The White and the Gold (70 page)

L
ACHINE had changed since it had been occupied by the young La Salle. Settlers had moved in and many houses had sprung up along the shore of Lake St. Louis. It had become, indeed, the most populous outpost of Montreal. The people who occupied the small whitewashed houses with their high-peaked roofs were landowners and, in the main, prosperous. A surgeon had taken up his quarters in the little village; the curé paid regular visits. Montreal, which was now growing out of all recognition and claimed a population of two thousand, talked of the day when it would spread out from its narrow confines and envelope Lachine. In the meantime, to provide protection for the south shore of the island, there were three garrisoned stockades in close proximity, La Présentation, Rémy, and Roland.

The night of August 4, 1689, was hot and close. The good people of Lachine, before retiring for the night, studied the black clouds above them and averred there would be trouble before morning. Perhaps they shuddered at the same time, for in their minds there was always something analogous between storm signals and the black cloud of fear which hung over all of New France. The storm broke some hours before dawn. It swept across Lake St. Louis with heavy claps of thunder to announce its coming, and almost in a moment there was a pounding of hailstones on the snug little houses. Householders roused themselves and stumbled about in the dark to see that everything was closed. Some of them were up and about, therefore, when there came to their ears a sound foreign to the sharp cracking of the thunder and infinitely more terrible, the high, maniacal
screech of the Iroquois battle cry. The lane running crookedly between the rows of houses was filled with naked warriors armed to the teeth, their heads close-shaved, their faces smeared with ceremonial paint.

Fifteen hundred warriors had taken advantage of the storm to cross Lake St. Louis and had arrived on the heels of the first downpour of hail, more terrible by far than any catastrophe that nature could have loosed on the unsuspecting countryside. It was said later by some of the survivors that many of the heads of families, knowing that help could not reach them in time, turned their guns first on their wives and children to save them from a much worse fate, and that when the maddened invaders broke into the houses they found that death had been before them in the dark. Those who died in this way and the many who were butchered in the first onslaught were lucky. After a few minutes of indiscriminate slaughter, during which men and women were cut down by knives and tomahawks and the brains of children were dashed out against doorframes and bedposts, the attacking braves gave thought to a still greater pleasure than this orgy of vengeful killing. In all the villages of the Finger Lakes the stakes had been raised and the fagots piled. Prisoners must be provided for the nights of torture which always followed victory. The people of Lachine, devout, kindly, and industrious, must supply this need of victims.

Three miles along the crooked road, on the way to Montreal, was an encampment of two hundred regular soldiers who had been sent out from France to aid in the defense of the colony. By an unfortunate twist of fate the officer in charge had gone to Montreal the evening before to attend a reception for Denonville, who had just arrived there. The officer’s name was Subercase and he was a bold and resourceful soldier, as subsequent events would show. If he had been with his men when the blow fell, he would have hurried to the assistance of the unfortunate people and there might have been a different story to tell.

The camp was aroused at four o’clock by the ominous boom of a cannon from one of the three forts. This could mean one thing only, that Indians were on the warpath. A subordinate officer gave orders for the men to dress and arm for action. Almost immediately there was a second proof of trouble. Through the rain, which still fell with fury, came the drenched and muddy figure of a survivor crying to them hoarsely that all the furies of hell were loose in the woods
and along the shores. The man in charge waved him on to carry the alarm to Montreal.

More fugitives arrived in a very few minutes, furiously pursued by a band of naked warriors. When the Iroquois saw the soldiers they turned immediately and ran back in the direction of Lachine.

The first survivor reached Montreal as fast as his stumbling legs could carry him over the six miles of muddy road. Wild fear swept the town at the news he brought. Subercase lost no time in getting back to his command, but several hours had passed when he reached the camp. The first fury of the storm had abated and light was beginning to show through the drizzle; although the sun, which had risen on so many scenes of horror and bloodshed and might be expected to have become indifferent, seemed reluctant to face the evidence of what this dreadful night had brought about. Subercase was incredulous when he found that his men had waited for his return and had done nothing to aid the victims of the Iroquois attack. Men from the three forts had joined them and many settlers from other sections had armed themselves and were beginning to reach them through the woods, ready to do what they could.

Had it been cowardice which held the troops from rushing into action or a disciplinary sense pounded into them by years of service that nothing should be done without his orders? Drawing his sword, Subercase shouted an angry command to follow him to Lachine.

The most terrible of sights is a community after it has been ravaged by fire and sword. At Lachine the horror had been multiplied by the incredible ferocity of the invaders and the circumstances under which the destruction had been carried out. Unable to wait for a first taste of the delights of torture, the Iroquois warriors had set up stakes and with unwonted haste (it was customary to prolong the victim’s end as long as possible) had done to death some of the prisoners with the usual fiendish ingenuity. When the belated rescue party reached the scene, they found the stakes still standing, all of them tenanted by broken bodies which had once been men and women. None of the most revolting rites had been neglected, even to the slashing from the bodies of strips of flesh to be enjoyed later in cannibalistic rites. An effort had been made to destroy the houses by fire, and some of them still smoldered at the same time
that water dripped from their sagging eaves. To enter any of those which were still standing was to suffer a shock never to be forgotten, for the mothers and their children had been dragged from their pitiably useless hiding places and killed near the hearths, where tidy brooms and clean copper utensils still occupied their usual places.

One of the survivors, the surgeon who had been located in the settlement, emerged from his sanctuary in the woods to meet Subercase and his men. He was soaked with water and blood and his face was white with the horrors he had witnessed and from which he had so miraculously escaped. The war party, he told them, had left Lachine but had gone no more than a mile and a half farther down the shore, where they had stopped in the shelter of a screen of trees. He had another piece of information to give which caused the trained officer to nod his head with new confidence and satisfaction. The Iroquois had delayed the destruction of the houses until each had been searched. A large store of brandy had been uncovered and all of it had been gulped down before the devil’s work had been resumed. The halt behind the cover of trees had been caused by the torpor which had overtaken the Iroquois braves.

Subercase realized that this opening, in which no doubt he saw the hand of Providence, must be seized at once. Such a chance would never come again, certainly. But he had no illusions as to the odds he would face. From all reports he had received, he knew that the enemy were out in larger numbers than ever before and that, when roused, they would fight with sullen fury. He did not hesitate. He decided to take the risk, and to his satisfaction he found that his men were willing to gamble their lives in an effort to rescue the unfortunate prisoners.

At this moment, however, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil arrived from Montreal with orders from the governor. No unnecessary risks were to be taken. The forces still intact must remain on the defensive and retain the power to protect the sections which had not yet suffered from attack.

Unnecessary risks? Subercase and his men had never known of a risk which seemed more necessary than to attack the marauding braves while they lolled in drunken stupor. He stormed at Denonville’s envoy and demanded to be allowed to proceed with his plan. Did Denonville know, he asked, that over one hundred white men and women were in Iroquois hands and would be herded back to the villages of the tribes for death at the stake? The governor could
not have known, he contended, of the fortunate circumstances which made this moment the best for a counterattack. Vaudreuil stood firmly on the ground that the orders he bore were from the highest authority in the colony and must be obeyed.

After a stormy altercation Subercase gave in. With despairing unwillingness he ordered his men to return to the shelter of the forts. The opportunity had been lost.

For two days, while the troops under Subercase fretted in the inactivity imposed upon them and Denonville kept his considerable forces behind the new palisades which had been built around Montreal, the revengeful Iroquois roamed the countryside, capturing new victims and burning all the houses and barns. Depredations were carried out as far distant as twenty miles, an indication of the bravado now animating the invaders.

Finally the terror was lifted from the island. The Iroquois took to their canoes, their terrified captives with them, and paraded contemptuously up and down the river within sight of the three forts. They raised their paddles in the air and shouted in derision, “Onontio! Onontio!” and then screeched loudly that they had paid back the governor for the deception he had practiced on them.

Before turning for the other shore of the St. Lawrence, they paused to give vent to ninety loud shouts, one for each prisoner in their hands. This was the usual practice of returning war parties, as has already been stated. The grim watchers behind the stockade walls counted the exultant shouts and were convinced that the men of the Five Nations had been careless in their estimate. It was believed that no fewer than one hundred and twenty victims were still in enemy hands.

The scene now shifts across the St. Lawrence. For many years the christianized members of the Iroquois tribes had lived in mission settlements across the river from Montreal. Now they were settled finally in a section which had been given the name of Caughnawaga. They had always been so loyal and peaceable that the Jesuit recorders had gleaned much of their most gratifying evidence from among them. It was at Caughnawaga that the brave and honestly sincere Chief Garakontie had lived his last years, dying there
finally in the arms of his great friend, Father de Lamberville. The high cross which had been raised over his grave still stood.

The chief interest in the community, however, rose from the fact that Catherine Tekahkwitha had spent most of her life there. She was like a character from a story of high romance, this daughter of a Mohawk father and an Algonquin mother; a slender girl of such grace and beauty that the English called her the Lily of the Mohawks, and of such a devout nature that in Canada she was known as the Genevieve of New France. She had not been dead long and her memory was green in all minds.

Caughnawaga lies almost directly across Lake St. Louis from Lachine. Just below, behind a projection of land into which the island of St. Bernard fits snugly, is Châteauguay. It was to Châteauguay that the Iroquois went on crossing the river, and so it was close to the home of their christianized kin that they paused for a further demonstration of their triumph and contempt. They had decided not to wait any longer for another taste of the fruits of victory. Pitching their camp so close to the line of the shore that the watchers on Montreal Island could see the blaze of their fires through the trees of the island, they spent a wild night around the torture stakes, killing women and children as well as men, with furious abandon. The watchers knew the meaning of the flickering lights; they were aware that the gentle and blameless people of Lachine were dying in slow torment. It lasted all through the night, and then the fires died down and the watchers knew that the orgies were ending in heavy, brutal sleep.

Whether a rescue could have been carried out at this stage is very doubtful. To attempt a crossing of the river would have been a great hazard in itself and might have resulted in such heavy losses that the Iroquois, whose casualties had been slight, might have come back in triumph to attack Montreal. The one good chance to rescue the prisoners had been lost when Subercase was forced to give up.

Nothing but a miracle would have brought success at this late stage. Close to the shore where the torture fires burned lay the bones of the Genevieve of New France, and many stories had been told of miracles which had come to pass at her grave. People watching from the safety of the other shore prayed that a miracle might happen now to save the cringing victims from further torment. But a far different kind of miracle was needed, a miracle of brave and
audacious leadership; and this the French commander of the moment could not supply.

Denonville’s decision had been made with great reluctance. A man of personal bravery, he was slow in making up his mind and far from inspired in his judgment. It might be said that he had lived his life for this one moment when a splendid and audacious move on his part would have enriched the history of the land with another stirring tale. But there was neither splendor nor audacity in the spiritual and mental equipment of the slow Denonville. He decided against any action which might be counted of ill-considered boldness, and so the men of New France were condemned to watch the torture fires of the Iroquois from the safety of the north shore.

It is said that the events of these few terrible days preyed on his mind and saddened the last years of his life. On his return to France he was given a post at court as governor of the children of the King’s legitimate sons. The nature of his employment was not intended as a reflection on his record in Canada, nor does it seem to have been accepted in that light.