on followed; then the old Norman nurse
found her unhallowed rest in that accursed soil, and Marguerite was
left alone. Neither her reason nor her courage failed. When the demons
assailed her, she shot at them with her gun, but they answered with
hellish merriment, and thenceforth she placed her trust in Heaven alone.
There were foes around her of the upper, no less than of the nether
world. Of these, the bears were the most redoubtable; yet, being
vulnerable to mortal weapons, she killed three of them, all, says the
story, "as white as an egg."

It was two years and five months from her landing on the island, when,
far out at sea, the crew of a small fishing-craft saw a column of smoke
curling upward from the haunted shore. Was it a device of the fiends to
lure them to their ruin? They thought so, and kept aloof. But misgiving
seized them. They warily drew near, and descried a female figure in wild
attire waving signals from the strand. Thus at length was Marguerite
rescued and restored to her native France, where, a few years later, the
cosmographer Thevet met her at Natron in Perigord, and heard the tale of
wonder from her own lips.

Having left his offending niece to the devils and bears of the Isles of
Demons, Roberval held his course up the St. Lawrence, and dropped anchor
before the heights of Cap Rouge. His company landed; there were bivouacs
along the strand, a hubbub of pick and spade, axe, saw, and hammer; and
soon in the wilderness uprose a goodly structure, half barrack, half
castle, with two towers, two spacious halls, a kitchen, chambers,
storerooms, workshops, cellars, garrets, a well, an oven, and two
watermills. Roberval named it France-Roy, and it stood on that bold
acclivity where Cartier had before intrenched himself, the St. Lawrence
in front, and on the right the River of Cap Rouge. Here all the colony
housed under the same roof, like one of the experimental communities
of recent days,--officers, soldiers, nobles, artisans, laborers, and
convicts, with the women and children in whom lay the future hope of New
France.

Experience and forecast had both been wanting. There were storehouses,
but no stores; mills, but no grist; an ample oven, and a dearth of
bread. It was only when two of the ships had sailed for France that
they took account of their provision and discovered its lamentable
shortcoming. Winter and famine followed. They bought fish from the
Indians, and dug roots and boiled them in wh