How do I set a timeout for twiddle commands ?

Issue

I use twiddle inside a script of mine that checks the status of both the ajp connector and the deployments. If the node I am testing is blocked, twiddle hangs. In case like this, my script gets stuck.
In order to avoid this, I need to know how I can set a timeout in twiddle so if the node I try to connect to does not respond rapidly, twiddle exits instead of hanging for a response from JBoss.