At length the fever abated in its violence, though it began to assume, what for a man in Mark Woolston’s situation was perhaps more dangerous, a character of a low type, lingering in his system and killing him by inches.  Mark was aware of his condition, and though:  of the means of relief.  The ship had some good Philadelphia porter in her, and a bottle of it stood on a shelf over his berth.  This object caught his eye, and he actually longed for a draught of that porter.  He had sufficient strength to raise himself high enough to reach it, but it far exceeded his powers to draw the cork, even had the ordinary means been at hand, which they were not.  There was a hammer on the shelf, however, and with that instrument he did succeed in making a hole in the side of the bottle, and in filling a tumbler.  This liquor he swallowed at a single draught.  It tasted deliciously to him, and he took a second tumbler full, when he lay down, uncertain as to the consequences.  That his head was affected by these two glasses of porter, Mark himself was soon aware, and shortly after drowsiness followed.  After lying in an uneasy slumber for half an hour, his whole person was covered with a gentle perspiration, in which condition, after drawing the sheet around him, the sick man fell asleep.

Our patient never knew how long he slept, on this all-important occasion.  The period certainly included part of two days and one entire night; but, afterwards, when Mark endeavoured to correct his calendar, and to regain something, like a record of the time, he was inclined to think he must have lain there two nights with the intervening day.  When he awoke, Mark was immediately sensible that he was free from disease.  He was not immediately sensible, nevertheless, how extremely feeble disease had left him.  At first, he fancied he had only to rise, take nourishment, and go about his ordinary pursuits.  But the sight of his emaciated limbs, and the first effort he made to get up, convinced him that he had a long state of probation to go through, before he became the man he had been a week or two before.  It was well, perhaps, that his head was so clear, and his judgment so unobscured at this, his first return to consciousness.

Mark deemed it a good symptom that he felt disposed to eat.  How many days he had been altogether without nourishment he could not say, but they must have been several; nor had he received more than could be obtained from a single ship’s biscuit since his attack.  All this came to his mind, with a distinct recollection that he must be his own physician and nurse.  For a few minutes he lay still, during which he addressed himself to God, with thanks for having spared his life until reason was restored.  Then he bethought him, well as his feeble state would allow, of the course he ought to pursue.  On a table in the cabin, and in sight of his berth, through the state-room door, was a liquor-case, containing wines, brandy, and gin.  Our sick man thought all might yet go well, could he get a few spoonsfull of an excellent port wine which that case, contained, and which had been provided expressly for cases of sickness.  To do this, however, it was necessary to obtain the key, to open the case, and to pour out the liquor; three things, of which he distrusted his powers to perform that which was the least difficult.