of their labor, we cannot doubt that it was also a sweet consolation. The day of persecution, however, was only dawning. The sufferings of the past few years were as nothing in comparison with the torments that were to follow. In the summer of 1642, the mission had been reduced to great destitution, and Father Jogues was sent to Quebec to obtain clothing, writing materials, wine for the altar, and other necessary stores. He returned with the annual fleet of Huron canoes, having with him two young French laymen, René Goupil and Guillaume Couture, who had attached themselves without pay to the mission, and a few Indian converts. They were passing the Lake of St. Peter, in the St. Lawrence river, when they were suddenly attacked by a war-party of Mohawks. The greater part of the Hurons leaped ashore and took to the woods. The French and their converts made fight for a while, but were soon overpowered. Father Jogues sprang into a clump of bulrushes and might have escaped, but, seeing Goupil in the hands of the savages, he came forward, resolved to share his fate. Couture, too, got away, but came back to join his companions. In his excitement he shot dead one of a band of Mohawks who sprang upon him. The others rushed upon him, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed at his fingers like wild beasts, and thrust a sword through one of his hands. {202} The Jesuit threw his arms about his friend's neck, but the Indians dragged him away, beat him till he was senseless, and when he revived lacerated his fingers as they had done those of Couture. Goupil was then treated in the same manner. They set off with their prisoners for the Mohawk towns, rowing across Lake Champlain and Lake George. Thirteen days of horrible suffering were passed on the journey. At last they reached a palisaded village, built upon a hill on the banks of the Mohawk river. At the entrance the prisoners were forced to run the gauntlet. Then they were placed on a high platform, disfigured, livid, and streaming with blood, and the crowd proceeded to "caress" them. A Christian Algonquin woman, a prisoner among them, was compelled to cut off the priest's left thumb with a clam-shell. Goupil was mutilated in the same manner. The torture lasted all day. At night the captives were stretched on their backs with limbs extended, and their wrists and ankles fastened to stakes. The children now amused themselves by placing live coals on their naked bodies. For three days more they were exposed on the scaffold; then they were led to two other Mohawk towns in turn, and at each the tortures were repeated. Once some Huron prisoners were placed on the same platform with them, and Father Jogues found an opportunity to convert them in the midst of the torture, and to baptize them with a few rain-drops from an ear of corn that had been thrown to him for food. Couture, having won the respect of the savages by his intrepid bearing, was adopted into