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

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 redskin; 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