“Commander La Pérouse set out on December 7, 1785, with his ships, the Compass and the Astrolabe. He dropped anchor first at Botany Bay, visited the Tonga Islands and New Caledonia, headed toward the Santa Cruz Islands, and put in at Nomuka, one of the islands in the Ha’apai group. Then his ships arrived at the unknown reefs of Vanikoro. Traveling in the lead, the Compass ran afoul of breakers on the southerly coast. The Astrolabe went to its rescue and also ran aground. The first ship was destroyed almost immediately. The second, stranded to leeward, held up for some days. The natives gave the castaways a fair enough welcome. The latter took up residence on the island and built a smaller craft with rubble from the two large ones. A few seamen stayed voluntarily in Vanikoro. The others, weak and ailing, set sail with the Count de La Pérouse. They headed to the Solomon Islands, and they perished with all hands on the westerly coast of the chief island in that group, between Cape Deception and Cape Satisfaction!” “And how do you know all this?” I exclaimed. “Here’s what I found at the very site of that final shipwreck!” Captain Nemo showed me a tin box, stamped with the coat of arms of France and all corroded by salt water. He opened it and I saw a bundle of papers, yellowed but still legible. They were the actual military orders given by France’s Minister of the Navy to Commander La Pérouse, with notes along the margin in the handwriting of King Louis XVI! “Ah, what a splendid death for a seaman!” Captain Nemo then said. “A coral grave is a tranquil grave, and may Heaven grant that my companions and I rest in no other!” CHAPTER 20 The Torres Strait DURING THE NIGHT of December 27-28, the Nautilus left the waterways of Vanikoro behind with extraordinary speed. Its heading was southwesterly, and in three days it had cleared the 750 leagues that separated La Pérouse’s islands from the southeastern tip of Papua. On January 1, 1868, bright and early, Conseil joined me on the platform. “Will master,” the gallant lad said to me, “allow me to wish him a happy new year?” “Good heavens, Conseil, it’s just like old times in my office at the Botanical Gardens in Paris! I accept your kind wishes and I thank you for them. Only, I’d like to know what you mean by a ‘happy year’ under the circumstances in which we’re placed. Is it a year that will bring our imprisonment to an end, or a year that will see this strange voyage continue?” “Ye gods,” Conseil replied, “I hardly know what to tell master. We’re certainly seeing some unusual things, and for two months we’ve had no time for boredom. The latest wonder is always the most astonishing, and if this progression keeps up, I can’t imagine what its climax will be. In my opinion, we’ll never again have such an opportunity.” “Never, Conseil.” “Besides, Mr. Nemo really lives up to his Latin name, since he couldn’t be less in the way if he didn’t exist.” “True enough, Conseil.”