James Cooper: The Last of the Mohicans

‘If he has been my father’s enemy, I like him still less!’ exclaimed the now really anxious girl. ‘Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!’

‘It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation. Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be ignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak it now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he stops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at hand.’

The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.

‘Here, then, lies our way,’ said the young man, in a low voice. ‘Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to apprehend.’

‘Cora, what think you?’ asked the reluctant fair one. ‘If we journey with the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not feel better assurance of our safety?’

‘Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you mistake the place of real danger,’ said Heyward. ‘If enemies have reached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts are abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column, where scalps abound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours, having been determined within the hour, must still be secret.’

‘Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and his skin is dark?’ coldly asked Cora.

Alice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narraganset 1 a smart cut of the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the bushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The young man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even permitted her fairer, though certainly not more beautiful companion to proceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the passage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the domestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating the thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which Heyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many minutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue; after which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew along the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark arches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted; and the instant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds, he moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which kept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode at a fast yet easy amble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the distant sound of horses’ hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken way in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions drew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in order to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption

In a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, amongst the straight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the ungainly man, described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as much rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without coming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the observation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any wandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his equestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention. Notwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the flanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was a Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces to the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his sinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.

The industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and diminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be made as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the mare appeared to journey faster than the other, and that the aggrieved flank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail, we finish the picture of both horse and man.

The frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow of Heyward gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile, as he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to control her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted with a humour that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of its mistress repressed.

‘Seek you any here?’ demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived sufficiently nigh to abate his speed; ‘I trust you are no messenger of evil tidings?’

‘Even so,’ replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular castor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and leaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man’s questions he responded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his breath he continued: ‘I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am journeying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem consistent to the wishes of both parties.’

‘You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote,’ returned Heyward; ‘we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself.’

‘Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one’s own mind. Once sure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy; the next is, to act up to the decision. I have endeavoured to do both, and here I am.’

‘If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route,’ said Heyward haughtily; ‘the highway thither is at least half a mile behind you.’

‘Even so,’ returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold reception; ‘I have tarried at “Edward” a week, and I should be dumb not to have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be an end to my calling.’ After simpering in a small way, like one whose modesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a witticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he continued: ‘It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too familiar with those he has to instruct, for which reason I follow not the line of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your character has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have therefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made agreeable, and partake of social communion.’

‘A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!’ exclaimed Heyward, undecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the other’s face. ‘But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are you an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science of defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and angles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?’