The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [290]
“That I deny, Huron,” interrupted Deerslayer, with warmth; “yes, that I downright deny, as ag’in truth and reason. No man has heard me boast, and no man shall, though ye flay me alive, and then roast the quivering flesh, with your own infarnal devices and cruelties! I may be humble, and misfortunate, and your prisoner; but I’m no boaster, by my very gifts.”
“My young paleface boasts he is no boaster,” returned the crafty chief; “he must be right. I hear a strange bird singing. It has very rich feathers. No Huron ever before saw such feathers. They will be ashamed to go back to their village and tell their people that they let their prisoner go on account of the song of this strange bird, and not be able to give the name of the bird. They do not know how to say whether it is a wren or a catbird. This would be a great disgrace; my young men would not be allowed to travel in the woods, without taking their mothers with them to tell them the names of the birds.”
“You can ask my name of your prisoner,” returned the girl. “It is Judith; and there is a great deal of the history of Judith in the palefaces’ best book, the Bible. If I am a bird of fine feathers, I have also my name.”
“No,” answered the wily Huron, betraying the artifice he had so long practiced, by speaking in English, with tolerable accuracy; “I not ask prisoner. He tired; he want rest. I ask my daughter, with feeble mind. She speak truth. Come here, daughter; you answer. Your name, Hetty?”
“Yes, that’s what they call me,” returned the girl, “though it’s written Esther, in the Bible.”
“He write him in Bible, too? All write in Bible. No matter—what her name?”
“That’s Judith, and it’s so written in the Bible, though father sometimes called her Jude. That’s my sister Judith, Thomas Hutter’s daughter—Thomas Hutter, whom you called the Muskrat; though he was no muskrat, but a man, like yourselves—he lived in a house on the water, and that was enough for you.”
A smile of triumph gleamed on the hard wrinkled countenance of the chief, when he found how completely his appeal to the truth-loving Hetty had succeeded. As for Judith herself, the moment her sister was questioned, she saw that all was lost; for no sign, or even treaty, could have induced the right-feeling girl to utter a falsehood. To attempt to impose a daughter of the Muskrat on the savages, as a princess or a great lady, she knew would be idle; and she saw her bold and ingenious expedient for liberating the captive fail, through one of the simplest and most natural causes that could be imagined. She turned her eye on Deerslayer, therefore, as if imploring him to interfere, to save them both.
“It will not do, Judith,” said the young man, in answer to this appeal, which he understood, though he saw its uselessness; “it will not do. ‘Twas a bold idee, and fit for a general’s lady; but yonder Mingo”—Rivenoak had withdrawn to a little distance, and was out of earshot—“but yonder Mingo is an oncommon man, and not to be deceived by any unnat’ral sarcumventions. Things must come afore him in their right order to draw a cloud afore his eyes! ’Twas too much to attempt making him fancy that a queen or a great lady lived in these mountains, and no doubt he thinks the fine clothes you wear are some of the plunder of your own father—or, at least, of him who once passed for your father; as quite likely it was, if all they say is true.”
“At all events, Deerslayer, my presence here will save you for a time. They will hardly attempt torturing you before my face!”
“Why not, Judith? Do you think they will treat a woman of the palefaces more tenderly than they treat their own? It’s true that your sex will most likely save you from the torments, but it will not save your liberty, and may not save