about
nine o'clock in the morning
Imagining that it proceeded from the tail of a shark , or of some other of the ravenous monsters of the deep , which abound among these islands , and that the next moment his body would be severed in half , he uttered a faint cry at the accumulated horror of his death ; but the next moment his legs were swung round by the current , and he perceived , to his astonishment , that he was aground upon one of the sand-banks which abounded on the reef , and over which the tide was running with the velocity of a sluice . He floundered , then rose , and found himself in about one foot of water . The ebb-tide was nearly finished ; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above water , except during the full and change of the moon . It was now about nine o'clock in the morning , and the sun shone with great power . Newton , faint from want of sustenance , hardly knew whether to consider this temporary respite as an advantage . He knew that the tide would soon flow again , and he felt that his strength was too much spent to enable him to swim back to the islet which he had missed when he had attempted to reach it , and which was more than two miles from the bank upon which he then stood . What chance had he , then , but to be swept away by the return of the tide ?