midnight
I felt that there was scarcely anything I might not dare and do ; and my pulses throbbed and the blood coursed in a quicker tide through my veins as I told myself that I was now indeed fairly on the highway toward the achievement of that twofold object to which I had dedicated my life . Shortly after taking our departure from Morant Point , as already recorded , the wind headed us , and the schooner `` broke off '' until she was heading about north-east , close-hauled . Notwithstanding this , and the fact that we had run into a very nasty choppy sea , the log showed that the _ Dolphin _ was going through the water at the rate of eleven knots . We stood on in the same direction until midnight , when , having brought the high rocky islet of Navaza far enough on our weather quarter to go to windward of it on the other tack , we hove about , standing to the southward and eastward for the remainder of the night . Daylight next morning found us with Point a Gravois broad on our weather bow and distant about twenty miles . This was most gratifying , as it showed us that we had beaten clear across the Windward Channel against a fresh head-wind in about fourteen hours -- a passage almost if not quite unexampled in point of celerity . It was my intention to work close along the whole of the southern coast of Saint Domingo on our eastward passage ; and this we did , looking in first behind the island of a-Vache , where we were lucky enough to descry a French privateer brigantine snugly anchored under the shelter of a small battery .