Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/192

 anchor, a cannon, some pig-lead, and two brass swivel-guns.

Dumont d’Urville, by interrogating the natives, also discovered that La Perouse, after having lost his ships, had constructed a smaller vessel, in which he was again lost—where they did not know.

The commander then caused a cenotaph to be erected to the memory of the bold navigator and his companions. It was a simple quadrangular pyramid erected on a basis of coral, and in which was no ornamentation likely to excite the cupidity of the natives.

D’Urville then wished to return home, but fever and malaria had attacked his crews, and even he himself was very ill. He was not able to get away before the 17th March.

Meantime, the French Government, fearing that Dumont d’Urville had not followed Dillon’s route correctly, sent the corvette Bayonnaise, commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, which was stationed on the west cost of America. The Bayonnaise arrived at Vanikoro some months after the departure of the Astrolabe, and did not find anything further, but took note that the mausoleum had been respected by the natives.

That is the substance of the narrative I told Captain Nemo.

“So,” said he, “nobody knows yet what became of the third ship, constructed by the shipwrecked sailors on the island of Vanikoro.”

“No one.”

Captain Nemo made no reply, but signed to me to follow him into the saloon. The Nautilus was then at