t Dumont d'Urville had
come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate crew.

However, on the 26th, appeased by some presents, and understanding that
they had no reprisals to fear, they led M. Jacquireot to the scene of
the wreck.

There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou
and Vanou, lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, embedded in the
limy concretions. The large boat and the whaler belonging to the
Astrolabe were sent to this place, and, not without some difficulty,
their crews hauled up an anchor weighing 1,800 lbs., a brass gun, some
pigs of iron, and two copper swivel-guns.

Dumont d'Urville, questioning the natives, learned too that La Perouse,
after losing both his vessels on the reefs of this island, had
constructed a smaller boat, only to be lost a second time. Where, no
one knew.

But the French Government, fearing that Dumont d'Urville was not
acquainted with Dillon's movements, had sent the sloop Bayonnaise,
commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, to Vanikoro, which had been
stationed on the west coast of America. The Bayonnaise cast her anchor
before Vanikoro some months after the departure of the Astrolabe, but
found no new document; but stated that the savages had respected the
monument to La Perouse. That is the substance of what I told Captain
Nemo.

"So," he said, "no one knows now where the third vessel perished that
was constructed by the castaways on the island of Vanikoro?"

"No one knows."

Captain Nemo said nothing, but signed to me to follow him into the
large saloon. The Nautilus sank several yards below the waves, and the
panels were opened.

I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered
with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of
charming fish--girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and
holocentres--I recognised certain debris that the drags had not been
able to tear up--iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan
fittings, the stem of a ship, all objects clearly proving the wreck of
some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers. While I was looking
on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice:

"Commander La Perouse set out 7th December, 1785, with his vessels La
Boussole and the Astrolabe. He first cast anchor at Botany Bay,
visited the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia, then directed his course
towards Santa Cruz, and put into Namouka, one of the Hapai group. Then
his ves