y liked the Nightingale
less, and pitied any one singled out for her attack.

"Good day to madame the former Madame Klussman," said the dwarf.
Marguerite gathered herself in defense to arise and leave her stool. But
Le Rossignol gathered her mandolin in equal readiness to give pursuit.
And not one woman in the barracks would have invited her quarry.

"I was in Penobscot last week," announced Le Rossignol, and heads popped
out of all the doors to lift eyebrows and open mouths at each other. The
swan-riding witch! She confessed to that impossible journey!

"I was in Penobscot last week," repeated Le Rossignol, holding up her
mandolin and tinkling an accompaniment to her words, "and there I saw
the house of D'Aulnay de Charnisay, and a very good house it is; but my
lord should burn it. It is indeed of rough logs, and the windows are so
high that one must have wings to look through them; but quite good
enough for a woman of your rank, seeing that D'Aulnay hath a palace for
his wife in Port Royal."

"I know naught about the house," spoke Marguerite, a yellow sheen of
anger appearing in her eyes.

"Do you know naught about the Island of Demons, then?"

The Swiss girl muttered a negative and looked sidewise at her
antagonist.

"I will tell you that story," said Le Rossignol.

She played a weird prelude. Marguerite sat still to be baited, like a
hare which has no covert. The instrument being heavy for the dwarf, she
propped it by resting one foot on the abutting foundation of the
powder-house, and all through her recital made the mandolin's effects
act upon her listener.

"The Sieur de Roberval sailed to this New World, having with him among a
shipload of righteous people one Marguerite." She slammed her emphasis
on the mandolin.

"There have ever been too many such women, and so the Sieur de Roberval
found, though this one was his niece. Like all her kind, madame, she had
a lover to her scandal. The Sieur de Roberval whipped her, and prayed
over her, and shut her up in irons in the hold; yet live a godly life
she would not. So what could he do but set her ashore on the Island of
Demons?"

"I do not want to hear it," was Marguerite's muttered protest.

But Le Rossignol advanced closer to her face.

"And what does the lover do but jump overboard and swim after her? And
well was he repaid." Bang! went the mandolin. "So they went up the rocky
island together, and there they built a hut. What a horrible land was
th