hief, whose
skin and whose sorrow seemed so like her own; but, though far from
expressing such a preference, it was evident they deemed her less
excellent than the maid they mourned. Still they denied her no meed her
rare charms might properly claim. Her ringlets were compared to the
exuberant tendrils of the vine, her eye to the blue vault of the
heavens, and the most spotless cloud, with its glowing flush of the sun,
was admitted to be less attractive than her bloom.

During these and similar songs nothing was audible but the murmurs of
the music; relieved, as it was, or rather rendered terrible, by those
occasional bursts of grief which might be called its choruses. The
Delawares themselves listened like charmed men; and it was very
apparent, by the variations of their speaking countenances, how deep and
true was their sympathy. Even David was not reluctant to lend his ears
to tones of voices so sweet; and long ere the chant was ended, his gaze
announced that his soul was enthralled.

The scout, to whom alone, of all the white men, the words were
intelligible, suffered himself to be a little aroused from his
meditative posture, and bent his face aside, to catch their meaning, as
the girls proceeded. But when they spoke of the future prospects of Cora
and Uncas, he shook his head, like one who knew the error of their
simple creed, and resuming his reclining attitude, he maintained it
until the ceremony--if that might be called a ceremony, in which feeling
was so deeply imbued--was finished. Happily for the self-command of both
Heyward and Munro, they knew not the meaning of the wild sounds they
heard.

Chingachgook was a solitary exception to the interest manifested by the
native part of the audience. His look never changed throughout the whole
of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at
the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and
senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but
that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their
final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now
about to be closed forever from his view.

In this stage of the funeral obsequies, a warrior much renowned for
deeds in arms, and more especially for services in the recent combat, a
man of stern and grave demeanor, advanced slowly from the crowd, and
placed himself nigh the person of the dead.

"Why hast thou left us, pride