James Cooper - LEATHERSTOCKING TALES – Complete Collection

“You may see, Magua,” he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom and confidence, “that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no nearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with the rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate. But, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking to the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the woods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely till the morning.”

The Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his imperfect English, “Is he alone?”

“Alone!” hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to be assumed without embarrassment. “O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you know that we are with him.”

“Then Le Renard Subtil will go,” returned the runner, coolly raising his little wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; “and the pale-faces will see none but their own color.”

“Go! Whom call you Le Renard?”

“’Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua,” returned the runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. “Night is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him.”

“And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry concerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman that his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be one?”

“Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will not hear him, or feel him, in the woods.”

“But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid him stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted with the business of a man.”

“Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones of his fathers,” was the answer of the unmoved runner.

“Enough, Magua,” said Heyward; “are we not friends? Why should there be bitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services when performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary limbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to spare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the ladies are refreshed we will proceed.”

“The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women,” muttered the Indian, in his native language, “and when they want to eat, their warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness.”

“What say you, Renard?”

“Le Subtil says it is good.”

The Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of Heyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and seating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of some former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending his looks slowly and cautiously around him.

“This is well,” continued Heyward; “and Le Renard will have strength and sight to find the path in the morning;” he paused, for sounds like the snapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the adjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,—“we must be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path, and shut us out from the fortress.”

The hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his eyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his nostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than usual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to represent intense attention.

Heyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly extricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand towards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect the point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the tremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single instant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be hardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil cautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and guarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change. Heyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg over the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and seize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood. In order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an air of calmness and friendship.

“Le Renard Subtil does not eat,” he said, using the appellation he had found most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. “His corn is not well parched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be found among my own provisions that will help his appetite.”

Magua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered their hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his riveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward moving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the young man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged, at a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the form of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in its paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed the shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that was accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter’s rifle.

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“In such a night

Did Thisbe fearfully o’ertrip the dew;

And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself.”

—Merchant of Venice

The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the pursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive surprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he dashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend his aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards, he met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful pursuit.

“Why so soon disheartened!” he exclaimed; “the scoundrel must be concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not safe while he goes at large.”

“Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?” returned the disappointed scout; “I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag’in yon big pine, I pulled as it might be on the scent; but ‘twouldn’t do! and yet for a reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in these matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow blossom, in the month of July!”

“’Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!”

“No, no,” returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion, “I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the longer for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks him, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens motion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly, a stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!”

“We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!”

“Is life grievous to you?” interrupted the scout. “Yonder red devils would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so often slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece within sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation! ’twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such a fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent, or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm’s marquee, ag’in this hour to-morrow.”