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, and stand between me and my God!”
The slight impression produced on the savage was, however, soon forgotten, and he continued pointing, with taunting irony, towards Alice.
“Look! the child weeps! She is young to die! Send her to Munro, to comb his gray hairs, and keep the 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 fulness, 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 hand, 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 a 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; to 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 glow of the lingering but momentary 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 had shrunk into itself, as she listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her, with 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, and by the time the flush of maiden pride had diffused itself over her fine features, and her eye had lighted with the feelings which oppressed her, she found strength to murmur–
“No, no, no; better that we should die, as we have lived, together!”
“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, buried itself, and 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, and then the Indian fell prostrate and dead, on the faded leaves by his side.
CHAPTER XII.
“Clo.–I am gone, sir,
And anon, sir,
I’ll be with you again.”
—
The Hurons stood aghast at this sudden visitation of death on one of their band. But, as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim, which had dared to immolate an enemy, at so much hazard to a friend, the name of “la Longue Carabine” burst simultaneously from every lip, and was succeeded by a wild and a sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had piled their arms; and, at the next moment, Hawk-eye, too eager to load the rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the clubbed weapon, and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold and rapid as was the progress of the scout, it was exceeded by that of a light and vigorous form, which bounding past him, leaped, with incredible activity and daring, into the very centre of the Hurons, where it stood, whirling a tomahawk, and flourishing a glittering knife, with fearful menaces, in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could follow these unexpected and audacious movements, an image, armed in the emblematic panoply of death, stole, with the imaginary glidings of a spectre, before their eyes, and assumed a threatening attitude at the other’s side. The savage tormentors recoiled before these warlike intruders, and uttered, as they appeared, in such quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamation of surprise, followed by the well known and dreaded appellations of–
“Le Cerf Agile! le Gros Serpent!”
But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons, was not so easily disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he comprehended the nature of the assault, at a glance, and encouraging his followers by his voice, as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long and dangerous knife, and rushed, with a loud whoop, upon the expecting Chingachgook. It was the signal for a general combat. Neither party had fire-arms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner; hand to hand, with weapons of offence, and none of defence.
Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single, well-directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward tore the weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly towards the fray. As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawk-eye soon got another enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable weapon, he beat down the slight and inartificial defences of his antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the weight of his blow. Heyward ventured to hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment of closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was sufficient to assure him of the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavouring to ward the desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long. In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting–
“Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!”
At the next moment, the breech of Hawk-eye’s rifle fell on the naked head of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as he sunk from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless.