382 RUIN OF THE HURONS. 11549. 



prisoners back to St. Ignace, where all turned out 

 to wreak their fury on the two priests, beating 

 them savagely with sticks and clubs as they drove 

 them into the town. At present, there was no time 

 for further torture, for there was work in hand. 



The victors divided themselves into several bands, 

 to burn the neighboring villages and hunt their 

 flying inhabitants. In the flush of then- triumph, 

 they meditated a bolder enterprise ; and, in the 

 afternoon, their chiefs sent small parties to recon- 

 noitre Sainte Marie, with a view to attacking it on 

 the next day. 



Meanwhile the fugitives of St. Louis, joined by 

 other bands as terrified and as helpless as they, 

 were struggling through the soft snow which 

 clogged the forests towards Lake Huron, where 

 the treacherous ice of spring was still unmelted. 

 One fear expelled another. They ventured upon it, 

 and pushed forward all that day and all the follow- 

 ing night, shivering and famished, to find refuge 

 in the towns of the Tobacco Nation. Here, when 

 they arrived, they spread a universal panic. 



Ragueneau, Bressani, and their companions wait- 

 ed in suspense at Sainte Marie. On the one hand, 

 they trembled for Brebeuf and Lalemant ; on the 

 other, they looked hourly for an attack : and when 

 at evening they saw the Iroquois scouts prowling 

 along the edge of the bordering forest, their fears 

 were confirmed. They had with them about forty 

 Frenchmen, well armed ; but their palisades and 

 wooden buildings were not fire-proof, and they had 

 learned from fugitives the number and ferocity of 



