Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/109

 met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its throat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motion of the struggling victim, he dashed it into the river, down whose stream it glided away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed of apparent, cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the travellers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood, heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors in the scene. The sisters shuddered, and clung closer to each other, while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had just drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge and those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before the bosom of the forest.

The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles, they led the frightened and reluctant horses down into the bed of the river.

At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed by the projection of the bank, under the brow of