Cora bowed her head in the anguish of disappointment, and, for a bitter moment, struggled with her chagrin. Then elevating her rich features and beaming eyes, she continued, in tones scarcely less penetrating than the unearthly voice of the patriarch himself,
“Tell me, is Tamenund a father?”
The old man looked down upon her, from his elevated stand, with a benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his eyes slowly over the whole assemblage, he answered–
“Of a nation.”
“For myself I ask nothing. Like thee and thine, venerable chief,” she continued, pressing her hands convulsively on her heart, and suffering her head to droop, until her burning cheeks were nearly concealed in the maze of dark, glossy tresses, that fell in disorder upon her shoulders, “the curse of my ancestors has fallen heavily on their child! But yonder is one, who has never known the weight of Heaven’s displeasure until now. She is the daughter of an old and failing man, whose days are near their close. She has many, very many, to love her, and delight in her; and she is too good, much too precious, to become the victim of that villain.”
“I know that the pale-faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that they claim, not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their colour is better than the Sachems of the red man. The dogs and crows of their tribes,” continued the earnest old chieftain, without heeding the wounded spirit of his listener, whose head was nearly crushed to the earth, in shame, as he proceeded, “would bark and caw, before they would take a woman to their wigwams, whose blood was not of the colour of snow. But let them not boast before the face of the Manitto too loud. They entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun! I have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the season of blossoms has always come again!”
“It is so,” said Cora, drawing a long breath, as if reviving from a trance, raising her face, and shaking back her shining veil, with a kindling eye, that contradicted the death-like paleness of her countenance; “but why–it is not permitted us to inquire! There is yet one of thine own people, who has not been brought before thee; before thou lettest the Huron depart in triumph, hear him speak.”
Observing Tamenund to look about him doubtingly, one of his companions said–
“It is a snake–a red-skin in the pay of the Yengeese. We keep him for the torture.”
“Let him come,” returned the sage.
Then Tamenund once more sunk into his seat, and a silence so deep prevailed, while the young men prepared to obey his simple mandate, that the leaves, which fluttered in the draught of the light morning air, were distinctly heard rustling in the surrounding forest.
CHAPTER XIII.
“If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?
Shakspeare
The silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes. Then the waving multitude opened, and shut again, and Uncas stood environed by the living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned, on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect, agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted, in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting the settled expression of hostility, that lowered in the visages of the chiefs, with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive children. But when, last in his keen and haughty scrutiny, the person of Tamenund came under his glance, his eye became as fixed, as though all other objects were already forgotten. Then advancing with a slow and noiseless step, up the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.
“With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitto?” demanded the patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.
“Like his fathers,” Uncas replied; “with the tongue of a Delaware.”
At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell, ran through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl of the lion, as his choler is first awakened–a fearful omen of the weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage, though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he repeated, in his low and deeply guttural tones, the words he had just heard.
“A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from their council fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strange people sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of Heaven had spared! The beasts that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I found a Delaware so base, as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the camps of his nation.”
“The singing-birds have opened their bills,” returned Uncas, in the softest notes of his own musical voice; “and Tamenund has heard their song.”
The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting sounds of some passing melody.
“Does Tamenund dream!” he exclaimed. “What voice is at his ear! Have the winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the Lenape!”
A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from the lips of the Delaware prophet. His people readily construed his unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences, he was believed to hold so frequently, with a superior intelligence, and they awaited the issue of the revelation in secret awe. After a long and patient pause, however, one of the aged men perceiving that the sage had lost the recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of the presence of the prisoner.
“The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,” he said. “’Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail.”
“And ye,” returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, “are dogs that whine when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!”
Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited, retort; but a motion from one of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored the appearance of quiet. The task might possibly have been more difficult, had not a movement, made by Tamenund, indicated that he was again about to speak.
“Delaware,” resumed the sage, “little art thou worthy of thy name. My people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who deserts his tribe, when hid in clouds, is doubly a traitor. The law of the Manitto is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains stand, while the blossoms come and go on the trees, it must be so. He is thine, my children; deal justly by him.”
Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be, from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their fierce and ruthless intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of instant preparation. Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eyes of Hawk-eye began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness; and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a supplicant for mercy.
Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright attitude. One among them, if possible, more fierce and savage than his fellows, seized the hunting shirt of the young warrior, and at a single effort, tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure, he leaped toward his unresisting victim, and prepared to lead him to the stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly, as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The eye-balls of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth opened, and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement. Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him, in wonder, and every eye was, like his own, fastened intently on the figure of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner, in a bright blue tint.