We descended; a solitary lamp hung from the deck above, and lit up the large cabin any thing but brilliantly. It had the appearance of having been newly lit, and wanting oil,—for when we first entered it was flaring up like a torch, but gradually declined until we could scarcely see about us. As you have not been below before, I will describe it.
The cabin was very large, even for a vessel of her class, and was not subdivided in any way. There were four guns, long twenty-fours, two of a side, but the devil a stick of furniture in it, with the exception of the table in the middle, and six or seven chairs, two black hair sofas, one on each side of the cabin, a chest of drawers, and the crimson curtains before the stern windows. The portrait of a lady was the only ornament, a buxom-looking dame, but of the Earth earthly, nothing etherial about her.
The commodore's cot hung well aft, near the small door that opened into the quarter-gallery on the starboard side—the bed-clothes were all disarranged as if he had recently risen; and at first we thought he must have left the cabin as we came down, and walked forward on the main-deck.
"Where is the commodore?" said Lanyard to the captain's steward, who accompanied us with a light, but which had been blown out by the opening of the cabin door.
"I left him in the cabin, sir—I suppose he is there still, sir."
By this time the ruddy east was brightening; the light that shone through the stern windows came in aid of the dim lamp, and we saw a figure, Sir Oliver as we conceived, stretched on one of the sofas that stood between the aftermost gun and the quarter-gallery door, on the larboard side. The man brought two candles and placed them on the table. Both Sprawl and myself had been rather surprised that the commodore did not instantly address us as we entered, but we now noticed that the gallant old fellow was very pale and wan, and that he spoke with difficulty, as if he had been labouring under asthma.
"Welcome, gentlemen—glad to see you back again. I am prepared to hear that you have failed in your object—quite prepared; but I have been down ever since you shoved off, and am far from well yet."
He rose and shook hands with us with all his usual cordiality of manner.
"Sit down, gentlemen,—there—sit down. Howard, get coffee."
It was handed.