of a fire.  In ten minutes more, the whole were in the caverns of the ice, and, presently, the cabin of the wreck was entered.  Without turning to the right hand or to the left, without looking for one of the inmates of the place, every man among the new-comers turned his attention instantly to getting the fire lighted.  The camboose had been filled with wood, and it was evident that many efforts had been made to produce a blaze, by those who had put it there.  Splinters of pine had been inserted among the oak of the vessel, and nothing was wanting but the means of kindling.  These, most fortunately for themselves, the party of Roswell had, and eagerly did they now have recourse to their use.

There was not a man among the Oyster Ponders who did not, just at that moment, feel his whole being concentrated in that one desire to obtain warmth.  The cold had slowly, but surely, insinuated itself among their garments, and slight chills were now felt even by Roswell, whose frame had been most wonderfully sustained that night, through the force of moral feeling.  Stimson was the individual who was put forward at the camboose, others holding the lamps, canvass saturated with oil, and some prepared paper.  It was found to be perceptibly warmer within the cabin, with its doors closed, and the external coverings of sails, &c., that had been made to exclude the air, than without; nevertheless, when Roswell glanced at a thermometer that was hanging against the bulk-head, he saw that all the mercury was still in the ball!

The interest with which our party now watched the proceedings of Stephen, had much of that intensity that is known to attend any exhibition of vital importance.  Life and death were, however, to be dependent on the issue; and the manner in which every eye was turned on the wood, and Stephen’s mode of dealing with it, denoted how completely the dread of freezing had got possession of the minds of even these robust and generous men.  Roswell alone ventured, for a single moment, to look around the cabin.  Three of the Vineyarders only were visible in it; though it struck him that others lay in the berths, under piles of clothes.  Of the three who were up, one was so near the lamp he held in his hand, that its light illumined his face, and all that could be seen of a form enveloped in skins.  This man sat leaning against a transom.  His eyes were open, and glared on the party around the camboose; the lips were slightly parted, and, at first, Roswell expected to hear him speak.  The immovable features, rigid muscles, and wild expression of the eyeballs, however, soon told him the melancholy truth.  The man was dead.  The current of life had actually frozen at his heart.  Shuddering, as much with horror as with a sharp chill that just then passed through his own stout frame, our young master turned anxiously to note the success of Stimson, in getting the wood of the camboose in a blaze.