built as best they could a hut of boughs and strewed beds of leaves, until
they had killed wild beasts enough to prepare their skins. Their store of
hard bread lasted them but a little while, but there were fruits around
them, and there was fresh water near by. "Yet it was terrible," says
Thevet's old narrative, "to hear the frightful sounds which the evil
spirits made around them, and how they tried to break down their abode,
and showed themselves in various forms of frightful animals; yet at last,
conquered by the constancy and perseverance of these repentant Christians,
the tormentors afflicted or disquieted them no more, save that often in
the night they heard cries so loud that it seemed as if more than five
thousand men were assembled together" (_plus de cent mil homes qui
fussent ensemble_).

So passed many months of desolation, and alas! the husband was the first
to yield. Daily he climbed the rocks to look for vessels; each night he
descended sadder and sadder; he waked while the others slept. Feeling that
it was he who had brought distress upon the rest, he concealed his
depression, but it soon was past concealing; he only redoubled his care
and watching as his wife grew the stronger of the two; and he faded slowly
away and died. His wife had nothing to sustain her spirits except the
approach of maternity--she would live for her child. When the child was
born and baptized in the name of the Holy Church, though without the
Church's full ceremonies, Marguerite felt the strength of motherhood;
became a better huntress, a better provider. A new sorrow came; in the
sixteenth or seventeenth month of her stay, the old nurse died also, and
not long after the baby followed. Marguerite now seemed to herself
deserted, even by Heaven itself; she was alone in that northern island
without comradeship; her husband, child, and nurse gone; dependent for
very food on the rapidly diminishing supply of ammunition. Her head swam;
for months she saw visions almost constantly, which only strenuous prayer