less form of Alice in his
arms, the subtle Indian moved swiftly across the plain toward the woods.

"Hold!" shrieked Cora, following wildly on his footsteps; "release the
child! wretch! what is't you do?"

But Magua was deaf to her voice; or, rather, he knew his power, and was
determined to maintain it.

"Stay--lady--stay," called Gamut, after the unconscious Cora. "The
holy charm is beginning to be felt, and soon shalt thou see this horrid
tumult stilled."

Perceiving that, in his turn, he was unheeded, the faithful David
followed the distracted sister, raising his voice again in sacred song,
and sweeping the air to the measure, with his long arm, in diligent
accompaniment. In this manner they traversed the plain, through the
flying, the wounded and the dead. The fierce Huron was, at any time,
sufficient for himself and the victim that he bore; though Cora would
have fallen more than once under the blows of her savage enemies,
but for the extraordinary being who stalked in her rear, and who now
appeared to the astonished natives gifted with the protecting spirit of
madness.

Magua, who knew how to avoid the more pressing dangers, and also to
elude pursuit, entered the woods through a low ravine, where he quickly
found the Narragansetts, which the travelers had abandoned so shortly
before, awaiting his appearance, in custody of a savage as fierce and
malign in his expression as himself. Laying Alice on one of the horses,
he made a sign to Cora to mount the other.

Notwithstanding the horror excited by the presence of her captor, there
was a present relief in escaping from the bloody scene enacting on the
plain, to which Cora could not be altogether insensible. She took her
seat, and held forth her arms for her sister, with an air of entreaty
and love that even the Huron could not deny. Placing Alice, then, on the
same animal with Cora, he seized the bridle, and commenced his route
by plunging deeper into the forest. David, perceiving that he was left
alone, utterly disregarded as a subject too worthless even to destroy,
threw his long limb across the saddle of the beast they had deserted,
and made such progress in the pursuit as the difficulties of the path
permitted.

They soon began to ascend; but as the motion had a tendency to revive
the dormant faculties of her sister, the attention of Cora was too much
divided between the tenderest solicitude in her behalf, and in listening
to the cries which were still t