Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 3).djvu/128

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122
THE LAST OF

the neighbouring camp of their suspected allies, the Delawares. With the advantage of possessing this important intelligence, the chief warily laid his plans before his fellows, and, as might have been anticipated from his eloquence and cunning, they were adopted without a dissenting voice. They were, briefly, as follows, both in opinions and in motives.

It has been already stated, that in obedience to a policy rarely departed from, the sisters were separated so soon as they reached the Huron village. Magua had early discovered, that in retaining the person of Alice, he possessed the most effectual check on Cora. When they parted, therefore, he kept the former within reach of his hand, consigning the one he most valued to the keeping of the allies. The arrangement was understood to be merely temporary, and was made as much with a view to flatter his neighbours, as in obedience to the invariable rule of Indian policy.

While goaded, incessantly, by those revengeful impulses that in a savage seldom