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Fathers Fremin and Pierron were living among the Mohawks; Father Bruyas with the Oneidas. In 1668 Father Fremin was sent to the Senecas, Father Milet to the Onondagas, and Father de Carheil to the Cayugas. The bloody Iroquois, who had tortured and slain so many missionaries, were now asking for preachers of the Christian faith, and receiving them with due honour.
The father thought a moment. "No," he said. I gripped my sword. "You have seen torture, Father Carheil. Would you hand this man over to it?" The father looked at me as if I were print for his reading. "I am piecing facts together," he said, with unmoved slowness. "Singing Arrow is in league with you, for the prisoner is wearing her clothes.
I eyed him searchingly, angrily, but he could not look at me. "Listen," he begged, and he spoke very slowly and tapped my arm. Yet I was understanding him perfectly. "Listen, Montlivet, there is no mistake. When Father Carheil told me that there were Hurons in Starling's escort I sent Ottawas in pursuit. I have heard from them.
"These," pursued Carheil, "are the reasons they give us to prove the necessity of their late embassy to the Senecas; and by this one can see that our Indians are a great deal more clear-sighted than they are thought to be, and that it is hard to conceal from their penetration any thing that can help or harm their interests.
The expression mettre a la chaudiere, though derived from cannibal practices, is often used figuratively for torturing and killing. The missionary in question was either Carheil or another Jesuit, who must have acted with his sanction. While striving to reclaim his allies, Frontenac had not forgotten his enemies.
Means have been found to excite against him three or four officers of the posts dependent on his, who have put upon him such strange and unheard of affronts, that I was obliged to send them to prison when they came down to the colony. A certain Father Carheil, the Jesuit who wrote me such insolent letters a few years ago, has played an amazing part in this affair.
"No," he meditated. "No, this is not Singing Arrow." He wheeled on me with one of his flashes of temper. "I cannot recognize this girl. Let her take off her blanket." I motioned my men to take stations in the canoes. "Father Carheil, I beg you to let me go at once," I implored. "You see you were wrong. As to this Indian, you never saw her; she is a stranger here." But the father was not pacified.
The man is certainly in earnest about something, and has spent great time and endeavor in this search. He has even been to Quebec, and worked on Frontenac's sympathies, for he bears from the governor a letter of safe conduct to me, and another, from the Jesuits, to Father Carheil. He comes apparently on no political mission; he is alone, and his tale is entirely plausible.
I tossed them a handful of small coins, and warned them in Huron that if they molested my men I should report them to the commandant. I felt yet more haste to see my canoes under way. I was plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled, and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine.
But you We feared the Iroquois wolf had devoured you." And I had thought the man capable of petty spite. I dropped on my knees to him. "Father Carheil, I grieve for what I did, yet I could not have done otherwise." He drew back a little and rumpled his thin hair with a bloodless hand. His face was frowning, but his restless, brilliant eyes were full of amusement.
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