Adventure Books
28 - The Last Of The Mohicans - James Cooper
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- Duration:
- 30m
- Broadcast on:
- 13 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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At Saulgoodmedia.com, we believe in the power of stories to transform lives. Whether you're a lifelong learner, a parent seeking bedtime stories for your children, or someone looking to unwind after a long day, we have something just for you. We invite you to try Saul Good Media free for one month. Explore our extensive collection and find the perfect audio content that resonates with you. Join our community of passionate listeners and unlock a world of knowledge, relaxation, and inspiration. Visit www.soulgoodmedia.com today and start your free trial. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A dot com. Chapter 28. "Brief, I pray you, for you see, 'tis a busy time with me." From much adobe about nothing. The tribe, or rather half-tribe of Delaware's, which has been so often mentioned, and whose present place of encampment was so nigh the temporary village of the Urons, could assemble about an equal number of warriors with the latter people. Like their neighbors, they had followed Mont Calme into the territories of English Crown, and were making heavy and serious inroads on the hunting grounds of the Mohawks. Though they had seen fit with the mysterious reserve so common among the natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most required. The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion, however, that they had been influenced by the veneration for the ancient treaty that had once made them dependent on the six nations for military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their former masters. As for the tribe itself, it had been content to announce to Mont Calme through his emissaries, with Indian brevity, that their hatchets were dull, and time was necessary to sharpen them. The politic captain of the candidates had deemed it wiser to submit to entertain a passive friend, then by acts of ill-judged severity, to convert him into an open enemy. On that morning, when Magua led his silent party from the settlement of the beavers into the forest, in the manner described, the sun rose upon the Delaware encampment, as if it had suddenly burst upon a busy people, actively employed in all the customary avocations of high noon. The woman ran from lodge to lodge, some engaged in preparing their morning's meal. A few earnestly bent on seeking the comforts necessary to their habits, but more pausing to exchange hasty and whispered sentences with their friends. The warriors were lounging in groups, musing more than they conversed, and then a few words were uttered. Speaking like men who deeply weighed their opinions, the instruments of the chase were to be seen in abundance among the lodges, but none departed. Here and there a warrior was examining his arms, with an attention that is rarely bestowed on the implements, when no other enemy than the beast of the forest is expected to be encountered. And occasionally the eyes of a whole group were turned simultaneously toward a large and silent lodge in the center of the village, as if it contained the subject of their common thoughts. During the existence of this scene, a man suddenly appeared that the furthest extremity of a platform of rock which formed the level of the village. He was without arms, and his paint tended rather to soften than increase the natural sternness of his austere countenance. When in full view of the Delaware's he stopped and made a gesture of amity, by throwing his arm upward toward heaven, and then letting it fall impressively on his breast. The inhabitants of the village answered his salute, by a low murmur of welcome, and encouraged him to advance by similar indications of friendship. Fortified by these assurances, the dark figure left the brow of the rocky terrace, where it had stood for a moment, drawn in a strong outline against the blushing morning sky, and moved with dignity into the very center of the huts. As he approached, nothing was audible, but the rattling of the light-silver ornaments that loaded his arms and neck, and the tinkling of the little bells that fringed his dear-skinned moccasins. He made, as he advanced, many courteous signs of greeting to the men he passed, neglecting to notice the woman, however, like one who deemed their favor in the present enterprise of no importance. When he had reached the group in which it was evident by the haughtiness of their common mean, that the principal chiefs were collected, the stranger paused, and then the Delaware saw that the active and erect form that stood before them was that of the well-known Huron Chief, later in our sceptile. His reception was grave, silent, and wary. The warriors in front stepped aside, opening the way to their most approved orator by the action, one who spoke all those languages that were cultivated among the northern aborigines. "The wise Huron is welcome," said the Delaware, in the language of the moccas. "He has come to eat his sakotash with his brothers of the lakes." Footnote. A dish composed of crack corn and beans, it is much used also by the whites, but corn is meant maize and footnote. "He has come," repeated Marqua, bending his head with the dignity of an eastern prince. The chief extended his arm, and, taking the other by the wrists, they once more exchanged friendly salutations. Then the Delaware invited his guests to enter his own lodge and share his morning meal. The invitation was accepted, and the two warriors, attended by three or four of the old men, walked calmly away, leaving the rest of the tribe devoured by a desire to understand the reasons of so unusual a visit, and yet not betraying the least impatience by sign or word. During the short and frugal repass that followed, the conversation was extremely circumspect and related entirely to the events of the hunt in which Marqua had so lately been engaged. It would have been impossible for the most finished breeding to wear more of the appearance of considering the visit as a thing of course. Then did his host, notwithstanding every individual present, was perfectly aware that it must be connected with some secret object and that probably of importance to themselves. When the appetites of the whole were appeased, the squaws removed the trenches and gourds, and the two parties began to prepare themselves for a subtle trial of their wits. "Is the face of my great Canada father turned again toward his Huron children?" demanded the orator of the Delaware's. "When was it ever otherwise?" returned Marqua. "He calls my people most beloved." The Delaware graciously bowed his acquiescence to what he knew to be false and continued. "The tomahawks of your young men have been very red." "It is so, but they are now bright and dull, for the Yankees are dead, and the Delaware's are our neighbors." The other acknowledged the Pacific compliment by a gesture of the hand and remained silent. Then Marqua, as if recalled to such a recollection by the allusion to the massacre demanded. "Does my prisoner give trouble to my brothers?" "She is welcome." The path between the Hurons and the Delaware's is short, and it is open. "Let her be set to my squaws, if she gives trouble to my brother." "She is welcome," returned the chief of the latter nation, still more emphatically. The baffled Marqua continued silent several minutes. Apparently indifferent, however, to the repulse he had received in his opening effort to regain possession of Cora. "Do my young men leave the Delaware's room on the mountains for their hunts?" he at length continued. "The lannapies are rulers of their own hills," returned the other a little hoddily. "It is well. Justice is the master of a red skin. Why should they brighten their tomahawks and sharpen their knives against each other? Are not the pale faces thicker than the swallows in the season of the flowers?" "Good," exclaimed two or three of his auditors at the same time. Marqua waited a little to permit his words, to soften the feelings of the Delaware's before he added. "Have there not been strange moccasins in the woods? Have not my brothers said the defeat of white men?" "Let my Canada father come," returned the other evasively. "His children are ready to see him." "When the great chief comes, it is to smoke with the Indians in their wigwams. The heroines say, too, he is welcome. But the Yankees have long arms and legs that never tire. My young men dreamed that they had seen the trail the Yankees nigh the village of the Delaware's." "They will not find the Lenapea's sleep." "It is well. The warrior whose eye is open can see his enemy," said Marqua. Once more shifting his ground, when he found himself unable to penetrate the caution of his companion. "I have brought gifts to my brother. His nation would not go on the war path because they did not think it well. But their friends have remembered where they lived." When he had thus announced his liberal intention, the crafty chief arose and gravely spread his presence before the dazzled eyes of his host. They consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered from the slaughtered females of William Henry. In the division of the baubles, the cunning Huron discovered no less art than in their selection. While he bestowed those of greater value on the two most distinguished warriors, one of whom was his host, he seasoned his offerings to their interiors, with such well-timed and opposite compliments, as left them no ground of complaint. In short, the whole ceremony contained such a happy blending of the profitable with the flattering, that it was not difficult for the donor immediately to read the effect of a generosity so aptly mingled with praise in the eyes of those he addressed. This well-judged and politic stroke on the part of Makwa was not without instantaneous results. The Delaware's lost their gravity in a much more cordial expression, and the host in particular, after contemplating his own liberal share of the spoil, for some moments with peculiar gratification, repeated with strong emphasis the words, "My brother is a wise chief. He is welcome." The Hurons love their friends the Delaware's. Return, Makwa. Why should they not? They are colored by the same sun, and their just men will hunt in the same grounds after death. The red skin should be friends, and look with open eyes on the white man. Has not my brother scented spies in the woods? The Delaware, whose name in English signified, hard heart, an appellation that the French had translated in likudu, forgot that of juracy of purpose, which had probably obtained him so significant a title. His countenance grew very sensibly less stern, and he now dang to answer more directly. There have been strange moccasins about my camp. They have been tracked into my lodges. "Did my brother beat out the dogs?" asked Makwa, without averting in any manner to the former equivocation of the chief. "It would not do. The stranger is always welcome to the children of the Lenapee. The stranger, but not the spy. Would the Yankees send their women as spies? Did not the Huron chief say he took women in the battle?" He told no lie. "The Yankees have sent out their scouts. They have been in my woodgums, but they found there no one to say welcome. Then they fled to the Delaware's for, say they, the Delaware's are our friends. Their minds are turned from their Canada father." The insinuation was a home thrust, and one that in a more advanced state of society would have entitled Makwa to the reputation of a skillful diplomatist. The recent defection of the tribe had, as they well knew themselves, subjected the Delaware's to much reproach among their French allies, and they were now made to feel that their future actions were to be regarded with jealousy and distrust. There was no deep insight into causes and effects necessary to foresee that such a situation of things was likely to prove highly prejudicial to their future movements. Their distant villages, their hunting grounds, and hundreds of their women and children, together with a material part of their physical force, were actually within the limits of the French territory. Accordingly, this alarming annunciation was received, as Makwa intended, with manifest disapprobation, if not with alarm. "Let my father look in my face," said Le Cudur. "He will see no change. It is true. My young men did not go out on the warpath. They had dreams for not doing so, but they love and venerate the Great White Chief." Well, he thinks so, when he hears that his greatest enemy is fed in the camp of his children. When he is told a bloody, yangy smokes at your fire, and the fail-face who has slain so many of his friends goes in and out among the Delaware's, "Go! My great Canada, father, is not a fool! Where's the yangy that the Delaware's fear?" returned the other, "Who has slain my young men? Who is the mortal enemy of my great father?" "Let long cat-a-bing!" The Delaware warriors started at the well-known name, betraying by their amazement that they had now learned for the first time, one so famous among the Indian allies of France, was within their power. "What does my brother mean?" demanded Le Cudur. In a stone that by its wonder, far exceeded the usual apathy of his race. "I, Iran, never lies!" returned Marqua, coldly, leaning his head against the side of the lodge, and drawing his slight robe across his tawny breast. "Let the Delaware's count their prisoners. They will find one whose skin is neither red nor pale." A long and musing pause seceded. The chief consulted a part with his companions, and messengers dispatched to collect certain others of the most distinguished men of the tribe. As warrior after warrior dropped in, they were each made acquainted in turn with the important intelligence that Marqua had just communicated. The air of surprise and the usual low, deep, guttural exclamation were common to them all. The news spread from mouth to mouth until the whole encampment became powerfully agitated. The women suspended their labors to catch such syllables, as unguardingly fell from the lips of the consulting warriors. The boys deserted their sports, and walking fearlessly among their fathers looked up in curious admiration, as they heard the brief exclamations of wonder. They so freely expressed the temerity of their hated foe. In short, every occupation was abandoned for the time, and all other pursuits seemed discarded in order that the tribe might freely indulge after their own peculiar manner in an open expression of feeling. When the excitement had a little abated, the old men disposed themselves seriously to consider that which became the honor and safety of their tribe to perform under circumstances of so much delicacy and embarrassment. During all these movements, and in the midst of the general commotion, Marqua had not only maintained his seat, but the very attitude he had originally taken against the side of the lodge, where he continued as immovable, and apparently as unconcerned as if he had no interest in the result. Not a single indication of the future intentions of his host, however, escaped his vigilant eyes. With his consummate knowledge of the nature of the people with whom he had to deal, he anticipated every measure on which they decided, and it might almost be said that in many instances he knew their intentions even before they became known to themselves. The counsel of the Delaware's was short. When it was ended, a general bustle announced that it was to be immediately seceded by a solemn and formal assembly of the nation. As such meetings are rare and only called on occasions of the last importance, the subtle Huron who still set apart a wily and dark observer of the proceedings. Now knew that all his projects must be brought to their final issue. He therefore left the lodge and walked silently forth to the place in front of the encampment, whether their warriors were already beginning to collect. It might have been half an hour before each individual, including even the women and children, was in his place. The delay had been created by the grave preparations that were deemed necessary to sow solemn and unusual a conference. But when the sun was seen climbing above the tops of that mountain, against whose bosom the Delaware's had constructed their encampment, most were seated, and his bright rays darted from behind the outline of trees that fringed the eminence. They fell upon as grave and as attentive, and as deeply interested a multitude, as was probably ever before lighted by his morning beams. Its number somewhat exceeded a thousand souls. In a collection of so serious savages, there is never to be found any impatient aspirant after premature distinction, standing ready to move his auditors to some hasty and perhaps injudicious discussion, in order that his own reputation might be the gainer. An act of so much precipitancy and presumption would seal the downfall of precocious intellect forever. It rested solely on the oldest and most experienced of the men to lay the subject of the conference before the people. Until such a one arose to make some movement no deeds in arms, no natural gifts, nor any renown as an orator, would have justified the slightest interruption. On the present occasion, the aged warrior whose privilege it was to speak was silent, seemingly oppressed with the magnitude of his subject. The delay had already continued long beyond the usual deliberate of pause that always proceeded a conference. But no sign of impatience or surprised escaped even the youngest boy. Occasionally an eye was raised from the earth, where the looks of most were riveted, and strayed toward a particular lodge that was, however, in no manner distinguished from those around it, except in the peculiar care that had been taken to protect it against the assaults of the weather. At length one of those low murmurs that are so apt to disturb a multitude was heard, and the whole nation arose to their feet by a common impulse. At that instant the door of the lodge in question opened, and three men issuing from it slowly approached the place of consultation. They were all aged, even beyond that period to which the oldest present had reached. But one in the center, who leaned on his companions for support, had numbered an amount of years to which the human race is seldom permitted to attain. His frame, which had once been tall and erect like the cedar, was now bending under the pressure of more than a century. The elastic light step of an Indian was gone, and in its place he was compelled to toil his tardy way over the ground inch by inch. His dark wrinkled countenance was in singular and wild contrast to the long white locks which floated on his shoulders, in such thickness as to announce that generations had probably passed away since they had last been shown. The dress of this patriarch, for such considering his vast age, in conjunction with his affinity and influence with his people, he might very properly be termed, was rich and imposing, though strictly after the simple fashions of the tribe. His robe was of the finest skins, which had been deprived of the fur in order to admit of a hieroglyphical representation of various deeds and arms done in former ages. His bosom was loaded with metals, some in mass of silver, and one or two even in gold. The gifts of various Christian potentates during the long period of his life. He also wore armlets and sinkers above the ankles, and the latter precious metal. His head on the hall which the hair had been permitted to grow. The pursuits of war having so long been abandoned was encircled by a sort of plated diadem, which in turn bore lesser and more glittering ornaments, that sparkled amid the glossy hues of three drooping ostrich feathers, died a deep black in touching contrast to the color of his snow-white locks. His tomahawk was nearly hid in silver, and the handle of his knife shone like a horn of solid gold. So soon as the first homo of emotion and pleasure, which the sudden appearance of this venerated individual created, had a little society, the name of "Tamanund" was whispered from mouth to mouth. Magua had often heard the fame of this wise and just Delaware, a reputation that even proceeded so far as to be stow on him the rare gift of holding secret communion with the great spirit, and which has since transmitted his name with some slight alteration to the white usurpers of his ancient territory, as the imaginary "Tutler Saint" of a vast empire. Footnote, the Americans sometimes called their "Tutler Saint" "Tamanae" a corruption of the name of the renowned chief here introduced. There are many traditions which speak of the character and power of "Tamanund" and "Footnote." The Huron chief therefore stepped eagerly out a little from the throng to a spot once he might catch a near glimpse of the features of the man whose decision was likely to produce so deep an influence on his own fortunes. The eyes of the old man were closed, as though the organs were worried with having so long witnessed the selfish workings of human passions. The color of his skin differed from that of most around him, being richer and darker. The latter having been produced by certain delicate and mazzy lines of complicated and yet beautiful figures which had been traced over most of his person by the operation of tattooing. Notwithstanding the position of the Huron, he passed the observant and silent makwa without notice, and leaning on his two venerable supporters, proceeded to the high place of the multitude, where he seated himself in the center of his nation, with the dignity of a monarch and the air of a father. Nothing could surpass the reverence and affection with which this unexpected visit from one who belongs rather to another world than to this was received by his people. After a suitable and decent pause, the principal chiefs arose, and approaching the patriarch, they placed his hands reverently on their heads, seeming to entreat a blessing. The younger men were content with touching his robe, or even drawing nigh his person, in order to breathe in the atmosphere of one so aged, so just, and so valiant. None but the most distinguished among the youthful warriors even presumed so far as to perform the latter ceremony. The great mass of the multitude deeming it a sufficient happiness to look upon a form so deeply venerated and so well beloved. When these acts of affection and respect were performed, the chiefs drew back again to their several places, and silence reigned in the whole encampment. After a short delay, a few of the young men, to whom instructions had been whispered by one of the aged attendants at Tamanant, arose, left the crowd, and entered the lodge which has already been noted as the object of so much attention throughout that morning. In a few minutes they reappeared, escorting the individuals who had caused all these solemn preparations toward the seat of judgment. The crowd opened in a lane, and when the party had reentered, it closed in again, forming a large and dense belt of human bodies, arranged in an open circle. End of chapter 28. Add Free Service Imagine having unlimited access to over 500 audiobooks, meditative sounds, and exclusive shows, all at your fingertips. 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