“Here; singly to your face,” continued the undaunted Heyward, “or in the presence of your assembled nation!”
“Le Renard Subtil is a great chief!” returned the Indian; “he will go and bring his young men, to see how bravely a pale-face can laugh at the tortures.”
He turned away while speaking, and was about to leave the place through the avenue by which Duncan had approached, when a low, menacing growl, caught his ear, and caused him to hesitate. The figure of the bear appeared in the door, where it sate rolling from side to side, in its customary restlessness. Magua, like the father of the sick woman, eyed it keenly for a moment, as if to ascertain its character. He was far above the more vulgar superstitions of his tribe, and so soon as he recognised the well known attire of the conjuror, he prepared to pass it in cool contempt. But a louder and more threatening growl caused him again to pause. Then he seemed as if suddenly resolved to trifle no longer, and moved resolutely forward. The mimic animal, which had advanced a little, retired slowly in his front, until it arrived again at the pass, when rearing on its hinder legs, it beat the air with its paws, in the manner practised by its more brutal prototype.
“Fool!” exclaimed the chief, in Huron, “go play with the children and squaws; leave men to their wisdom.”
He once more endeavoured to pass the supposed empyric, scorning even the parade of threatening to use the keen knife, or glittering tomahawk, that was pendant from his belt. Suddenly, the beast extended its arms, or rather legs, and enclosed him in a grasp, that might have vied with the far-famed power of the “bear’s hug” itself. Heyward had watched the whole procedure, on the part of Hawk-eye, with breathless interest. At first he relinquished his hold of Alice; then he caught up a thong of buckskin, which had been used around some bundle, and when he beheld his enemy with his two arms pinned to his side, by the iron muscles of the scout, he rushed upon him, and effectually secured them there. Arms, legs, and feet, were encirled in twenty folds of the thong, in less time than we have taken to record the circumstance. When the formidable Huron was completely pinioned, the scout released his hold, and Duncan laid his enemy on his back, utterly helpless.
Throughout the whole of this sudden and extraordinary operation, Magua, though he had struggled violently, until assured he was in the hands of one whose nerves were far better strung than his own, had not uttered the slightest exclamation. But when Hawk-eye, by way of making a summary explanation of his conduct, removed the shaggy jaws of the beast, and exposed his own rugged and earnest countenance to the gaze of the Huron, the philosophy of the latter was so far mastered, as to permit him to utter the never-failing–
“Hugh!”
“Ay! you’ve found your tongue!” said his undisturbed conqueror; “now, in order that you shall not use it to our ruin, I must make free to stop your mouth.”
As there was no time to be lost, the scout immediately set about effecting so necessary a precaution; and when he had gagged the Indian, his enemy might safely have been considered as “hors de combat.”
“By what place did the imp enter?” asked the industrious scout, when his work was ended. “Not a soul has passed my way since you left me.”
Duncan pointed out the door by which Magua had come, and which now presented too many obstacles to a quick retreat.
“Bring on the gentle one then,” continued his friend; “we must make a push for the woods by the other outlet.”
“ ’Tis impossible!” said Duncan; “fear has overcome her, and she is helpless. Alice! my sweet, my own Alice, arouse yourself; now is the moment to fly. ’Tis in vain! she hears, but is unable to follow. Go, noble and worthy friend; save yourself, and leave me to my fate!”
“Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!” returned the scout. “There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it will betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow. Leave the rest to me.”
Duncan, as may be gathered from the words of his companion, was eagerly obeying; and as the other finished speaking, he took the light person of Alice in his arms, and followed on the footsteps of the scout. They found the sick woman as they had left her, still alone, and passed swiftly on, by the natural gallery, to the place of entrance. As they approached the little door of bark, a murmur of voices without announced that the friends and relatives of the invalid were gathered about the place, patiently awaiting a summons to re-enter.
“If I open my lips to speak,” Hawk-eye whispered, “my English, which is the genuine tongue of a white-skin, will tell the varlets that an enemy is among them. You must give ’em your jargon, major; and say, that we have shut the evil spirit in the cave, and are taking the woman to the woods, in order to find strengthening roots. Practyse all your cunning, for it is a lawful undertaking.”
The door opened a little, as if one without was listening to the proceedings within, and compelled the scout to cease his directions. A fierce growl instantly repelled the eves-dropper, and then the scout boldly, threw open the covering of bark, and left the place, enacting the character of the bear as he proceeded. Duncan kept close at his heels, and soon found himself in the centre of a cluster of twenty anxious relatives and friends.
The crowd fell back a little, and permitted the father, and one who appeared to be the husband of the woman, to approach.
“Has my brother driven away the evil spirit?” demanded the former. “What has he in his arms?”
“Thy child,” returned Duncan, gravely; “the disease has gone out of her; it is shut up in the rocks. I take the woman to a distance, where I will strengthen her against any further attacks. She shall be in the wigwam of the young man when the sun comes again.”
When the father had translated the meaning of the stranger’s words into the Huron language, a suppressed murmur announced the satisfaction with which this intelligence was received. The chief himself waved his hand for Duncan to proceed, saying aloud, in a firm voice, and with a lofty manner–
“Go–I am a man, and I will enter the rock and fight the wicked one!”
Heyward had gladly obeyed, and was already past the little groupe, when these startling words arrested him.
“Is my brother mad!” he exclaimed; “is he cruel! He will meet the disease, and it will enter him; or he will drive out the disease, and it will chase his daughter into the woods. No–let my children wait without, and if the spirit appears, beat him down with clubs. He is cunning, and will bury himself in the mountain, therefore, when he sees how many are prepared to fight him.”
This singular warning had the desired effect. Instead of entering the cavern, the father and husband drew their tomahawks, and posted themselves in readiness to deal their vengeance on the imaginary tormentor of their sick relative, while the women and children broke branches from the bushes, or seized fragments of the rock, with a similar intention. At this favourable moment the counterfeit conjurors disappeared.
Hawk-eye, at the same time that he had presumed so far on the nature of the Indian superstitions, was not ignorant that they were rather tolerated than relied on by the wisest of the chiefs. He well knew the value of time in the present emergency. Whatever might be the extent of the self-delusion of his enemies, and however it had tended to assist his schemes, the slightest cause of suspicion, acting on the subtle nature of an Indian, would be likely to prove fatal. Taking the path, therefore, that was most likely to avoid observation, he rather skirted than entered the village. The warriors were still to be seen in the distance, by the fading light of the fires, stalking from lodge to lodge. But the children had abandoned their sports for their beds of skins, and the quiet of night was already beginning to prevail over the turbulence and excitement of so busy and important an evening.
Alice revived under the renovating influence of the open air, and as her physical rather than her mental powers had been the subject of her weakness, she stood in no need of any explanation of that which had occurred.
“Now let me make an effort to walk,” she said, when they had entered the forest, blushing, though unseen, that she had not been sooner able to quit the arms of Duncan; “I am, indeed, restored.”