The first impression of so strange a scene was deep and engrossing admiration. Then a low, but increasing murmur, ran through the multitude, and finally swelled into sounds, that denoted lively opposition in the sentiments of the spectators. While some openly testified their satisfaction at such unexampled dexterity, by far the larger portion of the tribe were inclined to believe the success of the shot was the result of accident. Heyward was not slow to confirm an opinion that was so favourable to his own pretensions.
“It was all a chance!” he exclaimed; “none can shoot without an aim!”
“Chance!” echoed the excited woodsman, who was now stubbornly bent on maintaining his identity, at every hazard, and on whom the secret hints of Heyward to acquiesce in the deception were entirely lost. “Does yonder lying Huron, too, think it chance? Give him another gun, and place us face to face, without cover or dodge, and let Providence, and our own eyes, decide the matter atween us! I do not make the offer to you, major; for our blood is of a colour, and we serve the same master.”
“That the Huron is a liar, is very evident,” returned Heyward, coolly; “you have, yourself, heard him assert you to be la Longue Carabine.”
It were impossible to say what violent assertion the stubborn Hawk-eye would have next made, in his headlong wish to vindicate his identity, had not the aged Delaware once more interposed.
“The hawk which comes from the clouds, can return when he will,” he said; “give them the guns.”
This time the scout seized the rifle with avidity; nor had Magua, though he watched the movement of the marksman with jealous eyes, any further cause for apprehension.
“Now let it be proved, in the face of this tribe of Delawares, who is the better man,” cried the scout, tapping the butt of his piece with that finger which had pulled so many fatal triggers. “You see the gourd hanging against yonder tree, major; if you are a marksman, fit for the borders, let me find that you can break its shell!”
Duncan noted the object, and prepared himself to renew the trial. The gourd was one of the usual little vessels used by the Indians, and was suspended from a dead branch of a small pine, by a thong of deer-skin, at the full distance of a hundred yards. So strangely compounded is the feeling of self-love, that the young soldier, while he knew the utter worthlessness of the suffrages of his savage umpires, forgot the sudden motives of the contest, in a wish to excel. It has been seen, already, that his skill was far from being contemptible, and he now resolved to put forth its nicest qualities. Had his life depended on the issue, the aim of Duncan could not have been more deliberate and guarded. He fired; and three or four young Indians, who sprang forward at the report, announced with a shout, that the ball was in the tree, a very little on one side of the proper object. The warriors uttered a common ejaculation of pleasure, and then turned their eyes, inquiringly, on the movements of his rival.
“It may do for the Royal Americans!” said Hawk-eye, laughing once more in his own silent, heartfelt, manner; “but had my gun often turned so much from the true line, many a martin, whose skin is in a lady’s muff, would now be in the woods; ay, and many a bloody Mingo, who has departed to his final account, would be acting his deviltries at this very day, atween the provinces. I hope the squaw who owns the gourd, has more of them in her wigwam, for this will never hold water again!”
The scout had shook his priming, and cocked his piece, while speaking; and, as he ended, he threw back a foot, and slowly raised the muzzle from the earth. The motion was steady, uniform, and in one direction. When on a perfect level, it remained for a single moment without tremor or variation, as though both man and rifle were carved in stone. During that stationary instant, it poured forth its contents, in a bright, glancing, sheet of flame. Again the young Indians bounded forward, but their hurried search and disappointed looks announced, that no traces of the bullet were to be seen.
“Go,” said the old chief to the scout, in a tone of strong disgust; “thou art a wolf in the skin of a dog. I will talk to the ‘long rifle’ of the Yengeese.”
“Ah! had I that piece which furnished the name you use, I would obligate myself to cut the thong, and drop the gourd, instead of breaking it!” returned Hawk-eye, perfectly undisturbed by the other’s manner. “Fools, if you would find the bullet of a sharp-shooter of these woods, you must look in the object, and not around it?”
The Indian youths instantly comprehended his meaning–for this time he spoke in the Delaware tongue–and tearing the gourd from the tree, they held it on high, with an exulting shout, displaying a hole in its bottom, which had been cut by the bullet, after passing through the usual orifice in the centre of its upper side. At this unexpected exhibition, a loud and vehement expression of pleasure burst from the mouth of every warrior present. It decided the question, and effectually established Hawk-eye in the possession of his dangerous reputation. Those curious and admiring eyes which had been turned again on Heyward, were finally directed to the weather-beaten form of the scout, who immediately became the principal object of attention, to the simple and unsophisticated beings, by whom he was surrounded. When the sudden and noisy commotion had a little subsided, the aged chief resumed his examination.
“Why did you wish to stop my ears?” he said, addressing Duncan; “are the Delawares fools, that they could not know the young panther from the cat?”
“They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird,” said Duncan, endeavouring to adopt the figurative language of the natives.
“It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother,” added the chief, turning his eyes on Magua, “the Delawares listen.”
Thus singled, and directly called on, to declare his object, the Huron arose, and advancing with great deliberation and dignity, into the very centre of the circle, where he stood confronted to the prisoners, he placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth, however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of earnest faces, as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his audience. On Hawk-eye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan, a look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice, he scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm, commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with an expression, that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.
“The Spirit that made men, coloured them differently,” commenced the subtle Huron. “Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These he said should be slaves; and he ordered them to work for ever, like the beaver. You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt water, where the big canoes come and go with them in droves. Some he made with faces paler than the ermine of the forests: and these he ordered to be traders; dogs to their women, and wolves to their slaves. He gave this people the nature of the pigeon; wings that never tire; young, more plentiful than the leaves on the trees, and appetites to devour the earth. He gave them tongues like the false call of the wild-cat; hearts like rabbits; the cunning of the hog, (but none of the fox,) and arms longer than the legs of the moose. With his tongue, he stops the ears of the Indians; his heart teaches him to pay warriors to fight his battles; his cunning tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms enclose the land from the shores of the salt water, to the islands of the great lake. His gluttony makes him sick. God gave him enough, and yet he wants all. Such are the pale-faces.
“Some the Great Spirit made with skins brighter and redder than yonder sun,” continued Magua, pointing impressively upward to the lurid luminary, which was struggling through the misty atmosphere of the horizon; “and these did he fashion to his own mind. He gave them this island as he had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game. The wind made their clearings; the sun and rains ripened their fruits; and the snows came to tell them to be thankful. What need had they of roads to journey by! They saw through the hills! When the beavers worked, they lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in winter, skins kept them warm. If they fought among themselves, it was to prove that they were men. They were brave; they were just; they were happy.”