t 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.

"It is the jubilee of devils," said David, who, in spite of his
uselessness, never dreamed of deserting his trust. "If David tamed the
evil spirit of Saul, it may not be amiss to try the potency of music
here."

He poured out a strain of song that echoed even over the din of that
bloody field. Magua heard it and, through the throng of savages, rushed
to their side.

"Come," he cried, seizing Alice in his blood-stained arms; "the wigwam
of the Huron is still open!"

In vain Cora begged him to release her sister. Across the plain he bore
her swiftly, followed by Cora and David. As soon as he reached the
woods, he placed the two girls on horses that were waiting there, and,
never heeding David, who mounted the remaining steed, dashed forward
into the wilds.

_IV.--Captives of the Hurons_

Three days after the surrender of the fort, Hawk-eye and his two Mohican
companions, accompanied by Munroe and Duncan, stood upon the fatal
plain. Everywhere they had searched for the bodies of the two girls, and
nowhere could they be found. It was clear to Hawk-eye that they still
lived, and had been carried off by Magua. With untiring energy he at
once set off to try and discover the trail. It was Uncas, who, finding a
portion of Cora's skirt caught on a bush, first opened up the line of
pursuit. He it was, too, who read the track of Magua's feet on the
ground--the unmistakable straddling toe of the drinking savage. An
ornament dropped by Alice, and the large footprints of the
singing-master, laid bare to the trained intelligence of the Indian
scout everything that had happened.

As they reached the outskirts of a clearing, they perceived a
melancholy-looking savage in war-paint and moccasins seated by the side
of a stream watching a colony of beavers busily engaged in making a dam.
Duncan was about to fire, but Hawk-eye, roaring with laughter, stayed
his arm. The savage was none other than David.

Alice and Cora were near at hand, and Duncan was all eager to make his
way to their side. Hawk-eye so far humoured his whim as to consent to
his visiting the encampment disguised as a medicine man.

As