The barbarians themselves marveled at this result, so contrary was it to their intentions, as the Dutch have written to me. I was therefore given, with all the usual ceremonies, to an old woman, to replace her grandfather, formerly killed by the Hurons, but instead of having me burned, as all desired, and had already resolved, she redeemed me from their hands at the expense of some beads, which the French call "porcelain" [wampum]. I live here in the midst of the shadows of death, hearing nothing spoken of but murder and assassination. They have recently murdered one of their own countrymen in his cabin, as useless and unworthy to live. I have still something to suffer; my wounds are yet open, and many of the barbarians look upon me with no kindly eye. But we cannot live without crosses, and this is like sugar in comparison with the past. The Dutch gave me hopes of my ransom, and that of the boy taken prisoner with me. God's will be done in time and in eternity! My hope will be still more confirmed, if you grant me a share in your holy sacrifices and prayers, and those of our fathers and brethren, especially of those who knew me in other days. SECOND LETTER, Dated "From New Amsterdam, the 31st of August, 1644." I have found no one to carry the enclosed, so that you will receive it at the same time as the present one, which will give you the news of my deliverance from the hands of the barbarians, whose captive I was. I am indebted for it to the Dutch, and they obtained it with no great difficulty, for a moderate ransom, on account of the little value which the Indians attached to me, from my unhandiness at everything, and because they believed that I would never get well of my ailments. I have been twice sold: first to the old woman who was to have me burned, and next to the Dutch, dear enough, that is, for about fifteen or twenty doppias [sixty to eighty dollars in gold]. I chanted my "exodus from Egypt" the nineteenth of August, a day that is in the octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, who was my deliverer. I was a prisoner among the Iroquois for four months; but small is that compared to what my sins deserve. I was unable, during my captivity, to render to any of those wretched beings, in return for the evil they did me, the good which was the object of my desires; that is, impart to them a knowledge of the true God. Not knowing the language, I tried to instruct, through a captive interpreter, an old man who was dying; but he was too proud to listen to me, answering that a man of his age and standing should teach, and not be taught. I asked him if he knew whither he would go after death. He answered me: "To the Sunset." Then he began to relate their fables and delusions, which those wretched people, blinded by the Demon, esteem as the most solid truths.