The Last of the Mohicans

‘‘Twas the last charge in my horn, and the last bullet in my pouch, and ‘twas the act of a boy!’ he said; ‘what mattered it whether he struck the rock living or dead! feeling would soon be over. Uncas, lad, go down to the canoe, and bring up the big horn; it is all the powder we have left, and we shall need it to the last grain, or I am ignorant of the Mingo nature.’

The young Mohican complied, leaving the scout turning over the useless contents of his pouch, and shaking the empty horn with renewed discontent. From this unsatisfactory examination, however, he was soon called by a loud and piercing exclamation from Uncas, that sounded, even to the unpractised ears of Duncan, as the signal of some new and unexpected calamity. Every thought filled with apprehension for the precious treasure he had concealed in the cavern, the young man started to his feet, totally regardless of the hazard he incurred by such an exposure. As if actuated by a common impulse his movement was imitated by his companions, and, together, they rushed down the pass to the friendly chasm, with a rapidity that rendered the scattering fire of their enemies perfectly harmless. The unwonted cry had brought the sisters, together with the wounded David, from their place of refuge; and the whole party, at a single glance, was made acquainted with the nature of the disaster that had disturbed even the practised stoicism of their youthful Indian protector.

At a short distance from the rock, their little bark was to be seen floating across the eddy, towards the swift current of the river, in a manner which proved that its course was directed by some hidden agent. The instant this unwelcome sight caught the eye of the scout, his rifle was levelled as by instinct, but the barrel gave no answer to the bright sparks of the flint.

“ ’Tis too late, ’Tis too late!’ Hawkeye exclaimed, dropping the useless piece in bitter disappointment; ‘the miscreant has struck the rapid; and had we powder, it could hardly send the lead swifter than he now goes!’

The adventurous Huron raised his head above the shelter of the canoe, and while it glided swiftly down the stream, he waved his hand, and gave forth the shout, which was the known signal of success. His cry was answered by a yell and a laugh from the woods, as tauntingly exulting as if fifty demons were uttering their blasphemies at the fall of some Christian soul.

‘Well may you laugh, ye children of the devil!’ said the scout, seating himself on a projection of the rock, and suffering his gun to fall neglected at his feet; ‘for the three quickest and truest rifles in these woods are no better than so many stalks of mullein, or the last year’s horns of a buck!’

‘What is to be done?’ demanded Duncan, losing the first feeling of disappointment in a more manly desire for exertion; ‘what will become of us?’

Hawkeye made no other reply than by passing his finger around the crown of his head, in a manner so significant that none who witnessed the action could mistake its meaning.

‘Surely, surely, our case is not so desperate!’ exclaimed the youth; ‘the Hurons are not here; we may make good the caverns; we may oppose their landing!’

‘With what?’ coolly demanded the scout. ‘The arrows of Uncas, or such tears as women shed! No, no; you are young, and rich, and have friends, and at such an age I know it is hard to die! But,’ glancing his eyes at the Mohicans, ‘let us remember we are men without a cross, and let us teach these natives of the forest that white blood can run as freely as red, when the appointed hour is come.’

Duncan turned quickly in the direction indicated by the other’s eyes, and read a confirmation of his worst apprehensions in the conduct of the Indians. Chingachgook, placing himself in a dignified posture on another fragment of the rock, had already laid aside his knife and tomahawk, and was in the act of taking the eagle’s plume from his head, and smoothing the solitary tuft of hair in readiness to perform its last and revolting office. His countenance was composed, though thoughtful, while his dark, gleaming eyes were gradually losing the fierceness of the combat in an expression better suited to the change he expected momentarily to undergo.

‘Our case is not, cannot be so hopeless!’ said Duncan; ‘even at this very moment succour may be at hand. I see no enemies! they have sickened of a struggle in which they risk so much with so little prospect of gain!

‘It may be a minute, or it may be an hour, afore the wily sarpents steal upon us, and it is quite in natur’ for them to be lying within hearing at this very moment,’ said Hawkeye; ‘but come they will, and in such a fashion as will leave us nothing to hope! Chingachgook’—he spoke in Delaware—’my brother, we have fought our last battle together, and the Maquas will triumph in the death of the sage man of the Mohicans, and of the pale-face, whose eyes can make night as day, and level the clouds to the mists of the springs!’

‘Let the Mingo women go weep over their slain!’ returned the Indian, with characteristic pride and unmoved firmness; ‘the Great Snake of the Mohicans has coiled himself in their wigwams, and has poisoned their triumph with the wailings of children whose fathers have not returned! Eleven warriors lie hid from the graves of their tribes since the snows have melted, and none will tell where to find them when the tongue of Chingachgook shall be silent! Let them draw the sharpest knife, and whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their hands. Uncas, topmost branch of a noble trunk, call on the cowards to hasten or their hearts will soften, and they will change to women!’

‘They look among the fishes for their dead!’ returned the low, soft voice of the youthful chieftain; ‘the Hurons float with the slimy eels! They drop from the oaks like fruit that is ready to be eaten! and the Delawares laugh!’

‘Aye, aye,’ muttered the scout, who had listened to this peculiar burst of the natives with deep attention; ‘they have warmed their Indian feelings, and they’ll soon provoke the Maquas to give them a speedy end. As for me, who am of the whole blood of the whites, it is befitting that I should die as becomes my colour, with no words of scoffing in my mouth, and without bitterness at the heart!’

‘Why die at all?’ said Cora, advancing from the place where natural horror had, until this moment, held her riveted to the rock; ‘the path is open on every side; fly, then, to the woods, and call on God for succour. Go, brave men, we owe you too much already; let us no longer involve you in our hapless fortunes!’

‘You but little know the craft of the Iroquois, lady, if you judge they have left the path open to the woods!’ returned Hawkeye, who, however, immediately added in his simplicity, ‘the down-stream current, it is certain, might soon sweep us beyond the reach of their rifles or the sounds of their voices.’

‘Then try the river. Why linger to add to the number of the victims of our merciless enemies?’

‘Why?’ repeated the scout, looking about him proudly; ‘because it is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience! What answer could we give Munro, when he asked us where and how we left his children?’

‘Go to him, and say that you left them with a message to hasten to their aid,’ returned Cora, advancing nigher to the scout, in her generous ardour; ‘that the Hurons bear them into the northern wilds, but that by vigilance and speed they may yet be rescued; and if, after all, it should please Heaven that his assistance come too late, bear to him,’ she continued, her voice gradually lowering, until it seemed nearly choked, ‘the love, the blessing, the final prayers of his daughters, and bid him not mourn their early fate but to look forward with humble confidence to the Christian’s goal to meet his children.’

The hard, weather-beaten features of the scout began to work, and when she had ended, he dropped his chin to his hand, like a man musing profoundly on the nature of the proposal.

‘There is reason in her words!’ at length broke from his compressed and trembling lips; ‘aye, and they bear the spirit of Christianity; what might be right and proper in a red-skin, may be sinful in a man who has not even a cross in blood to plead for his ignorance. Chingachgook! Uncas! hear you the talk of the dark-eyed woman?’

He now spoke in Delaware to his companions, and his address, though calm and deliberate, seemed very decided. The elder Mohican heard him with deep gravity, and appeared to ponder on his words, as though he felt the importance of their import. After a moment of hesitation he waved his hand in assent, and uttered the English word ‘Good!’ with the peculiar emphasis of his people. Then, replacing his knife and tomahawk in his girdle, the warrior moved silently to the edge of the rock which was most concealed from the banks of the river. Here he paused a moment, pointed significantly to the woods below, and saying a few words in his own language, as if indicating his intended route, he dropped into the water, and sank from before the eyes of the witnesses of his movements.

The scout delayed his departure to speak to the generous girl, whose breathing became lighter as she saw the success of her remonstrance.

‘Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old,’ he said; ‘and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better word. If you are led into the woods, that is such of you as may be spared for a while, break the twigs on the bushes as you pass, and make the marks of your trail as broad as you can, when, if mortal eyes can see them, depend on having a friend who will follow to the ends of ‘arth afore he desarts you.’

He gave Cora an affectionate shake of the hand, lifted his rifle, and after regarding it a moment with melancholy solicitude, laid it carefully aside, and descended to the place where Chingachgook had just disappeared. For an instant he hung suspended by the rock; and looking about him, with a countenance of peculiar care, he added, bitterly, ‘Had the powder held out, this disgrace could never have befallen!’ then, loosening his hold, the water closed above his head, and he also became lost to view.

All eyes were now turned on Uncas, who stood leaning against the ragged rock, in immovable composure. After waiting a short time, Cora pointed down the river, and said—

‘Your friends have not been seen, and are now, most probably, in safety; is it not time for you to follow?’

‘Uncas will stay,’ the young Mohican calmly answered in English.

‘To increase the horror of our capture, and to diminish the chances of our release! Go, generous young man,’ Cora continued, lowering her eyes under the gaze of the Mohican, and, perhaps, with an intuitive consciousness of her power; ‘go to my father, as I have said, and be the most confidential of my messengers. Tell him to trust you with the means to buy the freedom of his daughters. Go! ’Tis my wish, ’Tis my prayer, that you will go!’

The settled, calm look of the young chief changed to an expression of gloom, but he no longer hesitated. With a noiseless step he crossed the rock, and dropped into the troubled stream. Hardly a breath was drawn by those he left behind, until they caught a glimpse of his head emerging for air, far down the current, when he again sank, and was seen no more.

These sudden and apparently successful experiments had all taken place in a few minutes of that time which had now become so precious. After the last look at Uncas, Cora turned, and, with a quivering lip, addressed herself to Heyward—

‘I have heard of your boasted skill in the water, too, Duncan,’ she said; ‘follow, then, the wise example set you by these simple and faithful beings.’

‘Is such the faith that Cora Munro would exact from her protector?’ said the young man, smiling mournfully, but with bitterness.

‘This is not a time for idle subtleties and false opinions,’ she answered; ‘but a moment when every duty should be equally considered. To us you can be of no further service here, but your precious life may be saved for other and nearer friends.’

He made no reply, though his eyes fell wistfully on the beautiful form of Alice, who was clinging to his arm with the dependency of an infant.

‘Consider,’ continued Cora, after a pause, during which she seemed to struggle with a pang even more acute than any that her fears had excited, ‘that the worst to us can be but death; a tribute that all must pay at the good time of God’s appointment.’

‘There are evils worse than death,’ said Duncan, speaking hoarsely, and as if fretful at her importunity, ‘but which the presence of one who would die in your behalf may avert.’

Cora ceased her entreaties; and, veiling her face in her shawl, drew the nearly insensible Alice after her into the deepest recess of the inner cavern.

CHAPTER 9

Be gay securely,

Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim’rous clouds,

That hang on thy clear brow.

—Death of Agrippina.

The sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he felt a difficulty in persuading himself of their truth. Still ignorant of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he at first listened intently to any signal or sounds of alarm, which might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking. His intention was, however, bestowed in vain; for, with the disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost, leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.

In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look about him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies was as fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of the river seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life. The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk, which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant spectator of the fray, now stooped from his high and ragged perch, and soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began to rally his faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a reviving confidence of success.

‘The Hurons are not to be seen,’ he said, addressing David, who had by no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had received; ‘let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to Providence.’

‘I remember to have united with two comely maidens in lifting up our voices in praise and thanksgiving,’ returned the bewildered singing-master; ‘since which time I have been visited by a heavy judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep, while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the fullness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony.’

‘Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment! But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but those of your own psalmody shall be excluded.’

‘There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many waters is sweet to the senses!’ said David, pressing his hand confusedly on his brow. ‘Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as though the departed spirits of the damned—’

‘Not now, not now,’ interrupted the impatient Heyward, ‘they have ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone too! Everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may create those sounds you love so well to hear.’

David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied senses; and, leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which one arm of the river rushed, to form the junction with its sister branch, a few rods below.

‘I like not that principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit without a struggle in emergencies that appear desperate,’ he said, while busied in this employment; ‘our own maxim, which says, “while life remains there is hope,” is more consoling, and better suited to a soldier’s temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that trembling weeper on your bosom?’

‘I am calmer, Duncan,’ said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; ‘much calmer now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret, free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who have risked so much already in our behalf.’

‘Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!’ said Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed towards the outer entrance of the cavern. ‘With two such examples of courage before him, a man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero.’ He then seated himself in the centre of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced the sullen desperation of his purpose. ‘The Hurons, if they come, may not gain our position so easily as they think,’ he lowly muttered; and dropping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to their place of retreat.

With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully destroy.

David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition than any that had yet met his eye. He was, most probably, acting all this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward; for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words ‘Isle of Wight,’ drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran through the preliminary modulations of the air, whose name he had just mentioned, with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.

‘May not this prove dangerous?’ asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at Major Heyward.

‘Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard amid the din of the falls,’ was the answer; ‘besides, the cavern will prove his friend. Let him indulge his passion, since it may be done without hazard.’

‘Isle of Wight!’ repeated David, looking about him with that dignity with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his school; ‘’Tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words: let it be sung with meet respect!’

After allowing a moment of stillness to enforce his discipline, the voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions and caused the sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid features of Gamut, with an expression of chastened delight that she neither affected nor wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice. The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.

‘We are lost!’ exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora.

‘Not yet, not yet,’ returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward; ‘the sound came from the centre of the island, and it has been produced by the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there is still hope.’

Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters in such a manner that they awaited the result in silence. A second yell soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest barbarity.

The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to their fellows from the water’s edge, and were answered from the heights above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in truth they were above and on every side of them.

In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope, with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the jargon of the Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the patois of the Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, ‘La Longue Carabine!’ causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which, Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learnt for the first time, had been his late companion.

‘La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!’ passed from mouth to mouth, until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a foe, whose body, Heyward could collect from their expressions, they hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island.