about six o'clock
Therefore I held on upon the starboard tack until midnight , and thereafter tacked every four hours , knowing that by following this plan we should be certain to pick it up sooner or later . And so we did , catching our first glimpse of it shortly after nine o'clock the next morning , when it hove into view above the horizon broad on our port bow , rising a little higher as we brought it abeam , and then gradually sinking again as it swung aft to our port quarter . As soon as it sank out of sight we hove the catamaran about , when it quickly reappeared , rising steadily above the horizon , and this time showing much higher and more clearly before it began to sink again . Finally , about six o'clock , just before sunset , we slid into North Bay once more and beached the catamaran , much to the relief of our companions , who were beginning to grow somewhat anxious as to how our queer-shaped craft would stand the continuous strain of beating to windward for many hours at a stretch against the strong wind and heavy sea . Now that the pursuit was over and had failed , and we were all together again , we began to realise , as we discussed the incident , just what the flight of those two natives meant to us . It meant several things : and each one of them spelt d-a-n-g-e-r to us in big black letters ; danger of the most imminent and deadly kind ; danger which was liable now to swoop down upon us at any moment , and , if it caught us unprepared , simply to wipe us out of existence . In a word , it meant that if those two fugitives had succeeded in reaching their own island -- as we had only too much reason to believe was the case -- we were liable at any moment to an invasion in force from their fellow islanders ; and if we could not repel that invasion , or , better still , effect our own escape before it happened , we could hope for nothing short of annihilation .