y?"

A gesture of assent was the answer. The Huron was content with the
assurance, and resuming his pipe, he awaited the proper moment to move.
The impatient Heyward, inwardly execrating the cold customs of the
savages, which required such sacrifices to appearance, was fain to
assume an air of indifference, equal to that maintained by the chief,
who was, in truth, a near relative of the afflicted woman. The minutes
lingered, and the delay had seemed an hour to the adventurer in
empiricism, when the Huron laid aside his pipe, and drew his robe across
his breast, as if about to lead the way to the lodge of the invalid.
Just then, a warrior of powerful frame darkened the door, and stalking
silently among the attentive group, he seated himself on one end of the
low pile of brush which sustained Duncan. The latter cast an impatient
look at his neighbor, and felt his flesh creep with uncontrollable
horror when he found himself in actual contact with Magua.

The sudden return of this artful and dreaded chief caused a delay in the
departure of the Huron. Several pipes, that had been extinguished, were
lighted again; while the newcomer, without speaking a word, drew his
tomahawk from his girdle, and filling the bowl on its head, began to
inhale the vapors of the weed through the hollow handle, with as much
indifference as if he had not been absent two weary days on a long and
toilsome hunt. Ten minutes, which appeared so many ages to Duncan, might
have passed in this manner; and the warriors were fairly enveloped in a
cloud of white smoke before any of them spoke.

"Welcome!" one at length uttered; "has my friend found the moose?"

"The young men stagger under their burdens," returned Magua. "Let
'Reed-that-bends' go on the hunting-path; he will meet them."

A deep and awful silence succeeded the utterance of the forbidden name.
Each pipe dropped from the lips of its owner as though all had inhaled
an impurity at the same instant. The smoke wreathed above their heads in
little eddies, and curling in a spiral form, it ascended swiftly
through the opening in the roof of the lodge, leaving the place beneath
clear of its fumes, and each dark visage distinctly visible. The looks
of most of the warriors were riveted on the earth; though a few of the
younger and less gifted of the party suffered their wild and glaring
eyeballs to roll in the direction of a white-headed savage, who sat
between two of the most venerated chiefs of the