The cause of the disappearance of the other sentinels was now apparent. The Indians, sheltered in this disguise, secreted themselves in the coppice, watched for the moment to throw off the hog skin, burst upon the sentinels without previous alarm, and, too quick to give them an opportunity to discharge their pieces, either stabbed or tomahawked them. They then bore their bodies away and concealed them at some distance in the leaves, which were thick on the ground.
II. THE MOHAWK'S LAST ARROW.
When the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., ruled France, he appointed one of his favorite courtiers, the Chevalier de Frontenac, Governor-General of New France, or Konnedieya. {FN} Some years after Count de Frontenac became viceregent, the war-like Five Nations (afterward six), "The Romans of America," proved themselves soldiers of the highest order. This they did not only by carrying their arms among the native tribes a thousand miles away, and striking their enemies alike upon the lakes of Maine, the mountains of Carolina and the prairies of Missouri; but they had already bearded one European army beneath the walls of Quebec, and shut up another for weeks within the defenses of Montreal, with the same courage that, half a century later, vanquished the battalions of Dieskau, upon the banks of Lake George.
{FN} Since corrupted into Canada, "Beautiful Water," probably so called from the amber-like color of many of its streams.
To punish the savages for their "insolence," and bring them under subjection, the commander-in-chief, the veteran Governor Frontenac, organized an expedition to invade the country of the Five Nations, and marshaled his forces at La Chine on July 4, 1696. The aged chevalier was said to have other objects in view besides the political motives for the expedition.
It seems that many years previous, when the Five Nations had invested the capital of New France and threatened the extermination of that thriving colony, a beautiful half-blood girl, whose education had been commenced under the immediate auspices of the Governor-General, and in whom, indeed, M. de Frontenac was said to have a parental interest, was carried off, with other prisoners, by the retiring foe. Every effort had been made in vain during the occasional cessations of hostilities between the French and the Iroquois, to recover this girl; and though, in the years that intervened, some wandering Jesuit from time to time averred that he had seen the Christian captive living as the contented wife of a young Mohawk warrior, yet the old nobleman seems never to have despaired of reclaiming his "nut-brown daughter." Indeed the chevalier must have been impelled by some such hope when, at the age of seventy, and so feeble that he was half the time carried in a litter, he ventured to encounter the perils of an American wilderness and place himself at the head of the heterogeneous bands which now invaded the country of the Five Nations, under his command.
Among the half-breed spies, border scouts and mongrel adventurers that followed in the train of the invading army was a renegade Fleming of the name of Hanyost. This man in early youth had been made a sergeant-major, when he deserted to the French ranks in Flanders. He had subsequently taken up a military grant in Canada, sold it after emigrating, and then, making his way down to the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, had become a sojourner among their old allies, the Mohawks, and adopted the life of a hunter. Hanyost, hearing that his old friends, the French, were making such a formidable descent, did not hesitate to desert his more recent acquaintances and offer his services as a guide to Count Frontenac the moment he entered the hostile country. It was not, however, mere cupidity or the habitual love of treachery which actuated the base Fleming in this instance. Hanyost, in a difficulty with an Indian trapper, which had been referred for arbitrament to a young Mohawk chief, Kiodago (a settler of disputes), whose cool courage and firmness fully entitled him to so distinguished a name, conceived himself aggrieved by the award which had been given against him. The scorn with which the arbitrator met his charge of unfairness stung him to the soul, and fearing the arm of the powerful savage, he had nursed the revenge in secret, whose accomplishment seemed now at hand. Kiodago, ignorant of the hostile force which had entered his country, was off with his band at a fishing station, or summer camp, among the wild hills, and when Hanyost informed the commander of the French forces that by surprising this party his long-lost daughter, the wife of Kiodago, might be once more given to his arms, a small but efficient force was instantly detached from the main body of the army to strike the blow. A dozen musketeers, with twenty-five pikemen, led severally by the Baron de Bekancourt and the Chevalier de Grais, the former having the chief command of the expedition, were sent upon this duty, with Hanyost to guide them to the village of Kiodago. Many hours were consumed upon the march, as the soldiers were not yet habituated to the wilderness; but just before dawn on the second day the party found themselves in the neighborhood of the Indian village.
The place was wrapped in repose, and the two cavaliers trusted that the surprise would be so complete that their commander's daughter must certainly be taken. The baron, after a careful examination of the hilly passes, determined to head the onslaught, while his companion in arms, with Hanyost to mark out his prey, should pounce upon the chieftain's wife. This being arranged, their followers were warned not to injure the female captives while cutting their defenders to pieces, and then, a moment being allowed for each man to take a last look at the condition of his arms, they were led to the attack.
The inhabitants of the fated village, secure in their isolated situation, aloof from the war-parties of that wild district, had neglected all precaution against surprise, and were buried in sleep when the whizzing of a grenade, that terrible but superseded engine of destruction, roused them from their slumbers. The missile, to which a direction had been given that carried it in a direct line through the main row of wigwams which formed the little street, went crashing among their frail frames of basket-work, and kindled the dry mats stretched over them into instant flames. And then, as the startled warriors leaped, all naked and unarmed, from their blazing lodges, the French pikemen, waiting only for a volley from the musketeers, followed it up with a charge still more fatal. The wretched savages were slaughtered like sheep in the shambles. Some, overwhelmed with dismay, sank unresisting upon the ground, and covering up their heads, after the Indian fashion when resigned to death, awaited the fatal stroke without a murmur; others, seized with a less benumbing panic, sought safety in flight, and rushed upon the pikes that lined the forest paths around them.