At length they began to converse, though at first in a low tone, as if the silence had its awe even for them. One of them pointed with his hand towards a spot to the eastward, saying, "There is something doing there."
In the direction to which he called the attention of his companions was seen spread out, in the midst of the forest and hills, a small, but exquisitely beautiful lake, seemingly joined on to another, of much greater extent, by a narrow channel. Of the former, the whole extent could not be seen; for, every here and there, a spur of the mountain cut off the view, and broke in upon the beautiful waving line of the shore. The latter was more distinctly seen, spread out broad and even, with every little islet, headland, and promontory, marked clear and distinctly against the bright, glistening surface of the waters.
Near the point where the two lakes seemed to meet, the Indians could descry walls, and mounds of earth, and various buildings of considerable size; nay, even what was probably the broad banner of France, though it seemed but a mere whitish spot in the distance.
At the moment when the Indians spoke, coming from a distant point on the larger lake, the extreme end of which was lost to view in a sort of indistinct blue haze, a large boat or ship might be seen, with broad white sails, wafted swiftly onward by a cold north-easterly wind. Some way behind it, another moving object appeared--a boat likewise, but much more indistinct; and, here and there nearer in shore, two or three black specks, probably canoes, were darting along upon the bosom of the lake, like water-flies upon the surface of a still stream.
"The pale-faces take the war-path against each other," said another of the Indians, after gazing for a moment or two.
"May they all perish!" exclaimed the third. "Why are our people so mad as to help them? Let them fight, and slay, and scalp as many of each other as they can, and then the red men tomahawk the remainder."
The other two uttered a bitter malediction, in concert with this fierce, but not impolitic, thought; and then, after one of their long pauses, the first who had spoken, resumed the conversation, saying--
"Yet I would give one of the feathers of the White Bird to know what the pale-faces are doing. Their hearts are black against each other. Can you not tell us, Apukwa? You were on the banks of Horican yesterday, and must have heard the news from Corlear."
"The news from Albany matters much more," answered Apukwa. "The Yengees are marching up with a cloud of fighting-men; and people know not where they will fall. Some think Oswego; some think Ticonderoga. I am sure that it is the place of the Singing Waters that they go against."
"Will they do much in the war-path?" asked the brother of the Snake; "or will the Frenchman make himself as red as he did last year, at the south end of Horicon?"