CHAPTER XI.

“Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him.”

—Shylock

The Indian had selected for this desirable purpose one of those steep,

pyramidal hills, which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds, and

which so frequently occur in the valleys of America. The one in question was

high and precipitous; its top flattened, as usual; but with one of its sides

more than ordinarily irregular. It possessed no other apparent advantage for a

resting place, than in its elevation and form, which might render defense easy,

and surprise nearly impossible. As Heyward, however, no longer expected that

rescue which time and distance now rendered so improbable, he regarded these

little peculiarities with an eye devoid of interest, devoting himself entirely

to the comfort and condolence of his feebler companions. The Narragansetts were

suffered to browse on the branches of the trees and shrubs that were thinly

scattered over the summit of the hill, while the remains of their provisions

were spread under the shade of a beech, that stretched its horizontal limbs

like a canopy above them.

Notwithstanding the swiftness of their flight, one of the Indians had found an

opportunity to strike a straggling fawn with an arrow, and had borne the more

preferable fragments of the victim, patiently on his shoulders, to the stopping

place. Without any aid from the science of cookery, he was immediately

employed, in common with his fellows, in gorging himself with this digestible

sustenance. Magua alone sat apart, without participating in the revolting meal,

and apparently buried in the deepest thought.

This abstinence, so remarkable in an Indian, when he possessed the means of

satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Heyward. The young man

willingly believed that the Huron deliberated on the most eligible manner of

eluding the vigilance of his associates. With a view to assist his plans by any

suggestion of his own, and to strengthen the temptation, he left the beech, and

straggled, as if without an object, to the spot where Le Renard was seated.

“Has not Magua kept the sun in his face long enough to escape all danger

from the Canadians?” he asked, as though no longer doubtful of the good

intelligence established between them; “and will not the chief of William

Henry be better pleased to see his daughters before another night may have

hardened his heart to their loss, to make him less liberal in his

reward?”

“Do the pale faces love their children less in the morning than at

night?” asked the Indian, coldly.

“By no means,” returned Heyward, anxious to recall his error, if he

had made one; “the white man may, and does often, forget the burial place

of his fathers; he sometimes ceases to remember those he should love, and has

promised to cherish; but the affection of a parent for his child is never

permitted to die.”

“And is the heart of the white-headed chief soft, and will he think of

the babes that his squaws have given him? He is hard on his warriors and his

eyes are made of stone!”

“He is severe to the idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he

is a leader, both just and humane. I have known many fond and tender parents,

but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer toward his child. You have

seen the gray-head in front of his warriors, Magua; but I have seen his eyes

swimming in water, when he spoke of those children who are now in your

power!”

Heyward paused, for he knew not how to construe the remarkable expression that

gleamed across the swarthy features of the attentive Indian. At first it seemed

as if the remembrance of the promised reward grew vivid in his mind, while he

listened to the sources of parental feeling which were to assure its

possession; but, as Duncan proceeded, the expression of joy became so fiercely

malignant that it was impossible not to apprehend it proceeded from some

passion more sinister than avarice.

“Go,” said the Huron, suppressing the alarming exhibition in an

instant, in a death-like calmness of countenance; “go to the dark-haired

daughter, and say, ‘Magua waits to speak.’ The father will remember

what the child promises.”

Duncan, who interpreted this speech to express a wish for some additional

pledge that the promised gifts should not be withheld, slowly and reluctantly

repaired to the place where the sisters were now resting from their fatigue, to

communicate its purport to Cora.

“You understand the nature of an Indian’s wishes,” he

concluded, as he led her toward the place where she was expected, “and

must be prodigal of your offers of powder and blankets. Ardent spirits are,

however, the most prized by such as he; nor would it be amiss to add some boon

from your own hand, with that grace you so well know how to practise. Remember,

Cora, that on your presence of mind and ingenuity, even your life, as well as

that of Alice, may in some measure depend.”

“Heyward, and yours!”

“Mine is of little moment; it is already sold to my king, and is a prize

to be seized by any enemy who may possess the power. I have no father to expect

me, and but few friends to lament a fate which I have courted with the

insatiable longings of youth after distinction. But hush! we approach the

Indian. Magua, the lady with whom you wish to speak, is here.”

The Indian rose slowly from his seat, and stood for near a minute silent and

motionless. He then signed with his hand for Heyward to retire, saying, coldly:

“When the Huron talks to the women, his tribe shut their ears.”

Duncan, still lingering, as if refusing to comply, Cora said, with a calm

smile:

“You hear, Heyward, and delicacy at least should urge you to retire. Go

to Alice, and comfort her with our reviving prospects.”

She waited until he had departed, and then turning to the native, with the

dignity of her sex in her voice and manner, she added: “What would Le

Renard say to the daughter of Munro?”

“Listen,” said the Indian, laying his hand firmly upon her arm, as

if willing to draw her utmost attention to his words; a movement that Cora as

firmly but quietly repulsed, by extricating the limb from his grasp:

“Magua was born a chief and a warrior among the red Hurons of the lakes;

he saw the suns of twenty summers make the snows of twenty winters run off in

the streams before he saw a pale face; and he was happy! Then his Canada

fathers came into the woods, and taught him to drink the fire-water, and he

became a rascal. The Hurons drove him from the graves of his fathers, as they

would chase the hunted buffalo. He ran down the shores of the lakes, and

followed their outlet to the ‘city of cannon.’ There he hunted and

fished, till the people chased him again through the woods into the arms of his

enemies. The chief, who was born a Huron, was at last a warrior among the

Mohawks!”

“Something like this I had heard before,” said Cora, observing that

he paused to suppress those passions which began to burn with too bright a

flame, as he recalled the recollection of his supposed injuries.

“Was it the fault of Le Renard that his head was not made of rock? Who

gave him the fire-water? who made him a villain? ’Twas the pale faces,

the people of your own color.”

“And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist, whose

shades of countenance may resemble mine?” Cora calmly demanded of the

excited savage.

“No; Magua is a man, and not a fool; such as you never open their lips to

the burning stream: the Great Spirit has given you wisdom!”

“What, then, have I do to, or say, in the matter of your misfortunes, not

to say of your errors?”

“Listen,” repeated the Indian, resuming his earnest attitude;

“when his English and French fathers dug up the hatchet, Le Renard struck

the war-post of the Mohawks, and went out against his own nation. The pale

faces have driven the red-skins from their hunting grounds, and now when they

fight, a white man leads the way. The old chief at Horican, your father, was

the great captain of our war-party. He said to the Mohawks do this, and do

that, and he was minded. He made a law, that if an Indian swallowed the

fire-water, and came into the cloth wigwams of his warriors, it should not be

forgotten. Magua foolishly opened his mouth, and the hot liquor led him into

the cabin of Munro. What did the gray-head? let his daughter say.”

“He forgot not his words, and did justice, by punishing the

offender,” said the undaunted daughter.

“Justice!” repeated the Indian, casting an oblique glance of the

most ferocious expression at her unyielding countenance; “is it justice

to make evil and then punish for it? Magua was not himself; it was the

fire-water that spoke and acted for him! but Munro did believe it. The Huron

chief was tied up before all the pale-faced warriors, and whipped like a

dog.”

Cora remained silent, for she knew not how to palliate this imprudent severity

on the part of her father in a manner to suit the comprehension of an Indian.

“See!” continued Magua, tearing aside the slight calico that very

imperfectly concealed his painted breast; “here are scars given by knives

and bullets—of these a warrior may boast before his nation; but the

gray-head has left marks on the back of the Huron chief that he must hide like

a squaw, under this painted cloth of the whites.”

“I had thought,” resumed Cora, “that an Indian warrior was

patient, and that his spirit felt not and knew not the pain his body

suffered.”

“When the Chippewas tied Magua to the stake, and cut this gash,”

said the other, laying his finger on a deep scar, “the Huron laughed in

their faces, and told them, Women struck so light! His spirit was then in the

clouds! But when he felt the blows of Munro, his spirit lay under the birch.

The spirit of a Huron is never drunk; it remembers forever!”

“But it may be appeased. If my father has done you this injustice, show

him how an Indian can forgive an injury, and take back his daughters. You have

heard from Major Heyward—”

Magua shook his head, forbidding the repetition of offers he so much despised.

“What would you have?” continued Cora, after a most painful pause,

while the conviction forced itself on her mind that the too sanguine and

generous Duncan had been cruelly deceived by the cunning of the savage.

“What a Huron loves—good for good; bad for bad!”

“You would, then, revenge the injury inflicted by Munro on his helpless

daughters. Would it not be more like a man to go before his face, and take the

satisfaction of a warrior?”

“The arms of the pale faces are long, and their knives sharp!”

returned the savage, with a malignant laugh: “why should Le Renard go

among the muskets of his warriors, when he holds the spirit of the gray-head in

his hand?”

“Name your intention, Magua,” said Cora, struggling with herself to

speak with steady calmness. “Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or

do you contemplate even some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means of

palliating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least, release my gentle

sister, and pour out all your malice on me. Purchase wealth by her safety and

satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of both his daughters might

bring the aged man to his grave, and where would then be the satisfaction of Le

Renard?”

“Listen,” said the Indian again. “The light eyes can go back

to the Horican, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired

woman will swear by the Great Spirit of her fathers to tell no lie.”

“What must I promise?” demanded Cora, still maintaining a secret

ascendancy over the fierce native by the collected and feminine dignity of her

presence.

“When Magua left his people his wife was given to another chief; he has

now made friends with the Hurons, and will go back to the graves of his tribe,

on the shores of the great lake. Let the daughter of the English chief follow,

and live in his wigwam forever.”

However revolting a proposal of such a character might prove to Cora, she

retained, notwithstanding her powerful disgust, sufficient self-command to

reply, without betraying the weakness.

“And what pleasure would Magua find in sharing his cabin with a wife he

did not love; one who would be of a nation and color different from his own? It

would be better to take the gold of Munro, and buy the heart of some Huron maid

with his gifts.”

The Indian made no reply for near a minute, but bent his fierce looks on the

countenance of Cora, in such wavering glances, that her eyes sank with shame,

under an impression that for the first time they had encountered an expression

that no chaste female might endure. While she was shrinking within herself, in

dread of having her ears wounded by some proposal still more shocking than the

last, the voice of Magua answered, in its tones of deepest malignancy:

“When the blows scorched the back of the Huron, he would know where to

find a woman to feel the smart. The daughter of Munro would draw his water, hoe

his corn, and cook his venison. The body of the gray-head would sleep among his

cannon, but his heart would lie within reach of the knife of Le Subtil.”

“Monster! well dost thou deserve thy treacherous name,” cried Cora,

in an ungovernable burst of filial indignation. “None but a fiend could

meditate such a vengeance. But thou overratest thy power! You shall find it is,

in truth, the heart of Munro you hold, and that it will defy your utmost

malice!”

The Indian answered this bold defiance by a ghastly smile, that showed an

unaltered purpose, while he motioned her away, as if to close the conference

forever. Cora, already regretting her precipitation, was obliged to comply, for

Magua instantly left the spot, and approached his gluttonous comrades. Heyward

flew to the side of the agitated female, and demanded the result of a dialogue

that he had watched at a distance with so much interest. But, unwilling to

alarm the fears of Alice, she evaded a direct reply, betraying only by her

anxious looks fastened on the slightest movements of her captors. To the

reiterated and earnest questions of her sister concerning their probable

destination, she made no other answer than by pointing toward the dark group,

with an agitation she could not control, and murmuring as she folded Alice to

her bosom.

“There, there; read our fortunes in their faces; we shall see; we shall

see!”

The action, and the choked utterance of Cora, spoke more impressively than any

words, and quickly drew the attention of her companions on that spot where her

own was riveted with an intenseness that nothing but the importance of the

stake could create.

When Magua reached the cluster of lolling savages, who, gorged with their

disgusting meal, lay stretched on the earth in brutal indulgence, he commenced

speaking with the dignity of an Indian chief. The first syllables he uttered

had the effect to cause his listeners to raise themselves in attitudes of

respectful attention. As the Huron used his native language, the prisoners,

notwithstanding the caution of the natives had kept them within the swing of

their tomahawks, could only conjecture the substance of his harangue from the

nature of those significant gestures with which an Indian always illustrates

his eloquence.

At first, the language, as well as the action of Magua, appeared calm and

deliberative. When he had succeeded in sufficiently awakening the attention of

his comrades, Heyward fancied, by his pointing so frequently toward the

direction of the great lakes, that he spoke of the land of their fathers, and

of their distant tribe. Frequent indications of applause escaped the listeners,

who, as they uttered the expressive “Hugh!” looked at each other in

commendation of the speaker. Le Renard was too skillful to neglect his

advantage. He now spoke of the long and painful route by which they had left

those spacious grounds and happy villages, to come and battle against the

enemies of their Canadian fathers. He enumerated the warriors of the party;

their several merits; their frequent services to the nation; their wounds, and

the number of the scalps they had taken. Whenever he alluded to any present

(and the subtle Indian neglected none), the dark countenance of the flattered

individual gleamed with exultation, nor did he even hesitate to assert the

truth of the words, by gestures of applause and confirmation. Then the voice of

the speaker fell, and lost the loud, animated tones of triumph with which he

had enumerated their deeds of success and victory. He described the cataract of

Glenn’s; the impregnable position of its rocky island, with its caverns

and its numerous rapids and whirlpools; he named the name of “La Longue

Carabine,” and paused until the forest beneath them had sent up the last

echo of a loud and long yell, with which the hated appellation was received. He

pointed toward the youthful military captive, and described the death of a

favorite warrior, who had been precipitated into the deep ravine by his hand.

He not only mentioned the fate of him who, hanging between heaven and earth,

had presented such a spectacle of horror to the whole band, but he acted anew

the terrors of his situation, his resolution and his death, on the branches of

a sapling; and, finally, he rapidly recounted the manner in which each of their

friends had fallen, never failing to touch upon their courage, and their most

acknowledged virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once

more changed, and became plaintive and even musical, in its low guttural

sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain; their destitution;

their misery, both physical and moral; their distance; and, at last, of their

unavenged wrongs. Then suddenly lifting his voice to a pitch of terrific

energy, he concluded by demanding:

“Are the Hurons dogs to bear this? Who shall say to the wife of Menowgua

that the fishes have his scalp, and that his nation have not taken revenge! Who

will dare meet the mother of Wassawattimie, that scornful woman, with his hands

clean! What shall be said to the old men when they ask us for scalps, and we

have not a hair from a white head to give them! The women will point their

fingers at us. There is a dark spot on the names of the Hurons, and it must be

hid in blood!” His voice was no longer audible in the burst of rage which

now broke into the air, as if the wood, instead of containing so small a band,

was filled with the nation. During the foregoing address the progress of the

speaker was too plainly read by those most interested in his success through

the medium of the countenances of the men he addressed. They had answered his

melancholy and mourning by sympathy and sorrow; his assertions, by gestures of

confirmation; and his boasting, with the exultation of savages. When he spoke

of courage, their looks were firm and responsive; when he alluded to their

injuries, their eyes kindled with fury; when he mentioned the taunts of the

women, they dropped their heads in shame; but when he pointed out their means

of vengeance, he struck a chord which never failed to thrill in the breast of

an Indian. With the first intimation that it was within their reach, the whole

band sprang upon their feet as one man; giving utterance to their rage in the

most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body with drawn

knives and uplifted tomahawks. Heyward threw himself between the sisters and

the foremost, whom he grappled with a desperate strength that for a moment

checked his violence. This unexpected resistance gave Magua time to interpose,

and with rapid enunciation and animated gesture, he drew the attention of the

band again to himself. In that language he knew so well how to assume, he

diverted his comrades from their instant purpose, and invited them to prolong

the misery of their victims. His proposal was received with acclamations, and

executed with the swiftness of thought.

Two powerful warriors cast themselves on Heyward, while another was occupied in

securing the less active singing-master. Neither of the captives, however,

submitted without a desperate, though fruitless, struggle. Even David hurled

his assailant to the earth; nor was Heyward secured until the victory over his

companion enabled the Indians to direct their united force to that object. He

was then bound and fastened to the body of the sapling, on whose branches Magua

had acted the pantomime of the falling Huron. When the young soldier regained

his recollection, he had the painful certainty before his eyes that a common

fate was intended for the whole party. On his right was Cora in a durance

similar to his own, pale and agitated, but with an eye whose steady look still

read the proceedings of their enemies. On his left, the withes which bound her

to a pine, performed that office for Alice which her trembling limbs refused,

and alone kept her fragile form from sinking. Her hands were clasped before her

in prayer, but instead of looking upward toward that power which alone could

rescue them, her unconscious looks wandered to the countenance of Duncan with

infantile dependency. David had contended, and the novelty of the circumstance

held him silent, in deliberation on the propriety of the unusual occurrence.

The vengeance of the Hurons had now taken a new direction, and they prepared to

execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they were familiarized by

the practise of centuries. Some sought knots, to raise the blazing pile; one

was riving the splinters of pine, in order to pierce the flesh of their

captives with the burning fragments; and others bent the tops of two saplings

to the earth, in order to suspend Heyward by the arms between the recoiling

branches. But the vengeance of Magua sought a deeper and more malignant

enjoyment.

While the less refined monsters of the band prepared, before the eyes of those

who were to suffer, these well-known and vulgar means of torture, he approached

Cora, and pointed out, with the most malign expression of countenance, the

speedy fate that awaited her:

“Ha!” he added, “what says the daughter of Munro? Her head is

too good to find a pillow in the wigwam of Le Renard; will she like it better

when it rolls about this hill a plaything for the wolves? Her bosom cannot

nurse the children of a Huron; she will see it spit upon by Indians!”

“What means the monster!” demanded the astonished Heyward.

“Nothing!” was the firm reply. “He is a savage, a barbarous

and ignorant savage, and knows not what he does. Let us find leisure, with our

dying breath, to ask for him penitence and pardon.”

“Pardon!” echoed the fierce Huron, mistaking in his anger, the

meaning of her words; “the memory of an Indian is no longer than the arm

of the pale faces; his mercy shorter than their justice! Say; shall I send the

yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Magua to the great lakes, to

carry his water, and feed him with corn?”

Cora beckoned him away, with an emotion of disgust she could not control.

“Leave me,” she said, with a solemnity that for a moment checked

the barbarity of the Indian; “you mingle bitterness in my prayers; you

stand between me and my God!”

The slight impression produced on the savage was, however, soon forgotten, and

he continued pointing, with taunting irony, toward Alice.

“Look! the child weeps! She is too young to die! Send her to Munro, to

comb his gray hairs, and keep life in the heart of the old man.”

Cora could not resist the desire to look upon her youthful sister, in whose

eyes she met an imploring glance, that betrayed the longings of nature.

“What says he, dearest Cora?” asked the trembling voice of Alice.

“Did he speak of sending me to our father?”

For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a countenance

that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At length she spoke, though

her tones had lost their rich and calm fullness, in an expression of tenderness

that seemed maternal.

“Alice,” she said, “the Huron offers us both life, nay, more

than both; he offers to restore Duncan, our invaluable Duncan, as well as you,

to our friends—to our father—to our heart-stricken, childless

father, if I will bow down this rebellious, stubborn pride of mine, and

consent—”

Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands, she looked upward, as if

seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite.

“Say on,” cried Alice; “to what, dearest Cora? Oh! that the

proffer were made to me! to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore

Duncan, how cheerfully could I die!”

“Die!” repeated Cora, with a calmer and firmer voice, “that

were easy! Perhaps the alternative may not be less so. He would have me,”

she continued, her accents sinking under a deep consciousness of the

degradation of the proposal, “follow him to the wilderness; go to the

habitations of the Hurons; to remain there; in short, to become his wife!

Speak, then, Alice; child of my affections! sister of my love! And you, too,

Major Heyward, aid my weak reason with your counsel. Is life to be purchased by

such a sacrifice? Will you, Alice, receive it at my hands at such a price? And

you, Duncan, guide me; control me between you; for I am wholly yours!”

“Would I!” echoed the indignant and astonished youth. “Cora!

Cora! you jest with our misery! Name not the horrid alternative again; the

thought itself is worse than a thousand deaths.”

“That such would be your answer, I well knew!” exclaimed Cora, her

cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the lingering

emotions of a woman. “What says my Alice? for her will I submit without

another murmur.”

Although both Heyward and Cora listened with painful suspense and the deepest

attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the delicate and

sensitive form of Alice would shrink into itself, as she listened to this

proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her, the fingers moving in

slight convulsions; her head dropped upon her bosom, and her whole person

seemed suspended against the tree, looking like some beautiful emblem of the

wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of animation and yet keenly conscious. In a

few moments, however, her head began to move slowly, in a sign of deep,

unconquerable disapprobation.

“No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!”

[Illustration]

“Then die!” shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk

with violence at the unresisting speaker

“Then die!” shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at

the unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no

longer be bridled at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he believed

the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of Heyward, and

cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered in the tree above her

head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation. Collecting all his energies in

one effort he snapped the twigs which bound him and rushed upon another savage,

who was preparing, with loud yells and a more deliberate aim, to repeat the

blow. They encountered, grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked

body of his antagonist afforded Heyward no means of holding his adversary, who

glided from his grasp, and rose again with one knee on his chest, pressing him

down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the knife gleaming in the

air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and was rather accompanied than

followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. He felt his breast relieved from the

load it had endured; he saw the savage expression of his adversary’s

countenance change to a look of vacant wildness, when the Indian fell dead on

the faded leaves by his side.