Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/269

 and her whole person seemed suspended against the tree, looking like some beautiful emblem of the wounded delicacy of her sex, devoid of animation, and yet keenly conscious. In a few moments, however, her head began to move slowly, in a sign of deep unconquerable disapprobation, and by the time the flush of maiden pride had diffused itself over her fine features, and her eye had lighted with the feelings which oppressed her, she found strength to murmur—

"No, no, no; better that we should die, as we have lived, together!"

"Then die!" shouted Magua, hurling his tomahawk with violence at the unresisting speaker, and gnashing his teeth with a rage that could no longer be bridled, at this sudden exhibition of firmness in the one he believed the weakest of the party. The axe cleaved the air in front of Heyward, and cutting some of the flowing ringlets of Alice, buried itself, and quivered in the tree above her head. The sight maddened Duncan to desperation. Collecting all his energies in one effort, he snapped the twigs