"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 that!