Chapter 30
Shylock: If you deny me, fie upon your law!The silence continued unbroken by human sounds for many anxious minutes. Then the waving multitude opened and shut again, and Uncas stood in the living circle. All those eyes, which had been curiously studying the lineaments of the sage, as the source of their own intelligence, turned on the instant, and were now bent in secret admiration on the erect, agile, and faultless person of the captive. But neither the presence in which he found himself, nor the exclusive attention that he attracted, in any manner disturbed the self-possession of the young Mohican. He cast a deliberate and observing look on every side of him, meeting the settled expression of hostility that lowered in the visages of the chiefs with the same calmness as the curious gaze of the attentive children. But when, last in this haughty scrutiny, the person of Tamenund came under his glance, his eye became fixed, as though all other objects were already forgotten. Then, advancing with a slow and noiseless step up the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.
There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
I stand for judgment: answer, shall I have it?
MERCHANT OF VENICE
With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou
? demanded the patriarch, without unclosing
his eyes.
Like his fathers
, Uncas replied;
with the tongue of a Delaware
.
At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl of the lion, as his choler is first awakened - a fearful omen of the weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage, though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he repeated, in his low, guttural tones, the words he had just heard.
A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from their council-fires, and scattered,
like broken herds of deer, among the hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strong people
sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven have spared! The beasts that run on the mountains,
and the birds that fly above the trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I
found a Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the camps of his nation
.
The singing-birds have opened their bills
, returned Uncas, in the softest notes of his own musical voice;
and Tamenund has heard their song
.
The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting sounds of some passing melody.
Does Tamenund dream
! he exclaimed.
What voice is at his ear! Have the winters gone backward!
Will summer come again to the children of the Lenape!
A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from the lips of the Delaware prophet. His people readily constructed his unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence and they awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause, however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of the presence of the prisoner.
The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund
, he said.
'Tis a hound that
howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail
.
And ye
, returned Uncas, looking sternly around him,
are dogs that whine, when the Frenchman casts
ye the offals of his deer
!
Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and
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