James Cooper - LEATHERSTOCKING TALES – Complete Collection

“With joyful pleasure do I consent,” said David, adjusting his iron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which he immediately tendered to Alice. “What can be more fitting and consolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such exceeding jeopardy!”

Alice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.

“Indulge yourself,” he whispered: “ought not the suggestion of the worthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?”

Encouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her keen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book was open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the poet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of Israel, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora betrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song proceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and the tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.

The air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of the rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy excitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran through their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and true ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined cavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling notes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the rocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into stone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an expression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features to relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature subdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his ears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the settlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before the hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long seemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener felt the storms of heaven than any testimonials of weakness. The singers were dwelling on one of those low, dying chords, which the ear devours with such greedy rapture, as if conscious that it is about to lose them, when a cry, that seemed neither human nor earthly, rose in the outward air, penetrating not only the recesses of the cavern, but to the inmost hearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a stillness apparently as deep as if the waters had been checked in their furious progress, at such a horrid and unusual interruption.

“What is it?” murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible suspense.

“What is it?” repeated Heyward aloud.

Neither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if expecting the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed their own astonishment. At length they spoke together earnestly, in the Delaware language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed aperture, cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first spoke in English.

“What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell; though two of us have ranged the woods for more than thirty years! I did believe there was no cry that Indians or beast could make, that my ears had not heard; but this has proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal!”

“Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to intimidate their enemies?” asked Cora, who stood drawing her veil about her person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.

“No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound; but when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for anything else! Well, Uncas!” speaking in Delaware to the young chief as he re-entered, “what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?”

The answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same tongue.

“There is nothing to be seen without,” continued Hawkeye, shaking his head in discontent; “and our hiding-place is still in darkness! Pass into the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be afoot long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to Edward, while the Mingos are taking their morning nap.”

Cora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the more timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place, however, she whispered a request to Duncan that he would follow. Uncas raised the blanket for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank him for this act of attention, they saw the scout seated again before the dying embers, with his face resting on his hands, in a manner which showed how deeply he brooded on the unaccountable interruption which had broken up their evening devotions.

Heyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through the narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable position, he joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him for the first time since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort Edward.

“Leave us not, Duncan,” said Alice; “we cannot sleep in such a place as this, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears!”

“First let us examine into the security of your fortress,” he answered, “and then we will speak of rest.”

He approached the farther end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like the others, was concealed by blankets, and removing the thick screen, breathed the fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the river flowed through a deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn in the soft rock, directly beneath his feet, forming an effectual defence, as he believed, against any danger from that quarter; the water, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing, and sweeping along, in its most violent and broken manner.

“Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side,” he continued, pointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current, before he dropped the blanket; “and as you know that good men and true are on guard in front, I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should be disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is necessary to you both.”

“Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion, though she cannot put it in practise,” returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by the side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; “there would be other causes to chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this mysterious noise. Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the anxiety a father must endure, whose children lodge, he knows not where or how, in such a wilderness, and in the midst of so many perils?”

“He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the woods.”

“He is a father, and cannot deny his nature.”

“How kind has he ever been to all my follies! how tender and indulgent to all my wishes!” sobbed Alice. “We have been selfish, sister, in urging our visit at such hazard!”

“I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much embarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might neglect him in his strait, his children at least were faithful!”

“When he heard of your arrival at Edward,” said Heyward, kindly, “there was a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though the latter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly prevailed. ‘It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them, Duncan,’ he said, ‘and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he who holds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but half her firmness!’”