La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

;368 THE VOYAGE. [1684.board, and La Salle was of the number. He sent amessenger to Saint-Laurent, Be*gon, and Cussy,begging them to come to him ;ordered Joutel to getthe sick ashore, suffocating as they were in the hotand crowded ship; and caused the soldiers to belanded on a small island in the harbor.Scarcely hadthe voyagers sung Te Deum for their safe arrival,when two of the lagging vessels appeared, bringingtilings that the third, the ketch "St. Francois," hadbeen taken by Spanish buccaneers. She was ladenwith provisions, tools, and other necessaries for thecolony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu wasanswerable for it; for had he anchored at Port dePaix, it would not have occurred. The lieutenantgeneral,with Be*gon and Cussy, who presentlyarrived, plainly spoke their minds to him. 1La Salle's illness increased. "I was walking withhim one day," writes Joutel, "when he was seized ofa sudden with such a weakness that he could notstand, and was obliged to lie down on the ground.When he was a little better, I led him to a chamberof a house that the brothers Duhaut had hired.Here we put him to bed, and in themorning he wasattacked by a violent fever." 2 "It was so violentthat," says another of his shipmates, "his imaginationpictured to him things equally terrible andamazing." 3 He lay delirious in the wretched garret,11 MSmoire de MM. de Saint-Laurens . et Begon (Margry, ii. 499)Joutel, Journal Historique, 28.a Relation de Henri Joutel (Margry, iii. 98).• Lettre (tans nom d'auteur), 14 Nov., 1684 (Margry, ii. 496).