at!

"All day long fiends twisted themselves in mist. The waves made a sadder
moaning there than anywhere else on earth. Monsters crept out of the sea
and grinned with dull eyes and clammy lips. No fruit, no flower,
scarcely a blade of grass dared thrust itself toward the sky on that
scaly island. Daylight was half dusk there forever. But the nights, the
nights, madame, were full of howls, of contending beasts--the nights
were storms of demons let loose to beat on that island!

"All the two people had to eat were the stores set ashore by the Sieur
de Roberval. Now a child was born in their hut, and the very next night
a bear knocked at the door and demanded the child. Marguerite full
freely gave it to him."

The girl shrunk back, and Le Rossignol was delighted until she herself
noticed that Klussman had come in from some duty outside the gates. His
eye detected her employment, and he sauntered not far off with his
shoulder turned to the powder-house.

"Next night, madame," continued Le Rossignol, and her tone and the
accent of the mandolin made an insult of that unsuitable title, "a
horned lion and two dragons knocked at the door and asked for the lover,
and Marguerite full freely gave him to them. Kind soul, she would do
anything to save herself!"

"Go away!" burst out the girl.

"And from that time until a ship took her off, the demons of Demon
Island tried in vain to get Marguerite. They howled around her house
every night, and gaped down her chimney, and whispered through the
cracks and sat on the roof. But thou knowest, madame, that a woman of
her kind, so soft and silent and downward-looking, is more than a match
for any demon; sure to live full easily and to die a fat saint."

"Have done with this," said Klussman behind the dwarf, who turned her
grotesque beak and explained,--

"I am but telling the story of the Island of Demons to Madame Klussman."

As soon as she had spoken the name the Swiss caught her in his hand,
mandolin and all, and walked across the esplanade, holding her at arm's
length, as he might have carried an eel. Le Rossignol ineffectually
squirmed and kicked, raging at the spectacle she made for laughing women
and soldiers. She tried to beat the Swiss with her mandolin, but he
twisted her in another direction, a cat's weight of fury. Giving her no
chance to turn upon him, he opened the entrance and shut her inside the
hall, and stalked back to make his explanation to his wife. Klussman