It was a small place, with a wooden quay along the river frontage and a shed at the opposite side. Between the two lay a number of boats. Trade appeared to be bad, for there was no life about the place and everything was dirty and decaying.
“There she is,” Hilliard cried, with a ring of pride in his voice. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
The Swallow was tied up alongside the wharf, her bow upstream, and lay tugging at her mooring ropes in the swift run of the ebb tide. Merriman’s first glance at her was one of disappointment. He had pictured a graceful craft of well-polished wood, with white deck planks, shining brasswork and cushioned seats. Instead he saw a square-built, clumsy-looking boat, painted, where the paint was not worn off, a sickly greenish white, and giving a general impression of dirt and want of attention. She was flush-decked, and sat high in the water, with a freeboard of nearly five feet. A little forward of amidships was a small deck cabin containing a brass wheel and binnacle. Aft of the cabin, in the middle of the open space of the deck, was a skylight, the top of which formed two short seats placed back to back. Forward rose a stumpy mast carrying a lantern cage near the top, and still farther forward, almost in the bows, lay an unexpectedly massive anchor, housed in grids, with behind it a small hand winch for pulling in the chain.
“We had a bit of a blow coming round the Coubre into the river,” Hilliard went on enthusiastically, “and I tell you she didn’t ship a pint. The cabin bone dry, and green water coming over her all the time.”
Merriman could believe it. Though his temporary home was not beautiful, he could see that she was strong; in fact, she was massive. But he thanked his stars he had not assisted in the test. He shuddered at the very idea, thinking gratefully that to reach Bordeaux the Paris-Orleans Railway was good enough for him.
But, realizing it was expected of him, he began praising the boat, until the unsuspecting Hilliard believed him as enthusiastic as himself.
“Yes, she’s all of that,” he agreed. “Come aboard and see the cabin.”
They descended a flight of steps let into the front of the wharf, wet, slippery, ooze-covered steps left bare by the receding tide, and stepping over the side entered the tiny deckhouse.
“This is the chart-house, shelter, and companion-way all in one,” Hilliard explained. “All the engine controls come up here, and I can reach them with my left hand while steering with my right.” He demonstrated as he spoke, and Merriman could not but agree that the arrangements were wonderfully compact and efficient.
“Come below now,” went on the proud owner, disappearing down a steep flight of steps against one wall of the house.