who
carried him off to one of their towns and intended to burn him alive.
Having bound him at a stake, they proceeded to tear out some of his
finger nails and shoot arrows at the less vital parts of his body. But
a Mohawk woman was looking on and was filled with pity at the
sufferings of this handsome boy. She announced her intention of
adopting him as a member of her family, and by sheer force of will she
compelled the men to release him. After staying for some time amongst
the Mohawks he escaped, but was again captured just as he was nearing
Three Rivers. Once more he was spared from torture at the intercession
of his adopted relations. He then made an even bolder bid for freedom,
and fled to the south, up the valley of the Richelieu and the Hudson,
and thus reached the most advanced inland post of Dutch America--then
called Orange, now Albany--on the Hudson River. From this point he was
conveyed to Holland, and from Holland he returned to Canada.

Soon after his return he joined two Jesuit fathers who were to visit a
mission station of the Jesuits amongst the Onondagas (Iroquois) on a
lakelet about thirty miles south-east of the present city of
Rochester. The Iroquois (whose language Radisson had learnt to speak)
received them with apparent friendliness, and there they passed the
winter. But in the spring Radisson found out that the Onondaga
Iroquois were intending to massacre the whole of the mission.
Instructed by him, the Jesuits pretended to have no suspicions of the
coming attack, but all the while they were secretly building canoes at
their fort. As soon as they were ready for flight, and the sun of
April had completely melted the ice in the River Oswego, the French
missionaries invited the Onondagas to a great feast, no doubt making
out that it was part of the Easter festivities sanctioned by the
Church. They pointed out to their guests that from religious motives
as well as those of politeness it was essential that the _whole_ of
the food provided should be eaten, "nothing was to be left on the
plate". They set before their savage guests an enormous banquet of
maize puddings, roast pigs, roast ducks, game birds, and fish of many
kinds, even terrapins, or freshwater turtles. The Iroquois ate and ate
until even _their_ appetites were satisfied. Then they began to cry
off; but the missionaries politely insisted, and even told them that
in failing to eat they were neglecting their religious duties. To help
them