As they neared the wooden gateway it was suddenly flung open, and out marched a procession of masquers, headed by Neptune in full costume of shell-fringed robe, diadem, trident, and garlands of kelp and sea-moss, attended by tritons grotesquely attired, and fauns, reinforced by a growing audience of Indians, squaws and papooses.  This merry company greeted the wanderers with music, song and some excellent French verse written by Lescarbot for the occasion.  Refreshed with laughter and the relief of finding all so well conducted, Champlain, Poutrincourt and their men went in to have something to eat and drink.  Then they spent the rest of the day hearing and telling the story of the last three months.

It is written down, adorned with drawings, in the journals of Champlain, and it was all told over as the men sat around their blazing fires and talked, all together, while a light November snow flurried in the air outside.

“So you see we lost our rudder in a storm off Mount Desert—­” “And the autumn gales drove us back before we had fairly passed Port Fortune—­” “It came near being Port Malheur for us, and it was for Pierre and Jacques le Malouin, poor fellows.  They and three others stayed ashore for the night and hundreds of Indians attacked them,—­oh, but hundreds.  Well, we heard the uproar—­naturally it waked us in a hurry—­and up we jumped and snatched any weapon that was handy, and piled into the boat in our shirts.  Two of the shore party were killed and we saw the other three running for their boat for dear life, all stuck over with arrows like hedgehogs, my faith!  So then we landed and charged the Indians, who must have thought we were ghosts, for they left off whooping and ran for the woods.  Our provisions were so far spent that we thought it best to return after that, and in any case—­it would be as bad, would it not, to die of Indians as to die of scurvy?”

“But tell me, my dear fellow,” said Champlain when the happy hubbub had a little subsided, “how have your gardens prospered?  Truly I need not ask, in view of the abundance of the dinner you gave us.”

Lescarbot smiled.  “I think that the saints must have whispered to the little plants,” he said whimsically, “or else they knew that they must grow their best for the honor of France.  But perhaps it is not strange.  I had the seeds and roots from the garden of Helene.”

“And who is Helene?” asked Champlain with interest.  Lescarbot explained.

“It was really wonderful,” he said in conclusion, “to see how careful she was to remember every herb and plant which might be useful, and to ask Jacqueline for some especial recipes for cordials and tisanes for the sick.  And by the way, Jacqueline told me that the sea-captains regard potatoes as especially good to prevent or cure scurvy.”

In any case the potato was popular among the exiled Frenchmen.  They ate it boiled, they ate it parboiled, sliced and fried in deep kettles of fat, they ate it in stews, and they ate it—­and liked it best of all—­roasted in the ashes.  Jacqueline had said that the water in which the root was boiled must always be thrown away, which showed that there was something uncanny about it, but whether it was due to the potatoes or the general variety of the bill of fare, there was not a case of scurvy in the camp all winter.