noon
The north star had disappeared with its pointers , as well as other familiar stellar bodies belonging to higher latitudes ; but , a new and more brilliant constellation had risen up in the sky within his new range of view , which each evening became more and more distinct . This was the Southern Cross , as it is called , consisting of four stars , three of the first magnitude and the fourth somewhat smaller , arranged in the form of an oblique crucifix , pointing across the firmament `` athwartship-like , '' as the skipper explained one night-watch when the brothers were looking out together . Only once in the year , Captain Brown said , is this cross perfectly perpendicular towards the zenith ; for , as it circles round our planet , it reverses its position , finally turning upside-down . When the _ Pilot 's Bride _ ceased to roll and began to make steady way towards Tristan , with the wind from the northward and eastwards on her beam , she ran along steadily on one tack , with hardly a lurch , covering some two hundred miles a day as regularly as the log was hove and the sun taken at noon . All this time , no sight could now have been more glorious than the heavens presented each night after sunset . The myriads upon myriads of stars that then shone out with startling brilliancy was something amazing ; and the puzzle to Fritz was , how astronomers could name and place all these `` lesser lights '' -- following their movements from day to day and year 's end to year 's end , without an error of calculation , so that they could tell the precise spot in the firmament where to find them at any hour they might wish ! `` And yet , '' said Fritz , musingly , `` these wise men are puzzled sometimes . ''