Heyward saw, by the manner of the scout, that altercation
would be useless. Munro had again sunk into that
sort of apathy which had beset him since his late
overwhelming misfortunes, and from which he was apparently
to be roused only by some new and powerful excitement.
Making a merit of necessity, the young man took the
veteran by the arm, and followed in the footsteps
of the Indians and the scout, who had already begun
to retrace the path which conducted them to the plain.
“Salar.—Why, I am
sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh;
what’s that good for? Shy.—To
bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it
will feed my revenge.” —Merchant
of Venice
The shades of evening had come to increase the dreariness
of the place, when the party entered the ruins of
William Henry. The scout and his companions immediately
made their preparations to pass the night there; but
with an earnestness and sobriety of demeanor that betrayed
how much the unusual horrors they had just witnessed
worked on even their practised feelings. A few
fragments of rafters were reared against a blackened
wall; and when Uncas had covered them slightly with
brush, the temporary accommodations were deemed sufficient.
The young Indian pointed toward his rude hut when
his labor was ended; and Heyward, who understood the
meaning of the silent gestures, gently urged Munro
to enter. Leaving the bereaved old man alone
with his sorrows, Duncan immediately returned into
the open air, too much excited himself to seek the
repose he had recommended to his veteran friend.
While Hawkeye and the Indians lighted their fire and
took their evening’s repast, a frugal meal of
dried bear’s meat, the young man paid a visit
to that curtain of the dilapidated fort which looked
out on the sheet of the Horican. The wind had
fallen, and the waves were already rolling on the
sandy beach beneath him, in a more regular and tempered
succession. The clouds, as if tired of their furious
chase, were breaking asunder; the heavier volumes,
gathering in black masses about the horizon, while
the lighter scud still hurried above the water, or
eddied among the tops of the mountains, like broken
flights of birds, hovering around their roosts.
Here and there, a red and fiery star struggled through
the drifting vapor, furnishing a lurid gleam of brightness
to the dull aspect of the heavens. Within the
bosom of the encircling hills, an impenetrable darkness
had already settled; and the plain lay like a vast
and deserted charnel-house, without omen or whisper
to disturb the slumbers of its numerous and hapless
tenants.
