ough all other objects
were already forgotten. Then advancing with a slow and noiseless step up
the area, he placed himself immediately before the footstool of the
sage. Here he stood unnoted, though keenly observant himself, until one
of the chiefs apprised the latter of his presence.

"With what tongue does the prisoner speak to the Manitou?" demanded the
patriarch, without unclosing his eyes.

"Like his fathers," Uncas replied; "with the tongue of a Delaware."

At this sudden and unexpected annunciation, a low, fierce yell ran
through the multitude, that might not inaptly be compared to the growl
of the lion, as his choler is first awakened--a fearful omen of the
weight of his future anger. The effect was equally strong on the sage,
though differently exhibited. He passed a hand before his eyes, as if to
exclude the least evidence of so shameful a spectacle, while he
repeated, in his low, guttural 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 strange people
sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven had 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 steadily construed 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 Ta