setting a timeout on ocilogon

Hi, I have a script that connects to a database which is in another country and connected to our network thru a VPN. The script tries to connect using ocilogon() and checks if a connection is established. If not, it presents the visitor with a nice errorpage. However, ocilogon takes a very long time before it returns control to the script (ie aborts the connection) if it fails. I would like ocilogon to quit trying after eg 10 seconds. How can I do that? Rgds, Jos