Then with the seaman's instinct his eyes wandered to the darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad golden points of light.

Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then, his attention became sharply fixed.

He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood beside him.
"D'ye know anything of astronomy, Peter ?" quoth he.
"Astronomy, is it?
Faith, now, I couldn't tell the Belt of Orion from the Girdle of Venus." "Ah! And I suppose all the others of this lubberly crew share your ignorance." "It would be more amiable of you to suppose that they exceed it." Jeremy pointed ahead to a spot of light in the heavens over the starboard bow.

"That is the North Star," said he.
"Is it now?
Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest." "And the North Star ahead almost over your starboard bow means that we're steering a course, north, northwest, or maybe north by west, for I doubt if we are standing more than ten degrees westward." "And why shouldn't we ?" wondered Captain Blood.
"You told me--didn't you ?--that we came west of the archipelago between Tobago and Grenada, steering for Curacao.

If that were our present course, we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder." On the instant Mr.Blood shed his laziness.