And he trusted that Providence might one day yield him a chance of getting even. His prayers were fervent towards that end, and if Providence works, as it sometimes appears to do, through rum and ignorance and a good conceit in a man, there was a chance of his appeals being attended to. On the passage out to the Cape they saw nothing of the _Palembang_. But there she was heard of as having being seen somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Agulhas Bank, having a real good time in that native home of the god of the winds, where fifty per cent. of all the breezes that do blow are gales that dance in and out and about like a cooper round a cask. But the _Simoom_ had luck, and slipped through as if Æolus never spotted her. And old Banks chortled happily, and sang an extra hymn on Sunday, compensating the men (otherwise disposed to growl at the innovation) with an extra lot of grog. For your true sailorman is the real conservative, and things that don't happen in the first week of a new ship have no business to happen afterwards--which is a hint some young second mates may find handy to remember. And remembering this will enable you to see why no true old shellback will ship in a steamboat, any more than the guard of a coach would let himself to any beastly new railroad. The south-west monsoon had backed down to the Line about the time they crossed it; and the _Simoom_ sweated up to the Maldivhs very comfortably. "We've made a good passage--a ripping good passage," said old Banks, rubbing his hands, "and I'm condemned if I don't shape a course for my rocks, Mr. Green." As he had been shaping for them ever since he had deliberately gone out of his way to take the route east of Madagascar, instead of the Inner or Mozambique route, Green winked the other eye and said nothing. To tell the truth, he himself had a hankering to set his mind at rest on the subject, for he felt his credit involved with the skipper's. The man at the wheel overheard what Banks said, and when he stumped for'ard the whole crew knew that the _Simoom_ was looking for a needle in the Indian Ocean. "A life's job, my bullies," said their informant. "We'll be like the crew of the _Flying Dutchman_ yet." "I'm wondering whether Spiller came up this way, now," said old Banks presently, with an interrogative cock of his head. "And not by the channel?" asked Green. Banks turned about.