CHAPTER XXIX.
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.