The tolling conveyed several meanings. First that the day had begun—a fact that most Londoners could only have determined with careful use of ephemeris and chronometer, as it was still dark. Second, that London was still there. The buildings, despite appearances, had not drifted away from one another in the night-time, like ships of a fog-bound fleet. Though invisible, they were still where they had been the evening previous, and a cockney with a good ear might even find his way round town by them, triangulating from the distinct voices of St. Mary-le-Bow, St. Thomas Apostle, St. Mildred, and Bennet Fink as mariners plotted courses by the lights of Ras Alhague, Caput Medusae, and Cynosura.