ecome its only tenants.

CHAPTER XXIV

"Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
Dissolve the council, and their chief obey."

POPE'S _Iliad._

A single moment served to convince the youth that he was mistaken. A
hand was laid, with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and the low voice
of Uncas muttered in his ears,--

"The Hurons are dogs. The sight of a coward's blood can never make a
warrior tremble. The 'Gray Head' and the Sagamore are safe, and the
rifle of Hawkeye is not asleep. Go,--Uncas and the 'Open Hand' are now
strangers. It is enough."

Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a gentle push from his friend
urged him towards the door, and admonished him of the danger that might
attend the discovery of their intercourse. Slowly and reluctantly
yielding to the necessity, he quitted the place, and mingled with the
throng that hovered nigh. The dying fires in the clearing cast a dim and
uncertain light on the dusky figures that were silently stalking to and
fro; and occasionally a brighter gleam than common glanced into the
lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas still maintaining its upright
attitude near the dead body of the Huron.

A knot of warriors soon entered the place again, and reissuing, they
bore the senseless remains into the adjacent woods. After this
termination of the scene, Duncan wandered among the lodges, unquestioned
and unnoticed, endeavoring to find some trace of her in whose behalf he
incurred the risk he ran. In the present temper of the tribe, it would
have been easy to have fled and rejoined his companions, had such a wish
crossed his mind. But, in addition to the never-ceasing anxiety on
account of Alice, a fresher, though feebler interest in the fate of
Uncas assisted to chain him to the spot. He continued, therefore, to
stray from hut to hut, looking into each only to encounter additional
disappointment, until he had made the entire circuit of the village.
Abandoning a species of inquiry that proved so fruitless, he retraced
his steps to the council lodge, resolved to seek and question David, in
order to put an end to his doubts.

On reaching the building which had proved alike the seat of judgment
and the place of execution, the young man found that the excitement had
already subsided. The warriors had reassembled, and were now calmly
smoking, while they conversed gravely on the chief incidents of their
recent expedition to the head of the Horican. Though t