About the beginning of the century a Glasgow ship, the Marlborough, left New Zealand for England was last reported near the Straits of Magellan where she vanished. Almost a quarter of a century later, in 1925, the captain of a ship sailing off Tierra del Fuego at the very tip of South America, stared hard at the green sea. It appeared to him that a solid green filigree of great size released itself from the calm surface, rose rapidly upright, and came slowly toward him, Through his binoculars the startled skipper saw the shape of a three-masted ship. What was left of the sails was a brilliant green. The shrouds, the rigging, the decks, the superstructure, were all of the same bright green.

Q. Two expressions suggest that the captain did not believe what he saw. Underline one of these expressions.