Immediately after, the whole group
entered the forest, Hutter and Hurry apparently making no resistance
to the movement. Just as the sounds of the cracking bushes were
ceasing, however, the voice of the father was again heard.
"As you're true to my children, God prosper you, young man!" were
the words that reached Deerslayer's ears; after which he found
himself left to follow the dictates of his own discretion.
Several minutes elapsed, in death-like stillness, when the party
on the shore had disappeared in the woods. Owing to the distance
-rather more than two hundred yards - and the obscurity, Deerslayer
had been able barely to distinguish the group, and to see it
retiring; but even this dim connection with human forms gave an
animation to the scene that was strongly in contrast to the absolute
solitude that remained. Although the young man leaned forward
to listen, holding his breath and condensing every faculty in the
single sense of hearing, not another sound reached his ears to denote
the vicinity of human beings. It seemed as if a silence that had
never been broken reigned on the spot again; and, for an instant,
even that piercing shriek, which had so lately broken the stillness
of the forest, or the execrations of March, would have been a relief
to the feeling of desertion to which it gave rise.
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