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Updated: May 21, 2025
My sufferings were intolerable, and I cried out lustily in my agony, and was answered from another part of the forecastle, where one of my watchmates, a youth but little older than myself, was extended, also suffering from frozen feet and hands.
I pointed it out to one of my watchmates, who, being familiar with such appearances, instantly called out, "Ice, ho!" There was a commotion throughout the ship. "Ice!" exclaimed the captain, rushing up the companion-way, spyglass in hand. "Ice! Where-away? 'Tis impossible! We cannot be near the Grand Bank!"
He procured a fresh supply and finished his supper; then, taking no part in his watchmates' open discussion of the fight, and guarded discussion of collisions, rolled into his bunk and smoked until eight bells, when he turned out with the rest. "Rowland," said the big boatswain, as the watch mustered on deck; "take the starboard bridge lookout."
This is exemplified in a conversation I had with Newhall, one of my watchmates, one pleasant Sunday morning, after breakfast. "Heigh-ho," sighed Newhall, with a sepulchral yawn; "Sunday has come at last, and I am glad. It is called a day of rest, but is no day of rest for me. I have a thousand things to do this forenoon; one hour has passed away already, and I don't know which to do first."
Eight bells had struck, and my watchmates had hied to their hammocks, and the other watch had gone to their stations, and the top below me was full of strangers, and still one hundred feet above even them I lay entranced; now dozing, now dreaming; now thinking of things past, and anon of the life to come.
I got dizzily to my hands and knees, and then to my feet, and staggered forward. Captain Swope's soft voice followed me. "Next time reef your tongue before you open your mouth!" he called. I made my way into the foc'sle, and my watchmates grabbed me, and swabbed and kneaded my hurts, and swore their sympathy.
Thus ended our first liberty-day on shore. We were well tired, but had had a good time, and were more willing to go back to our old duties. About midnight, we were waked up by our two watchmates, who had come aboard in high dispute. It seems they had started to come down on the same horse, double-backed; and each was accusing the other of being the cause of his fall.
Well, after a long ramble, the Scotchman and I laid our weary bodies down in the shade of a big rock, and had a grand sleep, waking up again a little before sunset. We hastened down to the beach off the town, where all my watchmates were sitting in a row, like lost sheep, waiting to be taken on board again. They had had enough of liberty; indeed, such liberty as that was hardly worth having.
"Ay, ay, sir," said Allen, "I am coming directly." "You had better do so," said the mate, "if you know when you are well off." "Ay, ay, sir!" Allen was sitting on a chest, dressed, but did not move. I was lying in my berth attentive to the proceedings, as, I believe were all my watchmates.
When Rowland turned out to breakfast at seven bells that morning, he found a pint flask in the pocket of his pea-jacket, which he felt of but did not pull out in sight of his watchmates. "Well, captain," he thought, "you are, in truth, about as puerile, insipid a scoundrel as ever escaped the law. I'll save you your drugged Dutch courage for evidence." But it was not drugged, as he learned later.
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