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

gained his feet, in a posture commanding by its dignity, while he tottered with weakness.

“Who calls upon the children of the Lenape?” he said, in a deep, guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless silence of the multitude; “who speaks of things gone? Does not the egg become a worm⁠—the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of good that is past? Better thank the Manitou for that which remains.”

“It is a Wyandot,” said Magua, stepping nigher to the rude platform on which the other stood; “a friend of Tamenund.”

“A friend!” repeated the sage, on whose brow a dark frown settled, imparting a portion of that severity which had rendered his eye so terrible in middle age. “Are the Mingoes rulers of the earth? What brings a Huron in here?”

“Justice. His prisoners are with his brothers, and he comes for his own.”

Tamenund turned his head toward one of his supporters, and listened to the short explanation the man gave.

Then, facing the applicant, he regarded him a moment with deep attention; after which he said, in a low and reluctant voice:

“Justice is the law of the great Manitou. My children, give the stranger food. Then, Huron, take thine own and depart.”

On the delivery of this solemn judgment, the patriarch seated himself, and closed his eyes again, as if better pleased with the images of his own ripened experience than with the visible objects of the world. Against such a decree there was no Delaware sufficiently hardy to murmur, much less oppose himself. The words were barely uttered when four or five of the younger warriors, stepping behind Heyward and the scout, passed thongs so dexterously and rapidly around their arms, as to hold them both in instant bondage. The former was too much engrossed with his precious and nearly insensible burden, to be aware of their intentions before they were executed; and the latter, who considered even the hostile tribes of the Delawares a superior race of beings, submitted without resistance. Perhaps, however, the manner of the scout would not have been so passive, had he fully comprehended the language in which the preceding dialogue had been conducted.

Magua cast a look of triumph around the whole assembly before he proceeded to the execution of his purpose. Perceiving that the men were unable to offer any resistance, he turned his looks on her he valued most. Cora met his gaze with an eye so calm and firm, that his resolution wavered. Then, recollecting his former artifice, he raised Alice from the arms of the warrior against whom she leaned, and beckoning Heyward to follow, he motioned for the encircling crowd to open. But Cora, instead of obeying the impulse he had expected, rushed to the feet of the patriarch, and, raising her voice, exclaimed aloud:

“Just and venerable Delaware, on thy wisdom and power we lean for mercy! Be deaf to yonder artful and remorseless monster, who poisons thy ears with falsehoods to feed his thirst for blood. Thou that hast lived long, and that hast seen the evil of the world, should know how to temper its calamities to the miserable.”

The eyes of the old man opened heavily, and he once more looked upward at the multitude. As the piercing tones of the suppliant swelled on his ears, they moved slowly in the direction of her person, and finally settled there in a steady gaze. Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in his faded but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence. Gradually the expression of Tamenund’s features changed, and losing their vacancy in admiration, they lighted with a portion of that intelligence which a century before had been wont to communicate his youthful fire to the extensive bands of the Delawares. Rising without assistance, and seemingly without an effort, he demanded, in a voice that startled its auditors by its firmness:

“What art thou?”

“A woman. One of a hated race, if thou wilt⁠—a Yengee. But one who has never harmed thee, and who cannot harm thy people, if she would; who asks for succor.”

“Tell me, my children,” continued the patriarch, hoarsely, motioning to those around him, though his eyes still dwelt upon the kneeling form of Cora, “where have the Delawares camped?”

“In the mountains of the Iroquois, beyond the clear springs of the Horican.”

“Many parching summers are come and gone,” continued the sage, “since I drank of the water of my own rivers. The children of Minquon23 are the justest white men, but they were thirsty and they took it to themselves. Do they follow us so far?”

“We follow none, we covet nothing,” answered Cora. “Captives against our wills, have we been brought amongst you; and we ask but permission to depart to our own in peace. Art thou not Tamenund⁠—the father, the judge, I had almost said, the prophet⁠—of this people?”

“I am Tamenund of many days.”

“ ’Tis now some seven years that one of thy people was at the mercy of a white chief on the borders of this province. He claimed to be of the blood of the good and just Tamenund. ‘Go,’ said the white man, ‘for thy parent’s sake thou art free.’ Dost thou remember the name of that English warrior?”

“I remember, that when a laughing boy,” returned the patriarch, with the peculiar recollection of vast age, “I stood upon the sands of the sea shore, and saw a big canoe, with wings whiter than the swan’s, and wider than many eagles, come from the rising sun.”

“Nay, nay; I speak not of a time so very distant, but of favor shown to thy kindred by one of mine, within the memory of thy youngest warrior.”

“Was it when the Yengeese and the Dutchmanne fought for the hunting-grounds of the Delawares? Then Tamenund was a chief, and first laid aside the bow for the lightning of