trees, it must be so. He is thine,
my children; deal justly by him."

Not a limb was moved, nor was a breath drawn louder and longer than
common, until the closing syllable of this final decree had passed the
lips of Tamenund. Then a cry of vengeance burst at once, as it might be,
from the united lips of the nation; a frightful augury of their ruthless
intentions. In the midst of these prolonged and savage yells, a chief
proclaimed, in a high voice, that the captive was condemned to endure
the dreadful trial of torture by fire. The circle broke its order, and
screams of delight mingled with the bustle and tumult of preparation.
Heyward struggled madly with his captors; the anxious eye of Hawkeye
began to look around him, with an expression of peculiar earnestness;
and Cora again threw herself at the feet of the patriarch, once more a
suppliant for mercy.

Throughout the whole of these trying moments, Uncas had alone preserved
his serenity. He looked on the preparations with a steady eye, and when
the tormentors came to seize him, he met them with a firm and upright
attitude. One among them, if possible more fierce and savage than his
fellows, seized the hunting-shirt of the young warrior, and at a single
effort tore it from his body. Then, with a yell of frantic pleasure,
he leaped toward his unresisting victim and prepared to lead him to
the stake. But, at that moment, when he appeared most a stranger to the
feelings of humanity, the purpose of the savage was arrested as suddenly
as if a supernatural agency had interposed in the behalf of Uncas. The
eyeballs of the Delaware seemed to start from their sockets; his mouth
opened and his whole form became frozen in an attitude of amazement.
Raising his hand with a slow and regulated motion, he pointed with a
finger to the bosom of the captive. His companions crowded about him in
wonder and every eye was like his own, fastened intently on the figure
of a small tortoise, beautifully tattooed on the breast of the prisoner,
in a bright blue tint.

For a single instant Uncas enjoyed his triumph, smiling calmly on the
scene. Then motioning the crowd away with a high and haughty sweep of
his arm, he advanced in front of the nation with the air of a king, and
spoke in a voice louder than the murmur of admiration that ran through
the multitude.

"Men of the Lenni Lenape!" he said, "my race upholds the earth! Your
feeble tribe stands on my shell! What fire that a Delaware can l