t than was uttered, and
each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own
faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to
anticipate.

In this happy state of things, it is not surprising that the management
of Magua prevailed. The tribe consented to act with deliberation, and
with one voice they committed the direction of the whole affair to the
government of the chief who had suggested such wise and intelligible
expedients.

Magua had now attained one great object of all his cunning and
enterprise. The ground he had lost in the favor of his people was
completely regained, and he found himself even placed at the head of
affairs. He was, in truth, their ruler; and, so long as he could
maintain his popularity, no monarch could be more despotic, especially
while the tribe continued in a hostile country. Throwing off, therefore,
the appearance of consultation, he assumed the grave air of authority
necessary to support the dignity of his office.

Runners were despatched for intelligence in different directions; spies
were ordered to approach and feel the encampment of the Delawares; the
warriors were dismissed to their lodges, with an intimation that their
services would soon be needed; and the women and children were ordered
to retire, with a warning that it was their province to be silent. When
these several arrangements were made, Magua passed through the village,
stopping here and there to pay a visit where he thought his presence
might be flattering to the individual. He confirmed his friends in their
confidence, fixed the wavering, and gratified all. Then he sought his
own lodge. The wife the Huron chief had abandoned, when he was chased
from among his people, was dead. Children he had none; and he now
occupied a hut, without companion of any sort. It was, in fact, the
dilapidated and solitary structure in which David had been discovered,
and whom he had tolerated in his presence, on those few occasions when
they met, with the contemptuous indifference of a haughty superiority.

Hither, then, Magua retired, when his labors of policy were ended. While
others slept, however, he neither knew nor sought repose. Had there been
one sufficiently curious to have watched the movements of the newly
elected chief, he would have seen him seated in a corner of his lodge,
musing on the subject of his future plans, from the hour of his
retirement to the time he had appointed for the warrior