chapel was taken to be a charm of direful power. The litanies which they chanted together were incantations pregnant with plague and famine. The clock was a malignant demon, and the poor "Captain" had to be stopped. In August, 1637, a great council of the Hurons, including deputations from four nations, was held to deliberate upon the affairs of the confederation. The chief, whose office it was to preside over the feast of the dead, arose, and in a set speech accused the Jesuits of being the cause of the calamities that afflicted them. One accuser followed another, Brébeuf replying to their charges with ingenuity and boldness. The debate continued through the night. Many of the Indians fell asleep, and others went away. One old chief as he passed out said to Brébeuf, "If some young man should split your head open, we should have nothing to say." "What sort of men are these?" cried out another impatiently, as the Jesuit went on with his harangue; "they are always saying the same thing, and repeating the same words a hundred times." Another council was called to pronounce the sentence of death. The priests appeared before it with such unflinching courage that their judges, struck with admiration, deferred the decree. Still it seemed as if their fate could not be long deferred. They wrote a farewell letter to their superior, Father Le Jeune, and committed to the care of an Indian convert the most precious properties of the mission, the sacred furniture of the altar, and the vocabulary which they had compiled of the Huron language. Then they gave a parting feast, after the Indian custom of those who were about to die. The intrepidity manifested by this proceeding was not without its effect. The animosity of the savages became less intense, and though the persecution continued, and the lives of individual members of the little band were more than once attempted, the project of a massacre was for the present abandoned.