About midnight
This was a most serious matter , since it would throw us much farther to the westward , and necessitate our going a much greater distance , probably nearly double , before we could possibly reach land ; and I began , for the first time , to fear that we might possibly miss Saint Domingo altogether . And I knew that if we did that we might give ourselves up for lost , as I could not entertain much hope of our being able to hold out until we should reach the Windward Channel , and even if we did , we might still fail to fall in with a ship to pick us up , in which case we should have to go on to Jamaica , which we could scarcely reach , under the most favourable circumstances , in less than a fortnight . These disquieting thoughts , however , I deemed it prudent to confine to my own breast . About midnight my worst apprehensions as to the course of the raft were confirmed by the discovery of breakers ahead , which I knew , from the position of the `` Juanita '' on the previous night , could indicate nothing else than that we were running down upon the Square Handkerchief Shoal , of which I had hoped to pass clear to the southward . We gave the raft as much starboard helm as she would take , and after a long and most anxious time succeeded in just scraping clear of the breakers , which we found were occasioned by an extensive group of rocks just awash . The sight of these rocks enabled me to identify our position , as I recognised in them the rocks which occupy the north-east corner of the shoal . We were therefore passing as nearly as possible directly across the middle of the shoal , instead of going to the southward of it , as I had hoped .