Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/306

296 On the morrow after the trial, the execution took place. Mons. Cadotte led the condemned man from the room where he had been confined, and leading him out into the open air, he pointed to the sun, and gave him the first intimation of his approaching death, by bidding him to look well at that bright luminary, for it was the last time he should behold it, for the man whom he had murdered was calling him to the land of spirits. He then delivered him into the hands of his clerks; the gate was thrown open, and the prisoner was led outside of the post, into the presence of a vast concourse of his people who had assembled to witness his punishment. The fetters were knocked from his wrists, and at a given signal, Coutouse, the executioner, who stood by with his right arm bared to the elbow, and holding an Indian scalping knife, suddenly stabbed him in the back. As he quickly withdrew the knife, a stream of blood spirted up and bespattered the gateway, and the Indian, yelling a last war-whoop, leaped forward, but as he started to run, a clerk named Landré again buried a dirk in his side. The Indian, though fearfully and mortally wounded, ran with surprising swiftness to the water-side, and for a few rods he continued his course along the sandy beach, when he suddenly leaped up, staggered and fell. Two women, holding each a child in her arms—the Indian wives of John Baptiste and Michel Cadotte, who had often plead in vain to their husbands for his life, were the first who approached the body of the dying Indian, and amidst the deep silence of the stricken spectators, these compassionate women bent over him, and with weeping eyes, watched his last feeble death struggle. The wife of Michel, who is still living at an advanced age, often speaks of this occurrence in her early life, and never without a voice trembling with the deepest emotion.