Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/42

 rigidly dealt by; but I forget the idle tale; it is enough that he is now our friend."

"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the now really anxious maiden. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"

"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation. Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be ignorant of the English; and least of all, will he condescend to speak it, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he stops; the private path by which we are to journey is doubtless at hand."

The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible.