Adventures of Radisson Read Online Free PDF

way…” Radisson refused to see the truth, but there was no denying their grimacing faces, covered in still warm blood, no denying their still soft flesh.
    A violent shiver ran through his body. Radisson could feel death closing in on him, cruel and ruthless. Instinctively, he fired into the air to alert the people of Trois-Rivières, so they could come to his aid. But it was a forlorn hope from so far away. And now he had only one shot left. He pointed his other musket aimlessly in front of him, ready to defend himself at all costs. And then, just like that, he saw ten Iroquois with brightly painted faces half hiding in the bushes! He took aim and was about to fire when terrible screams from behind him made his blood run cold. He turned around and saw twenty Iroquois warriors racing toward him. He fired blindly at the powerful bodies as they overpowered him. Their cries and their weapons beat down upon him. Radisson tried to put up a fight but it was impossible. The Iroquois pinned him to the ground and a violent blow to the head knocked him unconscious.

CHAPTER 2

    BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH
    T HE INTENSE PAIN awakened Radisson. It was as if his head was trying to split in two. He couldn’t move: his arms and legs were tightly bound. “If it hurts,” he thought, “that means I’m still alive. Thank God!” He’d been spread-eagled, naked, on the ground, ankles and wrists bound to stakes driven into the earth. The horror of his friends’ mutilated bodies flashed through his mind. Suddenly overcome by intense anxiety, his breath came in gasps. A cloud of mosquitoes swarmed around him, drinking his blood in short, painful gulps. He blew at them to chase them away, but his head hurt twice as much. He resolved not to move again, waiting with resignation for his fate to be decided.
    An Iroquois noticed the prisoner was awake and stepped toward him. Radisson looked on in terror as the Iroquois leaned over him. Broad black and white strokes painted across his face gave him a threatening look. His bare head, dirty and glistening, was divided into two by a short, narrow strip of hair that made him look ferocious, impenetrable. The man remained impassive for a long while, then smiled at Radisson. Was the Iroquois smiling because he was about to finish him off, Radisson wondered, or should he take some hope from the smile? The Iroquois vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. Radisson, once again alone with his anguish, tried to understand why he wasn’t executed on the spot, like his friends. He remembered what Jean Véron told him one day about the appalling ways the Iroquois tortured their prisoners: scorching burns to the skin, torn-out nerves, scalding-hot sand over the head… He was surprised to find himself envying his massacred friends and implored God to spare him such terrible punishments.
    Not far away, just out of his sight, Radisson could hear the Iroquois singing, talking, and feasting in the light of the setting sun. The reflected light of a huge, crackling fire, giving off clouds of smoke danced around him. Radisson was probably unconscious for an hour or two. He must still have been close to Trois-Rivières, but it didn’t seem as though the Iroquois feared retaliation from the French or the Algonquins. Guided by the fire and the chanting, anyone could easily find and attack them, but the Iroquois didn’t appear to be in the least concerned. They were in control. There was more pain to come, Radisson feared. His strength abandoned him. His unforgivable mistake had sealed his fate. Suffering and death awaited him.
    At the very depths of despair, he saw three well-built men approach. After cutting his bonds they lifted him up off the ground, grabbed hold of him, tied a rope around his neck, and pushed him right up to the edge of the fire. Fifty or so Iroquois greeted him with cries of delight, jostling and hitting him. To his great surprise, the Iroquois man he