The Pioneers (63 page)

“No, no,” returned Natty, who alone stood with him by the side of the dying warrior, “it's no burning that ails him, though his Indian feelings made him scorn to move, unless it be the burning of man's wicked thoughts for near fourscore years; but it's nater giving out in a chase that's run too long. Down with ye, Hector! Down, I say!—Flesh isn't iron, that a man can live forever, and see his kith and kin driven to a far country, and he left to mourn, with none to keep him company.”

“John,” said the divine, tenderly, “do you hear me? Do you wish the prayers appointed by the church, at this trying moment?”

The Indian turned his ghastly face towards the speaker and fastened his dark eyes on him, steadily, but vacantly. No sign of recognition was made; and in a moment he moved his head again slowly towards the vale and began to sing, using his own language, in those low, guttural tones that have been so often mentioned, his notes rising with his theme till they swelled so loud as to be distinct.

“I will come! I will come! To the land of the just I will come! The Maquas I have slain!—I have slain the Maquas! and the Great Spirit calls to his son. I will come! I will come! To the land of the just I will come!”

“What says he, Leatherstocking?” inquired the priest, with tender interest. “Sings he the Redeemer's praise?”

“No, no—'tis his own praise that he speaks now,” said Natty, turning in a melancholy manner from the sight of his dying friend; “and a good right he has to say it all, for I know every word to be true.”

“May Heaven avert such self-righteousness from his heart! Humility and penitence are the seals of Christianity; and without feeling them deeply seated in the soul, all hope is delusive, and leads to vain expectations. Praise himself! When his whole soul and body should unite to praise his Maker! John! You have enjoyed the blessings of a gospel ministry, and have been called from out a multitude of sinners and pagans, and I trust, for a wise and gracious purpose. Do you now feel what it is to be justified by our Saviour's death, and reject all weak and idle dependence on good works, that spring from man's pride and vainglory?”

The Indian did not regard his interrogator, but he raised his head again, and said in a low, distinct voice:

“Who can say that the Maquas know the back of Mohegan? What enemy that trusted in him did not see the morning? What Mingo that he chased ever sang the song of triumph? Did Mohegan ever lie? No; the truth lived in him, and none else could come out of him. In his youth he was a warrior, and his moccasins left the stain of blood. In his age, he was wise; his words at the council fire did not blow away with the winds.”

“Ah! he has abandoned that vain relic of paganism, his songs,” cried the divine. “What says he now? Is he sensible of his lost state?”

“Lord! man,” said Natty, “he knows his end is at hand as well as you or I; but, so far from thinking it a loss, he believes it to be a great gain. He is old and stiff, and you have made the game so scarce and shy that better shots than him find it hard to get a livelihood. Now he thinks he shall travel where it will always be good hunting; where no wicked or unjust Indians can go; and where he shall meet all his tribe together ag'in. There's not much loss in that to a man whose hands are hardly fit for basketmaking. Loss! If there be any loss, 'twill be to me. I'm sure, after he's gone, there will be but little left for me but to follow.”

“His example and end, which, I humbly trust, shall yet be made glorious,” returned Mr. Grant, “should lead your mind to dwell on the things of another life. But I feel it to be my duty to smooth the way for the parting spirit. This is the moment, John, when the reflection that you did not reject the mediation of the Redeemer will bring balm to your soul. Trust not to any act of former days, but lay the burden of your sins at His feet, and you have His own blessed assurance that He will not desert you.”

“Though all you say be true, and you have scripter gospels for it, too,” said Natty, “you will make nothing of the Indian. He hasn't seen a Moravian priest sin' the war; and it's hard to keep them from going back to their native ways. I should think 'twould be as well to let the old man pass in peace. He's happy now; I know it by his eye; and that's more than I would say for the chief, sin' the time the Delawares broke up from the headwaters of their river and went west. Ah's me! 'Tis a grievous long time that, and many dark days have we seen together sin' it.”

“Hawkeye!” said Mohegan, rousing with the last glimmering of life. “Hawkeye! Listen to the words of your brother.”

“Yes, John,” said the hunter, in English, strongly affected by the appeal, and drawing to his side; “we have been brothers; and more so than it means in the Indian tongue. What would ye have with me, Chingachgook?”

“Hawkeye! My fathers call me to the happy hunting grounds. The path is clear, and the eyes of Mohegan grow young. I look—but I see no white skins; there are none to be seen but just and brave Indians. Farewell, Hawkeye—you shall go with the Fire-eater and the Young Eagle to the white man's heaven; but I go after my fathers. Let the bow, and tomahawk, and pipe, and the wampum of Mohegan be laid in his grave; for when he starts 'twill be in the night, like a warrior on a war party, and he cannot stop to seek them.”

“What says he, Nathaniel?” cried Mr. Grant, earnestly, and with obvious anxiety. “Does he recall the promises of the mediation? And trust his salvation to the Rock of Ages?”

Although the faith of the hunter was by no means clear, yet the fruits of early instruction had not entirely fallen in the wilderness. He believed in one God and one heaven; and when the strong feeling excited by the leave-taking of his old companion, which was exhibited by the powerful working of every muscle in his weather-beaten face, suffered him to speak, he replied:

“No—no—he trusts only to the Great Spirit of the savages, and to his own good deeds. He thinks, like all his people, that he is to be young ag'in, and to hunt, and be happy to the end of etarnity. It's pretty much the same with all colors, parson. I could never bring myself to think that I shall meet with these hounds, or my piece, in another world; though the thoughts of leaving them forever, sometimes brings hard feelings over me, and makes me cling to life with a greater craving than beseems three-score-and-ten.”

“The Lord in his mercy avert such a death from one who has been sealed with the sign of the cross!” cried the minister, in holy fervor. “John—”

He paused for the elements. During the period occupied by the events which we have related, the dark clouds in the horizon had continued to increase in numbers and magnitude; and the awful stillness that now pervaded the air announced a crisis in the state of the atmosphere. The flames, which yet continued to rage along the sides of the mountain, no longer whirled in uncertain currents of their own eddies, but blazed high and steadily towards the heavens. There was even a quietude in the ravages of the destructive element, as if it foresaw that a hand, greater than even its own desolating power, was about to stay its progress. The piles of smoke which lay above the valley began to rise, and were dispelling rapidly; and streaks of vivid lightning were dancing through the masses of clouds that impended over the western hills. While Mr. Grant was speaking, a flash, which sent its quivering light through the gloom, laying bare the whole opposite horizon, was followed by a loud crash of thunder that rolled away among the hills, seeming to shake the foundations of the earth to their center. Mohegan raised himself, as if in obedience to a signal for his departure, and stretched his wasted arm towards the west. His dark face lighted with a look of joy; which, with all other expression, gradually disappeared; the muscles stiffening as they retreated to a state of rest; a slight convulsion played for a single instant about his lips; and his arm slowly dropped by his side; leaving the frame of the dead warrior reposing against the rock, with its glassy eyes open, and fixed on the distant hills, as if the deserted shell were tracing the flight of the spirit to its new abode.

All this Mr. Grant witnessed in silent awe; but when the last echoes of the thunder died away, he clasped his hands together with pious energy and repeated, in the full, rich tones of assured faith:

“O Lord! How unsearchable are thy judgments: and thy ways past finding out! ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.' ”

As the divine closed this burst of devotion, he bowed his head meekly to his bosom, and looked all the dependence and humility that the inspired language expressed.

When Mr. Grant retired from the body, the hunter approached, and taking the rigid hand of his friend, looked him wistfully in the face for some time without speaking, when he gave vent to his feelings by saying, in the mournful voice of one who felt deeply:

“Red skin or white, it's all over now! He's to be judged by a righteous Judge, and by no laws that's made to suit times, and new ways. Well, there's only one more death, and the world will be left to me and the hounds. Ah's me! A man must wait the time of God's pleasure, but I begin to weary of life. There is scarcely a tree standing that I know, and it's hard to find a face that I was acquainted with in my younger days.”

Large drops of rain began now to fall and diffuse themselves over the dry rock, while the approach of the thundershower was rapid and certain. The body of the Indian was hastily removed into the cave beneath, followed by the whining hounds, who missed, and moaned for the look of intelligence that had always met their salutations to the chief.

Edwards made some hasty and confused excuse for not taking Elizabeth into the same place, which was now completely closed in front with logs and bark, saying something that she hardly understood about its darkness, and the unpleasantness of being with the dead body. Miss Temple, however, found a sufficient shelter against the torrent of rain that fell, under the projection of a rock which overhung them. But long before the shower was over, the sounds of voices were heard below them crying aloud for Elizabeth, and men soon appeared, beating the dying embers of the bushes, as they worked their way cautiously among the unextinguished brands.

At the first short cessation in the rain, Oliver conducted Elizabeth to the road, where he left her. Before parting, however, he found time to say, in a fervent manner that his companion was now at no loss to interpret:

“The moment of concealment is over, Miss Temple. By this time tomorrow, I shall remove a veil that perhaps it has been weakness to keep around me and my affairs so long. But I have had romantic and foolish wishes and weaknesses: and who has not, that is young and torn by conflicting passions? God bless you! I hear your father's voice; he is coming up the road, and I would not, just now, subject myself to detention. Thank Heaven, you are safe again; that alone removes the weight of a world from my spirit!”

He waited for no answer, but sprang into the woods. Elizabeth, notwithstanding she heard the cries of her father as he called upon her name, paused until he was concealed among the smoking trees, when she turned, and in a moment rushed into the arms of her half-distracted parent.

A carriage had been provided, into which Miss Temple hastily entered; when the cry was passed along the hill that the lost one was found, and the people returned to the village, wet and dirty, but elated with the thought that the daughter of their landlord had escaped from so horrid and untimely an end.
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BYRON

 

THE heavy showers that prevailed during the remainder of the day completely stopped the progress of the flames; though glimmering fires were observed during the night, on different parts of the hill, wherever there was a collection of fuel to feed the element. The next day the woods, for many miles, were black and smoking, and were stripped of every vestige of brush and deadwood; but the pines and hemlocks still reared their heads proudly among the hills, and even the smaller trees of the forest retained a feeble appearance of life and vegetation.

The many tongues of rumor were busy in exaggerating the miraculous escape of Elizabeth; and a report was generally credited that Mohegan had actually perished in the flames. This belief became confirmed, and was indeed rendered probable, when the direful intelligence reached the village that Jotham Riddel, the miner, was found in his hole, nearly dead with suffocation and burnt to such a degree that no hopes were entertained of his life.

The public attention became much alive to the events of the last few days; and just at this crisis, the convicted counterfeiters took the hint from Natty, and, on the night succeeding the fire, found means to cut through their log prison also, and to escape unpunished. When this news began to circulate through the village, blended with the fate of Jotham, and the exaggerated and tortured reports of the events on the hill, the popular opinion was freely expressed as to the propriety of seizing such of the fugitives as remained within reach. Men talked of the cave as a secret receptacle of guilt; and as the rumor of ores and metals found its way into the confused medley of conjectures, counterfeiting and everything else that was wicked and dangerous to the peace of society suggested themselves to the busy fancies of the populace.

While the public mind was in this feverish state, it was hinted that the wood had been set on fire by Edwards and the Leatherstocking and that, consequently, they alone were responsible for the damages. This opinion soon gained ground, being most circulated by those who, by their own heedlessness, had caused the evil; and there was one irresistible burst of the common sentiment that an attempt should be made to punish the offenders. Richard was by no means deaf to this appeal, and by noon he set about in earnest to see the laws executed.