Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/436

416 mock treaty with the Iroquois, in July, 1645. Here he met with kindness some of his tormentors. In the autumn he started for his former Huron mission, ignorant of the language, but preaching by the veneration won for him by his mutilations and scars, and his dauntless heroism. After three years of isolation in a service beset with direful perils, the Hurons, cut off from trade and in extreme want, resolved upon a desperate effort to open communication with the French at Three Rivers. In July, 1648, Bressani started with a convoy of two hundred and fifty Indians, more than half of whom were Christian catechumens. Just as they were reaching their destination they were set upon by a party of ambushed Iroquois, but came off victors, taking thirty-five prisoners. Bressani's functions were needed in absolving, instructing, and baptizing the dying. On this occasion some Algonquin allies of the Hurons were the first to refrain, under the influence of their mission teachings, from torturing a prisoner, given to them for that purpose. The Hurons said they could admire but could not imitate the humanity. While the Indians drove their traffic, Bressani went to Quebec, full of glowing zeal and undiminished constancy to win more laborers and to obtain altar supplies. Five more Fathers were designated for the mission. Said one of them: “We shall be taken, we shall be massacred, we shall be burned. Let it be so! The bed does not always make the happiest death. I see no one drop his head. On the contrary, each craves the post. To reach the field one must smell the smoke of the Iroquois cabins, and perhaps be roasted by a slow fire. But whatever befalls us, I know well that the hearts of those whom God shall call, will there find his paradise, and that their zeal will not be stifled by water or flames.” The party returned safely, with twelve soldiers, some workmen, and a cannon, twenty-six Frenchmen reinforcing it. But on reaching their villages they were torn with horror and rage at the scene before them. The