y leaped on his feet,
making the arches of the forest ring with the sounds of triumph.

"Well done for the Delawares! victory to the Mohicans!" cried Hawkeye,
once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle; "a finishing
blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor
rob him of his right to the scalp."

But at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of
descending, the subtle Huron rolled swiftly from beneath the danger,
over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet, was seen
leaping, with a single bound, into the center of a thicket of low
bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed
their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were
following with speed and clamor, like hounds in open view of the deer,
when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their
purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill.

"'Twas like himself!" cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices
contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all
matters which concerned the Mingoes; "a lying and deceitful varlet as
he is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain
still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to
life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go--let him go; 'tis but
one man, and he without rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French
commerades; and like a rattler that lost his fangs, he can do no further
mischief, until such time as he, and we too, may leave the prints of our
moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. See, Uncas," he added, in
Delaware, "your father is flaying the scalps already. It may be well to
go round and feel the vagabonds that are left, or we may have another of
them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay that has been
winged."

So saying the honest but implacable scout made the circuit of the dead,
into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much
coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had,
however, been anticipated by the elder Mohican, who had already torn the
emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain.

But Uncas, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with
instinctive delicacy, accompanied by Heyward, to the assistance of the
females, and quickly releasing Alice, placed her in the arms of Cora. We
shall not attempt to describe