"
Before the capture of young Pontgrave, Biard made him a visit at his
camp, six leagues up the St. John. Pontgrave's men were sailors from St.
Malo, between whom and the other Frenchmen there was much ill blood,
Biard had hardly entered the river when he saw the evening sky crimsoned
with the dancing fires of a superb aurora borealis, and he and his
attendants marvelled what evil thing the prodigy might portend. Their
Indian companions said that it was a sign of war. In fact, the night
after they had joined Pontgrave a furious quarrel broke out in the camp,
with abundant shouting, gesticulating and swearing; and, says the
father, "I do not doubt that an accursed band of furious and sanguinary
spirits were hovering about us all night, expecting every moment to see
a horrible massacre of the few Christians in those parts; but the
goodness of God bridled their malice. No blood was shed, and on the next
day the squall ended in a fine calm."
He did not like the Indians, whom he describes as "lazy, gluttonous,
irreligious, treacherous, cruel, and licentious." He makes an exception
in favor of Memberton, whom he calls "the greatest, most renowned, and
most redoubted savage that ever lived in the memory of man," and
especially commends him for contenting himself with but one wife, hardly
a superlative merit in a centenarian.
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