{"features":[{"feature_idx":0,"name":"text","type":{"dtype":"string","_type":"Value"}},{"feature_idx":1,"name":"prompt","type":{"dtype":"string","_type":"Value"}},{"feature_idx":2,"name":"completion","type":{"dtype":"string","_type":"Value"}}],"rows":[{"row_idx":0,"row":{"text":"Chapter: \"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:\n  The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:\n  Say, is my kingdom lost?\"\n\n  SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nIt was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that\nthe toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before\nthe adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious\nboundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of\nFrance and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who\nfought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the\nrapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the\nmountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more\nmartial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the\npractised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;\nand it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so\ndark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from\nthe inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their\nvengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant\nmonarchs of Europe.\n\nPerhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate\nfrontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness\nof the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies\nbetween the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.\n\nThe facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the\ncombatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the\nChamplain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the\nborders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural\npassage across half the distance that the French were compelled to\nmaster in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,\nit received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so\nlimpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries\nto perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the\ntitle of lake \"du Saint Sacrement.\" The less zealous English thought\nthey conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they\nbestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of\nHanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded\nscenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of\n\"Horican.\"[1]\n\nWinding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the\n\"holy lake\" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With\nthe high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of\nthe water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the\nadventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual\nobstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the\nlanguage of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.\n\nWhile, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless\nenterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges\nof the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial\nacuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we\nhave just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which\nmost of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.\nForts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities\nof the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory\nalighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from\nthe dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient\nsettlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the\nsceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these\nforests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were\nhaggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were\nunknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its\nshades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes\nof its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of\nmany a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the\nnoontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.\n\nIt was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall\nattempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which\nEngland and France last waged for the possession of a country that\nneither was destined to retain.\n\nThe imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of\nenergy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great\nBritain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed, by the\ntalents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer\ndreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of\nself-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though\ninnocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her\nblunders, were but the natural participators.\n\nThey had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which,\nreverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army\nled by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors,\nfor his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of\nFrench and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and\nspirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself,\nwith the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of\nChristendom.[2] A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected\ndisaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand\nfanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the\nyells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued\nfrom the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of\ntheir merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of\nwarfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their\nrecollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to\nhave drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of\nmidnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal\nand barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveller related the\nhazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled\nwith terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children\nwhich slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the\nmagnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of\nreason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood,\nthe slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the\nstoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming\ndoubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who\nthought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America\nsubdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their\nrelentless allies.\n\nWhen, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered\nthe southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the\nlakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army\n\"numerous as the leaves on the trees,\" its truth was admitted with more\nof the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior\nshould feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had\nbeen brought, towards the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian\nrunner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of a\nwork on the shore of the \"holy lake,\" for a speedy and powerful\nreinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between\nthese two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which\noriginally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the\npassage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the\nson of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment\nof troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting\nof a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to\none of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the\nother that of Fort Edward; calling each after a favorite prince of the\nreigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a\nregiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far too\nsmall to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was\nleading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay\nGeneral Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern\nprovinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the\nseveral detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed\nnearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising\nFrenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army\nbut little superior in numbers.\n\nBut under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and\nmen appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable\nantagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their\nmarch, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du\nQuesne, and striking a blow on their advance.\n\nAfter the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a\nrumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the\nmargin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the\nfort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to\ndepart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern\nextremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor, soon\nbecame certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the\ncommander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this\nservice, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the\nintention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps\nand anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from\npoint to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his\nviolent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practised veteran\nmade his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance\nof haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently\nbetrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the as yet\nuntried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in\na flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew\nits veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished;\nthe last light finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer;\nthe trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling\nstream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which\nreigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.\n\nAccording to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the\narmy was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling\nechoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista\nof the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall\npines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and cloudless\neastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest\nsoldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his\ncomrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The\nsimple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular\nand trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right\nof the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position\non its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The\nscouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering\nvehicles that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning\nwas mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants\nwheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high\nmilitary bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of\nmany a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While\nin view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered\narray was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter in\ndistance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass\nwhich had slowly entered its bosom.\n\nThe deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be\nborne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had\nalready disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of\nanother departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and\naccommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,\nwho were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot\nwere gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which\nshowed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females,\nof a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the\ncountry. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff;\nwhile the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling\nmails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the\nreception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the\npleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this\nunusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some\nadmiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and\nothers gazing at the preparations, with dull wonder of vulgar curiosity.\nThere was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions, formed\na marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,\nbeing neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.\n\nThe person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without\nbeing in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints\nof other men, without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature\nsurpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the\nordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed\nto exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders\nnarrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not\ndelicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of\nextraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered\ntremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on\nwhich this false superstructure of the blended human orders was so\nprofanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the\nindividual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A\nsky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long\nthin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of\nthe evil disposed. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely\nfitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of\nwhite ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and\nshoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the\ncostume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of\nwhich was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,\nthrough the vanity or simplicity of its owner. From beneath the flap of\nan enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk, heavily ornamented\nwith tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which, from being\nseen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for some\nmischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon\nengine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp,\nthough several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only\nwithout fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked\nhat, like those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years,\nsurmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat\nvacant countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to\nsupport the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.\n\nWhile the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb,\nthe figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics,\nfreely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the\nhorses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.\n\n\"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is\nfrom foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the\nblue water?\" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and\nsweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: \"I\nmay speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at\nboth havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named\nafter the capital of Old England, and that which is called 'Haven,' with\nthe addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the snows and brigantines\ncollecting their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward\nbound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in\nfour-footed animals; but never before have I beheld a beast which\nverified the true Scripture war-horse like this: 'He paweth in the\nvalley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed\nmen. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle\nafar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.' It would seem\nthat the stock of the horse of Israel has descended to our own time;\nwould it not, friend?\"\n\nReceiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it\nwas delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some\nsort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book\nturned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed\nhimself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in the\nobject that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still, upright,\nand rigid form of the \"Indian runner,\" who had borne to the camp the\nunwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a state of\nperfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with characteristic\nstoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a sullen\nfierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to\narrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now\nscanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk\nand knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that\nof a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his\nperson, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent\nexertion, which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The colors of\nthe war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce\ncountenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and\nrepulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus\nproduced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star\namid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness.\nFor a single instant, his searching and yet wary glance met the\nwondering look of the other, and then changing its direction, partly in\ncunning, and partly in disdain, it remained fixed, as if penetrating the\ndistant air.\n\nIt is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent\ncommunication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from\nthe white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other\nobjects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of\ngentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was\nwanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the\nwar-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that\nwas unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by; where,\nleaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology for a\nsaddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was quietly\nmaking its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same animal.\n\nA young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two\nfemales, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to\nencounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the\nmost juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted\nglimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue\neyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow\naside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. The flush\nwhich still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more\nbright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day\nmore cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth,\nas he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share\nequally in the attentions of the young officer, concealed her charms\nfrom the gaze of the soldiery, with a care that seemed better fitted to\nthe experience of four or five additional years. It could be seen,\nhowever, that her person, though moulded with the same exquisite\nproportions, of which none of the graces were lost by the travelling\ndress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than that of her\ncompanion.\n\nNo sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly\ninto the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb,\nwho, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin,\nand turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble,\nfollowed by their train, towards the northern entrance of the\nencampment. As they traversed that short distance, not a voice was\nheard amongst them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger\nof the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and\nled the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and\nstartling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in\nthe surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed\nan indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye\nfollowed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were\nshining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not\nbrown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,\nthat seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither\ncoarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely\nregular and dignified, and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in\npity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of\nteeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil,\nshe bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were\nabstracted from the scene around her.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!\"\n\n  SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nWhile one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the\nreader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the\nalarm which induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness,\nshe inquired of the youth who rode by her side,--\n\n\"Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an\nespecial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must\nclose our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to\ndraw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even\nbefore we are made to encounter the redoubtable Montcalm.\"\n\n\"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his\npeople, he may be accounted a hero,\" returned the officer. \"He has\nvolunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known, sooner\nthan if we followed the tardy movements of the column: and, by\nconsequence, more agreeably.\"\n\n\"I like him not,\" said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more\nin real terror. \"You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself\nso freely to his keeping?\"\n\n\"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he\nwould not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He is\nsaid to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the\nMohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations.[3] He was\nbrought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which\nyour father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt\nby--but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our\nfriend.\"\n\n\"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!\" exclaimed the\nnow really anxious girl. \"Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that\nI may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me\navow my faith in the tones of the human voice!\"\n\n\"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.\nThough he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be\nignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak\nit, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he\nstops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at\nhand.\"\n\nThe conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot\nwhere the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the\nmilitary road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little\ninconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.\n\n\"Here, then, lies our way,\" said the young man, in a low voice.\n\"Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to\napprehend.\"\n\n\"Cora, what think you?\" asked the reluctant fair one. \"If we journey\nwith the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not\nfeel better assurance of our safety?\"\n\n\"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you\nmistake the place of real danger,\" said Heyward. \"If enemies have\nreached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts\nare abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps\nabound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours,\nhaving been determined within the hour, must still be secret.\"\n\n\"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and\nthat his skin is dark?\" coldly asked Cora.\n\nAlice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett[4] a smart cut\nof the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the\nbushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The\nyoung man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even\npermitted her fairer though certainly not more beautiful companion to\nproceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the\npassage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the\ndomestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating\nthe thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which\nHeyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in\norder to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian\nsavages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many\nminutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue;\nafter which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew\nalong the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark\narches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted, and the\ninstant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds,\nhe moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which\nkept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode, at a fast yet easy\namble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the\ndistant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken\nway in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions\ndrew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in\norder to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption.\n\nIn a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, among the\nstraight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the\nungainly man described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as\nmuch rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without\ncoming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the\nobservation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any\nwandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his\nequestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention.\nNotwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the\nflanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was\na Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward\nassisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a\nloping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces\nto the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the\npowers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a\ntrue eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost\ningenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his\nsinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.\n\nThe industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than\nthose of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the\nformer raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this\nmanner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and\ndiminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be\nmade as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in\nconsequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the\nmare appeared to journey faster than the other; and that the aggrieved\nflank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail,\nwe finish the picture of both horse and man.\n\nThe frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow\nof Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile,\nas he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to\ncontrol her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted\nwith a humor that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of\nits mistress repressed.\n\n\"Seek you any here?\" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived\nsufficiently nigh to abate his speed; \"I trust you are no messenger of\nevil tidings?\"\n\n\"Even so,\" replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular\ncastor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and\nleaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he\nresponded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his\nbreath, he continued, \"I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am\njourneying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem\nconsistent to the wishes of both parties.\"\n\n\"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote,\" returned\nHeyward; \"we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself.\"\n\n\"Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once\nsure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next\nis, to act up to the decision. I have endeavored to do both, and here I\nam.\"\n\n\"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route,\" said\nHeyward, haughtily; \"the highway thither is at least half a mile behind\nyou.\"\n\n\"Even so,\" returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold\nreception; \"I have tarried at 'Edward' a week, and I should be dumb not\nto have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be\nan end to my calling.\" After simpering in a small way, like one whose\nmodesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a\nwitticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he\ncontinued: \"It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too\nfamiliar with those he is to instruct; for which reason I follow not the\nline of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your\ncharacter has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have\ntherefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made\nagreeable, and partake of social communion.\"\n\n\"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!\" exclaimed Heyward,\nundecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the\nother's face. \"But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are\nyou an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science\nof defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and\nangles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?\"\n\nThe stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then,\nlosing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn\nhumility, he answered:--\n\n\"Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make\nnone--by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last\nentreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about\nlines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called\nand set apart for that holy office. I lay claim to no higher gift than a\nsmall insight into the glorious art of petitioning and thanksgiving, as\npractised in psalmody.\"\n\n\"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo,\" cried the amused\nAlice, \"and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw\naside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to\njourney in our train. Besides,\" she added, in a low and hurried voice,\ncasting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps\nof their silent but sullen guide, \"it may be a friend added to our\nstrength, in time of need.\"\n\n\"Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path,\ndid I imagine such need could happen?\"\n\n\"Nay, nay, I think not of it now; but this strange man amuses me; and if\nhe 'hath music in his soul,' let us not churlishly reject his company.\"\nShe pointed persuasively along the path with her riding-whip, while\ntheir eyes met in a look which the young man lingered a moment to\nprolong; then yielding to her gentle influence, he clapped his spurs\ninto his charger, and in a few bounds was again at the side of Cora.\n\n\"I am glad to encounter thee, friend,\" continued the maiden, waving her\nhand to the stranger to proceed, as she urged her Narragansett to renew\nits amble. \"Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not\nentirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by\nindulging in our favorite pursuit. It might be of signal advantage to\none, ignorant as I, to hear the opinions and experience of a master in\nthe art.\"\n\n\"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in\npsalmody, in befitting seasons,\" returned the master of song,\nunhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow; \"and nothing\nwould relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four\nparts are altogether necessary to the perfection of melody. You have all\nthe manifestations of a soft and rich treble; I can, by especial aid,\ncarry a full tenor to the highest letter; but we lack counter and bass!\nYon officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might\nfill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in\ncommon dialogue.\"\n\n\"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances,\" said the\nlady, smiling; \"though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on\noccasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow\ntenor than the bass you heard.\"\n\n\"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?\" demanded her\nsimple companion.\n\nAlice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her\nmerriment, ere she answered,--\n\n\"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of\na soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more\nsober inclinations.\"\n\n\"Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and\nnot to be abused. None can say they have ever known me neglect my gifts!\nI am thankful that, though my boyhood may be said to have been set\napart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no\nsyllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips.\"\n\n\"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?\"\n\n\"Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the\npsalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the\nland, surpass all vain poetry. Happily, I may say that I utter nothing\nbut the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for\nthough the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version\nwhich we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other\nversions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual\nsimplicity, it approacheth, as near as may be, to the great work of the\ninspired writer. I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without\nan example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition,\npromulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, _The Psalms,\nHymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully\ntranslated into English Metre, for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of\nthe Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England_.\"\n\nDuring this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the\nstranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of\niron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and\nveneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution\nor apology, first pronouncing the word \"Standish,\" and placing the\nunknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a\nhigh, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own\nvoice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and\nmelodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy\nmotion of his ill-trained beast at defiance:--\n\n  \"How good it is, O see,\n    And how it pleaseth well,\n  Together, e'en in unity,\n    For brethren so to dwell.\n  It's like the choice ointment,\n    From the head to the beard did go:\n  Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,\n    His garment's skirts unto.\"\n\nThe delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the\nstranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which\nterminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on\nthe leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish\nof the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate. It\nwould seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment\nnecessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had\nselected for the close of his verse, had been duly delivered like a word\nof two syllables.\n\nSuch an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not\nfail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in\nadvance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,\nwho, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for\nthe time, closing his musical efforts.\n\n\"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey\nthrough this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will,\nthen, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting\nthis gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity.\"\n\n\"You will diminish them, indeed,\" returned the arch girl, \"for never did\nI hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that\nto which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry\ninto the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you\nbroke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!\"\n\n\"I know not what you call my bass,\" said Heyward, piqued at her remark,\n\"but I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than\ncould be any orchestra of Handel's music.\" He paused and turned his head\nquickly towards a thicket, and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their\nguide, who continued his steady pace, in undisturbed gravity. The young\nman smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining\nberry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage, and\nhe rode forward, continuing the conversation which had been interrupted\nby the passing thought.\n\nMajor Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous\npride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long\npassed, before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were\ncautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage\nart and unbridled passions could make it, peered out on the retiring\nfootsteps of the travellers. A gleam of exultation shot across the\ndarkly painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced\nthe route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward; the\nlight and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the\ncurvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of\nHeyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing-master was\nconcealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark\nlines, in the intermediate space.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA: Before any characters appear, the time and geography are made clear. Though it is the last war that England and France waged for a country that neither would retain, the wilderness between the forces still has to be overcome first. Thus it is in 1757, in the New York area between the head waters of the Hudson River and Lake George to the north. Because only two years earlier General Braddock was disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, the frontier is now exposed to real and imaginary savage disasters as well as to the horrors of warfare. Fear has replaced reason. Near dusk of a day in July, an Indian runner named Magua arrives at Fort Edward on the upper Hudson. He has come from Fort William Henry at the southern tip of Lake George with the news that the French General Montcalm is moving south with a very large army and that Munro, commander of Fort William Henry, is in urgent need of plentiful reinforcements from General Webb. Early the next morning, a limited detachment of fifteen hundred regulars and colonists departs as if swallowed by the forest. Shortly afterwards, Major Duncan Heyward and Alice and Cora Munro, guided by Magua on foot, take by horseback a secret route toward William Henry for the girls to join their father. Blonde Alice is doubtful about Magua, covered with war paint and showing a sullen fierceness; but dark-haired Cora is stoically common sense about him, even though Heyward mentions that their father had once had to deal rigidly with the Indian. As the small party pushes on, they are overtaken by David Gamut, a tall, ungainly psalmodist ridiculously dressed and carrying a pitch pipe while riding a mare followed by its young colt. He desires to join them, and after some banter between him and Alice, he pulls out the twenty-sixth edition of The Bay Psalm Book, sounds his pipe, and renders a song \"in full, sweet, and melodious tones.\" At a muttered comment from Magua, Heyward insists upon silence for safety. Then he glances about them and, satisfied that he has seen only shining berries, smiles to himself as they move on. But he is wrong. The branches move and a man peers exultingly after them as they disappear among the dark lines of trees.\n\n","prompt":"Chapter: \"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:\n  The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:\n  Say, is my kingdom lost?\"\n\n  SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nIt was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that\nthe toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before\nthe adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious\nboundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of\nFrance and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who\nfought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the\nrapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the\nmountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more\nmartial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the\npractised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;\nand it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so\ndark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from\nthe inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their\nvengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant\nmonarchs of Europe.\n\nPerhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate\nfrontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness\nof the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies\nbetween the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.\n\nThe facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the\ncombatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the\nChamplain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the\nborders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural\npassage across half the distance that the French were compelled to\nmaster in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,\nit received the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so\nlimpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries\nto perform the typical purification of baptism, and to obtain for it the\ntitle of lake \"du Saint Sacrement.\" The less zealous English thought\nthey conferred a sufficient honor on its unsullied fountains, when they\nbestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of\nHanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded\nscenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of\n\"Horican.\"[1]\n\nWinding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains, the\n\"holy lake\" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With\nthe high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of\nthe water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the\nadventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual\nobstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the\nlanguage of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.\n\nWhile, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless\nenterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges\nof the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial\nacuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we\nhave just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which\nmost of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.\nForts were erected at the different points that commanded the facilities\nof the route, and were taken and retaken, razed and rebuilt, as victory\nalighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from\nthe dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient\nsettlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the\nsceptres of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves in these\nforests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were\nhaggard with care, or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were\nunknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its\nshades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes\nof its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of\nmany a gallant and reckless youth, as he hurried by them, in the\nnoontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.\n\nIt was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall\nattempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which\nEngland and France last waged for the possession of a country that\nneither was destined to retain.\n\nThe imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of\nenergy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great\nBritain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed, by the\ntalents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer\ndreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of\nself-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though\ninnocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her\nblunders, were but the natural participators.\n\nThey had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which,\nreverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army\nled by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors,\nfor his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of\nFrench and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and\nspirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself,\nwith the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of\nChristendom.[2] A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected\ndisaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand\nfanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that the\nyells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued\nfrom the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of\ntheir merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of\nwarfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their\nrecollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to\nhave drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of\nmidnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal\nand barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveller related the\nhazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled\nwith terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children\nwhich slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the\nmagnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of\nreason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood,\nthe slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the\nstoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming\ndoubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who\nthought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America\nsubdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their\nrelentless allies.\n\nWhen, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered\nthe southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the\nlakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army\n\"numerous as the leaves on the trees,\" its truth was admitted with more\nof the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior\nshould feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had\nbeen brought, towards the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian\nrunner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro, the commander of a\nwork on the shore of the \"holy lake,\" for a speedy and powerful\nreinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between\nthese two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which\noriginally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the\npassage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the\nson of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment\nof troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting\nof a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to\none of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the\nother that of Fort Edward; calling each after a favorite prince of the\nreigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a\nregiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force really by far too\nsmall to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was\nleading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay\nGeneral Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern\nprovinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the\nseveral detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed\nnearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising\nFrenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army\nbut little superior in numbers.\n\nBut under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and\nmen appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable\nantagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their\nmarch, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du\nQuesne, and striking a blow on their advance.\n\nAfter the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a\nrumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the\nmargin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the\nfort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to\ndepart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the post at the northern\nextremity of the portage. That which at first was only rumor, soon\nbecame certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of the\ncommander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this\nservice, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the\nintention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps\nand anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from\npoint to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his\nviolent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practised veteran\nmade his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance\nof haste; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently\nbetrayed that he had no very strong professional relish for the as yet\nuntried and dreaded warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in\na flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew\nits veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished;\nthe last light finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer;\nthe trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling\nstream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which\nreigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.\n\nAccording to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the\narmy was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling\nechoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista\nof the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall\npines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and cloudless\neastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest\nsoldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his\ncomrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The\nsimple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular\nand trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right\nof the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position\non its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The\nscouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering\nvehicles that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning\nwas mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants\nwheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high\nmilitary bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of\nmany a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While\nin view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered\narray was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter in\ndistance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass\nwhich had slowly entered its bosom.\n\nThe deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be\nborne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had\nalready disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of\nanother departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and\naccommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,\nwho were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot\nwere gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which\nshowed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females,\nof a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the\ncountry. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff;\nwhile the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling\nmails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the\nreception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the\npleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this\nunusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some\nadmiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and\nothers gazing at the preparations, with dull wonder of vulgar curiosity.\nThere was one man, however, who, by his countenance and actions, formed\na marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators,\nbeing neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.\n\nThe person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without\nbeing in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints\nof other men, without any of their proportions. Erect, his stature\nsurpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the\nordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed\nto exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders\nnarrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not\ndelicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of\nextraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered\ntremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on\nwhich this false superstructure of the blended human orders was so\nprofanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the\nindividual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. A\nsky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long\nthin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of\nthe evil disposed. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely\nfitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of\nwhite ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings, and\nshoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the\ncostume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of\nwhich was concealed, but, on the other hand, studiously exhibited,\nthrough the vanity or simplicity of its owner. From beneath the flap of\nan enormous pocket of a soiled vest of embossed silk, heavily ornamented\nwith tarnished silver lace, projected an instrument, which, from being\nseen in such martial company, might have been easily mistaken for some\nmischievous and unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon\nengine had excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp,\nthough several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only\nwithout fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked\nhat, like those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years,\nsurmounted the whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat\nvacant countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to\nsupport the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.\n\nWhile the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb,\nthe figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics,\nfreely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the\nhorses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment.\n\n\"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is\nfrom foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the\nblue water?\" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and\nsweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: \"I\nmay speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at\nboth havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is named\nafter the capital of Old England, and that which is called 'Haven,' with\nthe addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the snows and brigantines\ncollecting their droves, like the gathering to the ark, being outward\nbound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of barter and traffic in\nfour-footed animals; but never before have I beheld a beast which\nverified the true Scripture war-horse like this: 'He paweth in the\nvalley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed\nmen. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle\nafar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.' It would seem\nthat the stock of the horse of Israel has descended to our own time;\nwould it not, friend?\"\n\nReceiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it\nwas delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some\nsort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book\nturned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed\nhimself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in the\nobject that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still, upright,\nand rigid form of the \"Indian runner,\" who had borne to the camp the\nunwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a state of\nperfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with characteristic\nstoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there was a sullen\nfierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was likely to\narrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now\nscanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore both the tomahawk\nand knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not altogether that\nof a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about his\nperson, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent\nexertion, which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The colors of\nthe war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce\ncountenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and\nrepulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus\nproduced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star\namid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native wildness.\nFor a single instant, his searching and yet wary glance met the\nwondering look of the other, and then changing its direction, partly in\ncunning, and partly in disdain, it remained fixed, as if penetrating the\ndistant air.\n\nIt is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent\ncommunication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from\nthe white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other\nobjects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of\ngentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was\nwanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the\nwar-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare, that\nwas unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by; where,\nleaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology for a\nsaddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was quietly\nmaking its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same animal.\n\nA young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two\nfemales, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to\nencounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the\nmost juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted\nglimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue\neyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow\naside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. The flush\nwhich still lingered above the pines in the western sky was not more\nbright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the opening day\nmore cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed on the youth,\nas he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who appeared to share\nequally in the attentions of the young officer, concealed her charms\nfrom the gaze of the soldiery, with a care that seemed better fitted to\nthe experience of four or five additional years. It could be seen,\nhowever, that her person, though moulded with the same exquisite\nproportions, of which none of the graces were lost by the travelling\ndress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature than that of her\ncompanion.\n\nNo sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang lightly\ninto the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed to Webb,\nwho, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin,\nand turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble,\nfollowed by their train, towards the northern entrance of the\nencampment. As they traversed that short distance, not a voice was\nheard amongst them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger\nof the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and\nled the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and\nstartling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in\nthe surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed\nan indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye\nfollowed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were\nshining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not\nbrown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,\nthat seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither\ncoarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely\nregular and dignified, and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if in\npity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a row of\nteeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing the veil,\nshe bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were\nabstracted from the scene around her.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!\"\n\n  SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nWhile one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the\nreader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the\nalarm which induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness,\nshe inquired of the youth who rode by her side,--\n\n\"Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an\nespecial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must\nclose our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to\ndraw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even\nbefore we are made to encounter the redoubtable Montcalm.\"\n\n\"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his\npeople, he may be accounted a hero,\" returned the officer. \"He has\nvolunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known, sooner\nthan if we followed the tardy movements of the column: and, by\nconsequence, more agreeably.\"\n\n\"I like him not,\" said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more\nin real terror. \"You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself\nso freely to his keeping?\"\n\n\"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he\nwould not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He is\nsaid to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the\nMohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations.[3] He was\nbrought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which\nyour father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt\nby--but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our\nfriend.\"\n\n\"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!\" exclaimed the\nnow really anxious girl. \"Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that\nI may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me\navow my faith in the tones of the human voice!\"\n\n\"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.\nThough he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be\nignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak\nit, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he\nstops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at\nhand.\"\n\nThe conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot\nwhere the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the\nmilitary road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little\ninconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.\n\n\"Here, then, lies our way,\" said the young man, in a low voice.\n\"Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to\napprehend.\"\n\n\"Cora, what think you?\" asked the reluctant fair one. \"If we journey\nwith the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not\nfeel better assurance of our safety?\"\n\n\"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages, Alice, you\nmistake the place of real danger,\" said Heyward. \"If enemies have\nreached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts\nare abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps\nabound the most. The route of the detachment is known, while ours,\nhaving been determined within the hour, must still be secret.\"\n\n\"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and\nthat his skin is dark?\" coldly asked Cora.\n\nAlice hesitated no longer; but giving her Narragansett[4] a smart cut\nof the whip, she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the\nbushes, and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway. The\nyoung man regarded the last speaker in open admiration, and even\npermitted her fairer though certainly not more beautiful companion to\nproceed unattended, while he sedulously opened the way himself for the\npassage of her who has been called Cora. It would seem that the\ndomestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating\nthe thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which\nHeyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in\norder to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian\nsavages should be lurking so far in advance of their army. For many\nminutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue;\nafter which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew\nalong the line of the highway, and entered under the high but dark\narches of the forest. Here their progress was less interrupted, and the\ninstant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds,\nhe moved on, at a pace between a trot and a walk, and at a rate which\nkept the sure-footed and peculiar animals they rode, at a fast yet easy\namble. The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the\ndistant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken\nway in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions\ndrew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in\norder to obtain an explanation of the unlooked-for interruption.\n\nIn a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow-deer, among the\nstraight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the\nungainly man described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as\nmuch rapidity as he could excite his meagre beast to endure without\ncoming to an open rupture. Until now this personage had escaped the\nobservation of the travellers. If he possessed the power to arrest any\nwandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot, his\nequestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention.\nNotwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the\nflanks of the mare, the most confirmed gait that he could establish was\na Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward\nassisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a\nloping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces\nto the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the\npowers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a\ntrue eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost\ningenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his\nsinuous way on his footsteps with such persevering hardihood.\n\nThe industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than\nthose of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the\nformer raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this\nmanner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and\ndiminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be\nmade as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in\nconsequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the\nmare appeared to journey faster than the other; and that the aggrieved\nflank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail,\nwe finish the picture of both horse and man.\n\nThe frown which had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow\nof Heyward, gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile,\nas he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to\ncontrol her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted\nwith a humor that, it would seem, the habit, rather than the nature of\nits mistress repressed.\n\n\"Seek you any here?\" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived\nsufficiently nigh to abate his speed; \"I trust you are no messenger of\nevil tidings?\"\n\n\"Even so,\" replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular\ncastor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and\nleaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he\nresponded; when, however, he had cooled his face, and recovered his\nbreath, he continued, \"I hear you are riding to William Henry; as I am\njourneying thitherward myself, I concluded good company would seem\nconsistent to the wishes of both parties.\"\n\n\"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote,\" returned\nHeyward; \"we are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself.\"\n\n\"Even so. The first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once\nsure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next\nis, to act up to the decision. I have endeavored to do both, and here I\nam.\"\n\n\"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route,\" said\nHeyward, haughtily; \"the highway thither is at least half a mile behind\nyou.\"\n\n\"Even so,\" returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold\nreception; \"I have tarried at 'Edward' a week, and I should be dumb not\nto have inquired the road I was to journey; and if dumb there would be\nan end to my calling.\" After simpering in a small way, like one whose\nmodesty prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a\nwitticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers, he\ncontinued: \"It is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too\nfamiliar with those he is to instruct; for which reason I follow not the\nline of the army; besides which, I conclude that a gentleman of your\ncharacter has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring; I have\ntherefore decided to join company, in order that the ride may be made\nagreeable, and partake of social communion.\"\n\n\"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!\" exclaimed Heyward,\nundecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the\nother's face. \"But you speak of instruction, and of a profession; are\nyou an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science\nof defence and offence; or, perhaps, you are one who draws lines and\nangles, under the pretence of expounding the mathematics?\"\n\nThe stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then,\nlosing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn\nhumility, he answered:--\n\n\"Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make\nnone--by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last\nentreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about\nlines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called\nand set apart for that holy office. I lay claim to no higher gift than a\nsmall insight into the glorious art of petitioning and thanksgiving, as\npractised in psalmody.\"\n\n\"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo,\" cried the amused\nAlice, \"and I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw\naside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to\njourney in our train. Besides,\" she added, in a low and hurried voice,\ncasting a glance at the distant Cora, who slowly followed the footsteps\nof their silent but sullen guide, \"it may be a friend added to our\nstrength, in time of need.\"\n\n\"Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path,\ndid I imagine such need could happen?\"\n\n\"Nay, nay, I think not of it now; but this strange man amuses me; and if\nhe 'hath music in his soul,' let us not churlishly reject his company.\"\nShe pointed persuasively along the path with her riding-whip, while\ntheir eyes met in a look which the young man lingered a moment to\nprolong; then yielding to her gentle influence, he clapped his spurs\ninto his charger, and in a few bounds was again at the side of Cora.\n\n\"I am glad to encounter thee, friend,\" continued the maiden, waving her\nhand to the stranger to proceed, as she urged her Narragansett to renew\nits amble. \"Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not\nentirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by\nindulging in our favorite pursuit. It might be of signal advantage to\none, ignorant as I, to hear the opinions and experience of a master in\nthe art.\"\n\n\"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in\npsalmody, in befitting seasons,\" returned the master of song,\nunhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow; \"and nothing\nwould relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four\nparts are altogether necessary to the perfection of melody. You have all\nthe manifestations of a soft and rich treble; I can, by especial aid,\ncarry a full tenor to the highest letter; but we lack counter and bass!\nYon officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might\nfill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in\ncommon dialogue.\"\n\n\"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances,\" said the\nlady, smiling; \"though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on\noccasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow\ntenor than the bass you heard.\"\n\n\"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?\" demanded her\nsimple companion.\n\nAlice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her\nmerriment, ere she answered,--\n\n\"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of\na soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more\nsober inclinations.\"\n\n\"Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and\nnot to be abused. None can say they have ever known me neglect my gifts!\nI am thankful that, though my boyhood may be said to have been set\napart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no\nsyllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips.\"\n\n\"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?\"\n\n\"Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the\npsalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the\nland, surpass all vain poetry. Happily, I may say that I utter nothing\nbut the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for\nthough the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version\nwhich we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other\nversions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual\nsimplicity, it approacheth, as near as may be, to the great work of the\ninspired writer. I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without\nan example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition,\npromulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, _The Psalms,\nHymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully\ntranslated into English Metre, for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of\nthe Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England_.\"\n\nDuring this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the\nstranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of\niron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and\nveneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution\nor apology, first pronouncing the word \"Standish,\" and placing the\nunknown engine, already described, to his mouth, from which he drew a\nhigh, shrill sound, that was followed by an octave below, from his own\nvoice, he commenced singing the following words, in full, sweet, and\nmelodious tones, that set the music, the poetry, and even the uneasy\nmotion of his ill-trained beast at defiance:--\n\n  \"How good it is, O see,\n    And how it pleaseth well,\n  Together, e'en in unity,\n    For brethren so to dwell.\n  It's like the choice ointment,\n    From the head to the beard did go:\n  Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,\n    His garment's skirts unto.\"\n\nThe delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the\nstranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which\nterminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on\nthe leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish\nof the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate. It\nwould seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment\nnecessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had\nselected for the close of his verse, had been duly delivered like a word\nof two syllables.\n\nSuch an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not\nfail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in\nadvance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,\nwho, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for\nthe time, closing his musical efforts.\n\n\"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey\nthrough this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will,\nthen, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting\nthis gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity.\"\n\n\"You will diminish them, indeed,\" returned the arch girl, \"for never did\nI hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that\nto which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry\ninto the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you\nbroke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!\"\n\n\"I know not what you call my bass,\" said Heyward, piqued at her remark,\n\"but I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than\ncould be any orchestra of Handel's music.\" He paused and turned his head\nquickly towards a thicket, and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their\nguide, who continued his steady pace, in undisturbed gravity. The young\nman smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining\nberry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage, and\nhe rode forward, continuing the conversation which had been interrupted\nby the passing thought.\n\nMajor Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous\npride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long\npassed, before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were\ncautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage\nart and unbridled passions could make it, peered out on the retiring\nfootsteps of the travellers. A gleam of exultation shot across the\ndarkly painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced\nthe route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward; the\nlight and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the\ncurvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of\nHeyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing-master was\nconcealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark\nlines, in the intermediate space.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA:","completion":" Before any characters appear, the time and geography are made clear. Though it is the last war that England and France waged for a country that neither would retain, the wilderness between the forces still has to be overcome first. Thus it is in 1757, in the New York area between the head waters of the Hudson River and Lake George to the north. Because only two years earlier General Braddock was disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, the frontier is now exposed to real and imaginary savage disasters as well as to the horrors of warfare. Fear has replaced reason. Near dusk of a day in July, an Indian runner named Magua arrives at Fort Edward on the upper Hudson. He has come from Fort William Henry at the southern tip of Lake George with the news that the French General Montcalm is moving south with a very large army and that Munro, commander of Fort William Henry, is in urgent need of plentiful reinforcements from General Webb. Early the next morning, a limited detachment of fifteen hundred regulars and colonists departs as if swallowed by the forest. Shortly afterwards, Major Duncan Heyward and Alice and Cora Munro, guided by Magua on foot, take by horseback a secret route toward William Henry for the girls to join their father. Blonde Alice is doubtful about Magua, covered with war paint and showing a sullen fierceness; but dark-haired Cora is stoically common sense about him, even though Heyward mentions that their father had once had to deal rigidly with the Indian. As the small party pushes on, they are overtaken by David Gamut, a tall, ungainly psalmodist ridiculously dressed and carrying a pitch pipe while riding a mare followed by its young colt. He desires to join them, and after some banter between him and Alice, he pulls out the twenty-sixth edition of The Bay Psalm Book, sounds his pipe, and renders a song \"in full, sweet, and melodious tones.\" At a muttered comment from Magua, Heyward insists upon silence for safety. Then he glances about them and, satisfied that he has seen only shining berries, smiles to himself as they move on. But he is wrong. The branches move and a man peers exultingly after them as they disappear among the dark lines of trees.\n\n"},"truncated_cells":[]},{"row_idx":1,"row":{"text":"Chapter: \"Before these fields were shorn and tilled,\n    Full to the brim our rivers flowed;\n  The melody of waters filled\n    The fresh and boundless wood;\n  And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,\n    And fountains spouted in the shade.\"\n\n  BRYANT.\n\n\nLeaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to\npenetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous\ninmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few\nmiles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.\n\nOn that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid\nstream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those\nwho awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some\nexpected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of\nthe river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a\ndeeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and\nthe intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the\nsprings and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the\natmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy\nsultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,\ninterrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy\ntap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling\non the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.\n\nThese feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the\nforesters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of\ntheir dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and\nwild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,\nthrough the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,\nthough sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent\nfrom a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy\nlog, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his\nearnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian\nengaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a\nterrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and\nblack. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well\nknown and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without\nornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,\nthat crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk\nand scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a\nshort military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites\narmed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy\nknee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of\nthis warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days,\nthough no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood.\n\nThe frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed\nby his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and\nexertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was\nrather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung\nand indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt\nof forest green, fringed with faded yellow[6], and a summer cap of skins\nwhich had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of\nwampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but\nno tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the\nnatives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the\nhunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides,\nand which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A\npouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of\ngreat length[7], which the theory of the more ingenious whites had\ntaught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a\nneighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might\nbe, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on\nevery side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden\napproach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual\nsuspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment\nat which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy\nhonesty.\n\n\"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook,\" he said,\nspeaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly\ninhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac, and of which\nwe shall give a free translation for the benefit of the reader;\nendeavoring, at the same time, to preserve some of the peculiarities,\nboth of the individual and of the language. \"Your fathers came from the\nsetting sun, crossed the big river,[8] fought the people of the country,\nand took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over\nthe salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been\nset them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends\nspare their words!\"\n\n\"My fathers fought with the naked redmen!\" returned the Indian sternly,\nin the same language. \"Is there no difference, Hawkeye, between the\nstone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you\nkill?\"\n\n\"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red\nskin!\" said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an\nappeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to\nbe conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again,\nhe answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his\nlimited information would allow: \"I am no scholar, and I care not who\nknows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel\nhunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their\ngrandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head\nmight be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye.\"\n\n\"You have the story told by your fathers,\" returned the other, coldly\nwaving his hand. \"What say your old men? do they tell the young\nwarriors, that the pale-faces met the redmen, painted for war and armed\nwith the stone hatchet and wooden gun?\"\n\n\"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural\nprivileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an\nIroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white,\" the scout replied,\nsurveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and\nsinewy hand; \"and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of\nwhich, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to\nwrite in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in\ntheir villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly\nboaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for\nthe truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man who is\ntoo conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the\nnames of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor\nfeel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the\nBumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must\nhave been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy\ncommandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I\nshould be loth to answer for other people in such a matter. But every\nstory has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed,\naccording to the traditions of the redmen, when our fathers first met?\"\n\nA silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then,\nfull of the dignity of his office, he commenced his brief tale, with a\nsolemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth.\n\n\"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers\nhave said, and what the Mohicans have done.\" He hesitated a single\ninstant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he\ncontinued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and\nassertion, \"Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer,\nuntil its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?\"\n\n\"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these\nmatters,\" said the white man; \"for I have been there, and have seen\nthem; though, why water, which is so sweet in the shade, should become\nbitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to\naccount.\"\n\n\"And the current!\" demanded the Indian, who expected his reply with that\nsort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at\nwhich he marvels even while he respects it; \"the fathers of Chingachgook\nhave not lied!\"\n\n\"The Holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in\nnature. They call this up-stream current the tide, which is a thing soon\nexplained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours\nthey run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the\nsea than in the river, they run in, until the river gets to be highest,\nand then it runs out again.\"\n\n\"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until\nthey lie like my hand,\" said the Indian, stretching the limb\nhorizontally before him, \"and then they run no more.\"\n\n\"No honest man will deny it,\" said the scout, a little nettled at the\nimplied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; \"and I\ngrant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level.\nBut everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the\nsmall scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In\nthis manner, pools and ponds, and even the great fresh-water lake, may\nbe stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when\nyou come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the\nearth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well\nexpect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile\nabove us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at\nthis very moment!\"\n\nIf unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far\ntoo dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was\nconvinced, and resumed his narrative in his former solemn manner.\n\n\"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, over great plains\nwhere the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we\nfought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the\nbanks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to\nmeet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should\nbe ours from the place where the water runs up no longer on this stream,\nto a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken\nlike warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with\nthe bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from\nthe great lake; we threw them the bones.\"\n\n\"All this I have heard and believe,\" said the white man, observing that\nthe Indian paused: \"but it was long before the English came into the\ncountry.\"\n\n\"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale-faces\nwho came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my\nfathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then,\nHawkeye,\" he continued, betraying his deep emotion only by permitting\nhis voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which rendered his\nlanguage, as spoken at times, so very musical; \"then, Hawkeye, we were\none people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood\nits deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we\nworshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of\nour songs of triumph!\"\n\n\"Know you anything of your own family at that time?\" demanded the white.\n\"But you are a just man, for an Indian! and, as I suppose you hold their\ngifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the\ncouncil fire.\"\n\n\"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The\nblood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch\nlanded, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens\nand the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found\nthe Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they\nwere driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a\nsagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have\nnever visited the graves of, my fathers!\"\n\n\"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind,\" returned the scout, a good\ndeal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; \"and they often aid\na man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my\nown bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the\nwolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their\nkin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?\"\n\n\"Where are the blossoms of those summers!--fallen, one by one: so all of\nmy family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on\nthe hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows\nin my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the\nsagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.\"\n\n\"Uncas is here!\" said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,\nnear his elbow; \"who speaks to Uncas?\"\n\nThe white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an\ninvoluntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden\ninterruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head\nat the unexpected sounds.\n\nAt the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a\nnoiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No\nexclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked,\nor reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment\nwhen he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish\nimpatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs,\nand, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and\nreserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son,\nand demanded,--\n\n\"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these\nwoods?\"\n\n\"I have been on their trail,\" replied the young Indian, \"and know that\nthey number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid,\nlike cowards.\"\n\n\"The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!\" said the white man,\nwhom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. \"That\nbushy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but\nhe will know what road we travel!\"\n\n\"Tis enough!\" returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting\nsun; \"they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us\neat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois\n'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get\nthe game--talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the\nbiggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the\nhill! Now, Uncas,\" he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a\nkind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, \"I will\nbet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum,\nthat I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the\nleft.\"\n\n\"It cannot be!\" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with\nyouthful eagerness; \"all but the tips of his horns are hid!\"\n\n\"He's a boy!\" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and\naddressing the father. \"Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the\ncreatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be!\"\n\n[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_\n\nUNCAS SLAYS A DEER\n\n_Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side,\nand passed his knife across the throat_]\n\nAdjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill,\non which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece\nwith his hand, saying--\n\n\"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?\"\n\n\"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by\ninstinct!\" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like\na man who was convinced of his error. \"I must leave the buck to your\narrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to\neat.\"\n\nThe instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture\nof the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the\nanimal with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he\nfitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers\nmoved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another\nmoment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing\ninto the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the\nvery feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated\nanimal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the\nthroat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the\nwaters with its blood.\n\n\"'Twas done with Indian skill,\" said the scout, laughing inwardly, but\nwith vast satisfaction; \"and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an\narrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who\nscented game.\n\n\"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!\" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes\nbegan to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; \"if they come\nwithin range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations\nshould be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to\nmy ears the woods are dumb.\"\n\n\"There is but one deer, and he is dead,\" said the Indian, bending his\nbody till his ear nearly touched the earth. \"I hear the sounds of feet!\"\n\n\"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following\non his trail.\"\n\n\"No. The horses of white men are coming!\" returned the other, raising\nhimself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former\ncomposure. \"Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them.\"\n\n\"That will I, and in English that the king needn't be ashamed to\nanswer,\" returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he\nboasted; \"but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast;\n'tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a\nman who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although\nhe may have lived with the redskins long enough to be suspected! Ha!\nthere goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too--now I hear\nthe bushes move--yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the\nfalls--and--but here they come themselves; God keep them from the\nIroquois!\"\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA: In another part of the forest by the river a few miles to the west, Hawkeye and Chingachgook appear to be waiting for someone as they talk with low voices. It is now afternoon. The Indian and the scout are attired according to their forest habits: Chingachgook with his semi-nude, war-painted body and scalping tuft of hair, his tomahawk, scalping knife, and short rifle; Hawkeye with his hunting shirt, skin cap, buckskin leggings, knife, pouch and horn, and long rifle. They discuss their respective forefathers, and Chingachgook relates the slow demise of his tribe of Mohicans so that only he and his son Uncas now remain. At the mention of his name, Uncas, a youthful warrior dressed much like Hawkeye, appears and says that he has been on the trail of the Maquas, another name for the Mengwe or Iroquois, their natural enemies. The antlers of a deer are seen in the distance, and Hawkeye is about to shoot the animal for food when the warrior warns him that a shot will warn the enemy. Just as Uncas kills it with an arrow, they hear the sounds of feet which Chingachgook recognizes as the horses of white men.\n\n","prompt":"Chapter: \"Before these fields were shorn and tilled,\n    Full to the brim our rivers flowed;\n  The melody of waters filled\n    The fresh and boundless wood;\n  And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,\n    And fountains spouted in the shade.\"\n\n  BRYANT.\n\n\nLeaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to\npenetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous\ninmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few\nmiles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.\n\nOn that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid\nstream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those\nwho awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some\nexpected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of\nthe river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a\ndeeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and\nthe intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the\nsprings and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the\natmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy\nsultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,\ninterrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy\ntap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling\non the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.\n\nThese feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the\nforesters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of\ntheir dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and\nwild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,\nthrough the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,\nthough sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent\nfrom a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy\nlog, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his\nearnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian\nengaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a\nterrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and\nblack. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well\nknown and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without\nornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,\nthat crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk\nand scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a\nshort military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites\narmed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy\nknee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of\nthis warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days,\nthough no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood.\n\nThe frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed\nby his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and\nexertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was\nrather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung\nand indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt\nof forest green, fringed with faded yellow[6], and a summer cap of skins\nwhich had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of\nwampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but\nno tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the\nnatives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the\nhunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides,\nand which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A\npouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of\ngreat length[7], which the theory of the more ingenious whites had\ntaught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a\nneighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might\nbe, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on\nevery side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden\napproach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual\nsuspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment\nat which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy\nhonesty.\n\n\"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook,\" he said,\nspeaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly\ninhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac, and of which\nwe shall give a free translation for the benefit of the reader;\nendeavoring, at the same time, to preserve some of the peculiarities,\nboth of the individual and of the language. \"Your fathers came from the\nsetting sun, crossed the big river,[8] fought the people of the country,\nand took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over\nthe salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been\nset them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends\nspare their words!\"\n\n\"My fathers fought with the naked redmen!\" returned the Indian sternly,\nin the same language. \"Is there no difference, Hawkeye, between the\nstone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you\nkill?\"\n\n\"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red\nskin!\" said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an\nappeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to\nbe conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again,\nhe answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his\nlimited information would allow: \"I am no scholar, and I care not who\nknows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel\nhunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their\ngrandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head\nmight be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye.\"\n\n\"You have the story told by your fathers,\" returned the other, coldly\nwaving his hand. \"What say your old men? do they tell the young\nwarriors, that the pale-faces met the redmen, painted for war and armed\nwith the stone hatchet and wooden gun?\"\n\n\"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural\nprivileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an\nIroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white,\" the scout replied,\nsurveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and\nsinewy hand; \"and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of\nwhich, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to\nwrite in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in\ntheir villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly\nboaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for\nthe truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man who is\ntoo conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the\nnames of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor\nfeel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the\nBumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must\nhave been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy\ncommandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I\nshould be loth to answer for other people in such a matter. But every\nstory has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed,\naccording to the traditions of the redmen, when our fathers first met?\"\n\nA silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then,\nfull of the dignity of his office, he commenced his brief tale, with a\nsolemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth.\n\n\"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers\nhave said, and what the Mohicans have done.\" He hesitated a single\ninstant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he\ncontinued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and\nassertion, \"Does not this stream at our feet run towards the summer,\nuntil its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?\"\n\n\"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these\nmatters,\" said the white man; \"for I have been there, and have seen\nthem; though, why water, which is so sweet in the shade, should become\nbitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to\naccount.\"\n\n\"And the current!\" demanded the Indian, who expected his reply with that\nsort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at\nwhich he marvels even while he respects it; \"the fathers of Chingachgook\nhave not lied!\"\n\n\"The Holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in\nnature. They call this up-stream current the tide, which is a thing soon\nexplained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours\nthey run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the\nsea than in the river, they run in, until the river gets to be highest,\nand then it runs out again.\"\n\n\"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until\nthey lie like my hand,\" said the Indian, stretching the limb\nhorizontally before him, \"and then they run no more.\"\n\n\"No honest man will deny it,\" said the scout, a little nettled at the\nimplied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; \"and I\ngrant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level.\nBut everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the\nsmall scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In\nthis manner, pools and ponds, and even the great fresh-water lake, may\nbe stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when\nyou come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the\nearth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well\nexpect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile\nabove us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at\nthis very moment!\"\n\nIf unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far\ntoo dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was\nconvinced, and resumed his narrative in his former solemn manner.\n\n\"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, over great plains\nwhere the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we\nfought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the\nbanks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to\nmeet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should\nbe ours from the place where the water runs up no longer on this stream,\nto a river twenty suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken\nlike warriors, we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with\nthe bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from\nthe great lake; we threw them the bones.\"\n\n\"All this I have heard and believe,\" said the white man, observing that\nthe Indian paused: \"but it was long before the English came into the\ncountry.\"\n\n\"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale-faces\nwho came among us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when my\nfathers had buried the tomahawk with the redmen around them. Then,\nHawkeye,\" he continued, betraying his deep emotion only by permitting\nhis voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which rendered his\nlanguage, as spoken at times, so very musical; \"then, Hawkeye, we were\none people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood\nits deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we\nworshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of\nour songs of triumph!\"\n\n\"Know you anything of your own family at that time?\" demanded the white.\n\"But you are a just man, for an Indian! and, as I suppose you hold their\ngifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the\ncouncil fire.\"\n\n\"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The\nblood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch\nlanded, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens\nand the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found\nthe Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they\nwere driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a\nsagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have\nnever visited the graves of, my fathers!\"\n\n\"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind,\" returned the scout, a good\ndeal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; \"and they often aid\na man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my\nown bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the\nwolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their\nkin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?\"\n\n\"Where are the blossoms of those summers!--fallen, one by one: so all of\nmy family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on\nthe hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows\nin my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the\nsagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.\"\n\n\"Uncas is here!\" said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,\nnear his elbow; \"who speaks to Uncas?\"\n\nThe white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an\ninvoluntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden\ninterruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head\nat the unexpected sounds.\n\nAt the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a\nnoiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No\nexclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked,\nor reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment\nwhen he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish\nimpatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs,\nand, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and\nreserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son,\nand demanded,--\n\n\"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these\nwoods?\"\n\n\"I have been on their trail,\" replied the young Indian, \"and know that\nthey number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid,\nlike cowards.\"\n\n\"The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!\" said the white man,\nwhom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. \"That\nbushy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but\nhe will know what road we travel!\"\n\n\"Tis enough!\" returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting\nsun; \"they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us\neat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois\n'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get\nthe game--talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the\nbiggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the\nhill! Now, Uncas,\" he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a\nkind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, \"I will\nbet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum,\nthat I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the\nleft.\"\n\n\"It cannot be!\" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with\nyouthful eagerness; \"all but the tips of his horns are hid!\"\n\n\"He's a boy!\" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and\naddressing the father. \"Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the\ncreatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be!\"\n\n[Illustration: _Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons_\n\nUNCAS SLAYS A DEER\n\n_Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side,\nand passed his knife across the throat_]\n\nAdjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill,\non which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece\nwith his hand, saying--\n\n\"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?\"\n\n\"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by\ninstinct!\" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like\na man who was convinced of his error. \"I must leave the buck to your\narrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to\neat.\"\n\nThe instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture\nof the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the\nanimal with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he\nfitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers\nmoved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another\nmoment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing\ninto the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the\nvery feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated\nanimal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the\nthroat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the\nwaters with its blood.\n\n\"'Twas done with Indian skill,\" said the scout, laughing inwardly, but\nwith vast satisfaction; \"and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an\narrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who\nscented game.\n\n\"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!\" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes\nbegan to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; \"if they come\nwithin range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations\nshould be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to\nmy ears the woods are dumb.\"\n\n\"There is but one deer, and he is dead,\" said the Indian, bending his\nbody till his ear nearly touched the earth. \"I hear the sounds of feet!\"\n\n\"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following\non his trail.\"\n\n\"No. The horses of white men are coming!\" returned the other, raising\nhimself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former\ncomposure. \"Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them.\"\n\n\"That will I, and in English that the king needn't be ashamed to\nanswer,\" returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he\nboasted; \"but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast;\n'tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a\nman who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although\nhe may have lived with the redskins long enough to be suspected! Ha!\nthere goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too--now I hear\nthe bushes move--yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the\nfalls--and--but here they come themselves; God keep them from the\nIroquois!\"\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA:","completion":" In another part of the forest by the river a few miles to the west, Hawkeye and Chingachgook appear to be waiting for someone as they talk with low voices. It is now afternoon. The Indian and the scout are attired according to their forest habits: Chingachgook with his semi-nude, war-painted body and scalping tuft of hair, his tomahawk, scalping knife, and short rifle; Hawkeye with his hunting shirt, skin cap, buckskin leggings, knife, pouch and horn, and long rifle. They discuss their respective forefathers, and Chingachgook relates the slow demise of his tribe of Mohicans so that only he and his son Uncas now remain. At the mention of his name, Uncas, a youthful warrior dressed much like Hawkeye, appears and says that he has been on the trail of the Maquas, another name for the Mengwe or Iroquois, their natural enemies. The antlers of a deer are seen in the distance, and Hawkeye is about to shoot the animal for food when the warrior warns him that a shot will warn the enemy. Just as Uncas kills it with an arrow, they hear the sounds of feet which Chingachgook recognizes as the horses of white men.\n\n"},"truncated_cells":[]},{"row_idx":2,"row":{"text":"Chapter: \"Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove\n  Till I torment thee for this injury.\"\n\n  _Midsummer Night's Dream._\n\n\nThe words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the\nparty, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the\nIndian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the\nperiodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great\ndistance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his\nred companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers,\nwho had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest,\nadvanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates,\nin readiness to receive them.\n\n\"Who comes?\" demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across\nhis left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the\ntrigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act, \"Who\ncomes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?\"\n\n\"Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,\"\nreturned he who rode foremost. \"Men who have journeyed since the rising\nsun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly\ntired of their wayfaring.\"\n\n\"You are, then, lost,\" interrupted the hunter, \"and have found how\nhelpless 'tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?\"\n\n\"Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them\nthan we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the\nstature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of\nthe crown called William Henry?\"\n\n\"Hoot!\" shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though,\ninstantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at\nless risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies. \"You are as much\noff the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer!\nWilliam Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business\nwith the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to\nEdward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of\npushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across\nChamplain, into his den again.\"\n\nBefore the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition,\nanother horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into\nthe pathway, in front of his companion.\n\n\"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?\" demanded a new\nspeaker; \"the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our\ndestination is the head of the lake.\"\n\n\"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the\nroad across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a\npath, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the\npalace of the king himself.\"\n\n\"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage,\" returned\nHeyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. \"It is\nenough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us\nby a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his\nknowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are.\"\n\n\"An Indian lost in the woods!\" said the scout, shaking his head\ndoubtingly; \"when the sun is scorching the tree-tops, and the\nwater-courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees, will tell\nhim in which quarter the north star will shine at night! The woods are\nfull of deer paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known\nto everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters\naltogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican\nand the bend in the river. Is he a Mohawk?\"\n\n\"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was\nfarther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued,\nuntil this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently\nindifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an\nactivity and interest that had evidently got the better of their\nreserve, by surprise.\n\n\"A Huron!\" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open\ndistrust; \"they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are\nadopted; you can never make anything of them but skulks and vagabonds.\nSince you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only\nwonder that you have not fallen in with more.\"\n\n\"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles in\nour front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,\nand that he serves with our forces as a friend.\"\n\n\"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo,\" returned\nthe other, positively. \"A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican\nfor honesty; and when they will fight, which they won't all do, having\nsuffered their cunning enemies, the Maquas, to make them women--but when\nthey will fight at all, look to a Delaware, or a Mohican, for a\nwarrior!\"\n\n\"Enough of this,\" said Heyward, impatiently; \"I wish not to inquire into\nthe character of a man that I know, and to whom you must be a stranger.\nYou have not yet answered my question: what is our distance from the\nmain army at Edward?\"\n\n\"It seems that may depend on who is your guide. One would think such a\nhorse as that might get over a good deal of ground atwixt sun-up and\nsun-down.\"\n\n\"I wish no contention of idle words with you, friend,\" said Heyward,\ncurbing his dissatisfied manner, and speaking in a more gentle voice;\n\"if you will tell me the distance to Fort Edward, and conduct me\nthither, your labor shall not go without its reward.\"\n\n\"And in so doing, how know I that I don't guide an enemy, and a spy of\nMontcalm, to the works of the army? It is not every man who can speak\nthe English tongue that is an honest subject.\"\n\n\"If you serve with the troops, of whom I judge you to be a scout, you\nshould know of such a regiment of the king as the 60th.\"\n\n\"The 60th! you can tell me little of the Royal Americans that I don't\nknow, though I do wear a hunting-shirt instead of a scarlet jacket.\"\n\n\"Well, then, among the other things, you may know the name of its\nmajor?\"\n\n\"Its major!\" interrupted the hunter, elevating his body like one who was\nproud of his trust. \"If there is a man in the country who knows Major\nEffingham, he stands before you.\"\n\n\"It is a corps which has many majors; the gentleman you name is the\nsenior, but I speak of the junior of them all; he who commands the\ncompanies in garrison at William Henry.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I have heard that a young gentleman of vast riches, from one\nof the provinces far south, has got the place. He is over young, too, to\nhold such rank, and to be put above men whose heads are beginning to\nbleach; and yet they say he is a soldier in his knowledge, and a gallant\ngentleman!\"\n\n\"Whatever he may be, or however he may be qualified for his rank, he now\nspeaks to you, and of course can be no enemy to dread.\"\n\nThe scout regarded Heyward in surprise, and then lifting his cap, he\nanswered, in a tone less confident than before, though still expressing\ndoubt,--\n\n\"I have heard a party was to leave the encampment this morning, for the\nlake shore.\"\n\n\"You have heard the truth; but I preferred a nearer route, trusting to\nthe knowledge of the Indian I mentioned.\"\n\n\"And he deceived you, and then deserted?\"\n\n\"Neither, as I believe; certainly not the latter, for he is to be found\nin the rear.\"\n\n\"I should like to look at the creatur'; if it is a true Iroquois I can\ntell him by his knavish look, and by his paint,\" said the scout,\nstepping past the charger of Heyward, and entering the path behind the\nmare of the singing-master, whose foal had taken advantage of the halt\nto exact the maternal contribution. After shoving aside the bushes, and\nproceeding a few paces, he encountered the females, who awaited the\nresult of the conference with anxiety, and not entirely without\napprehension. Behind these, the runner leaned against a tree, where he\nstood the close examination of the scout with an air unmoved, though\nwith a look so dark and savage, that it might in itself excite fear.\nSatisfied with his scrutiny, the hunter soon left him. As he repassed\nthe females, he paused a moment to gaze upon their beauty, answering to\nthe smile and nod of Alice with a look of open pleasure. Thence he went\nto the side of the motherly animal, and spending a minute in a fruitless\ninquiry into the character of her rider, he shook his head and returned\nto Heyward.\n\n\"A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor\nany other tribe can alter him,\" he said, when he had regained his former\nposition. \"If we were alone, and you would leave that noble horse at the\nmercy of the wolves to-night, I could show you the way to Edward,\nmyself, within an hour, for it lies only about an hour's journey hence;\nbut with such ladies in your company 'tis impossible!\"\n\n\"And why? they are fatigued, but they are quite equal to a ride of a few\nmore miles.\"\n\n\"'Tis a natural impossibility!\" repeated the scout; \"I wouldn't walk a\nmile in these woods after night gets into them, in company with that\nrunner, for the best rifle in the colonies. They are full of outlying\nIroquois, and your mongrel Mohawk knows where to find them too well, to\nbe my companion.\"\n\n\"Think you so?\" said Heyward, leaning forward in the saddle, and\ndropping his voice nearly to a whisper; \"I confess I have not been\nwithout my own suspicions, though I have endeavored to conceal them, and\naffected a confidence I have not always felt, on account of my\ncompanions. It was because I suspected him that I would follow no\nlonger; making him, as you see, follow me.\"\n\n\"I knew he was one of the cheats as soon as I laid eyes on him!\"\nreturned the scout, placing a finger on his nose, in sign of caution.\n\"The thief is leaning against the foot of the sugar sapling, that you\ncan see over them bushes; his right leg is in a line with the bark of\nthe tree, and,\" tapping his rifle, \"I can take him from where I stand,\nbetween the ankle and the knee, with a single shot, putting an end to\nhis tramping through the woods, for at least a month to come. If I\nshould go back to him, the cunning varmint would suspect something, and\nbe dodging through the trees like a frightened deer.\"\n\n\"It will not do. He may be innocent, and I dislike the act. Though, if I\nfelt confident of his treachery--\"\n\n\"'Tis a safe thing to calculate on the knavery of an Iroquois,\" said the\nscout, throwing his rifle forward, by a sort of instinctive movement.\n\n\"Hold!\" interrupted Heyward, \"it will not do--we must think of some\nother scheme; and yet, I have much reason to believe the rascal has\ndeceived me.\"\n\nThe hunter, who had already abandoned his intention of maiming the\nrunner, mused a moment, and then made a gesture, which instantly brought\nhis two red companions to his side. They spoke together earnestly in the\nDelaware language, though in an undertone; and by the gestures of the\nwhite man, which were frequently directed towards the top of the\nsapling, it was evident he pointed out the situation of their hidden\nenemy. His companions were not long in comprehending his wishes, and\nlaying aside their fire-arms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the\npath, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious\nmovements, that their steps were inaudible.\n\n\"Now, go you back,\" said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward, \"and\nhold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without breaking\nhis paint.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Heyward, proudly, \"I will seize him myself.\"\n\n\"Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the bushes?\"\n\n\"I will dismount.\"\n\n\"And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he\nwould wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to\ndeal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to\nprosper in his undertakings. Go, then, talk openly to the miscreant, and\nseem to believe him the truest friend you have on 'arth.\"\n\nHeyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of\nthe office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed\nupon him a conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered\nhis invaluable trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun\nhad already disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his\nlight,[9] were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the\nhour the savage usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless\nacts of vengeance or hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by\napprehension, he left the scout, who immediately entered into a loud\nconversation with the stranger that had so unceremoniously enlisted\nhimself in the party of travellers that morning. In passing his gentler\ncompanions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement, and was pleased\nto find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day, they\nappeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was\nother than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was\nmerely employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he\nspurred his charger, and drew the reins again, when the animal had\ncarried him within a few yards of the place where the sullen runner\nstill stood, leaning against the tree.\n\n\"You may see, Magua,\" he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom\nand confidence, \"that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no\nnearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with\nthe rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate.\nBut, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking\nto the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the\nwoods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely\ntill the morning.\"\n\nThe Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his\nimperfect English, \"Is he alone?\"\n\n\"Alone!\" hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to\nbe assumed without embarrassment. \"O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you\nknow that we are with him.\"\n\n\"Then Le Renard Subtil will go,\" returned the runner, coolly raising his\nlittle wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; \"and the\npale-faces will see none but their own color.\"\n\n\"Go! Whom call you Le Renard?\"\n\n\"'Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua,\" returned the\nrunner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. \"Night\nis the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him.\"\n\n\"And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry\nconcerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman\nthat his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be\none?\"\n\n\"Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will\nnot hear him, or feel him, in the woods.\"\n\n\"But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid\nhim stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted\nwith the business of a man.\"\n\n\"Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones\nof his fathers,\" was the answer of the unmoved runner.\n\n\"Enough, Magua,\" said Heyward; \"are we not friends? Why should there be\nbitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services\nwhen performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary\nlimbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to\nspare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the\nladies are refreshed we will proceed.\"\n\n\"The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women,\" muttered the\nIndian, in his native language, \"and when they want to eat, their\nwarriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness.\"\n\n\"What say you, Renard?\"\n\n\"Le Subtil says it is good.\"\n\nThe Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of\nHeyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and\nseating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of\nsome former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending\nhis looks slowly and cautiously around him.\n\n\"This is well,\" continued Heyward; \"and Le Renard will have strength and\nsight to find the path in the morning;\" he paused, for sounds like the\nsnapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the\nadjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,--\"we\nmust be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path,\nand shut us out from the fortress.\"\n\nThe hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his\neyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his\nnostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than\nusual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to\nrepresent intense attention.\n\nHeyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly\nextricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand\ntowards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect\nthe point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the\ntremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single\ninstant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be\nhardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil\ncautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and\nguarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change.\nHeyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg\nover the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and\nseize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood.\nIn order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an\nair of calmness and friendship.\n\n\"Le Renard Subtil does not eat,\" he said, using the appellation he had\nfound most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. \"His corn is not well\nparched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be\nfound among my own provisions that will help his appetite.\"\n\nMagua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered\ntheir hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his\nriveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward\nmoving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the\nyoung man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged,\nat a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the\nform of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in\nits paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed\nthe shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that\nwas accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter's rifle.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA: When the mounted party from Fort Howard approaches the three men of the woods, Hawkeye addresses first Gamut and then Heyward only to learn that they are lost because their Indian guide has taken them west instead of north toward Fort William Henry. Doubtful, especially when he learns that the guide is a Huron who has been adopted by the Mohawks, Hawkeye makes an a priori judgment of the still-unseen guide and uses the contemptuous term Mingo: \"he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo.\" His two Indian companions concur with his thinking. Still doubting and cautious, be baits Heyward by bantering away about Indians until Heyward reveals that he is the major of the 60th regiment of the king at William Henry. Walking to the rear of the party for a look at Magua, Hawkeye returns and says that he could guide them back to Fort Edward, which is only an hour's journey away, but that it would be impossible because of the ladies and the dangers of coming night, particularly with the Mohawk as a companion. He suggests his shooting and disabling Magua from where he stands, but the major will not hear of it. Consequently, as the sun goes down, he sends the two Mohicans through the thickets on opposite sides of the path and tells the major to engage Magua in talk while he himself converses with Gamut. Magua proudly refers to himself as Le Renard Subtil , the name his Canada fathers have given him. He is cautiously quiet but allows Heyward to convince him to sit and eat. As slight sounds in the thicket make Le Renard alert, Heyward dismounts, determined to seize the treacherous guide, but the latter strikes up the major's arm, gives a piercing cry, and darts away into the thicket. Immediately Chingachgook and Uncas appear and give swift pursuit just as a flash comes from Hawkeye's rifle.\n\n","prompt":"Chapter: \"Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove\n  Till I torment thee for this injury.\"\n\n  _Midsummer Night's Dream._\n\n\nThe words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the\nparty, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the\nIndian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the\nperiodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great\ndistance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his\nred companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers,\nwho had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest,\nadvanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates,\nin readiness to receive them.\n\n\"Who comes?\" demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across\nhis left arm, and keeping the forefinger of his right hand on the\ntrigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act, \"Who\ncomes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?\"\n\n\"Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,\"\nreturned he who rode foremost. \"Men who have journeyed since the rising\nsun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly\ntired of their wayfaring.\"\n\n\"You are, then, lost,\" interrupted the hunter, \"and have found how\nhelpless 'tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?\"\n\n\"Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them\nthan we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the\nstature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of\nthe crown called William Henry?\"\n\n\"Hoot!\" shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though,\ninstantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at\nless risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies. \"You are as much\noff the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer!\nWilliam Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business\nwith the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to\nEdward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of\npushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across\nChamplain, into his den again.\"\n\nBefore the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition,\nanother horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into\nthe pathway, in front of his companion.\n\n\"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?\" demanded a new\nspeaker; \"the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our\ndestination is the head of the lake.\"\n\n\"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the\nroad across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a\npath, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the\npalace of the king himself.\"\n\n\"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage,\" returned\nHeyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. \"It is\nenough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us\nby a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his\nknowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are.\"\n\n\"An Indian lost in the woods!\" said the scout, shaking his head\ndoubtingly; \"when the sun is scorching the tree-tops, and the\nwater-courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees, will tell\nhim in which quarter the north star will shine at night! The woods are\nfull of deer paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known\nto everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters\naltogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican\nand the bend in the river. Is he a Mohawk?\"\n\n\"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was\nfarther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued,\nuntil this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently\nindifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an\nactivity and interest that had evidently got the better of their\nreserve, by surprise.\n\n\"A Huron!\" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open\ndistrust; \"they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are\nadopted; you can never make anything of them but skulks and vagabonds.\nSince you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only\nwonder that you have not fallen in with more.\"\n\n\"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles in\nour front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,\nand that he serves with our forces as a friend.\"\n\n\"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo,\" returned\nthe other, positively. \"A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican\nfor honesty; and when they will fight, which they won't all do, having\nsuffered their cunning enemies, the Maquas, to make them women--but when\nthey will fight at all, look to a Delaware, or a Mohican, for a\nwarrior!\"\n\n\"Enough of this,\" said Heyward, impatiently; \"I wish not to inquire into\nthe character of a man that I know, and to whom you must be a stranger.\nYou have not yet answered my question: what is our distance from the\nmain army at Edward?\"\n\n\"It seems that may depend on who is your guide. One would think such a\nhorse as that might get over a good deal of ground atwixt sun-up and\nsun-down.\"\n\n\"I wish no contention of idle words with you, friend,\" said Heyward,\ncurbing his dissatisfied manner, and speaking in a more gentle voice;\n\"if you will tell me the distance to Fort Edward, and conduct me\nthither, your labor shall not go without its reward.\"\n\n\"And in so doing, how know I that I don't guide an enemy, and a spy of\nMontcalm, to the works of the army? It is not every man who can speak\nthe English tongue that is an honest subject.\"\n\n\"If you serve with the troops, of whom I judge you to be a scout, you\nshould know of such a regiment of the king as the 60th.\"\n\n\"The 60th! you can tell me little of the Royal Americans that I don't\nknow, though I do wear a hunting-shirt instead of a scarlet jacket.\"\n\n\"Well, then, among the other things, you may know the name of its\nmajor?\"\n\n\"Its major!\" interrupted the hunter, elevating his body like one who was\nproud of his trust. \"If there is a man in the country who knows Major\nEffingham, he stands before you.\"\n\n\"It is a corps which has many majors; the gentleman you name is the\nsenior, but I speak of the junior of them all; he who commands the\ncompanies in garrison at William Henry.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I have heard that a young gentleman of vast riches, from one\nof the provinces far south, has got the place. He is over young, too, to\nhold such rank, and to be put above men whose heads are beginning to\nbleach; and yet they say he is a soldier in his knowledge, and a gallant\ngentleman!\"\n\n\"Whatever he may be, or however he may be qualified for his rank, he now\nspeaks to you, and of course can be no enemy to dread.\"\n\nThe scout regarded Heyward in surprise, and then lifting his cap, he\nanswered, in a tone less confident than before, though still expressing\ndoubt,--\n\n\"I have heard a party was to leave the encampment this morning, for the\nlake shore.\"\n\n\"You have heard the truth; but I preferred a nearer route, trusting to\nthe knowledge of the Indian I mentioned.\"\n\n\"And he deceived you, and then deserted?\"\n\n\"Neither, as I believe; certainly not the latter, for he is to be found\nin the rear.\"\n\n\"I should like to look at the creatur'; if it is a true Iroquois I can\ntell him by his knavish look, and by his paint,\" said the scout,\nstepping past the charger of Heyward, and entering the path behind the\nmare of the singing-master, whose foal had taken advantage of the halt\nto exact the maternal contribution. After shoving aside the bushes, and\nproceeding a few paces, he encountered the females, who awaited the\nresult of the conference with anxiety, and not entirely without\napprehension. Behind these, the runner leaned against a tree, where he\nstood the close examination of the scout with an air unmoved, though\nwith a look so dark and savage, that it might in itself excite fear.\nSatisfied with his scrutiny, the hunter soon left him. As he repassed\nthe females, he paused a moment to gaze upon their beauty, answering to\nthe smile and nod of Alice with a look of open pleasure. Thence he went\nto the side of the motherly animal, and spending a minute in a fruitless\ninquiry into the character of her rider, he shook his head and returned\nto Heyward.\n\n\"A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor\nany other tribe can alter him,\" he said, when he had regained his former\nposition. \"If we were alone, and you would leave that noble horse at the\nmercy of the wolves to-night, I could show you the way to Edward,\nmyself, within an hour, for it lies only about an hour's journey hence;\nbut with such ladies in your company 'tis impossible!\"\n\n\"And why? they are fatigued, but they are quite equal to a ride of a few\nmore miles.\"\n\n\"'Tis a natural impossibility!\" repeated the scout; \"I wouldn't walk a\nmile in these woods after night gets into them, in company with that\nrunner, for the best rifle in the colonies. They are full of outlying\nIroquois, and your mongrel Mohawk knows where to find them too well, to\nbe my companion.\"\n\n\"Think you so?\" said Heyward, leaning forward in the saddle, and\ndropping his voice nearly to a whisper; \"I confess I have not been\nwithout my own suspicions, though I have endeavored to conceal them, and\naffected a confidence I have not always felt, on account of my\ncompanions. It was because I suspected him that I would follow no\nlonger; making him, as you see, follow me.\"\n\n\"I knew he was one of the cheats as soon as I laid eyes on him!\"\nreturned the scout, placing a finger on his nose, in sign of caution.\n\"The thief is leaning against the foot of the sugar sapling, that you\ncan see over them bushes; his right leg is in a line with the bark of\nthe tree, and,\" tapping his rifle, \"I can take him from where I stand,\nbetween the ankle and the knee, with a single shot, putting an end to\nhis tramping through the woods, for at least a month to come. If I\nshould go back to him, the cunning varmint would suspect something, and\nbe dodging through the trees like a frightened deer.\"\n\n\"It will not do. He may be innocent, and I dislike the act. Though, if I\nfelt confident of his treachery--\"\n\n\"'Tis a safe thing to calculate on the knavery of an Iroquois,\" said the\nscout, throwing his rifle forward, by a sort of instinctive movement.\n\n\"Hold!\" interrupted Heyward, \"it will not do--we must think of some\nother scheme; and yet, I have much reason to believe the rascal has\ndeceived me.\"\n\nThe hunter, who had already abandoned his intention of maiming the\nrunner, mused a moment, and then made a gesture, which instantly brought\nhis two red companions to his side. They spoke together earnestly in the\nDelaware language, though in an undertone; and by the gestures of the\nwhite man, which were frequently directed towards the top of the\nsapling, it was evident he pointed out the situation of their hidden\nenemy. His companions were not long in comprehending his wishes, and\nlaying aside their fire-arms, they parted, taking opposite sides of the\npath, and burying themselves in the thicket, with such cautious\nmovements, that their steps were inaudible.\n\n\"Now, go you back,\" said the hunter, speaking again to Heyward, \"and\nhold the imp in talk; these Mohicans here will take him without breaking\nhis paint.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Heyward, proudly, \"I will seize him myself.\"\n\n\"Hist! what could you do, mounted, against an Indian in the bushes?\"\n\n\"I will dismount.\"\n\n\"And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he\nwould wait for the other to be free? Whoever comes into the woods to\ndeal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to\nprosper in his undertakings. Go, then, talk openly to the miscreant, and\nseem to believe him the truest friend you have on 'arth.\"\n\nHeyward prepared to comply, though with strong disgust at the nature of\nthe office he was compelled to execute. Each moment, however, pressed\nupon him a conviction of the critical situation in which he had suffered\nhis invaluable trust to be involved through his own confidence. The sun\nhad already disappeared, and the woods, suddenly deprived of his\nlight,[9] were assuming a dusky hue, which keenly reminded him that the\nhour the savage usually chose for his most barbarous and remorseless\nacts of vengeance or hostility, was speedily drawing near. Stimulated by\napprehension, he left the scout, who immediately entered into a loud\nconversation with the stranger that had so unceremoniously enlisted\nhimself in the party of travellers that morning. In passing his gentler\ncompanions Heyward uttered a few words of encouragement, and was pleased\nto find that, though fatigued with the exercise of the day, they\nappeared to entertain no suspicion that their present embarrassment was\nother than the result of accident. Giving them reason to believe he was\nmerely employed in a consultation concerning the future route, he\nspurred his charger, and drew the reins again, when the animal had\ncarried him within a few yards of the place where the sullen runner\nstill stood, leaning against the tree.\n\n\"You may see, Magua,\" he said, endeavoring to assume an air of freedom\nand confidence, \"that the night is closing around us, and yet we are no\nnearer to William Henry than when we left the encampment of Webb with\nthe rising sun. You have missed the way, nor have I been more fortunate.\nBut, happily we have fallen in with a hunter, he whom you hear talking\nto the singer, that is acquainted with the deer-paths and by-ways of the\nwoods, and who promises to lead us to a place where we may rest securely\ntill the morning.\"\n\nThe Indian riveted his glowing eyes on Heyward as he asked, in his\nimperfect English, \"Is he alone?\"\n\n\"Alone!\" hesitatingly answered Heyward to whom deception was too new to\nbe assumed without embarrassment. \"O! not alone, surely, Magua, for you\nknow that we are with him.\"\n\n\"Then Le Renard Subtil will go,\" returned the runner, coolly raising his\nlittle wallet from the place where it had lain at his feet; \"and the\npale-faces will see none but their own color.\"\n\n\"Go! Whom call you Le Renard?\"\n\n\"'Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua,\" returned the\nrunner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. \"Night\nis the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him.\"\n\n\"And what account will Le Renard give the chief of William Henry\nconcerning his daughters? Will he dare to tell the hot-blooded Scotsman\nthat his children are left without a guide, though Magua promised to be\none?\"\n\n\"Though the gray head has a loud voice, and a long arm, Le Renard will\nnot hear him, or feel him, in the woods.\"\n\n\"But what will the Mohawks say? They will make him petticoats, and bid\nhim stay in the wigwam with the women, for he is no longer to be trusted\nwith the business of a man.\"\n\n\"Le Subtil knows the path to the great lakes, and he can find the bones\nof his fathers,\" was the answer of the unmoved runner.\n\n\"Enough, Magua,\" said Heyward; \"are we not friends? Why should there be\nbitter words between us? Munro has promised you a gift for your services\nwhen performed, and I shall be your debtor for another. Rest your weary\nlimbs, then, and open your wallet to eat. We have a few moments to\nspare; let us not waste them in talk like wrangling women. When the\nladies are refreshed we will proceed.\"\n\n\"The pale-faces make themselves dogs to their women,\" muttered the\nIndian, in his native language, \"and when they want to eat, their\nwarriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness.\"\n\n\"What say you, Renard?\"\n\n\"Le Subtil says it is good.\"\n\nThe Indian then fastened his eyes keenly on the open countenance of\nHeyward, but meeting his glance, he turned them quickly away, and\nseating himself deliberately on the ground, he drew forth the remnant of\nsome former repast, and began to eat, though not without first bending\nhis looks slowly and cautiously around him.\n\n\"This is well,\" continued Heyward; \"and Le Renard will have strength and\nsight to find the path in the morning;\" he paused, for sounds like the\nsnapping of a dried stick, and the rustling of leaves, rose from the\nadjacent bushes, but recollecting himself instantly, he continued,--\"we\nmust be moving before the sun is seen, or Montcalm may lie in our path,\nand shut us out from the fortress.\"\n\nThe hand of Magua dropped from his mouth to his side, and though his\neyes were fastened on the ground, his head was turned aside, his\nnostrils expanded, and his ears seemed even to stand more erect than\nusual, giving to him the appearance of a statue that was made to\nrepresent intense attention.\n\nHeyward, who watched his movements with a vigilant eye, carelessly\nextricated one of his feet from the stirrup, while he passed a hand\ntowards the bear-skin covering of his holsters. Every effort to detect\nthe point most regarded by the runner was completely frustrated by the\ntremulous glances of his organs, which seemed not to rest a single\ninstant on any particular object, and which, at the same time, could be\nhardly said to move. While he hesitated how to proceed, Le Subtil\ncautiously raised himself to his feet, though with a motion so slow and\nguarded, that not the slightest noise was produced by the change.\nHeyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act. Throwing his leg\nover the saddle, he dismounted, with a determination to advance and\nseize his treacherous companion, trusting the result to his own manhood.\nIn order, however, to prevent unnecessary alarm, he still preserved an\nair of calmness and friendship.\n\n\"Le Renard Subtil does not eat,\" he said, using the appellation he had\nfound most flattering to the vanity of the Indian. \"His corn is not well\nparched, and it seems dry. Let me examine; perhaps something may be\nfound among my own provisions that will help his appetite.\"\n\nMagua held out the wallet to the proffer of the other. He even suffered\ntheir hands to meet, without betraying the least emotion, or varying his\nriveted attitude of attention. But when he felt the fingers of Heyward\nmoving gently along his own naked arm, he struck up the limb of the\nyoung man, and uttering a piercing cry as he darted beneath it, plunged,\nat a single bound, into the opposite thicket. At the next instant the\nform of Chingachgook appeared from the bushes, looking like a spectre in\nits paint, and glided across the path in swift pursuit. Next followed\nthe shout of Uncas, when the woods were lighted by a sudden flash, that\nwas accompanied by the sharp report of the hunter's rifle.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA:","completion":" When the mounted party from Fort Howard approaches the three men of the woods, Hawkeye addresses first Gamut and then Heyward only to learn that they are lost because their Indian guide has taken them west instead of north toward Fort William Henry. Doubtful, especially when he learns that the guide is a Huron who has been adopted by the Mohawks, Hawkeye makes an a priori judgment of the still-unseen guide and uses the contemptuous term Mingo: \"he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo.\" His two Indian companions concur with his thinking. Still doubting and cautious, be baits Heyward by bantering away about Indians until Heyward reveals that he is the major of the 60th regiment of the king at William Henry. Walking to the rear of the party for a look at Magua, Hawkeye returns and says that he could guide them back to Fort Edward, which is only an hour's journey away, but that it would be impossible because of the ladies and the dangers of coming night, particularly with the Mohawk as a companion. He suggests his shooting and disabling Magua from where he stands, but the major will not hear of it. Consequently, as the sun goes down, he sends the two Mohicans through the thickets on opposite sides of the path and tells the major to engage Magua in talk while he himself converses with Gamut. Magua proudly refers to himself as Le Renard Subtil , the name his Canada fathers have given him. He is cautiously quiet but allows Heyward to convince him to sit and eat. As slight sounds in the thicket make Le Renard alert, Heyward dismounts, determined to seize the treacherous guide, but the latter strikes up the major's arm, gives a piercing cry, and darts away into the thicket. Immediately Chingachgook and Uncas appear and give swift pursuit just as a flash comes from Hawkeye's rifle.\n\n"},"truncated_cells":[]},{"row_idx":3,"row":{"text":"Chapter: \"In such a night\n  Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;\n  And saw the lion's shadow ere himself.\"\n\n  _Merchant of Venice._\n\n\nThe suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the\npursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive\nsurprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he\ndashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend\nhis aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards,\nhe met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful\npursuit.\n\n\"Why so soon disheartened!\" he exclaimed; \"the scoundrel must be\nconcealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not\nsafe while he goes at large.\"\n\n\"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?\" returned the disappointed\nscout; \"I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black\nsnake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I\npulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a\nreasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should\ncall it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in\nthese matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its\nleaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow\nblossom, in the month of July!\"\n\n\"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!\"\n\n\"No, no,\" returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,\n\"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the\nlonger for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks\nhim, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens\nmotion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But\nwhen it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,\na stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!\"\n\n\"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!\"\n\n\"Is life grievous to you?\" interrupted the scout. \"Yonder red devils\nwould draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you\nwere heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so\noften slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece\nwithin sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!\n'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such\na fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent,\nor our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,\nag'in this hour to-morrow.\"\n\nThis appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool\nassurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face\nthe danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge\nwith which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with\na vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy\narches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid, his\nunresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those\nbarbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the\ngathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His\nawakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each\nwaving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and\ntwenty times he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his\nlurking foes, peering from their hiding-places, in never-ceasing\nwatchfulness of the movements of his party. Looking upward, he found\nthat the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on the blue sky,\nwere already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the\nimbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he stood, was to be\ntraced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.\n\n\"What is to be done?\" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt\nin such a pressing strait; \"desert me not, for God's sake! remain to\ndefend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!\"\n\nHis companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe,\nheeded not this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was\nmaintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a whisper,\nHeyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones\nof the younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.\nIt was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure that\nnearly concerned the welfare of the travellers. Yielding to his\npowerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that seemed\nfraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the\ndusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more\ndefinite, when the white man, motioning, with his hand, as if he\nconceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,\nand in the English tongue,--\n\n\"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless\nthings to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place\nforever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the\nworst of serpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor\nresolution to throw away!\"\n\n\"How can such a wish be doubted! have I not already offered--\"\n\n\"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the\ncunning of the devils who fill these woods,\" calmly interrupted the\nscout, \"but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to\nrealize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man's\nthoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were\nnever made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any\nother recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.\nFirst, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your\nfriends, or without serving you, we shall only injure ourselves!\"\n\n\"Name them.\"\n\n\"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen;\nand the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a\nsecret from all mortal men.\"\n\n\"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled.\"\n\n\"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the\nheart's blood to a stricken deer!\"\n\nHeyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through\nthe increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps,\nswiftly, towards the place where he had left the remainder of his party.\nWhen they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly\nacquainted them with the conditions of their new guide, and with the\nnecessity that existed for their hushing every apprehension, in instant\nand serious exertions. Although his alarming communication was not\nreceived without much secret terror by the listeners, his earnest and\nimpressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the danger, succeeded\nin bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.\nSilently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist\nthem from their saddles, when they descended quickly to the water's\nedge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more by the\nagency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.\n\n\"What to do with these dumb creatures!\" muttered the white man, on whom\nthe sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; \"it\nwould be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river;\nand to leave them here, would be to tell the Mingos that they have not\nfar to seek to find their owners!\"\n\n\"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods,\" Heyward\nventured to suggest.\n\n\"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they\nmust equal a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will\nblind their fire-balls of eyes! Chingach--Hist? what stirs the bush?\"\n\n\"The colt.\"\n\n\"That colt, at least, must die,\" muttered the scout, grasping the mane\nof the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; \"Uncas, your arrows!\"\n\n\"Hold!\" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without\nregard to the whispering tones used by the others; \"spare the foal of\nMiriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would\nwillingly injure naught.\"\n\n\"When men struggle for the single life God has given them,\" said the\nscout sternly, \"even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the\nwood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!\nDraw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows.\"\n\nThe low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,\nwhen the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward\nto its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its\nthroat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the\nstruggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it\nglided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed\nof apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the\ntravellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,\nheightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors\nin the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,\nwhile Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had\njust drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge\nand those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before\nthe bosom of the forest.\n\nThe Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,\nthey led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.\n\nAt a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed\nby the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a\ndirection opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the\nscout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some\nlow bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,\ninto which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied\nwithout hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown\nbehind them towards the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark\nbarrier along the margin of the stream.\n\nSo soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the\nelement, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and\nposting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,\nfollowed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they\nproceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only interrupted by the\nrippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the low dash\nmade by their own cautious footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of\nthe canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or receded from the\nshore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the river,\nwith a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.\nOccasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness,\nthat the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render\nmore impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any\nsounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that\nall was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practised\nsenses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume\nhis slow and unguarded progress. At length they reached a point in the\nriver, where the roving eye of Heyward became riveted on a cluster of\nblack objects, collected at a spot where the high bank threw a deeper\nshadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating to advance, he pointed\nout the place to the attention of his companion.\n\n\"Ay,\" returned the composed scout, \"the Indians have hid the beasts\nwith the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes\nwould be blinded by the darkness of such a hole.\"\n\nThe whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held\nbetween the scout and his new comrades, during which, they whose fates\ndepended on the faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a\nlittle leisure to observe their situation more minutely.\n\nThe river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which\nimpended above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were\nsurmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the\nprecipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep\nand narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree-tops,\nwhich were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay\nalike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks\nsoon bounded the view, by the same dark and wooded outline; but in\nfront, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled\nagainst the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued\nthose sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,\nin truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a\nsoothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic, though\nnot unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors,\nhowever, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that\nnight had assisted to lend the place, to a painful sense of their real\nperil.\n\nThe horses had been secured to some scattered shrubs that grew in the\nfissures of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to\npass the night. The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate\nfellow-travellers to seat themselves in the forward end of the canoe,\nand took possession of the other himself, as erect and steady as if he\nfloated in a vessel of much firmer materials. The Indians warily\nretraced their steps towards the place they had left, when the scout,\nplacing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail\nbark directly into the centre of the turbulent stream. For many minutes\nthe struggle between the light bubble in which they floated, and the\nswift current, was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand,\nand almost afraid to breathe, lest they should expose the frail fabric\nto the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters in\nfeverish suspense. Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were\nsweeping them to destruction, when the master-hand of their pilot would\nbring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid. A long, a vigorous, and,\nas it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the struggle.\nJust as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they\nwere about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract,\nthe canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a\nlevel with the water.\n\n\"Where are we? and what is next to be done?\" demanded Heyward,\nperceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.\n\n\"You are at the foot of Glenn's,\" returned the other, speaking aloud,\nwithout fear of consequences, within the roar of the cataract; \"and the\nnext thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and you\nshould go down again the hard road we have travelled, faster than you\ncame up; 'tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;\nand five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in the hurry-skurry, with a\nlittle birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will\nbring up the Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without\nhis scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty.\"\n\nHis passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot\ntouched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form\nof the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before\nit disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of\nthe river. Left by their guide, the travellers remained a few minutes in\nhelpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a\nfalse step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and\nroaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of\nthem. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for aided by the skill\nof the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at\nthe side of the low rock before they thought the scout had even time to\nrejoin his companions.\n\n\"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned,\" cried Heyward,\ncheerfully, \"and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,\nmy vigilant sentinel, can you see anything of those you call the\nIroquois, on the mainland?\"\n\n\"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign\ntongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!\nIf Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the\ntribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and\nOneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,\namong the French!\"\n\n\"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard\nthat the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be\ncalled women!\"\n\n\"Ay, shame on the Hollanders[10] and Iroquois, who circumvented them by\ntheir deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty\nyears, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins\nof a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and\nwould now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night\nupon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign\ntongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle[11] of his tribe be in Canada,\nor be in New York.\"\n\nHeyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the\ncause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches\nof the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,\nchanged the subject.\n\n\"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are\nbrave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our\nenemies?\"\n\n\"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen,\" returned the scout,\nascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. \"I trust to\nother signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the\ntrail of the Mingos.\"\n\n\"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?\"\n\n\"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout\ncourage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but\nthe horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the\nwolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian\nambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill.\"\n\n\"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the\ndead colt? Ha! what noise is that?\"\n\n\"Poor Miriam!\" murmured the stranger; \"thy foal was foreordained to\nbecome a prey to ravenous beasts!\" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,\namid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,--\n\n  \"First born of Egypt, smite did He,\n  Of mankind, and of beast also;\n  O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,\n  On Pharaoh and his servants too!\"\n\n\"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner,\" said the\nscout; \"but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.\nHe has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will\nhappen; and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits\nto the rationality of killing a four-footed beast, to save the lives of\nhuman men. It may be as you say,\" he continued, reverting to the purport\nof Heyward's last remark; \"and the greater the reason why we should cut\nour steaks, and let the carcase drive down the stream, or we shall have\nthe pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.\nBesides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the\nIroquois, the cunning varlets are quick enough at understanding the\nreason of a wolf's howl.\"\n\nThe scout, whilst making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain\nnecessary implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of\ntravellers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his\nintentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared\nin succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a\nperpendicular rock, that rose to the height of a few yards within as\nmany feet of the water's edge.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA: The pursuit of Magua is unsuccessful, but Hawkeye feels that he has wounded him slightly and is certain of it when they find bloodstains on the sumach leaves. Heyward wants to continue the chase, but the scout fears an ambush, particularly since he has fired his rifle, an action for which he upbraids himself. With night almost upon them, the three woodsmen confer and, at the urging of Uncas, decide to take the group to their \"harboring place\" after Heyward promises to keep the place a secret. The horses are a problem, but rather than give them their bridles, the men agree to mislead the foe into thinking that the group is on horseback. When the colt makes a noise in the bush, the scout determines that of necessity it must die so that it cannot betray them. Uncas shoots it with an arrow and Chingachgook quickly and mercifully slits its throat and dashes it into the river to float away. While the Indians lead the horses into the river, Hawkeye and Heyward place the females in a bark canoe and, trailed by the dejected Gamut, wade in to bear it upstream toward the waterfall, passing the dark overhang of the bank where the horses are now hidden. At the falls, the scout seats all the whites in the canoe and poles it into the center of the turbulent stream, where it is whirled about until he brings it to rest beside a flat rock. \"You are at the foot of Glenn's,\" he says and takes the canoe to fetch the Mohicans and the venison. When they are all together, he worriedly tells that the horses had cowered as if they scented wolves that would hover near Indian kills. He is interrupted by a sad song from Gamut, whom he tries to console for the death of the colt. Then he and the two Mohicans disappear in succession, \"seeming to vanish against the dark face of a perpendicular rock.\"\n\n","prompt":"Chapter: \"In such a night\n  Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;\n  And saw the lion's shadow ere himself.\"\n\n  _Merchant of Venice._\n\n\nThe suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the\npursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive\nsurprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he\ndashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward to lend\nhis aid in the chase. Before he had, however, proceeded a hundred yards,\nhe met the three foresters already returning from their unsuccessful\npursuit.\n\n\"Why so soon disheartened!\" he exclaimed; \"the scoundrel must be\nconcealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not\nsafe while he goes at large.\"\n\n\"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?\" returned the disappointed\nscout; \"I heard the imp, brushing over the dry leaves, like a black\nsnake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I\npulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a\nreasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should\ncall it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in\nthese matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its\nleaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow\nblossom, in the month of July!\"\n\n\"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!\"\n\n\"No, no,\" returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,\n\"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the\nlonger for it. A rifle-bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks\nhim, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens\nmotion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But\nwhen it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,\na stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!\"\n\n\"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!\"\n\n\"Is life grievous to you?\" interrupted the scout. \"Yonder red devils\nwould draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you\nwere heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so\noften slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece\nwithin sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!\n'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such\na fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent,\nor our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,\nag'in this hour to-morrow.\"\n\nThis appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool\nassurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face\nthe danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge\nwith which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with\na vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the leafy\narches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid, his\nunresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those\nbarbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the\ngathering darkness might render their blows more fatally certain. His\nawakened imagination, deluded by the deceptive light, converted each\nwaving bush, or the fragment of some fallen tree, into human forms, and\ntwenty times he fancied he could distinguish the horrid visages of his\nlurking foes, peering from their hiding-places, in never-ceasing\nwatchfulness of the movements of his party. Looking upward, he found\nthat the thin fleecy clouds, which evening had painted on the blue sky,\nwere already losing their faintest tints of rose-color, while the\nimbedded stream, which glided past the spot where he stood, was to be\ntraced only by the dark boundary of its wooded banks.\n\n\"What is to be done?\" he said, feeling the utter helplessness of doubt\nin such a pressing strait; \"desert me not, for God's sake! remain to\ndefend those I escort, and freely name your own reward!\"\n\nHis companions, who conversed apart in the language of their tribe,\nheeded not this sudden and earnest appeal. Though their dialogue was\nmaintained in low and cautious sounds, but little above a whisper,\nHeyward, who now approached, could easily distinguish the earnest tones\nof the younger warrior from the more deliberate speeches of his seniors.\nIt was evident that they debated on the propriety of some measure that\nnearly concerned the welfare of the travellers. Yielding to his\npowerful interest in the subject, and impatient of a delay that seemed\nfraught with so much additional danger, Heyward drew still nigher to the\ndusky group, with an intention of making his offers of compensation more\ndefinite, when the white man, motioning, with his hand, as if he\nconceded the disputed point, turned away, saying in a sort of soliloquy,\nand in the English tongue,--\n\n\"Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless\nthings to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place\nforever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the\nworst of serpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor\nresolution to throw away!\"\n\n\"How can such a wish be doubted! have I not already offered--\"\n\n\"Offer your prayers to Him who can give us wisdom to circumvent the\ncunning of the devils who fill these woods,\" calmly interrupted the\nscout, \"but spare your offers of money, which neither you may live to\nrealize, nor I to profit by. These Mohicans and I will do what man's\nthoughts can invent, to keep such flowers, which, though so sweet, were\nnever made for the wilderness, from harm, and that without hope of any\nother recompense but such as God always gives to upright dealings.\nFirst, you must promise two things, both in your own name and for your\nfriends, or without serving you, we shall only injure ourselves!\"\n\n\"Name them.\"\n\n\"The one is, to be still as these sleeping woods, let what will happen;\nand the other is, to keep the place where we shall take you, forever a\nsecret from all mortal men.\"\n\n\"I will do my utmost to see both these conditions fulfilled.\"\n\n\"Then follow, for we are losing moments that are as precious as the\nheart's blood to a stricken deer!\"\n\nHeyward could distinguish the impatient gesture of the scout, through\nthe increasing shadows of the evening, and he moved in his footsteps,\nswiftly, towards the place where he had left the remainder of his party.\nWhen they rejoined the expecting and anxious females, he briefly\nacquainted them with the conditions of their new guide, and with the\nnecessity that existed for their hushing every apprehension, in instant\nand serious exertions. Although his alarming communication was not\nreceived without much secret terror by the listeners, his earnest and\nimpressive manner, aided perhaps by the nature of the danger, succeeded\nin bracing their nerves to undergo some unlooked-for and unusual trial.\nSilently, and without a moment's delay, they permitted him to assist\nthem from their saddles, when they descended quickly to the water's\nedge, where the scout had collected the rest of the party, more by the\nagency of expressive gestures than by any use of words.\n\n\"What to do with these dumb creatures!\" muttered the white man, on whom\nthe sole control of their future movements appeared to devolve; \"it\nwould be time lost to cut their throats, and cast them into the river;\nand to leave them here, would be to tell the Mingos that they have not\nfar to seek to find their owners!\"\n\n\"Then give them their bridles, and let them range the woods,\" Heyward\nventured to suggest.\n\n\"No; it would be better to mislead the imps, and make them believe they\nmust equal a horse's speed to run down their chase. Ay, ay, that will\nblind their fire-balls of eyes! Chingach--Hist? what stirs the bush?\"\n\n\"The colt.\"\n\n\"That colt, at least, must die,\" muttered the scout, grasping the mane\nof the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; \"Uncas, your arrows!\"\n\n\"Hold!\" exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without\nregard to the whispering tones used by the others; \"spare the foal of\nMiriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would\nwillingly injure naught.\"\n\n\"When men struggle for the single life God has given them,\" said the\nscout sternly, \"even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the\nwood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!\nDraw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows.\"\n\nThe low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,\nwhen the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward\nto its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its\nthroat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the\nstruggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it\nglided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed\nof apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the\ntravellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,\nheightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors\nin the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,\nwhile Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had\njust drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge\nand those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before\nthe bosom of the forest.\n\nThe Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,\nthey led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.\n\nAt a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed\nby the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in a\ndirection opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the\nscout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some\nlow bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,\ninto which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied\nwithout hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown\nbehind them towards the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark\nbarrier along the margin of the stream.\n\nSo soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the\nelement, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel, and\nposting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,\nfollowed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they\nproceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was only interrupted by the\nrippling of the water, as its eddies played around them, or the low dash\nmade by their own cautious footsteps. Heyward yielded the guidance of\nthe canoe implicitly to the scout, who approached or receded from the\nshore, to avoid the fragments of rocks, or deeper parts of the river,\nwith a readiness that showed his knowledge of the route they held.\nOccasionally he would stop; and in the midst of a breathing stillness,\nthat the dull but increasing roar of the waterfall only served to render\nmore impressive, he would listen with painful intenseness, to catch any\nsounds that might arise from the slumbering forest. When assured that\nall was still, and unable to detect, even by the aid of his practised\nsenses, any sign of his approaching foes, he would deliberately resume\nhis slow and unguarded progress. At length they reached a point in the\nriver, where the roving eye of Heyward became riveted on a cluster of\nblack objects, collected at a spot where the high bank threw a deeper\nshadow than usual on the dark waters. Hesitating to advance, he pointed\nout the place to the attention of his companion.\n\n\"Ay,\" returned the composed scout, \"the Indians have hid the beasts\nwith the judgment of natives! Water leaves no trail, and an owl's eyes\nwould be blinded by the darkness of such a hole.\"\n\nThe whole party was soon reunited, and another consultation was held\nbetween the scout and his new comrades, during which, they whose fates\ndepended on the faith and ingenuity of these unknown foresters, had a\nlittle leisure to observe their situation more minutely.\n\nThe river was confined between high and cragged rocks, one of which\nimpended above the spot where the canoe rested. As these, again, were\nsurmounted by tall trees, which appeared to totter on the brows of the\nprecipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep\nand narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree-tops,\nwhich were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay\nalike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks\nsoon bounded the view, by the same dark and wooded outline; but in\nfront, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled\nagainst the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued\nthose sullen sounds that had loaded the evening atmosphere. It seemed,\nin truth, to be a spot devoted to seclusion, and the sisters imbibed a\nsoothing impression of security, as they gazed upon its romantic, though\nnot unappalling beauties. A general movement among their conductors,\nhowever, soon recalled them from a contemplation of the wild charms that\nnight had assisted to lend the place, to a painful sense of their real\nperil.\n\nThe horses had been secured to some scattered shrubs that grew in the\nfissures of the rocks, where, standing in the water, they were left to\npass the night. The scout directed Heyward and his disconsolate\nfellow-travellers to seat themselves in the forward end of the canoe,\nand took possession of the other himself, as erect and steady as if he\nfloated in a vessel of much firmer materials. The Indians warily\nretraced their steps towards the place they had left, when the scout,\nplacing his pole against a rock, by a powerful shove, sent his frail\nbark directly into the centre of the turbulent stream. For many minutes\nthe struggle between the light bubble in which they floated, and the\nswift current, was severe and doubtful. Forbidden to stir even a hand,\nand almost afraid to breathe, lest they should expose the frail fabric\nto the fury of the stream, the passengers watched the glancing waters in\nfeverish suspense. Twenty times they thought the whirling eddies were\nsweeping them to destruction, when the master-hand of their pilot would\nbring the bows of the canoe to stem the rapid. A long, a vigorous, and,\nas it appeared to the females, a desperate effort, closed the struggle.\nJust as Alice veiled her eyes in horror, under the impression that they\nwere about to be swept within the vortex at the foot of the cataract,\nthe canoe floated, stationary, at the side of a flat rock, that lay on a\nlevel with the water.\n\n\"Where are we? and what is next to be done?\" demanded Heyward,\nperceiving that the exertions of the scout had ceased.\n\n\"You are at the foot of Glenn's,\" returned the other, speaking aloud,\nwithout fear of consequences, within the roar of the cataract; \"and the\nnext thing is to make a steady landing, lest the canoe upset, and you\nshould go down again the hard road we have travelled, faster than you\ncame up; 'tis a hard rift to stem, when the river is a little swelled;\nand five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in the hurry-skurry, with a\nlittle birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will\nbring up the Mohicans with the venison. A man had better sleep without\nhis scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty.\"\n\nHis passengers gladly complied with these directions. As the last foot\ntouched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form\nof the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before\nit disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of\nthe river. Left by their guide, the travellers remained a few minutes in\nhelpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a\nfalse step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and\nroaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side of\nthem. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for aided by the skill\nof the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated again at\nthe side of the low rock before they thought the scout had even time to\nrejoin his companions.\n\n\"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned,\" cried Heyward,\ncheerfully, \"and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,\nmy vigilant sentinel, can you see anything of those you call the\nIroquois, on the mainland?\"\n\n\"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign\ntongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!\nIf Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the\ntribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and\nOneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,\namong the French!\"\n\n\"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard\nthat the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be\ncalled women!\"\n\n\"Ay, shame on the Hollanders[10] and Iroquois, who circumvented them by\ntheir deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty\nyears, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins\nof a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and\nwould now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night\nupon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign\ntongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle[11] of his tribe be in Canada,\nor be in New York.\"\n\nHeyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the\ncause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches\nof the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,\nchanged the subject.\n\n\"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are\nbrave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our\nenemies?\"\n\n\"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen,\" returned the scout,\nascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. \"I trust to\nother signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the\ntrail of the Mingos.\"\n\n\"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?\"\n\n\"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout\ncourage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but\nthe horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the\nwolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian\nambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill.\"\n\n\"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the\ndead colt? Ha! what noise is that?\"\n\n\"Poor Miriam!\" murmured the stranger; \"thy foal was foreordained to\nbecome a prey to ravenous beasts!\" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,\namid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,--\n\n  \"First born of Egypt, smite did He,\n  Of mankind, and of beast also;\n  O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,\n  On Pharaoh and his servants too!\"\n\n\"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner,\" said the\nscout; \"but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.\nHe has the religion of the matter, in believing what is to happen will\nhappen; and with such a consolation, it won't be long afore he submits\nto the rationality of killing a four-footed beast, to save the lives of\nhuman men. It may be as you say,\" he continued, reverting to the purport\nof Heyward's last remark; \"and the greater the reason why we should cut\nour steaks, and let the carcase drive down the stream, or we shall have\nthe pack howling along the cliffs, begrudging every mouthful we swallow.\nBesides, though the Delaware tongue is the same as a book to the\nIroquois, the cunning varlets are quick enough at understanding the\nreason of a wolf's howl.\"\n\nThe scout, whilst making his remarks, was busied in collecting certain\nnecessary implements; as he concluded, he moved silently by the group of\ntravellers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his\nintentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared\nin succession, seeming to vanish against the dark face of a\nperpendicular rock, that rose to the height of a few yards within as\nmany feet of the water's edge.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA:","completion":" The pursuit of Magua is unsuccessful, but Hawkeye feels that he has wounded him slightly and is certain of it when they find bloodstains on the sumach leaves. Heyward wants to continue the chase, but the scout fears an ambush, particularly since he has fired his rifle, an action for which he upbraids himself. With night almost upon them, the three woodsmen confer and, at the urging of Uncas, decide to take the group to their \"harboring place\" after Heyward promises to keep the place a secret. The horses are a problem, but rather than give them their bridles, the men agree to mislead the foe into thinking that the group is on horseback. When the colt makes a noise in the bush, the scout determines that of necessity it must die so that it cannot betray them. Uncas shoots it with an arrow and Chingachgook quickly and mercifully slits its throat and dashes it into the river to float away. While the Indians lead the horses into the river, Hawkeye and Heyward place the females in a bark canoe and, trailed by the dejected Gamut, wade in to bear it upstream toward the waterfall, passing the dark overhang of the bank where the horses are now hidden. At the falls, the scout seats all the whites in the canoe and poles it into the center of the turbulent stream, where it is whirled about until he brings it to rest beside a flat rock. \"You are at the foot of Glenn's,\" he says and takes the canoe to fetch the Mohicans and the venison. When they are all together, he worriedly tells that the horses had cowered as if they scented wolves that would hover near Indian kills. He is interrupted by a sad song from Gamut, whom he tries to console for the death of the colt. Then he and the two Mohicans disappear in succession, \"seeming to vanish against the dark face of a perpendicular rock.\"\n\n"},"truncated_cells":[]},{"row_idx":4,"row":{"text":"Chapter: \"Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;\n  He wales a portion with judicious care;\n  And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air.\"\n\n  BURNS.\n\n\nHeyward, and his female companions, witnessed this mysterious movement\nwith secret uneasiness; for, though the conduct of the white man had\nhitherto been above reproach, his rude equipments, blunt address, and\nstrong antipathies, together with the character of his silent\nassociates, were all causes for exciting distrust in minds that had been\nso recently alarmed by Indian treachery.\n\nThe stranger alone disregarded the passing incidents. He seated himself\non a projection of the rocks, whence he gave no other signs of\nconsciousness than by the struggles of his spirit, as manifested in\nfrequent and heavy sighs. Smothered voices were next heard, as though\nmen called to each other in the bowels of the earth, when a sudden light\nflashed upon those without, and laid bare the much-prized secret of the\nplace.\n\nAt the farther extremity of a narrow, deep cavern in the rock, whose\nlength appeared much extended by the perspective and the nature of the\nlight by which it was seen, was seated the scout, holding a blazing knot\nof pine. The strong glare of the fire fell full upon his sturdy,\nweather-beaten countenance and forest attire, lending an air of romantic\nwildness to the aspect of an individual, who, seen by the sober light of\nday, would have exhibited the peculiarities of a man remarkable for the\nstrangeness of his dress, the iron-like inflexibility of his frame, and\nthe singular compound of quick, vigilant sagacity, and of exquisite\nsimplicity, that by turns usurped the possession of his muscular\nfeatures. At a little distance in advance stood Uncas, his whole person\nthrown powerfully into view. The travellers anxiously regarded the\nupright, flexible figure of the young Mohican, graceful and unrestrained\nin the attitudes and movements of nature. Though his person was more\nthan usually screened by a green and fringed hunting-shirt, like that of\nthe white man, there was no concealment to his dark, glancing, fearless\neye, alike terrible and calm; the bold outline of his high, haughty\nfeatures, pure in their native red; or to the dignified elevation of his\nreceding forehead, together with all the finest proportions of a noble\nhead, bared to the generous scalping tuft. It was the first opportunity\npossessed by Duncan and his companions, to view the marked lineaments of\neither of their Indian attendants, and each individual of the party felt\nrelieved from a burden of doubt, as the proud and determined, though\nwild expression of the features of the young warrior forced itself on\ntheir notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the\nvale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote\nhis rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The\ningenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would\nhave looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which\nlife had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward,\nthough accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the\nuncorrupted natives, openly expressed his admiration at such an\nunblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man.\n\n\"I could sleep in peace,\" whispered Alice, in reply, \"with such a\nfearless and generous looking youth for my sentinel. Surely, Duncan,\nthose cruel murders, those terrific scenes of torture, of which we read\nand hear so much, are never acted in the presence of such as he!\"\n\n\"This, certainly, is a rare and brilliant instance of those natural\nqualities, in which these peculiar people are said to excel,\" he\nanswered. \"I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and\neye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not\npractise a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition\nof what we esteem virtue than according to the fashion of a savage. As\nbright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among\nChristians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though,\nfor the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing\nthem. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes,\nbut prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant\nfriend.\"\n\n\"Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should,\" said Cora; \"who,\nthat looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!\"\n\nA short, and apparently an embarrassed silence succeeded this remark,\nwhich was interrupted by the scout calling to them, aloud, to enter.\n\n\"This fire begins to show too bright a flame,\" he continued, as they\ncomplied, \"and might light the Mingos to our undoing. Uncas, drop the\nblanket, and show the knaves its dark side. This is not such a supper as\na major of the Royal Americans has a right to expect, but I've known\nstout detachments of the corps glad to eat their venison raw, and\nwithout a relish too.[12] Here, you see, we have plenty of salt, and can\nmake a quick broil. There's fresh sassafras boughs for the ladies to sit\non, which may not be as proud as their my-hog-guinea chairs, but which\nsends up a sweeter flavor than the skin of any hog can do, be it of\nGuinea, or be it of any other land. Come, friend, don't be mournful for\nthe colt; 'twas an innocent thing, and had not seen much hardship. Its\ndeath will save the creature many a sore back and weary foot!\"\n\nUncas did as the other had directed, and when the voice of Hawkeye\nceased, the roar of the cataract sounded like the rumbling of distant\nthunder.\n\n\"Are we quite safe in this cavern?\" demanded Heyward. \"Is there no\ndanger of surprise? A single armed man, at its entrance, would hold us\nat his mercy.\"\n\nA spectral-looking figure stalked from out the darkness behind the\nscout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it towards the farther\nextremity of their place of retreat. Alice uttered a faint shriek, and\neven Cora rose to her feet, as this appalling object moved into the\nlight; but a single word from Heyward calmed them, with the assurance it\nwas only their attendant, Chingachgook, who, lifting another blanket,\ndiscovered that the cavern had two outlets. Then, holding the brand, he\ncrossed a deep, narrow chasm in the rocks, which ran at right angles\nwith the passage they were in, but which, unlike that, was open to the\nheavens, and entered another cave, answering to the description of the\nfirst, in every essential particular.\n\n\"Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often caught in a\nburrow with one hole,\" said Hawkeye, laughing; \"you can easily see the\ncunning of the place--the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows\nis soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is\nscarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say\nwas, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any\nalong the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these\nsweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These\nrocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at\nothersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until\nit has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing\nthere, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency.\"\n\n\"In what part of them are we?\" asked Heyward.\n\n\"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but\nwhere, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved\nsofter on each side of us, and so they left the centre of the river bare\nand dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in.\"\n\n\"We are then on an island?\"\n\n\"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and\nbelow. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up on\nthe height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It\nfalls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;\nthere, it skips; here, it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and\nin another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep\nhollows, that rumble and quake the 'arth; and hereaway, it ripples and\nsings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gulleys in the old stone,\nas it 'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river\nseems disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the\ndescent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the\nshores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if\nunwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt! Ay, lady,\nthe fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat, is coarse, and\nlike a fish-net, to little spots I can show you, where the river\nfabricates all sorts of images, as if, having broke loose from order, it\nwould try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After\nthe water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a\nheadstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a\nfew rods below you may see it all, flowing on steadily towards the sea,\nas was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!\"\n\nWhile his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of\ntheir place of concealment, from this untutored description of\nGlenn's,[13] they were much inclined to judge differently from Hawkeye,\nof its wild beauties. But they were not in a situation to suffer their\nthoughts to dwell on the charms of natural objects; and, as the scout\nhad not found it necessary to cease his culinary labors while he spoke,\nunless to point out, with a broken fork, the direction of some\nparticularly obnoxious point in the rebellious stream, they now suffered\ntheir attention to be drawn to the necessary, though more vulgar\nconsideration of their supper.\n\nThe repast, which was greatly aided by the addition of a few delicacies\nthat Heyward had the precaution to bring with him when they left their\nhorses, was exceedingly refreshing to the wearied party. Uncas acted as\nattendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his\npower, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse\nHeyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian\ncustoms, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial\nemployment, especially in favor of their women. As the rites of\nhospitality were, however, considered sacred among them, this little\ndeparture from the dignity of manhood excited no audible comment. Had\nthere been one there sufficiently disengaged to become a close observer,\nhe might have fancied that the services of the young chief were not\nentirely impartial. That while he tendered to Alice the gourd of sweet\nwater and the venison in a trencher, neatly carved from the knot of the\npepperidge, with sufficient courtesy, in performing the same offices to\nher sister, his dark eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance.\nOnce or twice he was compelled to speak, to command the attention of\nthose he served. In such cases, he made use of English, broken and\nimperfect, but sufficiently intelligible, and which he rendered so mild\nand musical, by his deep,[14] guttural voice, that it never failed to\ncause both ladies to look up in admiration and astonishment. In the\ncourse of these civilities, a few sentences were exchanged, that served\nto establish the appearance of an amicable intercourse between the\nparties.\n\nIn the meanwhile, the gravity of Chingachgook remained immovable. He had\nseated himself more within the circle of light, where the frequent\nuneasy glances of his guests were better enabled to separate the natural\nexpression of his face from the artificial terrors of the war-paint.\nThey found a strong resemblance between father and son, with the\ndifference that might be expected from age and hardships. The fierceness\nof his countenance now seemed to slumber, and in its place was to be\nseen the quiet, vacant composure, which distinguishes an Indian warrior,\nwhen his faculties are not required for any of the greater purposes of\nhis existence. It was, however, easy to be seen, by the occasional\ngleams that shot across his swarthy visage, that it was only necessary\nto arouse his passions, in order to give full effect to the terrific\ndevice which he had adopted to intimidate his enemies. On the other\nhand, the quick, roving eye of the scout seldom rested. He ate and drank\nwith an appetite that no sense of danger could disturb, but his\nvigilance seemed never to desert him. Twenty times the gourd or the\nvenison was suspended before his lips, while his head was turned aside,\nas though he listened to some distant and distrusted sounds--a movement\nthat never failed to recall his guests from regarding the novelties of\ntheir situation, to a recollection of the alarming reasons that had\ndriven them to seek it. As these frequent pauses were never followed by\nany remark, the momentary uneasiness they created quickly passed away,\nand for a time was forgotten.\n\n\"Come, friend,\" said Hawkeye, drawing out a keg from beneath a cover of\nleaves, towards the close of the repast, and addressing the stranger who\nsat at his elbow, doing great justice to his culinary skill, \"try a\nlittle spruce; 'twill wash away all thoughts of the colt, and quicken\nthe life in your bosom. I drink to our better friendship, hoping that a\nlittle horse-flesh may leave no heartburnings atween us. How do you name\nyourself?\"\n\n\"Gamut--David Gamut,\" returned the singing-master, preparing to wash\ndown his sorrows in a powerful draught of the woodman's high-flavored\nand well-laced compound.\n\n\"A very good name, and, I dare say, handed down from honest\nforefathers. I'm an admirator of names, though the Christian fashions\nfall far below savage customs in this particular. The biggest coward I\never knew was called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out\nof hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod. With an\nIndian 'tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally\nis--not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a\nsnake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings\nof human natur', and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least\nexpect him. What may be your calling?\"\n\n\"I am an unworthy instructor in the art of psalmody.\"\n\n\"Anan!\"\n\n\"I teach singing to the youths, of the Connecticut levy.\"\n\n\"You might be better employed. The young hounds go laughing and singing\ntoo much already through the woods, when they ought not to breathe\nlouder than a fox in his cover. Can you use the smooth bore, or handle\nthe rifle?\"\n\n\"Praised be God, I have never had occasion to meddle with murderous\nimplements!\"\n\n\"Perhaps you understand the compass, and lay down the water-courses and\nmountains of the wilderness on paper, in order that they who follow may\nfind places by their given names?\"\n\n\"I practise no such employment.\"\n\n\"You have a pair of legs that might make a long path seem short! you\njourney sometimes, I fancy, with tidings for the general.\"\n\n\"Never; I follow no other than my own high vocation, which is\ninstruction in sacred music!\"\n\n\"'Tis a strange calling!\" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, \"to go\nthrough life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may\nhappen to come out of other men's throats. Well, friend, I suppose it is\nyour gift, and mustn't be denied any more than if 'twas shooting, or\nsome other better inclination. Let us hear what you can do in that way;\n'twill be a friendly manner of saying good-night, for 'tis time that\nthese ladies should be getting strength for a hard and a long push, in\nthe pride of the morning, afore the Maquas are stirring!\"\n\n\"With joyful pleasure do I consent,\" said David, adjusting his\niron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which\nhe immediately tendered to Alice. \"What can be more fitting and\nconsolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such\nexceeding jeopardy!\"\n\nAlice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.\n\n\"Indulge yourself,\" he whispered: \"ought not the suggestion of the\nworthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?\"\n\nEncouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her\nkeen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book\nwas open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the\npoet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of\nIsrael, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora\nbetrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song\nproceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and\nthe tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.\n\nThe air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of\nthe rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy\nexcitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran\nthrough their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and\ntrue ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined\ncavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling\nnotes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the\nrocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into\nstone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an\nexpression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features\nto relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature\nsubdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his\nears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the\nsettlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before\nthe hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long\nseemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener\nfelt the storms of heaven than any testimonials of weakness. The singers\nwere dwelling on one of those low, dying chords, which the ear devours\nwith such greedy rapture, as if conscious that it is about to lose them,\nwhen a cry, that seemed neither human nor earthly, rose in the outward\nair, penetrating not only the recesses of the cavern, but to the inmost\nhearts of all who heard it. It was followed by a stillness apparently as\ndeep as if the waters had been checked in their furious progress, at\nsuch a horrid and unusual interruption.\n\n\"What is it?\" murmured Alice, after a few moments of terrible suspense.\n\n\"What is it?\" repeated Heyward aloud.\n\nNeither Hawkeye nor the Indians made any reply. They listened, as if\nexpecting the sound would be repeated, with a manner that expressed\ntheir own astonishment. At length they spoke together earnestly, in the\nDelaware language, when Uncas, passing by the inner and most concealed\naperture, cautiously left the cavern. When he had gone, the scout first\nspoke in English.\n\n\"What it is, or what it is not, none here can tell; though two of us\nhave ranged the woods for more than thirty years! I did believe there\nwas no cry that Indians or beast could make, that my ears had not heard;\nbut this has proved that I was only a vain and conceited mortal!\"\n\n\"Was it not, then, the shout the warriors make when they wish to\nintimidate their enemies?\" asked Cora, who stood drawing her veil about\nher person, with a calmness to which her agitated sister was a stranger.\n\n\"No, no; this was bad, and shocking, and had a sort of unhuman sound;\nbut when you once hear the war-whoop, you will never mistake it for\nanything else! Well, Uncas!\" speaking in Delaware to the young chief as\nhe re-entered, \"what see you? do our lights shine through the blankets?\"\n\nThe answer was short, and apparently decided, being given in the same\ntongue.\n\n\"There is nothing to be seen without,\" continued Hawkeye, shaking his\nhead in discontent; \"and our hiding-place is still in darkness! Pass\ninto the other cave, you that need it, and seek for sleep; we must be\nafoot long before the sun, and make the most of our time to get to\nEdward, while the Mingos are taking their morning nap.\"\n\nCora set the example of compliance, with a steadiness that taught the\nmore timid Alice the necessity of obedience. Before leaving the place,\nhowever, she whispered a request to Duncan that he would follow. Uncas\nraised the blanket for their passage, and as the sisters turned to thank\nhim for this act of attention, they saw the scout seated again before\nthe dying embers, with his face resting on his hands, in a manner which\nshowed how deeply he brooded on the unaccountable interruption which\nhad broken up their evening devotions.\n\nHeyward took with him a blazing knot, which threw a dim light through\nthe narrow vista of their new apartment. Placing it in a favorable\nposition, he joined the females, who now found themselves alone with him\nfor the first time since they had left the friendly ramparts of Fort\nEdward.\n\n\"Leave us not, Duncan,\" said Alice; \"we cannot sleep in such a place as\nthis, with that horrid cry still ringing in our ears!\"\n\n\"First let us examine into the security of your fortress,\" he answered,\n\"and then we will speak of rest.\"\n\nHe approached the farther end of the cavern, to an outlet, which, like\nthe others, was concealed by blankets, and removing the thick screen,\nbreathed the fresh and reviving air from the cataract. One arm of the\nriver flowed through a deep, narrow ravine, which its current had worn\nin the soft rock, directly beneath his feet, forming an effectual\ndefence, as he believed, against any danger from that quarter; the\nwater, a few rods above them, plunging, glancing, and sweeping along, in\nits most violent and broken manner.\n\n\"Nature has made an impenetrable barrier on this side,\" he continued,\npointing down the perpendicular declivity into the dark current, before\nhe dropped the blanket; \"and as you know that good men and true are on\nguard in front, I see no reason why the advice of our honest host should\nbe disregarded. I am certain Cora will join me in saying that sleep is\nnecessary to you both.\"\n\n\"Cora may submit to the justice of your opinion, though she cannot put\nit in practise,\" returned the elder sister, who had placed herself by\nthe side of Alice, on a couch of sassafras; \"there would be other causes\nto chase away sleep, though we had been spared the shock of this\nmysterious noise. Ask yourself, Heyward, can daughters forget the\nanxiety a father must endure, whose children lodge, he knows not where\nor how, in such a wilderness, and in the midst of so many perils?\"\n\n\"He is a soldier, and knows how to estimate the chances of the woods.\"\n\n\"He is a father, and cannot deny his nature.\"\n\n\"How kind has he ever been to all my follies! how tender and indulgent\nto all my wishes!\" sobbed Alice. \"We have been selfish, sister, in\nurging our visit at such hazard!\"\n\n\"I may have been rash in pressing his consent in a moment of much\nembarrassment, but I would have proved to him, that however others might\nneglect him in his strait, his children at least were faithful!\"\n\n\"When he heard of your arrival at Edward,\" said Heyward, kindly, \"there\nwas a powerful struggle in his bosom between fear and love; though the\nlatter, heightened, if possible, by so long a separation, quickly\nprevailed. 'It is the spirit of my noble-minded Cora that leads them,\nDuncan,' he said, 'and I will not balk it. Would to God, that he who\nholds the honor of our royal master in his guardianship, would show but\nhalf her firmness!'\"\n\n\"And did he not speak of me, Heyward?\" demanded Alice, with jealous\naffection. \"Surely, he forgot not altogether his little Elsie?\"\n\n\"That was impossible,\" returned the young man; \"he called you by a\nthousand endearing epithets, that I may not presume to use, but to the\njustice of which I can warmly testify. Once, indeed, he said--\"\n\nDuncan ceased speaking; for while his eyes were riveted on those of\nAlice, who had turned towards him with the eagerness of filial\naffection, to catch his words, the same strong horrid cry, as before,\nfilled the air, and rendered him mute. A long, breathless silence\nsucceeded, during which each looked at the others in fearful expectation\nof hearing the sound repeated. At length the blanket was slowly raised,\nand the scout stood in the aperture with a countenance whose firmness\nevidently began to give way, before a mystery that seemed to threaten\nsome danger, against which all his cunning and experience might prove of\nno avail.\n\nQ: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?\nA: Heyward and the girls are uneasy and Gamut is still struggling in spirit when a light flashes upon them and they see that the others have entered a cavern hidden by a blanket. Hawkeye is holding a blazing knot of pine which silhouettes Uncas, the first clear sight of whose carriage and almost Grecian features relieves the lingering doubts of those from Fort Edward. When the latter also enter the cavern, they learn that at the other entrance is a narrow, open chasm running at right angles and that just beyond it is another cave. They are essentially on an island of rock with the falls and turbulent water on both sides. As they take their meal of venison, Uncas makes an innovation on his Indian customs by attending the females, betraying a bit more interest in Cora than in Alice. In spite of his continuous vigilance, Hawkeye draws out a keg and invites Gamut to \"try a little spruce.\" After they discuss Gamut's name and profession, the psalmodist and the girls render a sacred number that is safely muffled by the noise of the falls. The memory of his boyhood in the settlements brings tears to the scout's eyes just as the song is interrupted by a sudden, unearthly cry. In the ensuing stillness, Uncas cautiously steps outside but can see nothing to identify the unknown sound. Heyward takes the girls into the inner cave for sleep and inspects the far entrance to find directly beneath his feet an impenetrable barrier of roiling water. Though yet stoical, Cora seems for the first time to feel it rash to be trying to visit their father during this crisis. Heyward is reassuring the girls about Munro's feelings for them when the horrid cry fills the air again. Within a moment, the blanket-entrance is raised and the scout stands there, his face reflecting everyone's fearful sense of mystery and his own growing dismay.\n\n","prompt":"Chapter: \"Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;\n  He wales a portion with judicious care;\n  And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air.\"\n\n  BURNS.\n\n\nHeyward, and his female companions, witnessed this mysterious movement\nwith secret uneasiness; for, though the conduct of the white man had\nhitherto been above reproach, his rude equipments, blunt address, and\nstrong antipathies, together with the character of his silent\nassociates, were all causes for exciting distrust in minds that had been\nso recently alarmed by Indian treachery.\n\nThe stranger alone disregarded the passing incidents. He seated himself\non a projection of the rocks, whence he gave no other signs of\nconsciousness than by the struggles of his spirit, as manifested in\nfrequent and heavy sighs. Smothered voices were next heard, as though\nmen called to each other in the bowels of the earth, when a sudden light\nflashed upon those without, and laid bare the much-prized secret of the\nplace.\n\nAt the farther extremity of a narrow, deep cavern in the rock, whose\nlength appeared much extended by the perspective and the nature of the\nlight by which it was seen, was seated the scout, holding a blazing knot\nof pine. The strong glare of the fire fell full upon his sturdy,\nweather-beaten countenance and forest attire, lending an air of romantic\nwildness to the aspect of an individual, who, seen by the sober light of\nday, would have exhibited the peculiarities of a man remarkable for the\nstrangeness of his dress, the iron-like inflexibility of his frame, and\nthe singular compound of quick, vigilant sagacity, and of exquisite\nsimplicity, that by turns usurped the possession of his muscular\nfeatures. At a little distance in advance stood Uncas, his whole person\nthrown powerfully into view. The travellers anxiously regarded the\nupright, flexible figure of the young Mohican, graceful and unrestrained\nin the attitudes and movements of nature. Though his person was more\nthan usually screened by a green and fringed hunting-shirt, like that of\nthe white man, there was no concealment to his dark, glancing, fearless\neye, alike terrible and calm; the bold outline of his high, haughty\nfeatures, pure in their native red; or to the dignified elevation of his\nreceding forehead, together with all the finest proportions of a noble\nhead, bared to the generous scalping tuft. It was the first opportunity\npossessed by Duncan and his companions, to view the marked lineaments of\neither of their Indian attendants, and each individual of the party felt\nrelieved from a burden of doubt, as the proud and determined, though\nwild expression of the features of the young warrior forced itself on\ntheir notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the\nvale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote\nhis rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The\ningenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would\nhave looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which\nlife had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward,\nthough accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the\nuncorrupted natives, openly expressed his admiration at such an\nunblemished specimen of the noblest proportions of man.\n\n\"I could sleep in peace,\" whispered Alice, in reply, \"with such a\nfearless and generous looking youth for my sentinel. Surely, Duncan,\nthose cruel murders, those terrific scenes of torture, of which we read\nand hear so much, are never acted in the presence of such as he!\"\n\n\"This, certainly, is a rare and brilliant instance of those natural\nqualities, in which these peculiar people are said to excel,\" he\nanswered. \"I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and\neye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not\npractise a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition\nof what we esteem virtue than according to the fashion of a savage. As\nbright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among\nChristians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though,\nfor the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing\nthem. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes,\nbut prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant\nfriend.\"\n\n\"Now Major Heyward speaks as Major Heyward should,\" said Cora; \"who,\nthat looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!\"\n\nA short, and apparently an embarrassed silence succeeded this remark,\nwhich was interrupted by the scout calling to them, aloud, to enter.\n\n\"This fire begins to show too bright a flame,\" he continued, as they\ncomplied, \"and might light the Mingos to our undoing. Uncas, drop the\nblanket, and show the knaves its dark side. This is not such a supper as\na major of the Royal Americans has a right to expect, but I've known\nstout detachments of the corps glad to eat their venison raw, and\nwithout a relish too.[12] Here, you see, we have plenty of salt, and can\nmake a quick broil. There's fresh sassafras boughs for the ladies to sit\non, which may not be as proud as their my-hog-guinea chairs, but which\nsends up a sweeter flavor than the skin of any hog can do, be it of\nGuinea, or be it of any other land. Come, friend, don't be mournful for\nthe colt; 'twas an innocent thing, and had not seen much hardship. Its\ndeath will save the creature many a sore back and weary foot!\"\n\nUncas did as the other had directed, and when the voice of Hawkeye\nceased, the roar of the cataract sounded like the rumbling of distant\nthunder.\n\n\"Are we quite safe in this cavern?\" demanded Heyward. \"Is there no\ndanger of surprise? A single armed man, at its entrance, would hold us\nat his mercy.\"\n\nA spectral-looking figure stalked from out the darkness behind the\nscout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it towards the farther\nextremity of their place of retreat. Alice uttered a faint shriek, and\neven Cora rose to her feet, as this appalling object moved into the\nlight; but a single word from Heyward calmed them, with the assurance it\nwas only their attendant, Chingachgook, who, lifting another blanket,\ndiscovered that the cavern had two outlets. Then, holding the brand, he\ncrossed a deep, narrow chasm in the rocks, which ran at right angles\nwith the passage they were in, but which, unlike that, was open to the\nheavens, and entered another cave, answering to the description of the\nfirst, in every essential particular.\n\n\"Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often caught in a\nburrow with one hole,\" said Hawkeye, laughing; \"you can easily see the\ncunning of the place--the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows\nis soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is\nscarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say\nwas, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any\nalong the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these\nsweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These\nrocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at\nothersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until\nit has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing\nthere, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency.\"\n\n\"In what part of them are we?\" asked Heyward.\n\n\"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but\nwhere, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved\nsofter on each side of us, and so they left the centre of the river bare\nand dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in.\"\n\n\"We are then on an island?\"\n\n\"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and\nbelow. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up on\nthe height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It\nfalls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;\nthere, it skips; here, it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and\nin another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep\nhollows, that rumble and quake the 'arth; and hereaway, it ripples and\nsings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gulleys in the old stone,\nas it 'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river\nseems disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the\ndescent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the\nshores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if\nunwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt! Ay, lady,\nthe fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat, is coarse, and\nlike a fish-net, to little spots I can show you, where the river\nfabricates all sorts of images, as if, having broke loose from order, it\nwould try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After\nthe water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a\nheadstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a\nfew rods below you may see it all, flowing on steadily towards the sea,\nas was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!\"\n\nWhile his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of\ntheir place of concealment, from this untutored description of\nGlenn's,[13] they were much inclined to judge differently from Hawkeye,\nof its wild beauties. But they were not in a situation to suffer their\nthoughts to dwell on the charms of natural objects; and, as the scout\nhad not found it necessary to cease his culinary labors while he spoke,\nunless to point out, with a broken fork, the direction of some\nparticularly obnoxious point in the rebellious stream, they now suffered\ntheir attention to be drawn to the necessary, though more vulgar\nconsideration of their supper.\n\nThe repast, which was greatly aided by the addition of a few delicacies\nthat Heyward had the precaution to bring with him when they left their\nhorses, was exceedingly refreshing to the wearied party. Uncas acted as\nattendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his\npower, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse\nHeyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian\ncustoms, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial\nemployment, especially in favor of their women. As the rites of\nhospitality were, however, considered sacred among them, this little\ndeparture from the dignity of manhood excited no audible comment. Had\nthere been one there sufficiently disengaged to become a close observer,\nhe might have fancied that the services of the young chief were not\nentirely impartial. That while he tendered to Alice the gourd of sweet\nwater and the venison in a trencher, neatly carved from the knot of the\npepperidge, with sufficient courtesy, in performing the same offices to\nher sister, his dark eye lingered on her rich, speaking countenance.\nOnce or twice he was compelled to speak, to command the attention of\nthose he served. In such cases, he made use of English, broken and\nimperfect, but sufficiently intelligible, and which he rendered so mild\nand musical, by his deep,[14] guttural voice, that it never failed to\ncause both ladies to look up in admiration and astonishment. In the\ncourse of these civilities, a few sentences were exchanged, that served\nto establish the appearance of an amicable intercourse between the\nparties.\n\nIn the meanwhile, the gravity of Chingachgook remained immovable. He had\nseated himself more within the circle of light, where the frequent\nuneasy glances of his guests were better enabled to separate the natural\nexpression of his face from the artificial terrors of the war-paint.\nThey found a strong resemblance between father and son, with the\ndifference that might be expected from age and hardships. The fierceness\nof his countenance now seemed to slumber, and in its place was to be\nseen the quiet, vacant composure, which distinguishes an Indian warrior,\nwhen his faculties are not required for any of the greater purposes of\nhis existence. It was, however, easy to be seen, by the occasional\ngleams that shot across his swarthy visage, that it was only necessary\nto arouse his passions, in order to give full effect to the terrific\ndevice which he had adopted to intimidate his enemies. On the other\nhand, the quick, roving eye of the scout seldom rested. He ate and drank\nwith an appetite that no sense of danger could disturb, but his\nvigilance seemed never to desert him. Twenty times the gourd or the\nvenison was suspended before his lips, while his head was turned aside,\nas though he listened to some distant and distrusted sounds--a movement\nthat never failed to recall his guests from regarding the novelties of\ntheir situation, to a recollection of the alarming reasons that had\ndriven them to seek it. As these frequent pauses were never followed by\nany remark, the momentary uneasiness they created quickly passed away,\nand for a time was forgotten.\n\n\"Come, friend,\" said Hawkeye, drawing out a keg from beneath a cover of\nleaves, towards the close of the repast, and addressing the stranger who\nsat at his elbow, doing great justice to his culinary skill, \"try a\nlittle spruce; 'twill wash away all thoughts of the colt, and quicken\nthe life in your bosom. I drink to our better friendship, hoping that a\nlittle horse-flesh may leave no heartburnings atween us. How do you name\nyourself?\"\n\n\"Gamut--David Gamut,\" returned the singing-master, preparing to wash\ndown his sorrows in a powerful draught of the woodman's high-flavored\nand well-laced compound.\n\n\"A very good name, and, I dare say, handed down from honest\nforefathers. I'm an admirator of names, though the Christian fashions\nfall far below savage customs in this particular. The biggest coward I\never knew was called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out\nof hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod. With an\nIndian 'tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally\nis--not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a\nsnake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings\nof human natur', and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least\nexpect him. What may be your calling?\"\n\n\"I am an unworthy instructor in the art of psalmody.\"\n\n\"Anan!\"\n\n\"I teach singing to the youths, of the Connecticut levy.\"\n\n\"You might be better employed. The young hounds go laughing and singing\ntoo much already through the woods, when they ought not to breathe\nlouder than a fox in his cover. Can you use the smooth bore, or handle\nthe rifle?\"\n\n\"Praised be God, I have never had occasion to meddle with murderous\nimplements!\"\n\n\"Perhaps you understand the compass, and lay down the water-courses and\nmountains of the wilderness on paper, in order that they who follow may\nfind places by their given names?\"\n\n\"I practise no such employment.\"\n\n\"You have a pair of legs that might make a long path seem short! you\njourney sometimes, I fancy, with tidings for the general.\"\n\n\"Never; I follow no other than my own high vocation, which is\ninstruction in sacred music!\"\n\n\"'Tis a strange calling!\" muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, \"to go\nthrough life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may\nhappen to come out of other men's throats. Well, friend, I suppose it is\nyour gift, and mustn't be denied any more than if 'twas shooting, or\nsome other better inclination. Let us hear what you can do in that way;\n'twill be a friendly manner of saying good-night, for 'tis time that\nthese ladies should be getting strength for a hard and a long push, in\nthe pride of the morning, afore the Maquas are stirring!\"\n\n\"With joyful pleasure do I consent,\" said David, adjusting his\niron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which\nhe immediately tendered to Alice. \"What can be more fitting and\nconsolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a day of such\nexceeding jeopardy!\"\n\nAlice smiled; but regarding Heyward, she blushed and hesitated.\n\n\"Indulge yourself,\" he whispered: \"ought not the suggestion of the\nworthy namesake of the Psalmist to have its weight at such a moment?\"\n\nEncouraged by his opinion, Alice did what her pious inclinations and her\nkeen relish for gentle sounds, had before so strongly urged. The book\nwas open at a hymn not ill adapted to their situation, and in which the\npoet, no longer goaded by his desire to excel the inspired king of\nIsrael, had discovered some chastened and respectable powers. Cora\nbetrayed a disposition to support her sister, and the sacred song\nproceeded, after the indispensable preliminaries of the pitch-pipe and\nthe tune had been duly attended to by the methodical David.\n\nThe air was solemn and slow. At times it rose to the fullest compass of\nthe rich voices of the females, who hung over their little book in holy\nexcitement, and again it sank so low, that the rushing of the waters ran\nthrough their melody, like a hollow accompaniment. The natural taste and\ntrue ear of David governed and modified the sounds to suit the confined\ncavern, every crevice, and cranny of which was filled with the thrilling\nnotes of their flexible voices. The Indians riveted their eyes on the\nrocks, and listened with an attention that seemed to turn them into\nstone. But the scout, who had placed his chin in his hand, with an\nexpression of cold indifference, gradually suffered his rigid features\nto relax, until, as verse succeeded verse, he felt his iron nature\nsubdued, while his recollection was carried back to boyhood, when his\nears had been accustomed to listen to similar sounds of praise, in the\nsettlements of the colony. His roving eyes began to moisten, and before\nthe hymn was ended, scalding tears rolled out of fountains that had long\nseemed dry, and followed each other down those cheeks, that had oftener\nfelt the storms of heaven than any tes