Within The Enemy's Lines

by Oliver Optic

THE CABIN OF THE FLORENCE

If Captain Carboneer had felt any especial interest in the Florence as a sailing yacht, he might have desired to see the cabin of the craft, which had always been the delight of Christy Passford. He had expended a great deal of his pocket-money upon the arrangement and furnishing of the cabin of his yacht, not only because he spent a considerable portion of his vacation hours in it, but because it had been a perpetual study with him to enlarge and improve it.

It is very difficult to get three pints of liquid into a quart measure, and it was a conundrum of this sort that Christy was studying upon when he tried to make a parlor, bedroom, and dining-saloon of the very limited space in the forward part of the Florence. Though he could hardly get the three pints into the quart measure, he had done the best he could, and succeeded to a rather remarkable degree. But spite of the miracle which had been wrought in the cabin, Captain Carboneer did not even try the door of the apartment when he and his companions went on board of the yacht. He was so absorbed in the enterprise in which he was engaged, that his indifference to the miracle of the cabin may be excused.

Even the double doors of the cabin were of handsome wood, elaborately polished; and they were not secured with the usual appliance of a padlock, but were provided with an expensive mortise-lock, which could be operated upon either side. If Captain Carboneer had tried to open that door, he would have found that it was fastened; but perhaps he could not have discovered that it had been secured upon the inside. Unless, therefore, he had taken the trouble to break open the door, he could not have ascertained that Christy Passford was actually in the cabin.

Possibly, if he had opened the door by any means, he would not have discovered that the proprietor of the boat was in this dainty apartment, for the skipper had taken a great deal of pains to conceal himself so that he should not be seen, even if the intruders in the Florence had succeeded in opening the doors without the aid of the key in his pocket. Though he had two very nice berths in the cabin, miraculously arranged as to space, Christy did not occupy one on the present occasion, for in that case the unbidden visitors would have seen him if their curiosity had led them to force the doors.

When the cook of the Florence, usually the skipper of the craft, was engaged in the practice of the culinary art, he seated himself on what looked like a box in front of the stove. But the interior of this box was really a part of the cabin, for it contained the feet of any one occupying the berth on the starboard side. The cookroom had no end of bins, lockers and drawers to contain the variety of provisions and stores necessary to get up a dinner for the skipper and his guests, when he had any. And even all these places could not contain everything that was needed on board. Under the two berths were large, though not very deep, lockers, one of which contained the jib-topsail of the craft, and other spare sails, while the opposite one was the fuel locker of the sloop.

As the boat had not been used for a long time in cruising, the fuel receptacle was empty, though a spare gaff-topsail had been thrown into it. This locker was big enough to admit the body-corporate of the skipper. It was not a particularly clean place, for a portion of it had been economized for the stowage of the charcoal, which the skipper preferred to wood. But he did not rebel at the blackness of the retreat he had chosen, for he wore his boating dress, which was hardly stylish enough for a dude or a dandy.

But Skipper Passford did not crawl into this black hole for the fun of the thing. He had been spending his time in waiting for a movement to be made in regard to the Bellevite. He staid in the house all the forenoon, and, after lunch, he sailed down the river in the Florence, though with no object in doing so beyond passing the time. Not far from the beach where he had afterwards left the yacht, he discovered a boat rowed by two men with a third in the stern sheets.

The breeze was quite gentle, though the Florence would sail at a very tolerable speed when there was the least apology for a wind. She was doing so on the present occasion, and Christy had stretched himself out on the cushioned seat, with the spokes of the wheel where he could steer without any exertion, or next to none. The idleness of his days since his return from the eventful cruise of the Bellevite seemed to have infected him with an unnatural indolence.

He felt as though he was rather more than half asleep when he saw the boat with the two oarsmen. It was going up the river, while he was going down. He had to luff a little to keep clear of the oars, but he did not move from his half-recumbent posture. When the boat was alongside, he glanced idly and carelessly at the person in the stern sheets. Instantly he was wide awake, though he did not change his position. The person looked like a gentleman, and Christy was sure that he had seen him before. A couple of minutes of earnest cudgelling of his brain assured him that he had seen the stranger in Nassau; that he was one of the many who wanted to purchase the Bellevite, ostensibly for a merchant vessel, but really for the Confederate navy.