The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper [best romance ebooks txt] 📗

luck do in my favor but lead me to the very spot where one of the most famous conjurers of the tribe was dressing himself, as I well knew, for some great battle with Satan⁠—though why should I call that luck, which it now seems was an especial ordering of Providence. So a judgmatical rap over the head stiffened the lying impostor for a time, and leaving him a bit of walnut for his supper, to prevent an uproar, and stringing him up atween two saplings, I made free with his finery, and took the part of the bear on myself, in order that the operations might proceed.”

“And admirably did you enact the character; the animal itself might have been shamed by the representation.”

“Lord, major,” returned the flattered woodsman, “I should be but a poor scholar for one who has studied so long in the wilderness, did I not know how to set forth the movements or natur’ of such a beast. Had it been now a catamount, or even a full-size panther, I would have embellished a performance for you worth regarding. But it is no such marvelous feat to exhibit the feats of so dull a beast; though, for that matter, too, a bear may be overacted. Yes, yes; it is not every imitator that knows natur’ may be outdone easier than she is equaled. But all our work is yet before us. Where is the gentle one?”

“Heaven knows. I have examined every lodge in the village, without discovering the slightest trace of her presence in the tribe.”

“You heard what the singer said, as he left us: ‘She is at hand, and expects you’?”

“I have been compelled to believe he alluded to this unhappy woman.”

“The simpleton was frightened, and blundered through his message; but he had a deeper meaning. Here are walls enough to separate the whole settlement. A bear ought to climb; therefore will I take a look above them. There may be honeypots hid in these rocks, and I am a beast, you know, that has a hankering for the sweets.”

The scout looked behind him, laughing at his own conceit, while he clambered up the partition, imitating, as he went, the clumsy motions of the beast he represented; but the instant the summit was gained he made a gesture for silence, and slid down with the utmost precipitation.

“She is here,” he whispered, “and by that door you will find her. I would have spoken a word of comfort to the afflicted soul; but the sight of such a monster might upset her reason. Though for that matter, major, you are none of the most inviting yourself in your paint.”

Duncan, who had already swung eagerly forward, drew instantly back on hearing these discouraging words.

“Am I, then, so very revolting?” he demanded, with an air of chagrin.

“You might not startle a wolf, or turn the Royal Americans from a discharge; but I have seen the time when you had a better favored look; your streaked countenances are not ill-judged of by the squaws, but young women of white blood give the preference to their own color. See,” he added, pointing to a place where the water trickled from a rock, forming a little crystal spring, before it found an issue through the adjacent crevices; “you may easily get rid of the Sagamore’s daub, and when you come back I will try my hand at a new embellishment. It’s as common for a conjurer to alter his paint as for a buck in the settlements to change his finery.”

The deliberate woodsman had little occasion to hunt for arguments to enforce his advice. He was yet speaking when Duncan availed himself of the water. In a moment every frightful or offensive mark was obliterated, and the youth appeared again in the lineaments with which he had been gifted by nature. Thus prepared for an interview with his mistress, he took a hasty leave of his companion, and disappeared through the indicated passage. The scout witnessed his departure with complacency, nodding his head after him, and muttering his good wishes; after which he very coolly set about an examination of the state of the larder, among the Hurons, the cavern, among other purposes, being used as a receptacle for the fruits of their hunts.

Duncan had no other guide than a distant glimmering light, which served, however, the office of a polar star to the lover. By its aid he was enabled to enter the haven of his hopes, which was merely another apartment of the cavern, that had been solely appropriated to the safekeeping of so important a prisoner as a daughter of the commandant of William Henry. It was profusely strewed with the plunder of that unlucky fortress. In the midst of this confusion he found her he sought, pale, anxious and terrified, but lovely. David had prepared her for such a visit.

“Duncan!” she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed to tremble at the sounds created by itself.

“Alice!” he answered, leaping carelessly among trunks, boxes, arms, and furniture, until he stood at her side.

“I knew that you would never desert me,” she said, looking up with a momentary glow on her otherwise dejected countenance. “But you are alone! Grateful as it is to be thus remembered, I could wish to think you are not entirely alone.”

Duncan, observing that she trembled in a manner which betrayed her inability to stand, gently induced her to be seated, while he recounted those leading incidents which it has been our task to accord. Alice listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father; taking care, however, not to wound the self-love of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided attention, if not with composure.

“And now, Alice,” he added,