Sergeant Dunham laid his hand feebly on the head of Mabel as she ceased praying, and buried her face in his blanket.

"Bless you, my beloved child! bless you!" he rather whispered than uttered aloud; "this is truly consolation: would that I too could pray!"

"Father, you know the Lord"s Prayer; you taught it to me yourself while I was yet an infant."

The Sergeant"s face gleamed with a smile, for he _did_ remember to have discharged that portion at least of the paternal duty, and the consciousness of it gave him inconceivable gratification at that solemn moment. He was then silent for several minutes, and all present believed that he was communing with G.o.d.

"Mabel, my child!" he at length uttered, in a voice which seemed to be reviving,--"Mabel, I"m quitting you." The spirit at its great and final pa.s.sage appears ever to consider the body as nothing. "I"m quitting you, my child; where is your hand?"

"Here, dearest father--here are both--oh, take both!"

"Pathfinder," added the Sergeant, feeling on the opposite side of the bed, where Jasper still knelt, and getting one of the hands of the young man by mistake, "take it--I leave you as her father--as you and she may please--bless you--bless you both!"

At that awful instant, no one would rudely apprise the Sergeant of his mistake; and he died a minute or two later, holding Jasper"s and Mabel"s hands covered by both his own. Our heroine was ignorant of the fact until an exclamation of Cap"s announced the death of her father; when, raising her face, she saw the eyes of Jasper riveted on her own, and felt the warm pressure of his hand. But a single feeling was predominant at that instant, and Mabel withdrew to weep, scarcely conscious of what had occurred. The Pathfinder took the arm of Eau-douce, and he left the block.

The two friends walked in silence past the fire, along the glade, and nearly reached the opposite sh.o.r.e of the island in profound silence.

Here they stopped, and Pathfinder spoke.

""Tis all over, Jasper," said he,--""tis all over. Ah"s me! Poor Sergeant Dunham has finished his march, and that, too, by the hand of a venomous Mingo. Well, we never know what is to happen, and his luck may be yourn or mine to-morrow or next day!"

"And Mabel? What is to become of Mabel, Pathfinder?"

"You heard the Sergeant"s dying words; he has left his child in my care, Jasper; and it is a most solemn trust, it is; yes,--it is a most solemn trust."

"It"s a trust, Pathfinder, of which any man would be glad to relieve you," returned the youth, with a bitter smile.

"I"ve often thought it has fallen into wrong hands. I"m not consaited, Jasper; I"m not consaited, I do think I"m not; but if Mabel Dunham is willing to overlook all my imperfections and ignorances like, I should be wrong to gainsay it, on account of any sartainty I may have myself about my own want of merit."

"No one will blame you, Pathfinder, for marrying Mabel Dunham, any more than they will blame you for wearing a precious jewel in your bosom that a friend had freely given you."

"Do you think they"ll blame Mabel, lad? I"ve had my misgivings about that, too; for all persons may not be so disposed to look at me with the same eyes as you and the Sergeant"s daughter."

Jasper Eau-douce started as a man flinches at sudden bodily pain; but he otherwise maintained his self-command. "And mankind is envious and ill-natured, more particularly in and about the garrisons. I sometimes wish, Jasper, that Mabel could have taken a fancy to you,--I do; and that you had taken a fancy to her; for it often seems to me that one like you, after all, might make her happier than I ever can."

"We will not talk about this, Pathfinder," interrupted Jasper hoa.r.s.ely and impatiently; "you will be Mabel"s husband, and it is not right to speak of any one else in that character. As for me, I shall take Master Cap"s advice, and try and make a man of myself by seeing what is to be done on the salt water."

"You, Jasper Western!--you quit the lakes, the forests, and the lines; and this, too, for the towns and wasty ways of the settlements, and a little difference in the taste of the water. Haven"t we the salt-licks, if salt is necessary to you? and oughtn"t man to be satisfied with what contents the other creatur"s of G.o.d? I counted on you, Jasper, I counted on you, I did; and thought, now that Mabel and I intend to dwell in a cabin of our own, that some day you might be tempted to choose a companion too, and come and settle in our neighborhood. There is a beautiful spot, about fifty miles west of the garrison, that I had chosen in my mind for my own place of abode; and there is an excellent harbor about ten leagues this side of it where you could run in and out with the cutter at any leisure minute; and I"d even fancied you and your wife in possession of the one place, and Mabel and I in possession of t"other. We should be just a healthy hunt apart; and if the Lord ever intends any of His creaturs to be happy on "arth, none could be happier than we four."

"You forget, my friend," answered Jasper, taking the guide"s hand and forcing a friendly smile, "that I have no fourth person to love and cherish; and I much doubt if I ever shall love any other as I love you and Mabel."

"Thank"e, boy; I thank you with all my heart; but what you call love for Mabel is only friendship like, and a very different thing from what I feel. Now, instead of sleeping as sound as natur" at midnight, as I used to could, I dream nightly of Mabel Dunham. The young does sport before me; and when I raise Killdeer, in order to take a little venison, the animals look back, and it seems as if they all had Mabel"s sweet countenance, laughing in my face, and looking as if they said, "Shoot me if you dare!" Then I hear her soft voice calling out among the birds as they sing; and no later than the last nap I took, I bethought me, in fancy, of going over the Niagara, holding Mabel in my arms, rather than part from her. The bitterest moments I"ve ever known were them in which the devil, or some Mingo conjuror, perhaps, has just put into my head to fancy in dreams that Mabel is lost to me by some unaccountable calamity--either by changefulness or by violence."

"Oh, Pathfinder! If you think this so bitter in a dream, what must it be to one who feels its reality, and knows it all to be true, true, true?

So true as to leave no hope; to leave nothing but despair!"

These words burst from Jasper as a fluid pours from the vessel that has been suddenly broken. They were uttered involuntarily, almost unconsciously, but with a truth and feeling that carried with them the instant conviction of their deep sincerity. Pathfinder started, gazed at his friend for full a minute like one bewildered, and then it was that, in despite of all his simplicity, the truth gleamed upon him. All know how corroborating proofs crowd upon the mind as soon as it catches a direct clue to any hitherto unsuspected fact; how rapidly the thoughts flow and premises tend to their just conclusions under such circ.u.mstances. Our hero was so confiding by nature, so just, and so much disposed to imagine that all his friends wished him the same happiness as he wished them, that, until this unfortunate moment, a suspicion of Jasper"s attachment for Mabel had never been awakened in his bosom. He was, however, now too experienced in the emotions which characterize the pa.s.sion; and the burst of feeling in his companion was too violent and too natural to leave any further doubt on the subject. The feeling that first followed this change of opinion was one of deep humility and exquisite pain. He bethought him of Jasper"s youth, his higher claims to personal appearance, and all the general probabilities that such a suitor would be more agreeable to Mabel than he could possibly be himself. Then the n.o.ble rect.i.tude of mind, for which the man was so distinguished, a.s.serted its power; it was sustained by his rebuked manner of thinking of himself, and all that habitual deference for the rights and feelings of others which appeared to be inbred in his very nature. Taking the arm of Jasper, he led him to a log, where he compelled the young man to seat himself by a sort of irresistible exercise of his iron muscles, and where he placed himself at his side.

The instant his feelings had found vent, Eau-douce was both alarmed at, and ashamed of, their violence. He would have given all he possessed on earth could the last three minutes be recalled; but he was too frank by disposition and too much accustomed to deal ingenuously by his friend to think a moment of attempting further concealment, or of any evasion of the explanation that he knew was about to be demanded. Even while he trembled in antic.i.p.ation of what was about to follow, he never contemplated equivocation.

"Jasper," Pathfinder commenced, in a tone so solemn as to thrill on every nerve in his listener"s body, "this _has_ surprised me! You have kinder feelings towards Mabel than I had thought; and, unless my own mistaken vanity and consait have cruelly deceived me, I pity you, boy, from my soul I do! Yes, I think I know how to pity any one who has set his heart on a creature like Mabel, unless he sees a prospect of her regarding him as he regards her. This matter must be cleared up, Eau-douce, as the Delawares say, until there shall not be a cloud "atween us."

"What clearing up can it want, Pathfinder? I love Mabel Dunham, and Mabel Dunham does not love me; she prefers you for a husband; and the wisest thing I can do is to go off at once to the salt water, and try to forget you both."

"Forget me, Jasper! That would be a punishment I don"t desarve. But how do you know that Mabel prefars _me_? How do you know it, lad? To me it seems impossible like!"

"Is she not to marry you, and would Mabel marry a man she does not love?"

"She has been hard urged by the Sergeant, she has; and a dutiful child may have found it difficult to withstand the wishes of a dying parent.

Have you ever told Mabel that you prefarred her, Jasper--that you bore her these feelings?"

"Never, Pathfinder. I would not do you that wrong."

"I believe you, lad, I do believe you; and I think you would now go off to the salt water, and let the scent die with you. But this must not be.

Mabel shall hear all, and she shall have her own way, if my heart breaks in the trial, she shall. No words have ever pa.s.sed "atween you, then, Jasper?"

"Nothing of account, nothing direct. Still, I will own all my foolishness, Pathfinder; for I ought to own it to a generous friend like you, and there will be an end of it. You know how young people understand each other, or think they understand each other, without always speaking out in plain speech, and get to know each other"s thoughts, or to think they know them, by means of a hundred little ways."

"Not I, Jasper, not I," truly answered the guide; for, sooth to say, his advances had never been met with any of that sweet and precious encouragement which silently marks the course of sympathy united to pa.s.sion. "Not I, Jasper; I know nothing of all this. Mabel has always treated me fairly, and said what she has had to say in speech as plain as tongue could tell it."

"You have had the pleasure of hearing her say that she loved you, Pathfinder?"

"Why, no, Jasper, not just that in words. She has told me that we never could, never ought to be married; that _she_ was not good enough for _me_, though she _did_ say that she honored me and respected me. But then the Sergeant said it was always so with the youthful and timid; that her mother did so and said so afore her; and that I ought to be satisfied if she would consent on any terms to marry me, and therefore I have concluded that all was right, I have."

In spite of all his friendship for the successful wooer, in spite of all his honest, sincere wished for his happiness, we should be unfaithful chroniclers did we not own that Jasper felt his heart bound with an uncontrollable feeling of delight at this admission. It was not that he saw or felt any hope connected with the circ.u.mstance; but it was grateful to the jealous covetousness of unlimited love thus to learn that no other ears had heard the sweet confessions that were denied its own.

"Tell me more of this manner of talking without the use of the tongue,"

continued Pathfinder, whose countenance was becoming grave, and who now questioned his companion like one who seemed to antic.i.p.ate evil in the reply. "I can and have conversed with Chingachgook, and with his son Uncas too, in that mode, afore the latter fell; but I didn"t know that young girls practysed this art, and, least of all, Mabel Dunham."

""Tis nothing, Pathfinder. I mean only a look, or a smile, or a glance of the eye, or the trembling of an arm or a hand when the young woman has had occasion to touch me; and because I have been weak enough to tremble even at Mabel"s breath, or her brushing me with her clothes, my vain thoughts have misled me. I never spoke plainly to Mabel myself, and now there is no use for it, since there is clearly no hope."

"Jasper," returned Pathfinder simply, but with a dignity that precluded further remarks at the moment, "we will talk of the Sergeant"s funeral and of our own departure from this island. After these things are disposed of, it will be time enough to say more of the Sergeant"s daughter. This matter must be looked into, for the father left me the care of his child."

Jasper was glad enough to change the subject, and the friends separated, each charged with the duty most peculiar to his own station and habits.

That afternoon all the dead were interred, the grave of Sergeant Dunham being dug in the centre of the glade, beneath the shade of a huge elm. Mabel wept bitterly at the ceremony, and she found relief in thus disburthening her sorrow. The night pa.s.sed tranquilly, as did the whole of the following day, Jasper declaring that the gale was too severe to venture on the lake. This circ.u.mstance detained Captain Sanglier also, who did not quit the island until the morning of the third day after the death of Dunham, when the weather had moderated, and the wind had become fair. Then, indeed, he departed, after taking leave of the Pathfinder, in the manner of one who believed he was in company of a distinguished character for the last time. The two separated like those who respect one another, while each felt that the other was all enigma to himself.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Playful she turn"d that he might see The pa.s.sing smile her cheek put on; But when she marked how mournfully His eyes met hers, that smile was gone.

_Lalla Rookh._

The occurrences of the last few days had been too exciting, and had made too many demands on the fort.i.tude of our heroine, to leave her in the helplessness of grief. She mourned for her father, and she occasionally shuddered as she recalled the sudden death of Jennie, and all the horrible scenes she had witnessed; but on the whole she had aroused herself, and was no longer in the deep depression which usually accompanies grief. Perhaps the overwhelming, almost stupefying sorrow that crushed poor June, and left her for nearly twenty-four hours in a state of stupor, a.s.sisted Mabel in conquering her own feelings, for she had felt called on to administer consolation to the young Indian woman.

This she had done in the quiet, soothing, insinuating way in which her s.e.x usually exerts its influence on such occasions.

The morning of the third day was set for that on which the _Scud_ was to sail. Jasper had made all his preparations; the different effects were embarked, and Mabel had taken leave of June, a painful and affectionate parting. In a word, all was ready, and every soul had left the island but the Indian woman, Pathfinder, Jasper, and our heroine. The former had gone into a thicket to weep, and the three last were approaching the spot where three canoes lay, one of which was the property of June, and the other two were in waiting to carry the others off to the _Scud_.

Pathfinder led the way, but, when he drew near the sh.o.r.e, instead of taking the direction to the boats, he motioned to his companions to follow, and proceeded to a fallen tree which lay on the margin of the glade and out of view of those in the cutter. Seating himself on the trunk, he signed to Mabel to take her place on one side of him and to Jasper to occupy the other.