As I continued to stare abstractedly out through the port it struck me that the various objects within sight were growing more clearly visible, and presently I felt convinced that the dawn was approaching.  And at the same moment I became aware that a broad dark shadow that lay some fifty yards from the ship's starboard side, and which had been puzzling me greatly, was a sandbank of very considerable extent, so considerable, indeed, that, for the moment, I could not make out where it terminated. Meanwhile the hubbub on deck gradually ceased, and I surmised that the canvas had been taken in.