Fort Richelieu Attacked.              101
would only have been provoked by his words, as he well knew, he drew unto him the little children, and taught them how to make the sign of the cross. An old man caught him making the sign on the forehead of his grandchild, and even teaching the child to bless himself. The sight aroused all his hatred and superstition. He called one of his nephews and said, " Go kill that dog of a Frenchman. The Hollanders tell us that the sign he has made on my grandchild is not good. I fear lest some evil will befall him." Unfortunately, the order was too much to the taste of the young brave; he breathed only vengeance since he learned that one of his relations had been killed in the attack on Fort Richelieu. He had only to find his victim outside the palisade, and unprotected.    An opportunity was soon found.
Full of gloomy forebodings Father Jogues endeavored to maintain his disciple as well as himself in perfect resignation to the will of God. When not at prayer, this was the ordinary subject of their conversation. One evening the missionary and his disciple were walking in the woods near the town, when they saw the old man's nephew and another young brave approaching, and were ordered to enter their cabin at once. " I had a presentiment," writes Father Jogues : " of what was going to happen, and I said to Goupil, 'My dear brother, let us recommend ourselves to our Lord and our good Mother the Blessed Virgin : these men have some evil purpose, I fear, . . . We had shortly before offered ourselves to our Lord with much earnestness, entreating Him to accept our lives and our blood, and to unite them to His life and blood for the salvation of these poor people !"
The two captives turned their steps towards the village, all the way saying their rosary. They had recited four decades, when, as they neared the gate, the two Iroquois following, one of them raised a tomahawk which he had concealed under h's robe, and dealt a violent blow