54 FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [1640-1649. 



martyr of the early church, or a war-chief of the 

 Mohawks. 



The slender frame of Lallemant, a man younger 

 in years and gentle m spirit, was enveloped in blaz- 

 ing savin-bark. Again and again the fire was extin- 

 guished ; again and again it was kindled afresh ; 

 and with such fiendish ingenuity were his torments 

 protracted, that he lingered for seventeen hours 

 before death came to his relief.^ 



Isaac Jogues, taken captive by the Iroquois, was 

 led from canton to canton, and village to village, 

 enduring fresh torments and indignities at every 

 stage of his progress.^ Men, women, and children 

 vied with each other in ingenious malignity^ Re- 

 deemed, at length, by the humane exertions of a 

 Dutch ofiicer, he repaired to France, where his 

 disfigured person and mutilated hands told the 

 story of his suff*erings. But the promptings of a 

 sleepless conscience urged him to return and com- 

 plete the work he had begun ; to illumine the 

 moral darkness upon which, during the months of 

 his disastrous captivity, he fondly hoped that he 

 had thrown some rays of light. Once more he 

 bent his footsteps towards the scene of his living 

 martyrdom, saddened with a deep presentiment 

 that he was advancing to his death. Nor were his 

 forebodings untrue. In a village of the Mohawks, 

 the blow of a tomahawk closed his mission and 

 his life. 



Such intrepid self-devotion may well call forth 



1 Charlevoix, I. 292. 2 Charlevoix, I. 238-276. 



