The party had but five leagues to traverse, and Magua had undertaken to lead them a short way through the forest.  The girls hesitated as they reached the point where they left the military road and had to take to a narrow and blind path amidst the dense trees and undergrowth.  The terrifying aspect of the guide and the loneliness of the route filled them with alarm.

“Here, then, lies our way,” said Duncan in a low voice.  “Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to apprehend.”

Taking this hint, the girls whipped up their horses and followed the runner along the dark and tangled pathway.  They had not gone far when they heard the sounds of a horse’s hoofs behind them, and presently there dashed up to their side a singular-looking person, with extraordinary long thin legs, an emaciated body, and an enormous head.  The grotesqueness of his figure was enhanced by a sky-blue coat and a soiled vest of embossed silk embroidered with tarnished silver lace.  Coming up with the party, he declared his intention of accompanying them to Fort William Henry.  Refusing to listen to any objection, he took from his vest a curious musical instrument, and, placing it to his mouth, drew from it a high, shrill sound.  This done, he began singing in full and melodious tones one of the New England versions of the Psalms.

Magua whispered something to Heyward, and the latter turned impatiently to David Gamut—­such was the singer’s name—­and requested him in the name of common prudence to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity.  The Indian allies of Montcalm, it was known, swarmed in the forest, and the object of the party was to move forward as quietly as possible.

As the cavalcade pressed deeper into the wild thicket, a savage face peered out at them from between the bushes.  A gleam of exultation shot across his darkly painted lineaments as he watched his victims walking unconsciously into the trap which Magua had prepared.

II.—­In the Nick of Time

Within an hour’s journey of Fort Edward two men were lingering on the banks of a small stream.  One of them was a magnificent specimen of an Indian—­almost naked, with a terrific emblem of death painted upon his chest.  The other was a European, with the quick, roving eye, sun-tanned cheeks, and rough dress of a hunter.

“Listen, Hawk-eye,” said the Indian, addressing his companion, “and I will tell you what my fathers have said, and what the Mohicans have done.  We came and made this land ours, and drove the Maquas who followed us, into the woods with the bears.  Then came the Dutch, and gave my people the fire-water.  They drank until the heavens and the earth seemed to meet.  Then they parted with their land, and now I, that am a chief and a Sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have never visited the graves of my fathers.  When Uncas, my son, dies, there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores.  My boy is the last of the Mohicans.”