With up-spread arms the Italian raved across the open space, this far-reaching calamity widening like an eternally expanding circle around him. His rage at the assassins of La Salle—among whom he had himself placed a man whom he thought fit to be trusted—and his sorrow broke bounds in such sobs as men utter.
“Oh, that I might brain them with this hand! Oh, wretched people on these plains! What hope remains to us? What will become of all these families, whose resource he was, whose sole consolation! It is despair for us! Thou wert one of the greatest men of this age,—so useful to France by thy great discoveries, so strong in thy virtues, so respected, so cherished by people even the most barbarous. That such a man should be massacred by wretches, and the earth did not engulf them or the lightning strike them dead!”[24]
Tonty’s blood boiled in his face.
“Why do you all stand here like rocks instead of getting out the boats? Get out the boats! They stripped my master; they left his naked body to wolves and crows on Trinity River. Get ready the canoes. I will hunt those assassins, down to the last man, through every forest on this continent!”
“You did not finish this relation,”[25] shouted Du Lhut at his ear. “Can you get revenge on dead men? The men who actually put their hands in the blood of La Salle are all dead. Those who killed not each other the Indians killed.”
Tonty turned with a furious push at Du Lhut which sent him staggering backward.
“Is Jolycœur dead? I will run down this forgiving priest of a brother of Monsieur de la Salle’s, and the assassin he harbored here under his protection he shall give up to justice!”
“Thou mad-blooded loyal-hearted Italian!” exclaimed Du Lhut, dragging him out of the throng and holding him against a tree, “dost thou think nobody can feel this wrong except thee? I would go with thee anywhere if it could be revenged. But hearken to me, Henri de Tonty; if you go after the Abbé it will appear that you wish to strip him of the goods he bore away.”