The Sagamore looked me square in the eye with a face which was utterly blank and expressionless. Then he gathered his legs under him, sprang noiselessly to his feet, laid his right hand on the hilt of my knife, and his left one on his own, drew both bright blades with a simultaneous and graceful movement, and drove his knife into my sheath, mine into his own.
My heart stood still; I had never expected even to witness such an act—never dared believe that I should participate in it.
The Siwanois drew my knife from his sheath, touched the skin of his wrist with the keen edge. I followed his example; on our wrists two bright spots of blood beaded the skin.
Then the Sagamore filled a tin cup with clean water and extended his wrist. A single drop of blood fell into it. I did the same.
Then in silence still, he lifted the cup to his lips, tasted it, and passed it to me. I wet my lips, offered it to him again. And very solemnly he sprinkled the scarcely tinted contents over the grass at the door-sill.
So was accomplished between this Mohican and myself the rite of blood brotherhood—an alliance of implicit trust and mutual confidence which only death could end.
CHAPTER VI
THE SPRING WAIONTHA
It happened the following afternoon that, having written in my journal, and dressed me in my best, I left the Mohican in the hut a-painting and shining up his weapons, and walked abroad to watch the remaining troops and the artillery start for Otsego Lake.