In the cabin, which was fairly roomy and well ventilated, stood a table on which supper was spread, a small stove for heating purposes only, the captain’s big arm-chair, several stools, and a short bench. On two sides were single tiers of comfortable-looking bunks, five in all. On the starboard side was a closed door that evidently opened into a small state-room, and on the port side was a narrow passage leading to the galley, an unusual luxury of appointment in schooners of the Seamew’s class, and one that assured the safe and speedy transmission of food from the stove on which it was cooked.
Captain Duff was nowhere to be seen when Phil and the mate entered the cabin, and in answer to Phil’s inquiring glance, the latter pointed significantly with his thumb towards the closed state-room door. There were, however, two other occupants of the cabin, both young men. They were already seated at the table, and eating with silence and despatch. They did not speak to Phil nor he to them, and as the mate also ate in silence the meal was uninterrupted save by the steady clatter of knives, forks, and spoons against that peculiarly thick and indestructible form of china known as stone-ware.
The two young men finished first, pushed back from the table, lighted their pipes, and left the cabin.
“Who are they?” asked Phil, after they had disappeared.
“Hunters,” was Mr. Coombs’s laconic answer.
Then he too pushed back from the table, and Phil hastened to ask him before he could leave the cabin where he should find his bag, as he wished to get a pea-jacket from it.
The mate merely pointed to an end berth on the port side, in which, sure enough, Phil spied a new canvas bag that he now recognized as his own.
“Am I to bunk in here?” he asked, in some surprise.
“Sartain,” replied Mr. Coombs, and then he too vanished up the companion-way.