La Salle and his companions hastened on, and during the following day passed four opposing camps of the savage armies. The silence of death now reigned along the deserted river, whose lonely borders, wrapped deep in forests, seemed lifeless as the grave. As they drew near the mouth of the stream, they saw a meadow on their right, and, on its farthest verge, several human figures, erect yet motionless. They landed, and cautiously examined the place. The long grass was trampled down, and all around were strewn the relics of the hideous orgies which formed the ordinary sequel of an Iroquois victory. The figures they had seen were the half-consumed bodies of women, still bound to the stakes where they had been tortured. Other sights there were, too revolting for record. [Footnote: "On ne scauroit exprimer la rage de ces furieux ni les tourmens qu'ils avoient fait souffrir aux miserables Tamaroa (_a tribe of the Illinois_). Il y en avoit encore dans des chaudieres qu'ils avoient laissees pleines sur les feux, qui depuis s'etoient eteints," etc., etc.--_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] All the remains were those of women and children. The men, it seemed, had fled, and left them to their fate. Here, again, La Salle sought long and anxiously, without finding the smallest sign that could indicate the presence of Frenchmen. Once more descending the river, they soon reached its mouth. Before them, a broad eddying current rolled swiftly on its way; and La Salle beheld the Mississippi, the object of his day-dreams, the destined avenue of his ambition and his hopes. It was no time for reflections. The moment was too engrossing, too heavily charged with anxieties and cares. From a rock on the shore, he saw a tree stretched forward above the stream; and stripping off its bark to make it more conspicuous, he hung upon it a board, on which he had drawn the figures of himself and his men, seated in their canoe, and bearing a pipe of peace. To this he tied a letter for Tonty, informing him that he had returned up the river to the ruined village. His four men had behaved admirably throughout, and they now offered to continue the journey, if he saw fit, and follow him to the sea; but he thought it useless to go farther, and was unwilling to abandon the three men whom he had ordered to await his return. Accordingly they retraced their course, and, paddling at times both day and night, urged their canoe so swiftly, that they reached the village in the incredibly short space of four days. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles. The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says that they left the village on the second of December, and returned to it on the eleventh, having left the mouth of the river on the seventh. Very probably, there is an error of date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of Tonty.]