Chapter 27

The only amaranthian flower on earth
Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
COWPER.

The reader must imagine some of the occurrences that followed the
sudden death of Muir. While his body was in the hands of his soldiers,
who laid it decently aside, and covered it with a greatcoat,
Chingachgook silently resumed his place at the fire, and both
Sanglier and Pathfinder remarked that he carried a fresh and bleeding
scalp at his girdle. No one asked any questions; and the former,
although perfectly satisfied that Arrowhead had fallen, manifested
neither curiosity nor feeling. He continued calmly eating his soup,
as if the meal had been tranquil as usual. There was something
of pride and of an assumed indifference to fate, imitated from the
Indians, in all this; but there was more that really resulted from
practice, habitual self-command, and constitutional hardihood.
With Pathfinder the case was a little different in feeling, though
much the same in appearance. He disliked Muir, whose smooth-tongued
courtesy was little in accordance with his own frank and ingenuous
nature; but he had been shocked at his unexpected and violent death,
though accustomed to similar scenes, and he had been surprised
at the exposure of his treachery. With a view to ascertain the
extent of the latter, as soon as the body was removed, he began to
question the Captain on the subject. The latter, having no particular
motive for secrecy now that his agent was dead, in the course
of the breakfast revealed the following circumstances, which will
serve to clear up some of the minor incidents of our tale.

Soon after the 55th appeared on the frontiers, Muir had volunteered
his services to the enemy. In making his offers, he boasted of his
intimacy with Lundie, and of the means it afforded of furnishing
more accurate and important information than usual. His terms had
been accepted, and Monsieur Sanglier had several interviews with
him in the vicinity of the fort at Oswego, and had actually passed
one entire night secreted in the garrison. Arrowhead, however,
was the usual channel of communication; and the anonymous letter to
Major Duncan had been originally written by Muir, transmitted to
Frontenac, copied, and sent back by the Tuscarora, who was returning
from that errand when captured by the _Scud_. It is scarcely
necessary to add that Jasper was to be sacrificed in order to
conceal the Quartermaster's treason, and that the position of the
island had been betrayed to the enemy by the latter. An extraordinary
compensation -- that which was found in his purse -- had induced
him to accompany the party under Sergeant Dunham, in order to give
the signals that were to bring on the attack. The disposition
of Muir