ve; but I will spare
you and myself"--Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over
the form of her sister. After a long and burning kiss, she arose, and
with features of the hue of death, but without even a tear in her
feverish eye, she turned away, and added, to the savage, with all her
former elevation of manner,--"Now, sir, if it be your pleasure, I will
follow."

"Ay, go," cried Duncan, placing Alice in the arms of an Indian girl;
"go, Magua, go. These Delawares have their laws, which forbid them to
detain you; but I--I have no such obligation. Go, malignant monster--why
do you delay?"

It would be difficult to describe the expression with which Magua
listened to this threat to follow. There was at first a fierce and
manifest display of joy, and then it was instantly subdued in a look of
cunning coldness.

"The woods are open," he was content with answering. "'The Open Hand'
can come."

"Hold," cried Hawkeye, seizing Duncan by the arm, and detaining him by
violence; "you know not the craft of the imp. He would lead you to an
ambushment, and your death--"

"Huron," interrupted Uncas, who, submissive to the stern customs of his
people, had been an attentive and grave listener to all that passed;
"Huron, the justice of the Delawares comes from the Manitou. Look at the
sun. He is now in the upper branches of the hemlock. Your path is short
and open. When he is seen above the trees, there will be men on your
trail."

"I hear a crow!" exclaimed Magua, with a taunting laugh. "Go!" he added,
shaking his hand at the crowd, which had slowly opened to admit his
passage,--"Where are the petticoats of the Delawares! Let them send
their arrows and their guns to the Wyandots; they shall have venison to
eat, and corn to hoe. Dogs, rabbits, thieves--I spit on you!"

His parting gibes were listened to in a dead, boding silence, and, with
these biting words in his mouth, the triumphant Magua passed unmolested
into the forest, followed by his passive captive, and protected by the
inviolable laws of Indian hospitality.

CHAPTER XXXI

_"Flue._--Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be
offered in the world."

_King Henry V._

So long as their enemy and his victim continued in sight, the multitude
remained motionless as beings charmed to the place by some power that
was friendly to the Huron; but the instant he d