"No," answered Florence.

"Good enough, ma'am. Now let's take up the longitude. West from Greenwich?"

"Yes."

"Between one seventy-four and seventy-eight?"

"No."

"Between one seventy-eight and eighty?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Florence.

"Getting warm, eh?" Pontifex spoke eagerly, a tinge of red in his pale cheeks. "Ah! It's among that clump of islands south-east of Tanaga. Now, Mr. Hathaway, kindly follow my pencil from island to island with your eyes, this way——"

The skipper slowly passed the point of a pencil from one barren rock island to another. A swift cry from Florence checked him; holding his pencil, he gazed steadily at Miles Hathaway.

"Is this it?" he demanded, a sudden ring of steel in his tone. "This one—the most southerly of the rocks to the eastward of Kavalga?"