His fingers were lacerated by the savages before
the journey was begun; up the Richelieu River he went, suffering from his
wounds and "the clouds of mosquitoes." At the south end of Lake Champlain
this gentle son of France was again subjected to special tortures for the
gratification of another band of Iroquois; his hands were mangled, his
body burned and beaten till he fell "drenched in blood." Where thousands
now land every summer at the head of Lake George for pleasure he staggered
forth under his portage burden to the shores of the Mohawk, where again
the chief called the crowd to "caress" the Frenchmen with knives and other
instruments of torture, the children imitating the barbarity of their
elders. I should not repeat such details of this horrible story here
except to give background to one moment's act in the midst of it all,
illustrative of the motive which was back of this unexampled endurance.
While he and his companions were on the scaffold of torture, four Huron
prisoners were brought in and put beside the Frenchmen: whereupon Father
Jogues began his ministry anew, for when an ear of green corn was thrown
him for food, discovering a few rain-drops clinging to the husks, he
secretly baptized two of his eleventh-hour converts.
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