One Iroquois, who has climbed an oak tree near shore, fires down upon the protagonists and slightly wounds Heyward. Setting up a crossfire with Chingachgook, Hawkeye fires his rifle "Killdeer" and wounds the savage, who is left swinging in the wind with a desperate grasp on a branch. To save powder, the scout refuses to show mercy and finish the kill, but he weakens and discharges his last powder and bullet as the man falls toward the rocks and water.
Uncas goes for munitions in the canoe only to find an Indian swimming away with it. Now essentially bereft of defensive means, the Mohicans scoff at their enemies and prepare for death. Hawkeye is quietly and stoically preparing himself also when Cora, who has been brave all along, entreats the men to escape downstream and effect a rescue. Convinced of her reason, Chingachgook slips under the water and away. After telling her to leave a marked trail if they are captured, Hawkeye carefully lays "Killdeer" aside and disappears into the water. Uncas remains until Cora, lowering her eyes, asks him to go to her father as her "most confidential" messenger; then he also drops into the water. When Heyward refuses to leave on the grounds that his presence may keep the girls from evils worse than death, Cora draws "the nearly insensible Alice after her into the deepest recess of the inner cavern."
