in derision

THE MASQUERADER 268

The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared the
honest, sturdy countenance of the scout

THE LOVERS 278

Heyward and Alice took their way together towards the
distant village of the Delawares

THE SUPPLICANT 320

Cora had cast herself to her knees; and, with hands clenched
in each other and pressed upon her bosom, she remained like a
beauteous and breathing model of her sex

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

CHAPTER I

"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:
Say, is my kingdom lost?"

SHAKESPEARE.

It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that
the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before
the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious
boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who
fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the
rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more
martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the
practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so
dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from
the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their
vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant
monarchs of Europe.

Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate
frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness
of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies
between the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.

The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the
combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of the
Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the
borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural
passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to
master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination,
it received the contributions of anothe