The divine had no sooner quitted the place, than Uncas motioned to Dudley
to approach. Though the nature of the borderer was essentially honest and
kind, he was, in opinions and prejudices, but a creature of the times. If
he had assented to the judgment which committed the captive to the mercy
of his implacable enemies, he had the merit of having suggested the
expedient that was to protect the sufferer from those refinements in
cruelty which the savages were known to be too ready to inflict. He had
even volunteered to be one of the agents to enforce his own expedient,
though, in so doing, he had committed no little violence to his natural
inclinations. The reader will therefore judge of his conduct, in this
particular, with the degree of lenity that a right consideration of the
condition of the country and of the usages of the age may require There
was even a relenting and a yielding of purpose in the countenance of this
witness of the scene, that was favorable to the safety of the captive, as
he now spoke. His address was first to Uncas.
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