, "return with the savages, and toward the evening,
or in the night, steal away softly and move toward the river; you will
find there a little boat which I will have kept all ready to carry you
secretly to the ship."

After very humbly returning thanks to all those gentlemen, I withdrew
from the Dutch, in order better to conceal my design. Toward evening, I
retired with ten or twelve Iroquois into a barn, where we passed the
night. Before lying down, I went out of that place, to see in what
quarter I might most easily escape. The dogs of the Dutch, being then
untied, run up to me; one of them, large and powerful, flings himself
upon my leg, which is bare, and seriously injures it. I return
immediately to the barn; the Iroquois close it securely and, the better
to guard me, come to lie down beside me, especially a certain man who
had been charged to watch me. Seeing myself beset with those evil
creatures, and the barn well closed, and surrounded with dogs, which
would betray me if I essayed to go out, I almost believed that I could
not escape. I complained quietly to my God, because, having given me
the idea of escaping, Concluserat vias meas lapidibus quadris, et in
loco spatioso pedes meos. He was stopping up the ways and paths of it.
I spent also that second night without sleeping; the day approaching, I
heard the cocks crow. Soon afterward, a servant of the Dutch farmer
who had lodged us in his barn, having entered it by some door or other,
I accosted him softly, and made signs to him (for I did not understand
his Flemish), that he should prevent the dogs from yelping. He goes
out at once, and I after him, having previously taken all my
belongings, which consisted of a little Office of the Virgin, of a
little Gerson, and a wooden Cross that I had made for myself, in order
to preserve the memory of the sufferings of my Savior. Being outside
of the barn, without having made any noise or awakened my guards, I
cross over a fence which confined the enclosure about the house; I run
straight to the river where the ship was--this is all the service that
my leg, much wounded, could render me; for there was surely a good
quarter of a league of road to make. I found the boat as they had told
me, but, the water having subsided, it was aground. I push it, in
order to set it afloat; not being able to effect this, on account of
its weight, I call to the ship, that they bring the skiff to ferry me,
but no news. I know no