time during the season.  Without it, indeed, it would not have been possible for the people to quit their dwelling during three entire days.  Everything like work was, of course, suspended during this tempest, which seriously menaced the unfortunate sealers with the necessity of again breaking up their schooner, now nearly completed, with a view again to keep themselves from freezing.  The weather was not so intensely cold as it had been, continuously, for months during the past winter; but, coming as it did, after so long a spell of what might be considered as a balmy atmosphere in that region, it found the people unbraced and little prepared for it.  At no time was the thermometer lower than twenty degrees below zero; this was near morning, after a sharp and stinging night; nor was it for any succession of hours much below zero.  But zero was now hard to bear, and fires, and good fires too, were absolutely necessary to keep the men from suffering, as well as from despondency.  Perhaps the spectacle of Daggett, dying from the effects of frost before their eyes, served to increase the uneasiness of the people, and to cause them to be less sparing of the fuel than persons in their situation ought to have been.  It is certain that a report was brought to Roswell, in the height of the tempest, and when the thermometer was at the lowest, that there was not wood enough left from the plunder of the two vessels, exclusively of that which had been worked up in the repairs, to keep the fires going eight-and-forty hours longer!  It was true, a little wood, intended to be used in the homeward passage, enough to last as far as Rio possibly, had been used in stowing the hold; and that might be got at first, if it ever ceased to snow.  Without that addition to the stock in the house, it would not be within the limits of probability to suppose the people could hold out against the severity of such weather a great while longer.

Every expedient that could be devised to save wood, and to obtain warmth from other sources, was resorted to, of course, by Roswell’s orders.  Lamps were burned with great freedom; not little vessels invented to give light, but such torches as one sees at the lighting up of a princely court-yard on the occasion of a fete, in which wicks are made by the pound, and unctuous matter is used by the gallon.  Old canvass and elephants’ oil supplied the materials; and the spare camboose, which had been brought over to the house to be set up there, while the other galley was being placed on board, very well answered the purpose of a lamp.  Some warmth was obtained by these means, but much more of a glaring and unpleasant light.

It was during the height of this tempest that the soul of Daggett took its flight towards the place of departed spirits, in preparation for the hour when it was to be summoned before the judgment-seat of God.  Previously to his death, the unfortunate Vineyarder held a frank and confidential discourse with Roswell.  As his last hour approached, his errors and mistakes became more distinctly apparent, as is usual with men, while his sins of omission seemed to crowd the vista of by-gone days.  Then it was that the whole earth did not contain that which, in his dying eyes, would prove an equivalent for one hour passed in a sincere, devout, and humble service of the Deity!