The sails were trimmed again and the little vessel put on a faster pace, lightly rocked by a sea that distressed no one on board.
As the breeze was plainly settled, M. Zermatt suggested that they should go up again towards the north-east, so as to go round the mass of rocks on which the Landlord had been broken.
"We can do it easily," said Mr. Wolston, "and for my own part I should very much like to see the reef onto which the storm threw you, so far off the course from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia."
"A wreck that cost many lives," said Mme. Zermatt, whose face clouded at the memory. "My husband, my children, and myself were all who escaped death."
"So it has never been known whether any of the crew was picked up at sea or found refuge on any neighbouring land?" Mr. Wolston enquired.
"Never," M. Zermatt answered, "according to what Lieutenant Littlestone declared; and for a long time the Landlord was supposed to have been lost with all hands."
"As for that," Ernest observed, "it must be pointed out that the crew of the Dorcas, on which Jenny took her passage, had better luck than ours had, since the boatswain and two sailors were taken to Sydney."
"That is true," M. Zermatt replied. "But can we be positive that no survivors from the Landlord succeeded in finding a refuge on some one of these shores in the Indian Ocean, and even that after all these years they are not there still, as we are in New Switzerland?"
"There is nothing impossible in that," Ernest declared, "for our island is only seven or eight hundred miles from Australia. As the west coast of Australia is seldom visited by European ships the shipwrecked people might have had no opportunity of being rescued from the natives."
"The conclusion to be drawn from it all," said Mr. Wolston, "is that these seas are dangerous and that storms are frequent here. In only a few years there have been the loss of the Landlord and the loss of the Dorcas."