A
moment later the rabble broke into the lodge. Jostling the friendly
chief aside, the Mohawk warriors carried Radisson back to the orgies of
the torture. The prisoners had been taken out of the stocks and placed
on several scaffoldings. One poor Frenchman fell to the ground bruised
and unable to rise. The Iroquois tore the scalp from his head and
threw him into the fire. That was Radisson's first glimpse of what was
in store for him. Then he, too, stood on the scaffolding among the
other prisoners, who never ceased singing their death song. In the
midst of these horrors--_diableries_, the Jesuits called them--as if
the very elements had been moved with pity, there burst over the
darkened forest a terrific hurricane of hail and rain. This put out
the fires and drove all the tormentors away but a few impish children,
who stayed to pluck nails from the hands and feet of the captives and
shoot arrows with barbed points at the naked bodies. Every iniquity
that cruelty could invent, these children practised on the captives.
Red-hot spears were brought from the lodge fires and thrust into the
prisoners. The mutilated finger ends were ground between stones.
Thongs were twisted round wrists and ankles, by sticks put through a
loop, till flesh was cut to the bone. As the rain ceased falling, a
woman, who was probably the wife of one of the murdered Mohawks,
brought her little boy to cut one of Radisson's fingers with a flint
stone.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46