The intemperate cold of the water of those parts of America was so much more excessive than Dunburne had been used to swim in that when he dragged himself out upon the rocky, bowlder-strewn beach he lay for a considerable time more dead than alive. His limbs appeared to possess hardly any vitality, so benumbed were they by the icy chill that had entered into the very marrow of his bones. Nor did he for a long while recover from this excessive rigor; his limbs still continued at intervals to twitch and shudder as with a convulsion, nor could he at such times at all control their trembling. At last, however, with a huge sigh, he aroused himself to some perception of his surroundings, which he acknowledged were of as dispiriting a sort as he could well have conceived of. His recovering senses were distracted by a ceaseless watery din, for the breaking waves, rushing with a prodigious swiftness from the harbor to the shore before the driving wind, fell with uproarious crashing into white foam among the rocks. Above this watery tumult spread the wet gloom of the night, full of the blackness and pelting chill of a fine slanting rain.
Through this shroud of mist and gloom Dunburne at last distinguished a faint light, blurred by the sheets of rain and darkness, and shining as though from a considerable distance. Cheered by this nearer presence of human life, our young gentleman presently gathered his benumbed powers together, arose, and after a while began slowly and feebly to climb a stony hill that lay between the rocky beach and that faint but encouraging illumination.
So, sorely buffeted by the tempest, he at last reached the black, square form of that structure from which the light shone. The building he perceived to be a little wooden church of two stories in height. The shutters of the lower story were tight fastened, as though bolted from within. Those above were open, and from them issued the light that had guided him in his approach from the beach. A tall flight of wooden steps, wet in the rain, reached to a small, enclosed porch or vestibule, whence a door, now tight shut, gave ingress into the second story of the church.
Thence, as Dunburne stood without, he could now distinguish the dull muttering of a man's voice, which he opined might be that of the preacher. Our young gentleman, as may be supposed, was in a wretched plight. He was ragged and unshaven; his only clothing was the miserable shirt and bepatched breeches that had served him as shelter throughout the long voyage. These abominable garments were now wet to the skin, and so displeasing was his appearance that he was forced to acknowledge to himself that he did not possess enough of humility to avow so great a misery to the light and to the eyes of strangers. Accordingly, finding some shelter afforded by the vestibule of the church, he crouched there in a corner, huddling his rags about him, and finding a certain poor warmth in thus hiding away from the buffeting of the chill and penetrating wind. As he so crouched he presently became aware of the sound of many voices, dull and groaning, coming from within the edifice, and then--now and again--the clanking as of a multitude of chains. Then of a sudden, and unexpectedly, the door near him was flung wide open, and a faint glow of reddish light fell across the passage. Instantly the figure of a man came forth, and following him came, not a congregation, as Dunburne might have supposed, but a most dolorous company of nearly, or quite, naked men and women, outlined blackly, as they emerged, against the dull illumination from behind. These wretched beings, sighing and groaning most piteously, with a monotonous wailing of many voices, were chained by the wrist, two and two together, and as they passed by close to Dunburne, his nostrils were overpowered by a heavy and fetid odor that came partly from within the building, partly from the wretched creatures that passed him by.