In the morning he sent a man on the fore-topgallant-yard looking for his rocks, and as he gave notice that any one who sighted them first should have five pounds, the entire watch, which should have been below snoring, sat like crows up aloft and strained their eyes all round the horizon. At ten Banks was jovial and got his voice back. At noon he was anxious. By four o'clock he shortened sail again. "We've overrun 'em," he said sadly. "If they're still about, we're to the west of 'em. Mr. Green, during the night we'll stand under easy sail to the eastward. I'm set on seeing those rocks again, if I lose a week." And the night fell darkly. No matter whose watch it was, mate's or second mate's, the white-whiskered skipper was on deck every ten minutes, peering into the black darkness with his glasses. The old chap's nerves were on edge; his imagination flamed; he saw reefs and pinnacles of islands every moment, and heard the boom of breakers. When Green relieved his subordinate at midnight, the second mate whispered to him: "The old man's as nervous as a cat. To hear him jaw you'd think the bottom of the sea was rising up. Mind you ain't high and dry on a new continent by daylight." "We'll whack it out fair among the lot of us," said Green. "Jeewhillikins, what's that?" He spoke suddenly, in an altered voice, and Milton jumped. "What?" "I thought I saw a flare to the southward." "Lordy, you've got them too," said Milton. "Let's go ashore, and have a walk on the Apollo Bunda." "Stow it," cried Green, and holding on to the mizzen-topgallant backstay, he jumped upon the rail. "Look, look!" he cried, and Milton, looking, saw a faint glow to the southward--or fancied he saw it. "Call the old man," said Green, and in two and three-fifths seconds by any man's chronometer, Banks was on deck, and saw nothing. "But did ye see it, man?" he yelled; "and if so, what's it mean?" "Some one struck a match in Colombo," said the second mate irreverently. For he had sailed with Banks for years, and at times took liberties. "I only trust to Providence that it isn't that wicked man's ship in any trouble," said the skipper viciously. "Mr. Green, we'll stand to the south'ard for a while." "Lay aft the watch," sang out Milton, and they braced her up to within two points of the wind. Both watches stayed on deck in the little excitement, and in the course of the next hour they reported all kinds of non-existent things. "Rocks on the starboard bow" were varied by "A vessel on the port bow," and a planet low down in a break of cloud was "A steamer's head-light, sir." "Collision with Venus," cried Milton. But just in the 'twixt and 'tween of earliest dawn, when the grey ghost of day walked in the east, a man up aloft sang out with startling energy: "Two dark rocks right ahead, sir."