Radisson was rifled of clothes and arms, trussed at the
elbows, roped round the waist, and driven with blows back to the
canoes. There were other captives among the Mohawks. As the canoes
emerged from the islands, Radisson counted one hundred and fifty
Iroquois warriors, with two French captives, one white woman, and
seventeen Hurons. Flaunting from the canoe prows were the scalps of
eleven Algonquins. The victors fired off their muskets and shouted
defiance until the valley rang. As the seventy-five canoes turned up
the Richelieu River for the country of the Iroquois, hope died in the
captive Hurons and there mingled with the chant of the Mohawks'
war-songs, the low monotonous dirge of the prisoners:--
"If I die, I die valiant!
I go without fear
To that land where brave men
Have gone long before me--
If I die, I die valiant."
Twelve miles up the Richelieu, the Iroquois landed to camp. The
prisoners were pegged out on the sand, elbows trussed to knees, each
captive tied to a post. In this fashion they lay every night of
encampment, tortured by sand-flies that they were powerless to drive
off. At the entrance to the Mohawk village, a yoke was fastened to the
captives' necks by placing pairs of saplings one on each side down the
line of prisoners. By the rope round the waist of the foremost
prisoner, they were led slowly between the lines of tormentors. The
captives were ordered to sing. If one refused or showed fear, a Mohawk
struck off a finger with a hatchet, or tore the prisoners' nails out,
or thrust red-hot irons into the muscles of the bound arms.
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