Towards evening on the 3d of August, after the party had landed to encamp, an Onondaga chief made advances to a Christian Huron girl, as he had already done at every encampment since leaving Montreal. Being repulsed for the fourth time, he split her head with his tomahawk. It was the beginning of a massacre. The Onondagas rose upon their prisoners, killed seven men, all Christians, before the eyes of the horrified Jesuit, and plundered the rest of all they had. When Ragueneau protested, they told him with insolent mockery that they were acting by direction of the governor and the superior of the Jesuits, The priest himself was secretly warned that he was to be killed during the night; and he was surprised in the morning to find himself alive. * On reaching Onondaga, some of the Christian captives were burned, including several women and their infant children. ** The confederacy was a hornet’s nest, buzzing with preparation, and fast pouring out its wrathful swarms. The indomitable Le Moyne had gone again to the Mohawks, whence he wrote that two hundred of them had taken the war-path against the Algonquins of Canada; and, a little later, that all were gone but women, children, and old men. A great * Lettre de Ragueneau au R. P. Provincial, 9 Août, 1657 (Rel., 1657). ** Ibid., 21 Août, 1658 (Rel., 1658). war-party of twelve hundred Iroquois from all the five cantons was to advance into Canada in the direction of the Ottawa. The settlements on the St. Lawrence were infested with prowling warriors, who killed the Indian allies of the French, and plundered the French themselves, whom they treated with an insufferable insolence; for they felt themselves masters of the situation, and knew that the Onondaga colony was in their power. Near Montreal they killed three Frenchmen. “They approach like foxes,” writes a Jesuit, “attack like lions, and disappear like birds.” Charny, fortunately, had resigned the government in despair, in order to turn priest, and the brave soldier Aillebout had taken his place. He caused twelve of the Iroquois to be seized and held as hostages. This seemed to increase their fury. An embassy came to Quebec and demanded the release of the hostages, but were met with a sharp reproof and a flat refusal.