Roswell had slept most of the time, during the last ten hours, and in this he was much like all around him.  A general feeling of drowsiness had come over the men, and the legs and feet of many among them, notwithstanding the quantity of bed-clothes that were, in particular, piled on that part of their person, were sensitively alive to the cold.  No one ever knew how low the thermometer went that fearful night; but a sort of common consciousness prevailed, that nothing the men had yet seen, or felt, equalled its chill horrors.  The cold had got into the house, converting every article it contained into a mass of frost, The berths ceased to be warm, and the smallest exposure of a shoulder, hand, or ears, soon produced pain.  The heads of very many of the party were affected, and breathing became difficult and troubled.  A numbness began to steal over the lower limbs; and this was the last unpleasant sensation remembered by Roswell, when he fell into another short and disturbed slumber.  The propensity to sleep was very general now, though many struggled against it, knowing it was the usual precursor of death by freezing.

Our hero never knew how long he slept in the last nap he took on that memorable occasion.  When he awoke, he found a bright light blazing in the hut, and heard some one moving about the camboose.  Then his thoughts reverted to himself, and to the condition of his limbs.  On trying to rub his feet together, he found them so nearly without sensation as to make the consciousness of their touching each other almost out of the question.  Taking the alarm at once, he commenced a violent friction, until by slow degrees he could feel that the nearly stagnant blood was getting again into motion.  So great had been Roswell’s alarm, and so intent his occupation, that he took no heed of the person who was busy at the camboose, until the man appeared at the side of his berth, holding a tin pot in his hand.  It was Stimson, up and dressed, without his skins, and seemingly in perfect preservation.

“Here’s some hot coffee, Captain Gar’ner,” said the provident boat-steerer, “and then turn out.  The wind has shifted, by the marcy of God, and it has begun to rain. Now, I think we may have summer in ‘arnest, as summer comes among these sealin’ islands.”

Roswell took six or eight swallows of the coffee, which was smoking hot, and instantly felt the genial influence diffused over his whole frame.  Sending Stephen to the other berths with this timely beverage, he now sat up in his berth, and rubbed his feet and legs with his hands.  The exercise, friction, and hot coffee, soon brought him round; and he sprang out of his berth, and was quickly dressed.  Stimson had lighted a fire in the camboose, using the very last of the wood, and the warmth was beginning to diffuse itself through the building.  But the change in the wind, and the consequent melioration of the temperature, probably alone saved the whole of the Oyster Pond crew from experiencing the dire fate of that of the Vineyard craft.