boring slate ledges. Thus closed the third
Canadian voyage of this notable explorer. His discoveries had gained
for him a patent of nobility, and he owned the seigniorial mansion of
Limoilou, a rude structure of stone still standing. Here, and in the
neighboring town of St. Malo, where also he had a house, he seems to
have lived for many years.

Roberval once more set sail, steering northward to the Straits of Belle
Isle and the dreaded Isles of Demons. And here an incident befell which
the all-believing Thevet records in manifest good faith, and which,
stripped of the adornments of superstition and a love of the marvellous,
has without doubt a nucleus of truth. I give the tale as I find it.

The Viceroy's company was of a mixed complexion. There were nobles,
officers, soldiers, sailors, adventurers, with women too, and children.
Of the women, some were of birth and station, and among them a damsel
called Marguerite, a niece of Roberval himself. In the ship was a
young gentleman who had embarked for love of her. His love was too well
requited; and the stern Viceroy, scandalized and enraged at a passion
which scorned concealment and set shame at defiance, cast anchor by the
haunted island, landed his indiscreet relative, gave her four arquebuses
for defence, and, with an old Norman nurse named Bastienne, who had
pandered to the lovers, left her to her fate. Her gallant threw himself
into the surf, and by desperate effort gained the shore, with two more
guns and a supply of ammunition.

The ship weighed anchor, receded, vanished, and they were left alone.
Yet not so, for the demon lords of the island beset them day and night,
raging around their hut with a confused and hungry clamoring, striving
to force the frail barrier. The lovers had repented of their sin, though
not abandoned it, and Heaven was on their side. The saints vouchsafed
their aid, and the offended Virgin, relenting, held before them her
protecting shield. In the form of beasts or other shapes abominably and
unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore
at the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was ever
interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass.
Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize, two souls in one,
mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain. She stood
undaunted amid these horrors; but her lover, dismayed and heartbroken,
sickened and died. Her child so