e the woman to
abandon the trifle, when the savage relinquished his hold of the shawl,
and tore the screaming infant from her arms. Abandoning everything
to the greedy grasp of those around her, the mother darted, with
distraction in her mien, to reclaim her child. The Indian smiled grimly,
and extended one hand, in sign of a willingness to exchange, while, with
the other, he flourished the babe over his head, holding it by the feet
as if to enhance the value of the ransom.

"Here--here--there--all--any--everything!" exclaimed the breathless
woman, tearing the lighter articles of dress from her person with
ill-directed and trembling fingers; "take all, but give me my babe!"

The savage spurned the worthless rags, and perceiving that the shawl
had already become a prize to another, his bantering but sullen smile
changing to a gleam of ferocity, he dashed the head of the infant
against a rock, and cast its quivering remains to her very feet. For an
instant the mother stood, like a statue of despair, looking wildly down
at the unseemly object, which had so lately nestled in her bosom and
smiled in her face; and then she raised her eyes and countenance toward
heaven, as if calling on God to curse the perpetrator of the foul
deed. She was spared the sin of such a prayer for, maddened at his
disappointment, and excited at the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully
drove his tomahawk into her own brain. The mother sank under the blow,
and fell, grasping at her child, in death, with the same engrossing love
that had caused her to cherish it when living.

At that dangerous moment, Magua placed his hands to his mouth, and
raised the fatal and appalling whoop. The scattered Indians started at
the well-known cry, as coursers bound at the signal to quit the goal;
and directly there arose such a yell along the plain, and through the
arches of the wood, as seldom burst from human lips before. They who
heard it listened with a curdling horror at the heart, little inferior
to that dread which may be expected to attend the blasts of the final
summons.

More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the
signal, and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive
alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded.
Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects.
Resistance only served to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their
furious blows long after their victims were