1650.] THE BITER BIT. 429 



sages and visits passed between the Hurons and 

 the Iroquois, whose confidence was such, that thirty- 

 seven of their best warriors at length came over in 

 a body to the Huron village. Etienne's time had 

 come. He and the chiefs who were in the secret 

 gave the Avord to the Huron warriors, who, at a 

 signal, raised the war-whoop, rushed upon their 

 visitors, and cut them to pieces. One -of them, 

 who lingered for a time, owned before he died that 

 Etienne's suspicions were just, and that they had 

 designed nothing less than the massacre or capture 

 of all the Hurons. Three of the Iroquois, imme- 

 diately before the slaughter began, had received 

 from Etienne a warning of their danger in time to 

 make their escape. The year before, he had been 

 captured, with Brebeuf and Lalemant, at the town 

 of St. Louis, and had owed his life to these three 

 warriors, to whom he now paid back the debt of 

 gratitude. They carried tidings of what had be- 

 fallen to their countrymen on the main-land, who, 

 aghast at the catastrophe, fled homeward in a 

 panic. ^ 



Here was a sweet morsel of vengeance. The 

 miseries of the Hurons were lighted up with a 

 brief gleam of joy ; but it behooved them to make 

 a timely retreat from their island before the Iro- 

 quois came to exact a bloody retribution. Towards 

 spring, while the lake was still frozen, many of 



1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1651, 5, 6. Le Mercier, in the Re- 

 lation of 1654, preserves the speech of a Huron chief, in which he speaks 

 of this affair, and adds some particulars not mentioned by Eagueneau. 

 He gives thirty-four as the number killed. 



