1647.J FEKOCITY OF THE IROQUOIS. 309 



a wail of anguish, as the prisoners of either party 

 recognized their companions in misery. They all 

 kneeled in the midst of their savage conquerors, and 

 one of the men, a noted convert, after a few words 

 of exhortation, repeated in a loud voice a prayer, 

 to which the rest responded. Then they sang an 

 Algonquin hymn, while the Iroquois, who at first 

 had stared in wonder, broke into laughter and 

 derision, and at length fell upon them with renewed 

 fiu-y. One was burned alive on the spot. Another 

 tried to escape, and they burned the soles of his 

 feet that he might not repeat the attempt. Many 

 others were maimed and mangled ; and some of the 

 women who afterwards escaped affirmed, that, in 

 ridicule of the converts, they crucified a small child 

 by nailing it with wooden spikes against a thick 

 sheet of bark. 



The prisoners were led to the Mohawk towns ; 

 and it is needless to repeat the monotonous and 

 revolting tale of torture and death. The men, as 

 usual, were burned ; but the lives of the women 

 and children were spared, in order to strengthen 

 the conquerors by thek adoption, — not, however, 

 until both, but especially the women, had been 

 made to endure the extremes of sufiering and 

 indignity. Several of them from time to time 

 escaped, and reached Canada with the story of 

 their woes. Among these was Marie, the wife of 

 Jean Baptiste, one of the principal Algonquin con- 

 verts, captured and burned with the rest. Early 

 in June, she appeared in a canoe at Montreal, 

 where Madame d'Ailleboust, to whom she was well 



