Magua caught the expression, and raising his arm, he shook it at the captive, the light silver ornaments attached to his bracelet rattling with the trembling agitation of the limb, as, in a tone of vengeance, he exclaimed, in English:
Mohican, you die
!
The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life
, returned Uncas, in the music of the Delawares;
the tumbling river washes their bones; their men are squaws: their women owls. Go! call together the
Huron dogs, that they may look upon a warrior, My nostrils are offended; they scent the blood of a coward
.
The latter allusion struck deep, and the injury rankled. Many of the Hurons understood the strange tongue in which the captive spoke, among which number was Magua. This cunning savage beheld, and instantly profited by his advantage. Dropping the light robe of skin from his shoulder, he stretched forth his arm, and commenced a burst of his dangerous and artful eloquence. However much his influence among his people had been impaired by his occasional and besetting weakness, as well as by his desertion of the tribe, his courage and his fame as an orator were undeniable. He never spoke without auditors, and rarely without making converts to his opinions. On the present occasion, his native powers were stimulated by the thirst of revenge.
He again recounted the events of the attack on the island at Glenn's, the death of his associates and
the escape of their most formidable enemies. Then he described the nature and position of the mount
whither he had led such captives as had fallen into their hands. Of his own bloody intentions toward
the maidens, and of his baffled malice he made no mention, but passed rapidly on to the surprise of
the party by La Longue Carabine
, and its fatal termination. Here he paused, and looked about him, in
affected veneration for the departed, but, in truth, to note the effect of his opening narrative. As usual,
every eye was riveted on his face. Each dusky figure seemed a breathing statue, so motionless was the
posture, so intense the attention of the individual.
Then Magua dropped his voice which had hitherto been clear, strong and elevated, and touched upon the merits of the dead. No quality that was likely to command the sympathy of an Indian escaped his notice. One had never been known to follow the chase in vain; another had been indefatigable on the trail of their enemies. This was brave, that generous. In short, he so managed his allusions, that in a nation which was composed of so few families, he contrived to strike every chord that might find, in its turn, some breast in which to vibrate.
Are the bones of my young men
, he concluded,
in the burial-place of the Hurons? Yu know they are
not. Their spirits are gone toward the setting sun, and are already crossing the great waters, to the
happy hunting-grounds. But they departed without food, without guns or knives, without moccasins,
naked and poor as they were born. Shall this be? Are their souls to enter the land of the just like hungry
Iroquois or unmanly Delawares, or shall they meet their friends with arms in their hands and robes on
their backs? What will our fathers think the tribes of the Wyandots have become? They will look on
their children with a dark eye, and say,
.
The effect of such an harangue, delivered in the nervous language and with the emphatic manner of a Huron orator, could scarcely be mistaken. Magua had so artfully blended the natural sympathies with the religious superstition of his auditors, that their minds, already prepared by custom to sacrifice a victim to the manes of their countrymen, lost every vestige of humanity in a wish for revenge. One warrior