“After you, sir,” said Cammock to Perrin, as they made politeness at the cabin door.
“Thank you,” said Perrin, with a little bow.
They passed in to the alley-way, to the cabin table.
The cabin of the Broken Heart was large and airy. The stern-windows, a skylight amidships, and the white paint upon the beams and bulkheads, made it lighter than the cabins of most vessels. A locker, heaped with green cushions, so that it made a seat for a dozen persons, ran below the windows. Under the skylight was the table, with revolving chairs about it, clamped to the deck. At both sides of the cabin were lesser cabins opening into it. On the port side, the perpetual wonder of Captain Cammock (who, though, like all seamen, a scrupulously clean man, never dreamed of desecrating it by use), was a bath-room. To starboard was a large, double state-room, with a standing bed in it, where Captain Margaret slept. Forward of the cabin bulkhead (which fitted in a groove, so that it might be unshipped in time of battle) were other quarters, to which one passed from the cabin by an alley-way leading to the deck below the break of the poop. To port, in these quarters, was Perrin’s cabin, with Cammock’s room beyond. To starboard was the steward’s pantry and sleeping-place, with the sail-room just forward of it. The bulkheads were all painted white, and each cabin was lighted by scuttles from above, as well as by the heavy gun-ports in the ship’s side, each port-lid with a glass bull’s-eye in it. The cabins were therefore light and bright, having always an air of cleanly freshness. The great cabin would have passed for the chamber of a house ashore, but for the stands of arms, bright with polished metal, on each side of the book-case. Over the book-case was a small white shield, on which, in red brilliants, was the Broken Heart. When the light failed, at the coming of the dusk, the crimson of the brilliants gleamed; there was a burning eye above the book-case, searching those at meat, weighing them, judging them.
The stern-windows were open, letting in the sunlight. The table was laid for breakfast. The steward in his uniform stood bare-headed, waiting for the company. The door of the state-room opened smartly, and Captain Margaret entered. He advanced with a smile, shook hands with the two men, bidding them good morning. Perrin, ever sensitive to his friend, glanced at him for a moment to note if he had slept ill, through brooding on his love; but the mask upon his friend’s face was drawn close, the inner man was hidden; a sufficient sign to Perrin that his friend was troubled. Captain Cammock looked at his employer with interest, as he would have looked at a man who had been at the North Pole. “So he’s in love with a girl, hey?” he thought. “Gone half crazed about a girl. In love. And the lady give him the foresheet, hey?” He even peered out of the stern-window over Salcombe, with the thought that somewhere among those houses, or walking in one of those gardens, went the lady Olivia, wonderfully beautiful, squired by the unspeakable Stukeley.
“Hope we didn’t wake you, sir,” he said politely. “One can’t carry on without noise, coming to anchor.”
“I thought I heard your voice once,” said Captain Margaret. “You were talking about grilling the blood of some one.”
“They don’t understand no other language,” said the captain, with a grin. Then, rapping the table with his knife, at his place as captain, he mumbled out a blessing. “Bless this food, O Lord, for the support of our bodies.” The rest of the blessing he always omitted; for a jocular shipmate had once parodied it, in a scandalous manner, much appreciated by himself. “He’d had a wonderful education, that man,” he always maintained. “He must have had a brain, to think of a real wit like that was.”
Captain Cammock helped the fresh salmon (bought that morning from a fisherman) with the story of the duff. Until the tale was ended, the company hungered.
“Did y’ever hear of the captain and the passenger?” he asked. “They was at dinner on Sunday; and they’d a roll of duff. So the captain asks the passenger, like I’d ask you about this salmon. He asks him, ‘Do you like ends?’ No, he didn’t like no ends, the passenger didn’t. ‘Well, me and my mate does,’ says the captain; so he cuts the duff in two, and gives the mate one half and eats the other himself.”