s which filled the hollows. Not a tree was to be seen; but they
built huts of the fragments of the wreck. For food they caught fish
in the surrounding sea, and hunted the cattle which ran wild about the
island, sprung, perhaps, from those left here eighty years before by
the Baron de Lery. They killed seals, trapped black foxes, and clothed
themselves in their skins. Their native instincts clung to them in their
exile. As if not content with inevitable miseries, they quarrelled
and murdered one another. Season after season dragged on. Five years
elapsed, and, of the forty, only twelve were left alive. Sand, sea,
and sky,--there was little else around them; though, to break the
dead monotony, the walrus would sometimes rear his half-human face and
glistening sides on the reefs and sand-bars. At length, on the far verge
of the watery desert, they descried a sail. She stood on towards the
island; a boat's crew landed on the beach, and the exiles were once more
among their countrymen.

When La Roche returned to France, the fate of his followers sat heavy on
his mind. But the day of his prosperity was gone. A host of enemies rose
against him and his privileges, and it is said that the Due de Mercaeur
seized him and threw him into prison. In time, however, he gained a
hearing of the King; and the Norman pilot, Chefdhotel, was despatched to
bring the outcasts home.

He reached Sable Island in September, 1603, and brought back to France
eleven survivors, whose names are still preserved. When they arrived,
Henry the Fourth summoned them into his presence. They stood before him,
says an old writer, like river-gods of yore; for from head to foot they
were clothed in shaggy skins, and beards of prodigious length hung from
their swarthy faces. They had accumulated, on their island, a quantity
of valuable furs. Of these Chefdhotel had robbed them; but the pilot
was forced to disgorge his prey, and, with the aid of a bounty from the
King, they were enabled to embark on their own account in the Canadian
trade. To their leader, fortune was less kind. Broken by disaster and
imprisonment, La Roche died miserably.

In the mean time, on the ruin of his enterprise, a new one had been
begun. Pontgrave, a merchant of St. Malo, leagued himself with Chauvin,
a captain of the navy, who had influence at court. A patent was granted
to them, with the condition that they should colonize the country. But
their only thought was to enrich themselves.