Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/101

 that Heyward did not dare to venture a syllable of consolation. Munro sat utterly unconscious of the other's presence, his features exposed and working with the anguish of his regrets, while heavy tears fell from his eyes, and rolled unheeded from his cheeks to the floor. At length he moved, as if suddenly recovering his recollection; when he arose, and taking a single turn across the room, he approached his companion with an air of high military grandeur, and demanded—

"Have you not, Major Heyward, some communication that I should hear, from the Marquis de Montcalm?"

Duncan started, in his turn, and immediately commenced, in an embarrassed voice, to repeat the half-forgotten message. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the evasive, though polite manner, with which the French general had eluded every attempt of Heyward to worm from him the purport of the communication he had proposed making, or on the decided, though still polished message, by which he now gave his enemy to understand, that unless he