five o'clock
`` But it is just the getting through that passage that I have been feeling unhappy about . We draw eight feet of water aft , and my chart says that there are only nine feet in the passage . '' Villacampa admitted that the depth of water shown on the chart was about right , and confessed that the situation , now that one came to look at it , was somewhat awkward ; still , he was of opinion that if they could but arrive off the mouth of the pass before dark everything would be all right . At five o'clock the stewards brought up the tables and proceeded to serve tea ; and Villacampa , who somehow found himself seated between Senorita Isolda and Capitan Milsom , told himself that he had missed his vocation , and that he ought to have been skipper of an English steam - yacht -- with a lovely and fascinating Spanish Senorita as a passenger -- instead of second lieutenant of a dirty Spanish cruiser . They were running along the coast and steering a course of west by south half-south , which gave them a gradually increasing offing , and was a nice , safe course to steer , for it would take them well clear of all dangers ; the result being that when at length they arrived off the Cayo Blanco passage , the yacht was quite ten miles off the land , and about five miles distant from the edge of the reef . If Villacampa had noticed how wide an offing was being maintained , he would probably have suggested the desirability of hauling in a point or two ; but he did not , for he was being made much of by the ladies , while Jack had artfully placed him with his back toward the land . Milsom , meanwhile , had been watching the coast as a cat watches a mousehole , and the moment that he saw certain marks come `` on '' he raised his cap and proceeded to mop his perspiring forehead with a large bandana handkerchief ; whereupon Perkins , who had been for some time keeping an unostentatious eye upon the party on the top of the deck-house , turned and sauntered aft to the engine-room door , sneezing violently as he walked past it .