nine o'clock
They had lost their way in the night ; the fleet was gone , the dead blue slopes of water rolled up to the horizon on every side and were met by the dead blue sky , without the break of a single sail or the flicker of a flying bird . For fifteen days they beat about without any apparent aim other than to escape the enemies whom they hourly expected to leap out from behind the sky-line . On the sixteenth day friendly signs were made to them from shore . `` A fire made a great Smoak , and People beckoned to us to putt on Shoar , '' but Kirle and Dickenson , seized with fresh fright , put about and made off as for their lives , until nine o'clock that night , when , seeing two signal-lights , doubtless from some of their own convoy , they cried out , `` The French ! the French ! '' and tacked back again as fast as might be . The next day , Kirle being disabled by a jibbing boom , Dickenson brought his own terrors into command , and for two or three days whisked the unfortunate barkentine up and down the coast , afraid of both sea and shore , until finally , one night , he run her aground on a sand-bar on the Florida reefs .