All the love and labour of the Jesuit missionaries {74} for ten years had been in vain. With aching hearts the priests resolved to break up the mission and betake themselves to some less dangerous and more useful station. Several of them followed the wandering Hurons, but a number of priests, with forty soldiers and labourers, established themselves on St. Joseph Island, at the entrance of Matchedash Bay. It is one of three--now known as Faith, Hope, and Charity--islands. Here they toiled, together with a number of Huron converts, in building a stronghold which would defy the dreaded Iroquois. Six or eight thousand souls came to people the island. There not being food for so many, what with hunger and disease, by springtime half had perished. The despairing survivors, resolving to brave the surrounding Iroquois, who roamed on the mainland, and escape, one by one fell into the hands of their lynx-like foes. No refuge was there for the poor persecuted race but in the shadow of the French guns at Quebec. "Take us to Quebec," cried one of the Huron chiefs to the Jesuit fathers. "Do not wait until war and famine have destroyed us to the last man. We are in your hands. Death has taken more than ten thousand of us. If you wait longer, not one will remain alive." At last the Jesuits resolved to grant their petition. On the 10th of June 1650 the whole population of St. Joseph (or Charity) Island embarked in canoes, which were packed with all their earthly goods, and paddled sadly towards the east. On the Ottawa River, which was now desolate of native hut or wigwam, they met a large party of {75} French soldiers and Hurons on the way to help the Huron mission. Too late! The mission, with all its forts and settlements, had been abandoned for ever. The entire party kept on to Montreal, where the Hurons could not be induced to stay because it was too open to Iroquois attacks; and about the end of July the great heights of Quebec came in sight. All disembarked and were hospitably received by the Governor, the priests, the nuns, and the people. Yet the new arrivals could not have come at a worse time, for food was scarce and nearly all were poor. {76} CHAPTER VI THE FURY OF THE IROQUOIS When the poor harassed "Black Robes" and their panic-stricken Indian charges finally rested under the sheltering walls of Quebec, Montmagny was no longer Governor. He had, after twelve years' service, gone back to France, and a new Governor had arrived in his stead. But the Indians still called the new Governor, and all the Governors who came afterwards, by the name of "Onontio." They were told that Montmagny in French signified "Great Mountain," Onontio in the Huron tongue, and supposed it was a title bestowed by the pale-faces on all their rulers in Canada.