Indeed, the eldest of the children, an Indian
girl, escaped from the ships and rejoined her people,
and it was only with difficulty that Cartier succeeded
in getting her back again. Meanwhile a visiting chief,
from the country farther inland, gave the French captain
to understand that Donnacona and his braves were waiting
only an opportunity to overwhelm the ships' company.
Cartier kept on his guard. He strengthened the fort with
a great moat that ran all round the stockade. The only
entry was now by a lifting bridge; and pointed stakes
were driven in beside the upright palisade. Fifty men,
divided into watches, were kept on guard all night, and,
at every change of the watch, the Indians, across the
river in their lodges of the Stadacona settlement, could
hear the loud sounds of the trumpets break the clear
silence of the winter night.
We have no record of the life of Cartier and his followers
during the winter of their isolation among the snows and
the savages of Quebec. It must, indeed, have been a season
of dread. The northern cold was soon upon them in all
its rigour. The ships were frozen in at their moorings
from the middle of November till April 15. The ice lay
two fathoms thick in the river, and the driving snows
and great drifts blotted out under the frozen mantle of
winter all sight of land and water.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96