would listen to the amicable proposal, to open his path, threatening, by the glance of his eye, another appeal to the infallible justice of their “prophet.”

“What is ordered must sooner or later arrive,” continued Hawkeye, turning with a sad and humbled look to Uncas. “The varlet knows his advantage and will keep it! God bless you, boy; you have found friends among your natural kin, and I hope they will prove as true as some you have met who had no Indian cross. As for me, sooner or later, I must die; it is, therefore, fortunate there are but few to make my death-howl.

After all, it is likely the imps would have managed to master my scalp, so a day or two will make no great difference in the everlasting reckoning of time. God bless you,” added the rugged woodsman, bending his head aside, and then instantly changing its direction again, with a wistful look toward the youth; “I loved both you and your father, Uncas, though our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are somewhat different.

Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky trail, and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together again. You’ll find the rifle in the place we hid it; take it, and keep it for my sake; and, harkee, lad, as your natural gifts don’t deny you the use of vengeance, use it a little freely on the Mingoes; it may unburden griefs at my loss, and ease your mind. Huron, I accept your offer; release the woman. I am your prisoner!”

A suppressed, but still distinct murmur of approbation ran through the crowd at this generous proposition; even the fiercest among the Delaware warriors manifesting pleasure at the manliness of the intended sacrifice. Magua paused, and for an anxious moment, it might be said, he doubted; then, casting his eyes on Cora, with an expression in which ferocity and admiration were strangely mingled, his purpose became fixed forever.

He intimated his contempt of the offer with a backward motion of his head, and said, in a steady and settled voice: “Le Renard Subtil is a great chief; he has but one mind.

Come,” he added, laying his hand too familiarly on the shoulder of his captive to urge her onward; “a Huron is no tattler; we will go.”

The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled, while the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into her very temples, at the indignity.

“I am your prisoner, and, at a fitting time shall be ready to follow, even to my death. But violence is unnecessary,”

she coldly said; and immediately turning to Hawkeye, added: “Generous hunter! from my soul I thank you. Your offer is vain, neither could it be accepted; but still you may serve me, even more than in your own noble intention. Look at that drooping humbled child! Abandon her not until you leave her in the habitations of civilized men. I will not say,” wringing the hard hand of the scout, “that her father will reward you — for such as you are above the rewards of men — but he will thank you and bless you. And, believe me, the blessing of a just and aged man has virtue in the sight of Heaven. Would to God I could hear one word from his lips at this awful moment!” Her voice became choked, and, for an instant, she was silent; then, advancing a step nigher to Duncan, who was supporting her unconscious sister, she continued, in more subdued tones, but in which feeling and the habits of her sex maintained a fearful struggle: “I