Adventure Books

11 - The Last Of The Mohicans - James Cooper

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Duration:: 37m
Broadcast on:: 27 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low-maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels wood-borne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free, rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole-house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting for free. But only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280Exterior's.com, 5280Exterior's.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exterior's, the altitude of quality. The Dakota Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park, Saturday, August 3rd, from 2-10pm. And it's free, live music from the Warren Treaty. Chris Daniels and the Kings is Callie and More. Enjoy a spirits competition, Kid Zone and fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Dakota. Admission and parking are free. The Dakota Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Dakota. Visit the City of Dakota.com for more information. Chapter 11 "Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him." The Indian had selected for this desirable purpose one of those steep, pyramidal hills which bear a strong resemblance to artificial mounds and which so frequently occur in the valleys of America. The one in question was high and precipitous. Its top flattened as usual, but with one of its sides more than ordinarily irregular. It possessed no other apparent advantage for a resting place than in its elevation and form, which might render defense easy and surprise nearly impossible. As Hayward, however, no longer expected that rescue which time and distance now rendered so improbable, he regarded these little peculiarities with an eye devoid of interest, devoting himself entirely to the comfort and condolence of his feebler companions. The Narragansets were suffered to browse on the branches of the trees and shrubs that were thinly scattered over the summit of the hill, while the remains of their provisions were spread under the shade of a beach that stretched its horizontal limbs like a canopy above them. Notwithstanding the swiftness of their flight, one of the Indians had found an opportunity to strike a straggling fawn with an arrow and had borne the more preferable fragments of the victim patiently on his shoulders to the stopping place. Without any aid from the science of cookery, he was immediately employed in common with his fellows in gorging himself with his digestible sustenance. What alone sat apart without participating in the revolting meal, and apparently buried in the deepest thought, this abstinence so remarkable in an Indian when he possessed the means of satisfying hunger, at length attracted the notice of Hayward. The young man willingly believed that the Huron deliberated on the most eligible manner of eluding the vigilance of his associates. With a view to assist his plans by any suggestion of his own, and to strengthen the temptation, he left the beach and straggled, as if without an object, to the spot-worly-renard was seated. "Has not Marqua kept the sign in his face long enough to escape all danger from the Canadians?" he asked, as though no longer doubtful of the good intelligence established between them. "And will not the chief of William Henry be better pleased to see his daughters before another night may have hardened his heart to their loss, to make him less liberal in his reward? Do the pale faces love their children less in the morning that at night asked the Indian coldly?" By no means returned Hayward, anxious to recall his heir. If he had made one, the white men may, and does often, forget the burial place of his fathers, he sometimes ceases to remember those he should love, and is promised to cherish. But the affection of a parent for his child is never permitted to die. "And is the heart of the white-headed Chief Soft? And will he think of the babes that his squaws have given him? He is hard on his warriors, and his eyes are made of stone?" He is severe to the idle and wicked, but to the sober and deserving he is a leader, both just and humane. I have known many fond and tender parents, but never have I seen a man whose heart was softer toward his child. You have seen the gray head in front of his warriors, Makwa, but I have seen his eyes swimming in water when he spoke of those children who are now in your power. Hayward paused, for he knew not how to construe the remarkable expression that gleamed across the swarthy features of the attempt of Indian. At first it seemed as if the remembrance of the promised reward grew vivid in his mind, while he listened to the sources of parental feeling which were to assure its possession. But, as Duncan proceeded, the expression of joy became so fiercely malignant that it was impossible not to apprehend it proceeded from some passion more sinister than avarice. "Go!" said the Huron, suppressing the alarming exhibition in an instant, in a deathlike calmness of calmness. "Go to the dark-haired daughter and say," Makwa wants to speak. "The father will remember what the child promises." Duncan, who interpreted this speech to express a wish for some additional pledge, that the promised gifts should not be withheld, slowly and reluctantly repaired to the place where the sisters were now resting from their fatigue, to communicate its purport to Korra. "You understand the nature of an Indian's wishes?" he concluded as he led her toward the place where she was expected, "and must be prodigal of your offers of powder and blankets. Art and spirits are, however, the most prized by such as he, nor would it be a miss, to add some boon from your own hand. With that grace you so well know how to practice. Remember, Korra, that on your presence of mind and ingenuity, even your life, as well as that of Alice, may in some measure depend. "Heyward, and yours!" Mine is of little moment. It is already sold to my king, and is apprised to be seized by any enemy whom may possess the power. I have no father to expect me, and but few friends till a mint of fate which I have courted with the insatiable longings of youth after distinction. But hush we approach the Indian. "Makwa, the lady with whom you wish to speak, is here." The Indian rose slowly from his seat, and stood for near a minute silent and motionless. He then signed with his hand for Hayward to retire, saying coldly, "When the urine talks to the women, his tribe shut their ears." Duncan still lingering as if refusing to comply. Korra said with a calm smile, "You hear Hayward, and delicacy at least should urge you to retire. Go to Alice, and comfort her with our reviving prospects." She waited until he had departed, and then turning to the native, with a dignity of her sex in her voice and manner she added. "What would Le Renard say to the daughter of Monroe?" "Listen," said the Indian, laying his hand firmly upon her arm, as if willing to draw her utmost attention to his words. A movement that Korra, as firmly but quietly repulsed, but extricating the limb from his grasp. Makwa was born in chief and a warrior among the red heroines of the lakes. He saw the sons of twenty summers make the snows of twenty winters run off in the streams before he saw pale face, and he was happy. Then his Canadian fathers came into the woods and taught him to drink the fire water, and he became a rascal. The yorons drove him from the graves of his fathers, as they would chase the haunted buffalo. He ran down the shores of the lakes and followed their outlet to the city of canon. There, he hunted and fished, till the people chased him again through the woods into the arms of his enemies. The chief, who was born a yoron, was at last a warrior among the Mohawks. "Do you think like this I had heard before?" said Korra, observing that he paused to suppress those passions which began to burn with too bright a flame, as he recalled the recollection of his supposed injuries. "Was it the thought of Laurenard that his head was not made of rock? Who gave him the fire water? Who made him a villain? Twas the pale faces, the people of your own color. Am I answerable, the thoughtless and unprincipled man exist? Whose shades of countenance may resemble mine?" Korra calmly demanded of the excited savage. "No. Mokwe is a man and not a fool. Such as you never opened their lips to the burning stream, the great spirit has given you wisdom." "What then have I to do or say in the matter of your misfortunes? Not to say of your hearers?" "Listen," repeated the Indian, resuming his earnest attitude. When his English and French fathers dug up the hatchet, Laurenard struck the war post of the Mohawks and went out against his own nation. The pale faces have driven the red skins from their hunting grounds, and now, when they fight, a white man leads away. "The old chief at Horkin, your father, was the great captain of our war party. He said to the Mohawks, 'Do this and do that.' And he was minded. He made a law that if an Indian swallowed the fire-water and came into the cloth-wig-wombs of his warriors, it should not be forgotten. Mokwe foolish opened his mouth, and the hot liquor led him into the cabin of Monroe. What did the grayhead let his daughters say?" She forgot not his words and her justice. "By punishing the offender," said the undilted daughter. "Justice!" repeated the Indian, casting an oblique glance of the most ferocious expression at her unyielding continents. "Is it justice to make evil and then punish for it?" Mokwe was not himself. It was the fire-water that spoke and acted for him. But Monroe did believe it. The Iran chief was tied up before all the pale-faced warriors, and whipped like a dog! Cora remained silent, for she knew not how to paleiate this imprudent severity on the part of her father, in a manner to suit the comprehension of an Indian. "Say," continued Mokwe, tearing aside the slight calico that very imperfectly concealed his painted breast, "here are scars, given by knives and bullets, of these a warrior may boast before his nation. But the grayhead has left marks on the back of the Iran chief, that he must hide like a squaw, under this painted cloth of the whites." "I had thought," resumed Cora, "that an Indian warrior was patient, and that his spirit felt not, and knew not the pain his body suffered." When the Chippewa's tied Mokwe to the stake, and cut this gash, said the other, laying his finger on a deep scar. The Iran laughed in their faces, and told them, "Women struck so light." His spirit was then in the clouds. But when he felt the blows of Monroe, his spirit lay under the perch, the spirit of a Iran is never drunk. It remembers forever. "But it may be appeased. If my father has done you this injustice, show him how an Indian can forgive an injury, and take back his daughters. You have heard from Major Hayward," Mokwe shook his head, forbidding the repetition it offers he so much despised. "What would you have?" continued Cora, after a most painful pause, while the conviction forced itself on her mind that the two sanguine and generous stunken had been cruelly deceived by the cunning savage. "What a Iran loves!" "Good for good." "Bad for bad." You would then revenge the injury inflicted by Monroe on his helpless daughters. Would it not be more like a man to go before his face and take the satisfaction of a warrior? The arms of a pale face are long, and their knives sharp returned the savage with a milling that laughed. "Why should Leonardo hard go among the muskets of his warriors when he holds the spirit of the grayhead in his hand?" "Name your intention, Mokwe," said Cora, struggling with herself to speak with steady calmness. "Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or do you contemplate some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means of paleiating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least release my gentle sister, and pour out your malice on me. Purchase wealth by her safety, and satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of both his daughters might bring the aged man to his grave, and where would then be the satisfaction of literary nard? "Listen," said the Indian again. "The light eyes go back to the hurricane, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired woman was swear by the great spirit of her fathers to tell no lie." "What must I promise?" demanded Cora, still maintaining a secret ascendancy over the fierce native by the collected and feminine dignity of her presence. When Mokwe left his people, his wife was given to another chief. He has now made friends with the heurons, and will go back to the graves of his tribe on the shores of the Great Lake. Let the daughter of the English chief follow, and live in his wigwam forever. However revolting a proposal of such a character might prove to Cora, she retained, notwithstanding her powerful disgust, sufficient self-command to reply, without betraying the weakness. "And what pleasure would Mokwe find, in sharing his cabin with a wife he did not love, one who would be of a nation and color different from his own? "It would be better to take the gold of Monroe, and buy the heart of some urine made with his gifts." The Indian made no reply for near a minute, but bent his fierce looks on the countenance of Cora in such wavering glances, that her eyes sank with shame, under an impression that for the first time they had encountered an expression that no chase female might endure. While she was shrinking within herself, in dread of having her ears wounded by some proposal still more shocking than the last, the voice of Mokwe answered, in its tones of deepest malignancy. "When the slow scorched the back of the Iran, he would know where to find a woman to feel the smart. The daughter of Monroe would draw his water, ho his cord, and cock his venison. The body of the grayhead would sleep among his cannon, but his heart would lie within reach of the knife of Laysseptil." "Monster! Well does thou deserve thy treacherous name!" cried Cora, in an ungovernable burst of filial indignation. "None but a fiend could mediate such a vengeance, but thou overrated thy power. You shall find it is in truth the heart of Monroe you hold, and that it will defy your utmost malice." The Indian answered this bold defiance by a ghastly smile that showed an unaltered purpose, while he motioned her away as if to close the conference forever. Cora, already regretting her precipitation, was obliged to comply. For Mokwe instantly left the spot and approached his gluttonous comrades. Hayward flew to the side of the agitated female and demanded the result of a dialogue that he had watched at a distance with so much interest, but unwilling to alarm the fears of Alice. She evaded a direct reply, betraying only by her anxious looks fastened on the slightest movements of her captors. To the reiterated and earnest questions of her sister concerning their probable destination, she made no other answer than by pointing toward the dark group with an agitation she could not control, and murmuring as she folded Alice to her bosom. "They're there. Read our fortunes in their faces. We shall see. We shall see." The action and the choked utterance of Cora spoke more impressively than any words, and quickly drew the attention of her companions on that spot where her own was riveted with an intenseness that nothing but the importance of the stake could create. When Mokwe reached the cluster of lolling savages, who, gorged with their disgusting meal, lay stretched on the earth in brutal indulgence, he commenced speaking with the dignity of an Indian chief. The first syllables he uttered had the effect to cause his listeners to raise themselves at attitudes of respectful attention. As the Huron used his native language, the prisoners, notwithstanding the caution of the natives had kept them within swing of their tomahawks, could only conjecture the substance of his harangue from the nature of those significant gestures with which an Indian always illustrates his eloquence. At first, the language as well as the action of Mokwe appeared calm and deliberative. When he had succeeded in sufficiently awakening the attention of his comrades, Hayward fancied by his pointing so frequently toward the direction of the Great Lakes that he spoke of the land of their fathers and of their distant tribe. Frequent indications of applause escaped the listeners, who, as they uttered the expressive "huh!" looked at each other in commendation to the speaker. Lea Renard was too skillful to neglect his advantage. He now spoke of the long and painful route by which they had left those spacious grounds and happy villages to come in battle against the enemies of their Canadian fathers. He enumerated the warriors of the party, their several merits, their frequent services to the nation, their wounds, the number of scalps they had taken. Whenever he eluded to any present, and the subtle Indian neglected none, the dark countenance of the flattered individual gleamed with exaltation. Nor did he even hesitate to assert the truth of the words by gestures of applause and confirmation. Then the voice of the speaker fell and lost the loud animated tones of triumph, with which he had enumerated their deeds of success and victory. He described the cataract of glens, the impregnable position of its rocky island, with its caverns and its numerous rapids and whirlpools. He named the name of "La Long Carabine," and paused until the forest beneath him had sent up the last echo of a loud and long yell, with which the hated appellation was received. He pointed toward the youthful military captive, and described the death of a favorite warrior, had been precipitated into the deep ravine by his hand. He not only mentioned the fate of him who, hanging between heaven and earth, had presented such a spectacle of horror to the whole band, but he acted anew the terrors of his situation, his resolution, and his death on the branches of a sapling; and, finally, he rapidly recounted the manner in which each of their friends had fallen, never failing to touch upon their courage and their most acknowledged virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once more changed, and became plaintive and even musical in its low guttural sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain, their destitution, their misery, both physical and moral, their distance, and at last of their unavenged wrongs, then suddenly lifting his voice to a pitch of terrific energy he concluded by demanding, "Are the Iran's dogs to bear this? Who shall say to the wife and the nokwa that the fishes have his scalp, and that his nation have not taken revenge? Who will dare meet the mother of Wasatemi? That scornful woman, with his hands clean? What shall we set to the old men when they ask us for scouts? And we have not a hair from a white head to give them. The women will point their fingers at us. There's a dark spot on the name of the Iran's, and it must be hid in blood." His voice was no longer audible in the burst of rage, which now broke into the air, as if the wood, instead of containing so small a band, was filled with the nation. During the foregoing address, the progress of the speaker was too plainly read by those most interested in his success through the medium of the countenances of the men he addressed. They had answered his melancholy in mourning by sympathy and sorrow, his assertions by gestures of confirmation, and his boasting with the exaltation of savages. When he spoke of courage, their looks were firm and responsive. When he eluded to their injuries, their eyes kindled with fury, when he mentioned the taunts of the women. They dropped their heads in shame, but when he pointed out their means of vengeance, he struck a cord which never failed to thrill in the breast of an Indian. With the first intimation that it was within their reach, the whole band sprang upon their feet as one man. Giving utterance to their rage in the most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body with drawn knives and uplifted tomahawks. Hayward threw himself between the sisters and the foremost, whom he grappled with a desperate strength that for a moment checked his violence. The unexpected resistance gave Makwa time to interpose, and with rapid enunciation and animated gesture, he drew the attention of the band again to himself. In that language he knew so well how to assume; he diverted his comrades from their instant purpose, and invited them to prolong the misery of their victims. His proposal was received with acclamations, and executed with the swiftness of thought. Two powerful warriors cast themselves on Hayward, while another was occupied in securing the less active singing master. Neither the captives, however, submitted without a desperate, though fruitless struggle. Even David hurled his assailant to the earth, nor was Hayward secured until the victory over his companion enabled the Indians to direct their united force on that object. He was then bound and fastened to the body of the sapling, on whose branches Makwa had acted the pantomime of the falling Huron. When the young soldier regained his recollection, he had the painful certainty before his eyes that a common fate was intended for the whole party. On his right was Korah, inadurance somewhere to his own. Pale and agitated, but with an eye whose steady look still read the proceedings of their enemies. On his left, the wives, which bound her to a pine, performed that office for Alice, which her trembling limbs refused, and alone kept her fragile form from sinking. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer, but instead of looking upward toward the power which alone could rescue them, her unconscious looks wandered to the countenance of Duncan, with infantile dependency. David had contended, and the novelty of the circumstance held him silent in deliberation of the propriety of the unusual currents. The vengeance of the Hurons had not taken a new direction, and they prepared to execute it with that barbarous ingenuity with which they were familiarized by the practice of centuries. Some sought knots to raise the blazing pile. One was writhing the splinters of pine in order to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments, and others bent the tops of two samplings to the earth in order to suspend Hayward by the arms between the recoiling branches, but the vengeance of Makhwa saw to deeper and more malignant enjoyment. While the less refined monsters of the band prepared before the eyes of those who were to suffer, those well-known and vulgar means of torture, he approached Korah and pointed out with the most malign expression of countenance. The speedy fate that awaited her. "Ha!" he added, "What says the daughter of Monroe? Her head is too good to find a pillow in the wakewam of Le Renard. Will she like it better when it rolls about this hill, a plaything for the wolves?" Her bosom cannot nurse the children of a Euron. She will see it spit upon by Indians. "What means the monster?" demanded thus stonish Hayward. "Nothing!" was the firm reply. "He is a savage, a barbarous and ignorant savage, and knows not what he does. Let us find leisure with our dying breath, to ask for him penance and pardon." "Barden!" echoed the fierce Euron, mistaking in his anger, the meaning of her words. "The memory of an Indian is no longer than the arm of the pale faces. His mercy shorted in their justice. Say, shall I send the yellow hair to her father, and will you follow Makua to the Great Lakes to carry his floater and feed him with Korah?" Korah beckoned him away. With an emotion of disgust she could not control. "Leave me!" She said, with a solemnity that for a moment checked the barbarity of the Indian. "You mingle bitterness with my prayers. You stand between me and my God!" The slight impression produced on the savage was however soon forgotten, and he continued, pointing with taunting irony toward Alice. "Look, the child weeps!" She's too young to die. Sandered to Monroe, to comb his gray hairs, and keep life in the heart of the old man. Korah could not resist the desire to look upon her youthful sister, in whose eyes she met an imploring glance that betrayed the longings of nature. "What says he there is Korah?" asked the trembling voice of Alice. "Did he speak of sending me to her father?" For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with accountants that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At length she spoke, though her tones had lost their rich and calm fullness in an expression of tenderness that seemed maternal. "Tell us!" she said. "The Huron offers us both life. They, more than both, he offers to restore Duncan, are invaluable Duncan, as well as you, to our friends, to our father, to our heart-stricken, childless father. If I were bowed down this rebellious stubborn pride of mine, and consent?" Her voice became choked, and clasping her hands she looked upward, as if seeking, in her agony, intelligence from a wisdom that was infinite. "Say on!" cried Alice. "To what, dear is Korah, oh, that the proffer were made to me, to save you, to cheer our aged father, to restore Duncan, how cheerfully would I die?" "Doh!" repeated Korah, with a calmer and firmer voice. "That were easy. Perhaps the alternative may not be less so." "He would have me," she continued, her accent sinking under a deep consciousness of the degradation of the proposal. "Follow him to the wilderness. Go to the habitations of the Hurons, to remain there, in short, to become his wife. Speak, then, Alice, child of my affections, sister of my love. And you, too," major Hayward, "aid my weak reason with your counsel, his life, to be purchased by such a sacrifice. Will you, Alice, receive it at my hands at such a price? And you don't can guide me. Control me between you, for I am wholly yours." "Would I?" echoed the indignant and astonished youth. "Korah, Korah, you chest with our misery. Name not the horrid alternative again. The fight itself is worse than a thousand deaths. That such would be your answer I well knew." exclaimed Korah, her cheeks flushing, and her dark eyes once more sparkling with the lingering emotions of a woman. "What says my Alice? For her I will submit without another murmur." Although both Hayward and Korah listened with painful suspense and the deepest attention, no sounds were heard in reply. It appeared as if the delicate and sensitive form of Alice, would shrink into itself as she listened to this proposal. Her arms had fallen lengthwise before her, the fingers moving in slight convulsions. Her head dropped upon her bosom, and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex. Devoid of animation, and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head began to move slowly, in a deep sign of unconquerable dis-approbation. "Oh, no, no! Better that we die as we have lived, together than die!" shouted Makwa, hurling his atomic hawk with violence at the un-resisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no longer be bridled at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of Hayward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, quivered in the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation. Collecting all his energies in one effort, he snapped the twigs which bound him and rushed upon another savage, who was preparing with loud yells and a more deliberate aim to repeat the blow. They encountered, grappled, and fell to the earth together. The naked body of his antagonist afforded Hayward no means of holding his adversary, who glided from his grasp and rose again with one knee on his chest, pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the knife gleaming in the air when a whistling sound swept past him, and was rather accompanying that followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. He felt his breast relieve from the load it had endured. He saw the savage expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant wildness. When the Indian fell dead on the faded leaves by his side. End of Chapter 11. Fifty-two-eighty exteriors James Hardy's sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels wood-borne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting for free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 52-eighty exteriors.com 52-eighty exteriors.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor 52-eighty exteriors, the altitude of quality. The Dakono Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park, Saturday, August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m., and it's free live music from the Warren Treaty. Chris Daniels and the Kings is Callie and Moore. Enjoy a spirits competition, Kid Zone and fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Dakono. Admission and parking are free. The Dakono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenrich Brewery and City of Dakono. Go to thecityofdakono.com for more information.