ttural tones, the words he had just heard.

"A Delaware! I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from
their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the
hills of the Iroquois! I have seen the hatchets of a strong people sweep
woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven have spared! The beasts
that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the trees, have
I seen living in the wigwams of men; but never before have I found a
Delaware so base as to creep, like a poisonous serpent, into the camps
of his nation."

"The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the
softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has heard their
song."

The sage started, and bent his head aside, as if to catch the fleeting
sounds of some passing melody.

"Does Tamenund dream!" he exclaimed. "What voice is at his ear! Have
the winters gone backward! Will summer come again to the children of the
Lenape!"

A solemn and respectful silence succeeded this incoherent burst from
the lips of the Delaware prophet. His people readily constructed his
unintelligible language into one of those mysterious conferences he was
believed to hold so frequently with a superior intelligence and they
awaited the issue of the revelation in awe. After a patient pause,
however, one of the aged men, perceiving that the sage had lost the
recollection of the subject before them, ventured to remind him again of
the presence of the prisoner.

"The false Delaware trembles lest he should hear the words of Tamenund,"
he said. "'Tis a hound that howls, when the Yengeese show him a trail."

"And ye," returned Uncas, looking sternly around him, "are dogs that
whine, when the Frenchman casts ye the offals of his deer!"

Twenty knives gleamed in the air, and as many warriors sprang to their
feet, at this biting, and perhaps merited retort; but a motion from one
of the chiefs suppressed the outbreaking of their tempers, and restored
the appearance of quiet. The task might probably have been more
difficult, had not a movement made by Tamenund indicated that he was
again about to speak.

"Delaware!" resumed the sage, "little art thou worthy of thy name. My
people have not seen a bright sun in many winters; and the warrior who
deserts his tribe when hid in clouds is doubly a traitor. The law of the
Manitou is just. It is so; while the rivers run and the mountains stand,
while the blossoms come and go on the