Explore "Heart of Oak, Volume II" by W. Clark Russell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
After Friend had lain at my feet for about an hour I stripped the oilskins off the body and put them on; they diminished the sense of deadly cold. I dragged the body into the bows, and after baling hard sat down, sure that my death was at hand, but seeking consolation in the thought that suffering ceases some while before you die of cold, and that death from this cause is as easy as drowning after the first agony.
It never ceased to snow until the night fell, and then when it was black the weather cleared -- that is, I could see the flash of froth at a distance; but stare as I might I beheld nothing of the ship, no smudge nor deeper dye upon the darkness anywhere to indicate her presence. I stood up and looked and looked, waiting for the toss of the sea to strain my gaze; then, with an awful despair in my heart, and the full rushing weight of my doom upon my spirits, I threw myself down into the stern sheets to die.