the
elements were unchained, the rain and hail were raging. As daring as
the Normans when they braved on frail vessels the fury of the seas, the
Iroquois, to the number of fifteen hundred, profited by the storm to
traverse Lake St. Louis in their bark canoes, and landed silently on the
shore at Lachine. They took care not to approach the forts; the darkness
was so thick that the soldiers discovered nothing unusual and did not
fire the cannon as was the custom on the approach of the enemy. Long
before daybreak the savages, divided into a number of squads, had
surrounded the houses within a radius of several miles. Suddenly a
piercing signal is given by the chiefs, and at once a horrible clamour
rends the air; the terrifying war-cry of the Iroquois has roused the
sleepers and raised the hair on the heads of the bravest. The colonists
leap from their couches, but they have no time to seize their weapons;
demons who seem to be vomited forth by hell have already broken in the
doors and windows. The dwellings which the Iroquois cannot penetrate are
delivered over to the flames, but the unhappy ones who issue from them
in confusion to escape the tortures of the fire are about to be
abandoned to still more horrible torments. The pen refuses to describe
the horrors of this night, and the imagination of Dante can hardly in
his "Inferno" give us an idea of it. The butchers killed the cattle,
burned the houses, impaled women, compelled fathers to cast their
children into the flames, spitted other little ones still alive and
compelled their mothers to roast them. Everything was burned and
pillaged except the forts, which were not attacked; two hundred persons
of all ages and of both sexes perished under torture, and about fifty,
carried away to the villages, were bound to the stake and burned by a
slow fire. Nevertheless the great majority of the inhabitants were able
to escape, thanks to the strong liquors kept in some of the houses, with
which the savages made ample acquaintance. Some of the colonists took
refuge in the forts, others were pursued into the woods.

Meanwhile the alarm had spread in Ville-Marie. M. de Denonville, who was
there, gives to the Chevalier de Vaudreuil the order to occupy Fort
Roland with his troops and a hundred volunteers. De Vaudreuil hastens
thither, accompanied by de Subercase and other officers; they are all
eager to measure their strength with the enemy, but the order of
Denonville is strict, they