The April breezes wafted them across the Atlantic without mishap. They intended to take the southern passage, but a savage spring gale blew them far out of their course, and they steered away for the Straits of Belle Isle. The sailors saw, as they skirted the Newfoundland coast, a distant rocky island on the horizon. As Charles gazed upon it he noticed smoke curling upwards.
"What strange places," he said, turning to Girouard, "these naked savages select to abide in! I have wandered much in the wilds of Canada, but never came on a place that seemed too desolate for them."
"No savages make those fires," said an old sailor who was standing by. "Yonder is the smoke of hell. That is the Isle of Demons."
La Pommeraye laughed at the absurd superstition, and kept his eye fixed on the distant point of land with the column of smoke, which seemed to grow larger with each moment. But darkness soon fell upon the ocean, and the dim outline of the island at last faded from his view.
Had he but known! That smoke was a signal from the weary watchers on the island, who, on one of the unhappiest and saddest days of their desolate lives, saw in that distant sail hopes of release from their cruel prison. Eagerly they heaped up a huge fire to attract the passing craft, little thinking that it was in search of them that she was speeding on her white-winged way.
In a few days _L'Emerillon_ had passed from the Bay of St Lawrence into the river of Hochelaga. A favouring wind bore her on past the deep, black mouth of the Saguenay, and soon the Isle of Bacchus was spread before the sailors' weary eyes, green, beautiful, and fresh, with the high Falls of Montmorenci leaping wildly down on the opposite shore. On to Charlesbourg Royal they sailed; and a horrible dread seized La Pommeraye as he approached the place. A dead silence reigned on the steep banks of the broad river. A substantial structure now stood where Cartier had had his rude fort, and its two towers loomed up before the eyes of the Frenchmen. Other buildings could be seen here and there, but no living soul appeared in sight; and in the anchorage, where he had looked for the ships of the colonists, not even a canoe could be seen. Could they have grown tired of the life here, and started further up the stream--to Hochelaga, perhaps? But no time was to be lost. When the silent shore was within a stone's throw the anchor was run out, and the vessel rested from her long journey. A boat was lowered, and La Pommeraye went on shore and explored the castle-like structure that crowned the heights, the empty halls and chambers, the gaping shelves and bins in the storehouses, the deep and vacant cellars, the great ovens, and the two silent watermills, all told him of the hopes which had filled the heart of De Roberval. Everything had been carefully removed from the place, and there were evident traces of Indians; but as there were no marks of a struggle, and no dead to be seen, Charles concluded that they had merely visited the place to pick up whatever the whites had chanced to leave behind.