Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/158

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152
THE LAST OF

how to waver, but with execrations so bitter and deep as to denote how much he denounced the moral enormity of such a butchery.

The reader will perceive at once in these respective characters the Mohicans, and their white friend the scout; together with Munro and Heyward. It was in truth the father in quest of his children, attended by the youth who felt so deep a stake in their happiness, and those brave and trusty foresters who had already proved their skill and fidelity through the trying scenes related.

When Uncas, who moved in front, had reached the centre of the plain, he raised a cry that drew his companions in a body to the spot. The young warrior had halted over a groupe of females, who lay in a cluster, a confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding the revolting horrors of the exhibition, Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap, endeavouring, with a love that no unseemliness could extinguish, to discover whether any vestiges of those they sought were to be seen among the