Chapter 29

THE NIGHT-WATCHES.

Though leaving the Cape behind us, the severe cold still continued,
and one of its worst consequences was the almost incurable drowsiness
induced thereby during the long night-watches. All along the decks,
huddled between the guns, stretched out on the carronade slides,
and in every accessible nook and corner, you would see the sailors
wrapped in their monkey jackets, in a state of half-conscious
torpidity, lying still and freezing alive, without the power to
rise and shake themselves.

"Up--up, you lazy dogs!" our good-natured Third Lieutenant, a
Virginian, would cry, rapping them with his speaking trumpet.
"Get up, and stir about."

But in vain. They would rise for an instant, and as soon as his
back was turned, down they would drop, as if shot through the heart.

Often I have lain thus when the fact, that if I laid much longer
I would actually freeze to death, would come over me with such
overpowering force as to break the icy spell, and starting to my
feet, I would endeavour to go through the combined manual and
pedal exercise to restore the circulation. The first fling of my
benumbed arm generally struck me in the face, instead of smiting
my chest, its true destination. But in these cases one's muscles
have their own way.

In exercising my other extremities, I was obliged to hold on to
something, and leap with both feet; for my limbs seemed as
destitute of joints as a pair of canvas pants spread to dry, and
frozen stiff.

When an order was given to haul the braces--which required the
strength of the entire watch, some two hundred men--a spectator
would have supposed that all hands had received a stroke of the
palsy. Roused from their state of enchantment, they came halting
and limping across the decks, falling against each other, and,
for a few moments, almost unable to handle the ropes. The
slightest exertion seemed intolerable; and frequently a body of
eighty or a hundred men summoned to brace the main-yard, would
hang over the rope for several minutes, waiting for some active
fellow to pick it up and put it into their hands. Even then, it
was some time before they were able to do anything. They made all
the motions usual in hauling a rope, but it was a long time
before the yard budged an inch. It was to no purpose that the
officers swore at them, or sent the midshipmen among them to find
out who those "_horse-marines_" and "_sogers_" were. The sailors
were so enveloped in monkey jackets, that in the dark night there
was no telling one from the other.

"Here, _you_, sir!" cries little Mr. Pert eagerly catching hold
of the skirts of an old sea-dog, and trying to turn him round, so