midnight
The fugitives once safe off the land , all our interest centred in the CHANCE . We watched her until she drew in so closely to the seething cauldron of breakers that it was only occasionally we could distinguish her outline ; and the weather was becoming so thick and dirty , the light so bad , that we were reluctantly compelled to lose sight of her , although the skipper believed that he saw her in the midst of the turmoil of broken water at the western end of the mighty mass of perpendicular cliff before described . Happily for us , the wind veered to the westward , releasing us from the prospect of another enforced visit to the wild regions south of the island . It blew harder than ever ; but being now a fair wind up the Straits , we fled before it , anchoring again in Port William before midnight . Here we were compelled to remain for a week ; for after the gale blew itself out , the wind still hung in the same quarter , refusing to allow us to get back again to our cruising station . But on the second day of our enforced detention a ship poked her jibboom round the west end of the little bay . No words could describe our condition of spellbound astonishment when she rounded-to , cumbrously as befitting a ship towing a whale , and revealed to us the well-remembered outlines of the old CHANCE .