Here he began to push the canoe from the shore, and to
make his other preparations for departing. He might have been thus
employed a minute, when, happening to turn his face towards the
land, his quick and certain eye told him, at a glance, the imminent
jeopardy in which his life was placed. The black, ferocious eyes
of the savage were glancing on him, like those of the crouching
tiger, through a small opening in the bushes, and the muzzle of
his rifle seemed already to be opening in a line with his own body.
Then, indeed, the long practice of Deerslayer, as a hunter did
him good service. Accustomed to fire with the deer on the bound,
and often when the precise position of the animal's body had in a
manner to be guessed at, he used the same expedients here. To cock
and poise his rifle were the acts of a single moment and a single
motion: then aiming almost without sighting, he fired into the
bushes where he knew a body ought to be, in order to sustain the
appalling countenance which alone was visible. There was not time
to raise the piece any higher, or to take a more deliberate aim. So
rapid were his movements that both parties discharged their pieces
at the same instant, the concussions mingling in one report.
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