pecked with mica, and false diamonds, whence the height above
Quebec is called Cape Diamond. It is enough. The crews spend the year
loading the ships with cargo of worthless stones, and set sail in May,
high of hope for wealth great as Spaniard carried from Peru. June 8 the
ships slip in to St. John's, Newfoundland, for water. Seventeen fishing
vessels rock to the tide inside the landlocked lagoon, and who comes
gliding up the Narrows of the harbor neck but Viceroy Roberval, mad with
envy when he hears of the diamond cargoes! He breaks the head of a
Portuguese or two among the fishing fleet and forthwith orders Cartier
back to Quebec.

Cartier shifts anchor from too close range of Roberval's guns and says
nothing. At dead of night he slips anchor altogether and steals away on
the tide, with only one little noiseless sail up on each ship through the
dark Narrows. Once outside, he spreads his wings to the wind and is off
for France. The diamonds prove worthless, but Cartier receives a title
and retires to a seigneurial mansion at St. Malo.

The episode did not improve Roberval's temper. The new Viceroy was a
soldier and a martinet, and his authority had been defied. With his two
hundred colonists, taken from the prisons of France, commanded by young
French officers,--a Lament and a La Salle among others,--he proceeded up
the coast of Newfoundland to enter the St. Lawrence by Belle Isle. {20}
Among his people were women, and Roberval himself was accompanied by a
niece, Marguerite, who had the reputation of being a bold horsewoman and
prime favorite with the grandees who frequented her uncle's castle.
Perhaps Roberval had brought her to New France to break up her attachment
for a soldier. Or the Viceroy may have been entirely ignorant of the
romance, but, anchored off Belle Isle,--Isle of Demons,--the angry
governor made an astounding discovery. The girl had a lover on board, a
common soldier, and the two openly defied his interdict. Coming after
Cartier's defection, the incident was oil to fire with Roberval. Sailors
were ordered to lower the rowboat. One would fain believe that the
tyrannical Viceroy offered the high-spirited girl at least the choice of
giving up her lover. She was thrust into the rowboat with a faithful old
Norman nurse. Four guns and a small supply of provisions were tossed to
the boat. The sailors were then commanded to row ashore and abandon her
on Isle of Demons. The soldier lover