leaped over decks and swam through
the surf to share her fate.

Isle of Demons, with its wailing tides and surf-beaten reefs, is a
desolate enough spot in modern days when superstitions do not add to its
terrors. The wind pipes down from The Labrador in fairest weather with
weird voices as of wailing ghosts, and in winter the shores of Belle Isle
never cease to echo to the hollow booming of the pounding surf.

Out of driftwood the castaways constructed a hut. Fish were in plenty,
wild fowl offered easy mark, and in springtime the ice floes brought down
the seal herds. There was no lack of food, but rescue seemed forever
impossible; for no fishing craft would approach the demon-haunted isle.
A year passed, two years,--a child was born. The soldier lover died of
heartbreak and despondency. The child wasted away. The old nurse, too,
was buried. Marguerite was left alone to fend for herself and hope
against hope that some of the passing sails would heed her signals. No
wonder at the end of the third year she began to hear shrieking laughter
in the lonely cries of tide and wind, and to imagine that she saw
fiendish arms snatching through the spume of storm drift.

{21} Towards the fall of 1545, one calm day when spray for the once did
not hide the island, some fishermen in the straits noticed the smoke of a
huge bonfire ascending from Isle Demons. Was it a trick of the fiends to
lure men to wreck, or some sailors like themselves signaling distress?

The boat drew fearfully near and nearer. A creature in the strange
attire of skins from wild beasts ran down the rocks, signaling
frantically. It was a woman. Terrified and trembling, the sailors
plucked up courage to land. Then for the first time Marguerite
Roberval's spirit gave way. She could not speak; she seemed almost
bereft of reason. It was only after the fishermen had nourished her back
to semblance of womanhood that they drew from her the story. On
returning to France, Marguerite Roberval entered a convent. It was there
an old court friend of her chateau days sought her out and heard the tale
from her own lips.

[Illustration: THE "DAUPHIN MAP" OF CANADA, _CIRCA_ 1543, SHOWING
CARTIER'S DISCOVERIES]

{22} A colony begun under such ill omen was not likely to prosper.
Roberval had proceeded to Cape Rouge, where he landed in July, and before
winter had a respectable fort constructed. Fifty of his colonists died
of scurvy. As many as six were hange