Chapter 29 - Page 2

first few minutes, the prisoner
had little more connection with the result, than grew out of the
interest that necessarily attached itself to a living target. The
young men were eager, instead of being fierce, and Rivenoak thought
he still saw signs of being able to save the life of the captive
when the vanity of the young men had been gratified; always admitting
that it was not sacrificed to the delicate experiments that were
about to be made. The first youth who presented himself for the
trial was called The Raven, having as yet had no opportunity of
obtaining a more warlike sobriquet. He was remarkable for high
pretension, rather than for skill or exploits, and those who knew
his character thought the captive in imminent danger when he took
his stand, and poised the tomahawk. Nevertheless, the young man
was good natured, and no thought was uppermost in his mind other
than the desire to make a better cast than any of his fellows.
Deerslayer got an inkling of this warrior's want of reputation by
the injunctions that he had received from the seniors, who, indeed,
would have objected to his appearing in the arena, at all, but
for an influence derived from his father; an aged warrior of great
merit, who was then in the lodges of the tribe. Still, our hero
maintained an appearance of self-possession. He had made up his
mind that his hour was come, and it would have been a mercy, instead
of a calamity, to fall by the unsteadiness of the first hand that
was raised against him. After a suitable number of flourishes and
gesticulations that promised much more than he could perform, the
Raven let the tomahawk quit his hand. The weapon whirled through
the air with the usual evolutions, cut a chip from the sapling to
which the prisoner was bound within a few inches of his cheek, and
stuck in a large oak that grew several yards behind him. This was
decidedly a bad effort, and a common sneer proclaimed as much, to
the great mortification of the young man. On the other hand, there
was a general but suppressed murmur of admiration at the steadiness
with which the captive stood the trial. The head was the only
part he could move, and this had been purposely left free, that
the tormentors might have the amusement, and the tormented endure
the shame, of his dodging, and otherwise attempting to avoid the
blows. Deerslayer disappointed these hopes by a command of nerve
that rendered his whole body as immovable as the tree to which he
was bound. Nor did he even adopt the natural and usual expedient
of shutting his eyes, the firmest and oldest warrior of the red-men
never having more disdainfully denied himself this advantage under
similar circumstances.

The Raven had no sooner made his unsuccessful and puerile