they might be converted to Christianity, and one of them had shown
confidence enough in the strangers to trust them with his two
children, who were easily reconciled to their captivity by the gift of
red caps and colored shirts.

In the next year Cartier again went forth with three ships. After
confessing and taking the sacrament in the church of St. Malo, the
adventurers set sail on Whit Sunday. Among them was the cup-bearer to
the Dauphin, Claudius de Pont-Briand. As before, the strangers were
well received by the Indians, and landed safely at Quebec. There
Cartier left his sailors with instructions to make a fortified camp,
while he himself, with the greater part of his men-at-arms and his two
Indian captives of the year before, should explore the upper banks of
the St. Lawrence, and penetrate, if possible, to the great Indian city
of Hochelaga.[2] The Indians, tho outwardly friendly, seem either to
have distrusted the French, or else grudged their neighbors at
Hochelaga such valuable allies, and would have dissuaded Cartier from
his expedition. When their remonstrances proved useless, the savages
tried to work on the fears of the visitors. Three canoes came floating
down the river, each containing a fiendish figure with horns and
blackened face. The supposed demons delivered themselves of a
threatening harangue, and then paddled to the shore, and whether to
complete the performance, or through honest terror, fell fainting in
their boats. The Indians then explained to Cartier that their god had
sent a warning to the presumptuous strangers, bidding them refrain
from the intended voyage. Cartier replied that the Indian god could
have no power over those who believed in Christ. The Indians
acquiesced, and even affected to rejoice in the approaching
discomfiture of their deity. Cartier and his followers started on the
voyage.