Still she had sufficient self-command to abstain from turning her head.
She had heard the signal by which her lover so often called her from the wigwam to the stolen interview, and it came over her senses and her heart, as the serenade affects the maiden in the land of song.
From that moment, Chingachgook felt certain that his presence was known. This was effecting much, and he could now hope for a bolder line of conduct on the part of his mistress than she might dare to adopt under an uncertainty of his situation. It left no doubt of her endeavouring to aid him in his effort to release her.
Deerslayer arose as soon as the signal was given, and though he had never held that sweet communion which is known only to lovers, he was not slow to detect the great change that had come over the manner of the girl.
She still affected to dispute, though it was no longer with spirit and ingenuity, but what she said was uttered more as a lure to draw her antagonists on to an easy conquest, than with any hopes of succeeding herself.
Once or twice, it is true, her native readiness suggested a retort, or an argument that raised a laugh, and gave her a momentary advantage; but these little sallies, the offspring of mother-wit, served the better to conceal her real feelings, and to give to the triumph of the other party a more natural air than it might have possessed without them.
At length the disputants became wearied, and they rose in a body as if about to separate.
It was now that Hist, for the first time, ventured to turn her face in the direction whence the signal had come.
In doing this, her movements were natural, but guarded, and she stretched her arm and yawned, as if overcome with a desire to sleep.
The chirrup was again heard, and the girl felt satisfied as to the position of her lover, though the strong light in which she herself was placed, and the comparative darkness in which the adventurers stood, prevented her from seeing their heads, the only portions of their forms that appeared above the ridge at all.
The tree against which they were posted had a dark shadow cast upon it by the intervention of an enormous pine that grew between it and the fire, a circumstance which alone would have rendered objects within its cloud invisible at any distance.
This Deerslayer well knew, and it was one of the reasons why he had selected this particular tree.
The moment was near when it became necessary for Hist to act.
She was to sleep in a small hut, or bower, that had been built near where she stood, and her companion was the aged hag already mentioned.
Once within the hut, with this sleepless old woman stretched across the entrance, as was her nightly practice, the hope of escape was nearly destroyed, and she might at any moment be summoned to her bed.
Luckily, at this instant one of the warriors called to the old woman by name, and bade her bring him water to drink.
There was a delicious spring on the northern side of the point, and the hag took a gourd from a branch and, summoning Hist to her side, she moved towards the summit of the ridge, intending to descend and cross the point to the natural fountain.
All this was seen and understood by the adventurers, and they fell back into the obscurity, concealing their persons by trees, until the two females had passed them.
In walking, Hist was held tightly by the hand.
As she moved by the tree that hid Chingachgook and his friend the former felt for his tomahawk, with the intention to bury it in the brain of the woman.
But the other saw the hazard of such a measure, since a single scream might bring all the warriors upon them, and he was averse to the act on considerations of humanity.
His hand, therefore, prevented the blow.
Still as the two moved past, the chirrup was repeated, and the Huron woman stopped and faced the tree whence the sounds seemed to proceed, standing, at the moment, within six feet of her enemies.
She expressed her surprise that a squirrel should be in motion at so late an hour, and said it boded evil.
Hist answered that she had heard the same squirrel three times within the last twenty minutes, and that she supposed it was waiting to obtain some of the crumbs left from the late supper.
This explanation appeared satisfactory, and they moved towards the spring, the men following stealthily and closely.
The gourd was filled, and the old woman was hurrying back, her hand still grasping the wrist of the girl, when she was suddenly seized so violently by the throat as to cause her to release her captive, and to prevent her making any other sound than a sort of gurgling, suffocating noise.
The Serpent passed his arm round the waist of his mistress and dashed through the bushes with her, on the north side of the point.
Here he immediately turned along the beach and ran towards the canoe.
A more direct course could have been taken, but it might have led to a discovery of the place of embarking.
Deerslayer kept playing on the throat of the old woman like the keys of an organ, occasionally allowing her to breathe, and then compressing his fingers again nearly to strangling.
The brief intervals for breath, however, were well improved, and the hag succeeded in letting out a screech or two that served to alarm the camp.
The tramp of the warriors, as they sprang from the fire, was plainly audible, and at the next moment three or four of them appeared on the top of the ridge, drawn against the background of light, resembling the dim shadows of the phantasmagoria.
It was now quite time for the hunter to retreat.
Tripping up the heels of his captive, and giving her throat a parting squeeze, quite as much in resentment at her indomitable efforts to sound the alarm as from any policy, he left her on her back, and moved towards the bushes, his rifle at a poise, and his head over his shoulders, like a lion at bay.
Chapter XVII.
There, ye wise saints, behold your light, your star, Ye would be dupes and victims and ye are.
Is it enough? or, must I, while a thrill Lives in your sapient bosoms, cheat you still?" Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh, "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan"
The fire, the canoe, and the spring, near which Deerslayer commenced his retreat, would have stood in the angles of a triangle of tolerably equal sides.
The distance from the fire to the boat was a little less than the distance from the fire to the spring, while the distance from the spring to the boat was about equal to that between the two points first named.
This, however, was in straight lines, a means of escape to which the fugitives could not resort.
They were obliged to have recourse to a detour in order to get the cover of the bushes, and to follow the curvature of the beach.
Under these disadvantages, then, the hunter commenced his retreat, disadvantages that he felt to be so much the greater from his knowledge of the habits of all Indians, who rarely fail in cases of sudden alarms, more especially when in the midst of cover, immediately to throw out flankers, with a view to meet their foes at all points, and if possible to turn their rear.
That some such course was now adopted he believed from the tramp of feet, which not only came up the ascent, as related, but were also heard, under the first impulse, diverging not only towards the hill in the rear, but towards the extremity of the point, in a direction opposite to that he was about to take himself.
Promptitude, consequently became a matter of the last importance, as the parties might meet on the strand, before the fugitive could reach the canoe.
Notwithstanding the pressing nature of the emergency, Deerslayer hesitated a single instant, ere he plunged into the bushes that lined the shore.
His feelings had been awakened by the whole scene, and a sternness of purpose had come over him, to which he was ordinarily a stranger. Four dark figures loomed on the ridge, drawn against the brightness of the fire, and an enemy might have been sacrificed at a glance.
The Indians had paused to gaze into the gloom, in search of the screeching hag, and with many a man less given to reflection than the hunter, the death of one of them would have been certain.
Luckily he was more prudent.
Although the rifle dropped a little towards the foremost of his pursuers, he did not aim or fire, but disappeared in the cover.