on which
they called him back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again
and a shot from his arquebus put the wretch out of misery.

The scene filled him with horror; but, a few months later, on the
Place de la Greve at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally
revolting and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide
Ravaillac[48] by the sentence of grave and learned judges.

[Footnote 48: Ravaillac, a religious fanatic, was the assassin of
Henry IV of France. After climbing on to the rear of the King's
carriage in one of the streets of Paris, he stabbed the King twice,
the second wound proving fatal. Ravaillac met his death by being torn
asunder by horses.]

II

THE DEATH OF LA SALLE[49]

(1687)

Night came; the woods grew dark; the evening meal was finished, and
the evening pipes were smoked. The order of the guard was arranged;
and, doubtless by design, the first hour of the night was assigned to
Moranget, the second to Saget, and the third to Nika. Gun in hand,
each stood watch in turn over the silent but not sleeping forms around
him, till, his time expiring, he called the man who was to relieve
him, wrapt himself in his blanket, and was soon buried in a slumber
that was to be his last. Now the assassins rose. Duhaut and Hiens
stood with their guns cocked, ready to shoot down any one of the
destined victims who should resist or fly. The surgeon, with an ax,
stole toward the three sleepers, and struck a rapid blow at each in
turn. Saget and Nika died with little movement; but Moranget started
spasmodically into a sitting posture, gasping and unable to speak; and
the murderers compelled De Marle, who was not in their plot, to
compromise himself by dispatching him.

[Footnote 49: From Chapter XXVII of "La Salle and the Discovery of the
Great West." La Salle was assassinated by some of his own men, near a
branch of the Trinity river in Texas. He had sailed from France in
1684 for the purpose of founding a colony at the mouth of the
Mississippi, and had landed at Matagorda Bay, mistaking it for an
outlet of the Mississippi. He was about to sail for Canada in order to
get supplies for his colony, when he met the fate here described.
Copyright, 1860, 1879, 1897, by Francis Parkman, published by Little,
Brown & Company.]

The floodgates of murder were open, and the torrent must have its way.
Vengeance and safety alike demanded the death of La Salle. Hiens, or
"English Jem," alone seems