Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (76 page)

Deerslayer lay passive a few minutes longer, his eye at the bullet hole, however, and much did he rejoice at seeing that he was drifting gradually farther and farther from the shore. When he looked upwards, the treetops had disappeared, but he soon found that the canoe was slowly turning, so as to prevent his getting a view of anything at his peephole, but of the two extremities of the lake. He now bethought him of the stick, which was crooked, and offered some facilities of rowing, without the necessity of rising. The experiment succeeded, on trial, better even than he had hoped, though his great embarrassment was to keep the canoe straight. That his present manoeuvre was seen soon became apparent by the clamor on the shore, and a bullet entering the stern of the canoe, traversed its length, whistling between the arms of our hero, and passed out at the head. This satisfied the fugitive that he was getting away with tolerable speed, and induced him to increase his efforts. He was making a stronger push than common, when another messenger from the point broke the stick outboard, and at once deprived him of his oar. As the sound of voices seemed to grow more and more distant, however, Deerslayer determined to leave all to the drift, until he believed himself beyond the reach of bullets. This was nervous work, but it was the wisest of all the expedients that offered; and the young man was encouraged to persevere in it, by the circumstance that he felt his face fanned by the air, a proof that there was a little more wind.

“Nor widows��� tears, nor tender orphans’ cries
Can stop th’ invaders’ force;
Nor swelling seas, nor threatening skies,
Prevent the pirates’ course:
Their lives to selfish ends decreed,
Through blood and rapine they proceed;
No anxious thoughts of ill-repute,
Suspend the impetuous and unjust pursuit;
But power and wealth obtained, guilty and great,
Their fellow-creatures’ fears they raise, or urge their hate.”

Congreve

 

BY THIS TIME, DEERSLAYER had been twenty minutes in the canoe, and he began to grow a little impatient for some signs of relief from his friends. The position of the boat still prevented his seeing in any direction, unless it were up or down the lake; and, though he knew that this line of sight must pass within a hundred yards of the castle, it, in fact, passed that distance to the westward of the buildings. The profound stillness troubled him also, for he knew not whether to ascribe it to the increasing space between him and the Indians, or to some new artifice. At length, wearied with fruitless watchfulness, the young man turned himself on his back, closed his eyes, and awaited the result in determined acquiescence. If the savages could so completely control their thirst for revenge, he was resolved to be as calm as themselves, and to trust his fate to the interposition of the currents and air.

Some additional ten minutes may have passed in this quiescent manner, on both sides, when Deerslayer thought he heard a slight noise, like a low rubbing against the bottom of his canoe. He opened his eyes of course, in expectation of seeing the face or arm of an Indian rising from the water, and found that a canopy of leaves was impending directly over his head. Starting to his feet, the first object that met his eyes was Rivenoak, who had so far aided the slow progress of the boat, as to draw it on the point, the grating on the strand being the sound that had first given our hero the alarm. The change in the drift of the canoe had been altogether owing to the baffling nature of the light currents of air, aided by some eddies in the water.

“Come,” said the Huron, with a quiet gesture of authority to order his prisoner to land; “my young friend has sailed about till he is tired; he will forget how to run again, unless he uses his legs.”

“You’ve the best of it, Huron,” returned Deerslayer, stepping steadily from the canoe, and passively following his leader to the open area of the point; “Providence has helped you in an onexpected manner. I’m your prisoner ag’in, and I hope you’ll allow that I’m as good at breaking jail as I am at keeping furlough.”

“My young friend is a moose!” exclaimed the Huron. “His legs are very long; they have given my young men trouble. But he is not a fish; he cannot find his way in the lake. We did not shoot him; fish are taken in nets, and not killed by bullets. When he turns moose again he will be treated like a moose.”

“Ay, have your talk, Rivenoak; make the most of your advantage. ‘Tis your right, I suppose, and I know it is your gift. On that p’int there’ll be no words atween us; for all men must and ought to follow their gifts. Howsever, when your women begin to ta‘nt and abuse me, as I suppose will soon happen, let ’em remember that if a paleface struggles for life so long as it’s lawful and manful, he knows how to loosen his hold on it, decently, when he feels that the time has come. I’m your captyve; work your will on me.”

“My brother has had a long run on the hills, and a pleasant sail on the water,” returned Rivenoak, more mildly, smiling at the same time, in a way that his listener knew denoted pacific intentions. “He has seen the woods; he has seen the water; which does he like best? Perhaps he has seen enough to change his mind and make him hear reason.”

“Speak out, Huron. Something is in your thoughts, and the sooner it is said, the sooner you’ll get my answer.”

“That is straight! There is no turning in the talk of my paleface friend, though he is a fox in running. I will speak to him; his ears are now open wider than before, and his eyes are not shut. The Sumach is poorer than ever. Once she had a brother and a husband. She had children too. The time came, and the husband started for the happy hunting-grounds, without saying farewell; he left her alone with his children. This he could not help, or he would not have done it; Le Loup Cervier was a good husband. It was pleasant to see the venison, and wild ducks, and geese, and bear’s meat, that hung in his lodge, in winter. It is now gone; it will not keep in warm weather. Who shall bring it back again? Some thought the brother would not forget his sister, and that, next winter, he would see that the lodge should not be empty. We thought this; but the Panther yelled, and followed the husband on the path of death. They are now trying which shall first reach the happy hunting-grounds. Some think the Lynx can run fastest, and some think the Panther can jump the farthest. The Sumach thinks both will travel so fast and so far, that neither will ever come back. Who shall feed her and her young? The man who told her husband and her brother to quit her lodge, that there might be room for him to come into it. He is a great hunter, and we know that the woman will never want.”

“Ay, Huron, this is soon settled, accordin’ to your notions; but it goes sorely ag’in the grain of a white man’s feelin’s. I’ve heard of men’s saving their lives thisaway, and I’ve know’d them that would prefer death to such a sort of captivity. For my part, I do not seek my ind; nor do I seek matrimony.”

“The paleface will think of this while my people get ready for the council. He will be told what will happen. Let him remember how hard it is to lose a husband and a brother. Go: when we want him, the name of Deerslayer will be called.”

This conversation had been held with no one near but the speakers. Of all the band that had so lately thronged the place, Rivenoak alone was visible. The rest seemed to have totally abandoned the spot. Even the furniture, clothes, arms, and other property of the camp had entirely disappeared, and the place bore no other proofs of the crowd that had so lately occupied it, than the traces of their fires and resting places, and the trodden earth that still showed the marks of their feet. So sudden and unexpected a change caused Deerslayer a good deal of surprise and some uneasiness, for he had never known it to occur in the course of his experience among the Delawares. He suspected, however, and rightly, that a change of encampment was intended, and that the mystery of the movement was resorted to in order to work on his apprehensions.

Rivenoak walked up the vista of trees, as soon as he ceased speaking, leaving Deerslayer by himself. The chief disappeared behind the covers of the forest, and one unpracticed in such scenes might have believed the prisoner left to the dictates of his own judgment. But the young man, while he felt a little amazement at the dramatic aspect of things, knew his enemies too well to fancy himself at liberty, or a free agent. Still, he was ignorant how far the Hurons meant to carry their artifices, and he determined to bring the question, as soon as practicable, to the proof. Affecting an indifference he was far from feeling, he strolled about the area, gradually getting nearer and nearer to the spot where he had landed, when he suddenly quickened his pace, though carefully avoiding all appearance of flight, and, pushing aside the bushes, he stepped upon the beach. The canoe was gone, nor could he see any traces of it, after walking to the northern and southern verges of the point, and examining the shores in both directions. It was evidently removed beyond his reach and knowledge, and under circumstances to show that such had been the intention of the savages.

Deerslayer now better understood his actual situation. He was a prisoner on the narrow tongue of land, vigilantly watched beyond a question, and with no other means of escape than that of swimming. He again thought of this last expedient, but the certainty that the canoe would be sent in chase, and the desperate nature of the chances of success, deterred him from the undertaking. While on the strand, he came to a spot where the bushes had been cut, and thrown into a small pile. Removing a few of the upper branches, he found beneath them the dead body of the Panther. He knew that it was kept until the savages might find a place to inter it, when it would be beyond the reach of the scalping knife. He gazed wistfully towards the castle, but there all seemed to be silent and desolate; and a feeling of loneliness and desertion came over him to increase the gloom of the moment.

“God’s will be done!” murmured the young man, as he walked sorrowfully away from the beach, entering again beneath the arches of the wood; “God’s will be done on ‘arth as it is in heaven! I did hope that my days would not be numbered so soon! but it matters little, a’ter all. A few more winters, and a few more summers, and ‘twould have been over accordin’ to natur’. Ah’s me! the young and actyve seldom think death possible, till he grins in their faces and tells ‘em the hour is come!”

While this soliloquy was being pronounced, the hunter advanced into the area, where, to his surprise, he saw Hetty alone, evidently awaiting his return. The girl carried the Bible under her arm, and her face, over which a shadow of gentle melancholy was usually thrown, now seemed sad and downcast. Moving nearer, Deerslayer spoke.

“Poor Hetty,” he said, “times have been so troublesome of late that I’d altogether forgotten you; we meet, as it might be, to mourn over what is to happen. I wonder what has become of Chingachgook and Wah!”

“Why did you kill the Huron, Deerslayer?” returned the girl, reproachfully. “Don’t you know your commandments, which say, ‘Thou shalt not kill!’ They tell me you have now slain the woman’s husband and brother.”

“It’s true, my good Hetty, ’tis Gospel truth, and I’ll not deny what has come to pass. But, you must remember, gal, that many things are lawful in war, which would be onlawful in peace. The husband was shot in open fight; or open so far as I was consarned, while he had a better cover than common; and the brother brought his end on himself, by casting his tomahawk at an unarmed prisoner. Did you witness that deed, gal?”

“I saw it, and was sorry it happened, Deerslayer; for I hoped you wouldn’t have returned blow for blow, but good for evil.”

“Ah, Hetty, that may do among the missionaries, but ‘twould make an onsartain life in the woods. The Panther craved my blood, and he was foolish enough to throw arms into my hands at the very moment he was striving a’ter it. ‘Twould have been ag’in natur’ not to raise a hand in such a trial, and ’twould have done discredit to my training and gifts. No, no; I’m as willing to give every man his own, as another; and so I hope you’ll testify to them that will be likely to question you as to what you’ve seen this day.”

“Deerslayer, do you mean to marry Sumach, now she has neither husband nor brother to feed her?”

“Are such your idees of matrimony, Hetty? Ought the young to wive with the old—the paleface with the redskin—the Christian with the heathen? It’s ag‘in reason and natur’, and so you’ll see if you’ll think of it a moment.”

“I’ve always heard mother say,” returned Hetty, averting her face, more from a feminine instinct than from any consciousness of wrong, “that people should never marry until they loved each other better than brothers and sisters; and I suppose that is what you mean. Sumach is old, and you are young.”

“Ay, and she’s red, and I’m white. Besides, Hetty, suppose you was a wife, having married some young man of your own years, and state, and color—Hurry Harry, for instance”—Deerslayer selected this example, simply from the circumstance that he was the only young man known to both—“and that he had fallen on a warpath, would you wish to take to your bosom, for a husband, the man that slew him?”

“O! no, no, no,” returned the girl, shuddering. “That would be wicked, as well as heartless! No Christian girl could or would do that. I never shall be the wife of Hurry, I know; but were he my husband, no man should ever be it again after his death.”

“I thought it would get to this, Hetty, when you come to understand sarcumstances. ‘Tis a moral impossibility that I should ever marry Sumach; and though Injin weddin’s have no priests, and not much religion, a white man who knows his gifts and duties can’t profit by that, and so make his escape at the fitting time. I do think death would be more nat’ral like, and welcome, than wedlock with this woman.”

“Don’t say it too loud,” interrupted Hetty, impatiently; “I suppose she will not like to hear it. I’m sure Hurry would rather marry even me, than suffer torments, though I am feebleminded; and I am sure it would kill me to think he’d prefer death to being my husband.”