That night, the torture fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved
one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One
body was quartered and eaten.[FN#31] "As for the rest of the prisoners,"
says Champlain, "they were kept to be put to death by the women and
girls, who in this respect are no less inhuman than the men, and,
indeed, much more so; for by their subtlety they invent more cruel
tortures, and take pleasure in it."
On the next day, a large band of Hurons appeared at the rendezvous,
greatly vexed that they had come too late. The shores were thickly
studded with Indian huts, and the woods were full of them. Here were
warriors of three designations, including many subordinate tribes, and
representing three grades of savage society,--the Hurons, the
Algonquins of the Ottawa, and the Montagnais; afterwards styled by a
Franciscan friar, than whom few men better knew them, the nobles, the
burghers, and the peasantry and paupers of the forest. Many of them,
from the remote interior, had never before seen a white man; and,
wrapped like statues in their robes, they stood gazing on the French
with a fixed stare of wild and wondering eyes.
Judged by the standard of Indian war, a heavy blow had been struck on
the common enemy. Here were hundreds of assembled warriors; yet none
thought of following up their success.
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