Magua answered with a ghastly smile, and, at his command, the Indians, seizing their white victims, bound them to four trees.  Stakes of glowing wood were prepared for their torture.  Once more Magua offered the alternative of dishonour or death.  Cora wavered, but Alice strengthened her resolution.

“No, no!” she cried.  “Better that we die as we have lived, together.”

“Then die!” shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk at the girl’s head.  It missed her by an inch.  Another savage rushed to complete the terrible deed.  Maddened at the sight, Duncan broke his bonds, and flung himself on the savage.  He was at once overpowered.  He saw a knife glistening above his head; it was just about to descend.  Suddenly there was a sharp crack of a rifle, and his assailant fell dead at his feet.  At the same moment Hawk-eye and the two Mohicans dashed into the encampment.  In a few moments the six Indians, taken by surprise, were killed; only Magua lived.  He seemed to be at the mercy of Chingachgook.  Already he lay apparently lifeless.  The Mohican rose with a yell of triumph, and raised his knife to give the final blow.  Even as he did so Magua rolled himself over the edge of the precipice near which he lay, and, alighting on his feet, leapt into the centre of a thicket of low bushes and disappeared.

III.—­“The Jubilee of Devils”

The party had reached William Henry only to leave it again.  Montcalm asked for an interview with Munro, and through Duncan, who acted as the latter’s representative, explained that it was hopeless to think of holding the fort.  General Webb had withdrawn the relieving force, and the English were outnumbered by about twenty to one.  With chivalrous courtesy, the French general proposed that his brave enemies should march out with their arms and ammunition and all the honours of war.  These conditions Munro sadly accepted.  Compelled to be with his men, Munro entrusted his daughters to the care of David.

According to the conditions of the surrender, the troops marched out.  Behind them came the women and stragglers, the French and their native allies watching them in silence.  At the other side of the plain was a defile.  The troops slowly entered this, and disappeared.  The rear-guard of civilians was now left alone on the plain.  Cora, as she pressed slowly onwards with her sister and David, saw Magua addressing the natives, speaking with his fatal and artful eloquence.  The effect of his words was soon seen.

One of the savages, attracted by the shawl in which a mother had wrapped her baby, seized the child, and dashed its brains out on the ground.  As the mother sprang forward, he buried his tomahawk in her brain.  It was the signal for a massacre.  Magua raised the fatal and appalling war-whoop.  At its sound two thousand savages broke from the wood and fell upon the unresisting victims.  Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspect.