The Rat paddled off with his
warriors. He had secretly learned the route of the expected deputies;
and he shaped his course, not, as he had pretended, for
Michillimackinac, but for La Famine, where he knew that they would
land. Having reached his destination, he watched and waited four or
five days, till canoes at length appeared, approaching from the
direction of Onondaga. On this, the Rat and his friends hid themselves
in the bushes.
The new comers were the messengers sent as precursors of the embassy.
At their head was a famous personage named Decanisora, or
Tegannisorens, with whom were three other chiefs, and, it seems, a
number of warriors. They had scarcely landed when the ambushed Hurons
gave them a volley of bullets, killed one of the chiefs, wounded all
the rest, and then, rushing upon them, seized the whole party except a
warrior who escaped with a broken arm. Having secured his prisoners,
the Rat told them that he had acted on the suggestion of Denonville,
who had informed him that an Iroquois war-party was to pass that way.
The astonished captives protested that they were envoys of peace. The
Rat put on a look of amazement, then of horror and fury, and presently
burst into invectives against Denonville for having made him the
instrument of such atrocious perfidy.
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