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The missing warriors were safe, and on their way home in triumph with a large number of prisoners. Again Jogues's life was spared; but he was forced to witness the torture and butchery of the converts and allies of the French. Existence became unendurable to him, and he longed to die. War-parties were continually going out.
Charlevoix, with his usual carelessness, says that Jogues's captors took a circuitous route to avoid enemies. The Iroquois landed at or near the future site of Fort William Henry, left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder.
But Jogues's life was providentially preserved, and during nearly a year, a year of intense suffering, he went among his persecutors glorying in the opportunity of preaching the Gospel under these hard conditions. Already the Dutch authorities had tried in vain to gain his release.
The Director-General, with a humanity that was far from usual with him, exchanged Jogues's squalid and savage dress for a suit of Dutch cloth, and gave him passage in a small vessel which was then about to sail. The voyage was rough and tedious; and the passenger slept on deck or on a coil of ropes, suffering greatly from cold, and often drenched by the waves that broke over the vessel's side.
The site of Jogues's martyrdom is near Auriesville in the Mohawk valley, where a memorial chapel in his honor is now maintained, the Rev. He would sometimes escape from "this Babylon," as he calls the hut, and wander in the forest, telling his beads and repeating passages of Scripture.
They were in arms, and were once more breathing vengeance against the French and their allies. At this Jogues's Huron companions deserted him, but he and Lalande pressed on to their destination. The alarm was only too well founded. The Mohawks at once crowded round them, scowling and threatening.
His journey is worthy of notice, since, with the unimportant exception of Jogues's embassy to the Mohawks, it is the first occasion on which the Canadian Jesuits appear in a character distinctly political.
The Director-General, with a humanity that was far from usual with him, exchanged Jogues's squalid and savage dress for a suit of Dutch cloth, and gave him passage in a small vessel which was then about to sail.... Jogues became a center of curiosity and reverence. He was summoned to Paris.
He went to seek it; found the scattered bones, stripped by the foxes and the birds; and, tenderly gathering them up, hid them in a hollow tree, hoping that a day might come when he could give them a Christian burial in consecrated ground. After the murder of Goupil, Jogues's life hung by a hair. He lived in hourly expectation of the tomahawk, and would have welcomed it as a boon.
Then a chief called out, "Come, let us caress these Frenchmen!" and the crowd, knife in hand, began to mount the scaffold. They ordered a Christian Algonquin woman, a prisoner among them, to cut off Jogues's left thumb, which she did; and a thumb of Goupil was also severed, a clam-shell being used as the instrument, in order to increase the pain.
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