ddressing Duncan; "are
the Delawares fools that they could not know the young panther from the
cat?"

"They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird," said Duncan, endeavoring
to adopt the figurative language of the natives.

"It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother," added
the chief turning his eyes on Magua, "the Delawares listen."

Thus singled, and directly called on to declare his object, the Huron
arose; and advancing with great deliberation and dignity into the very
center of the circle, where he stood confronted by the prisoners,
he placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth,
however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of
earnest faces, as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his
audience. On Hawkeye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan,
a look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice
he scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm,
commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with
an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled
with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a
tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.

"The Spirit that made men colored them differently," commenced the
subtle Huron. "Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These He said
should be slaves; and He ordered them to work forever, like the beaver.
You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the
lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt lake, where the big
canoes come and go with them in droves. Some He made with faces paler
than the ermine of the forests; and these He ordered to be traders;
dogs to their women, and wolves to their slaves. He gave this people the
nature of the pigeon; wings that never tire; young, more plentiful than
the leaves on the trees, and appetites to devour the earth. He gave them
tongues like the false call of the wildcat; hearts like rabbits; the
cunning of the hog (but none of the fox), and arms longer than the legs
of the moose. With his tongue he stops the ears of the Indians; his
heart teaches him to pay warriors to fight his battles; his cunning
tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms
inclose the land from the shores of the salt-water to the islands of the
great lake. His gluttony makes him sick. God gave him enough, and yet he
wa