dead.

The friar at his side stood in an ecstasy of fright, unable to advance or
to fly; when Duhaut, rising from his ambuscade, called out to him to take
courage, for he had nothing to fear. The murderers now came forward, and
with wild looks gathered about their victim. "There thou liest, great
Bashaw! There thou liest!" [Footnote: "Te voila grand Bacha, te voila!"--
Joutel, 203.] exclaimed the surgeon Liotot, in base exultation over the
unconscious corpse. With mockery and insult, they stripped it naked,
dragged it into the bushes, and left it there, a prey to the buzzards and
the wolves.

Thus, in the vigor of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, died Robert
Cavelier de la Salle, "one of the greatest men," writes Tonty, "of this
age;" without question one of the most remarkable explorers whose names
live in history. His faithful officer Joutel thus sketches his portrait:
"His firmness, his courage, his great knowledge of the arts and sciences,
which made him equal to every undertaking, and his untiring energy, which
enabled him to surmount every obstacle, would have won at last a glorious
success for his grand enterprise, had not all his fine qualities been
counterbalanced by a haughtiness of manner which often made him
insupportable, and by a harshness towards those under his command, which
drew upon him an implacable hatred, and was at last the cause of his
death." [Footnote: _Journal Historique_, 202.]

The enthusiasm of the disinterested and chivalrous Champlain was not the
enthusiasm of La Salle; nor had he any part in the self-devoted zeal of
the early Jesuit explorers. He belonged not to the age of the knight-
errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical study and
practical action. He was the hero, not of a principle nor of a faith, but