"Let Conanchet speak!"
"Thou nearest, Narragansett. If the man I begin to suspect thee to be, thou knowest something of the usages of the whites. Speak; wilt swear to keep peace with the Mohegans, and to bury the hatchet in the path between your villages?"
"The fire that burnt the lodges of my people turned the heart of Conanchet to stone," was the steady answer.
"Then can I do no more than see the treaty respected," returned Dudley, in disappointment. "Thou hast thy nature, and it will have way. The Lord have mercy on thee, Indian, and render thee such judgment as is meet for one of savage opportunities."
He made a gesture to Uncas that he had done, and fell back a few paces from the tree, his honest features expressing all his concern, while his eye did not refuse to do its duty by closely watching each movement of the adverse parties. At the same instant, the grim attendants of the Mohegan chief, in obedience to a sign, took their stations on each side of the captive. They evidently waited for the last and fatal signal, to complete their unrelenting purpose. At this grave moment there was a pause, as if each of the principal actors pondered serious matter in his inmost mind.
"The Narragansett hath not spoken to his woman," said Uncas, secretly hoping that his enemy might yet betray some unmanly weakness, in a moment of so severe trial. "She is near."
"I said my heart was stone;" coldly returned the Narragansett.
"See--the girl creepeth like a frightened fowl among the leaves. If my brother Conanchet will look, he will see his beloved."
The countenance of Conanchet grew dark, but it did not waver.
"We will go among the bushes, if the Sachem is afraid to speak to his woman with the eyes of a Mohican on him. A warrior is not a curious girl, that he wishes to see the sorrow of a chief!"