CHAPTER IX.

“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 him 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 attention 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 around 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 swooped 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 the 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 toward 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 center

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 slowly muttered; and propping 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 their

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 above the din of the

falls,” was the answer; “beside, the cavern will prove his friend.

Let him indulge his passions 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 or 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 center 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 results 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 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 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 learned 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, Heywood could

collect from their expressions, they hoped to find concealed in some crevice of

the island.

“Now,” he whispered to the trembling sisters, “now is the

moment of uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are

still safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our

enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may look for

succor from Webb.”

There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward well

knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance and method.

More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they brushed the

sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the branches to snap. At

length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of a blanket fell, and a faint ray

of light gleamed into the inner part of the cave. Cora folded Alice to her

bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to his feet. A shout was at that moment

heard, as if issuing from the center of the rock, announcing that the

neighboring cavern had at length been entered. In a minute, the number and

loudness of the voices indicated that the whole party was collected in and

around that secret place.

As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other, Duncan,

believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and the sisters, to

place himself between the latter and the first onset of the terrible meeting.

Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the slight barrier which

separated him only by a few feet from his relentless pursuers, and placing his

face to the casual opening, he even looked out with a sort of desperate

indifference, on their movements.

Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian, whose

deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the proceedings of

his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the vault opposite, which

was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the humble furniture of the

scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of sassafras with a color that

the native well knew as anticipating the season. Over this sign of their

success, they sent up a howl, like an opening from so many hounds who had

recovered a lost trail. After this yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant

bed of the cavern, and bore the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs,

as if they suspected them of concealing the person of the man they had so long

hated and feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached the chief,

bearing a load of the brush, and pointing exultingly to the deep red stains

with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells, whose meaning

Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent repetition of the name

“La Longue Carabine!” When his triumph had ceased, he cast the

brush on the slight heap Duncan had made before the entrance of the second

cavern, and closed the view. His example was followed by others, who, as they

drew the branches from the cave of the scout, threw them into one pile, adding,

unconsciously, to the security of those they sought. The very slightness of the

defense was its chief merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush,

which all of them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been

accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.

As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches settled

in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a compact body, Duncan

once more breathed freely. With a light step and lighter heart, he returned to

the center of the cave, and took the place he had left, where he could command

a view of the opening next the river. While he was in the act of making this

movement, the Indians, as if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke

away from the chasm in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again,

toward the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry

betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead

comrades.

Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most critical

moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the anxiety of his

countenance might communicate some additional alarm to those who were so little

able to sustain it.

“They are gone, Cora!” he whispered; “Alice, they are

returned whence they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone

delivered us from the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!”

“Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!” exclaimed the younger

sister, rising from the encircling arm of Cora, and casting herself with

enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; “to that Heaven who has spared

the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so much

love.”

Both Heyward and the more temperate Cora witnessed the act of involuntary

emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly believing that piety had

never worn a form so lovely as it had now assumed in the youthful person of

Alice. Her eyes were radiant with the glow of grateful feelings; the flush of

her beauty was again seated on her cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and

anxious to pour out its thanksgivings through the medium of her eloquent

features. But when her lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared

frozen by some new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of

death; her soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror;

while those hands, which she had raised, clasped in each other, toward heaven,

dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed forward in

convulsed motion. Heyward turned the instant she gave a direction to his

suspicions, and peering just above the ledge which formed the threshold of the

open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the malignant, fierce and savage features

of Le Renard Subtil.

In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not desert him.

He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian’s countenance, that

his eye, accustomed to the open air had not yet been able to penetrate the

dusky light which pervaded the depth of the cavern. He had even thought of

retreating beyond a curvature in the natural wall, which might still conceal

him and his companions, when by the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot

across the features of the savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were

betrayed.

The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible truth

was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the impulses of his

hot blood, Duncan leveled his pistol and fired. The report of the weapon made

the cavern bellow like an eruption from a volcano; and when the smoke it

vomited had been driven away before the current of air which issued from the

ravine the place so lately occupied by the features of his treacherous guide

was vacant. Rushing to the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure

stealing around a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.

Among the savages a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which had just

been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le Renard raised his

voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was answered by a spontaneous yell

from the mouth of every Indian within hearing of the sound.

The clamorous noises again rushed down the island; and before Duncan had time

to recover from the shock, his feeble barrier of brush was scattered to the

winds, the cavern was entered at both its extremities, and he and his

companions were dragged from their shelter and borne into the day, where they

stood surrounded by the whole band of the triumphant Hurons.