isappeared, it became
tossed and agitated by fierce and powerful passion. Uncas maintained his
elevated stand, keeping his eyes on the form of Cora, until the colors
of her dress were blended with the foliage of the forest; when he
descended, and moving silently through the throng, he disappeared in
that lodge from which he had so recently issued. A few of the graver and
more attentive warriors, who caught the gleams of anger that shot from
the eyes of the young chief in passing, followed him to the place he had
selected for his meditations. After which, Tamenund and Alice were
removed, and the women and children were ordered to disperse. During the
momentous hour that succeeded, the encampment resembled a hive of
troubled bees, who only awaited the appearance and example of their
leader to take some distant and momentous flight.

A young warrior at length issued from the lodge of Uncas; and moving
deliberately, with a sort of grave march, towards a dwarf pine that grew
in the crevices of the rocky terrace, he tore the bark from its body,
and then returned whence he came without speaking. He was soon followed
by another, who stripped the sapling of its branches, leaving it a naked
and blazed[28] trunk. A third colored the posts with stripes of a dark
red paint; all which indications of a hostile design in the leaders of
the nation were received by the men without in a gloomy and ominous
silence. Finally, the Mohican himself reappeared, divested of all his
attire except his girdle and leggings, and with one-half of his fine
features hid under a cloud of threatening black.

Uncas moved with a slow and dignified tread towards the post, which he
immediately commenced encircling with a measured step, not unlike an
ancient dance, raising his voice, at the same time, in the wild and
irregular chant of his war-song. The notes were in the extremes of human
sounds; being sometimes melancholy and exquisitely plaintive, even
rivalling the melody of birds--and then, by sudden and startling
transitions, causing the auditors to tremble by their depth and energy.
The words were few and often repeated, proceeding gradually from a sort
of invocation, or hymn to the Deity, to an intimation of the warrior's
object, and terminating as they commenced with an acknowledgment of his
own dependence on the Great Spirit. If it were possible to translate the
comprehensive and melodious language in which he spoke, the ode might
read something like