I approached the edge of the hatchway and looked down. Little more was to be seen than ballast, on the top of which lay a couple of dismounted guns, apparently twelve-pounders. A short distance forward in the gloom were the outlines of some casks and cases. The hull was dry, as the lieutenant had said. Water there undoubtedly must have been, washing to and fro under the ballast and down in the run, but too inconsiderable in quantity to give me the least uneasiness. One glance below sufficed to assure me that the fabric of the wreck was tight.
I considered a little whether it might not be possible to so protect the yawning hatches as to provide against any violent inroads of water should this dirty shadow of weather that overhung the wreck in wet end in wind; but there were no tarpaulins to be seen, no spare planks or anything of a like kind which could be converted into a cover, nothing but mats and rugs, which were not to be put to any sort of use in the direction I had in my mind.
I left Miss Temple standing on the chest, darting alarmed glances at the huddled heaps which littered the decks, and walked forward to a doorway in a stout partition that bulkheaded off a short space of forecastle from these ’tweendecks. There was an open forescuttle here that made plenty of light. This was the interior that had been burnt out, as the lieutenant had told me, to the condition of a charred shell. The deck and sides were as black as a hat, and the place showed as if it had been constructed of charcoal. A strong smell as of fire still lingered. Whatever had been here in the shape of sea-furniture was burnt, or removed by the people. I picked up a small handspike, and entering the cindery apartment, beat here and there against the semi-calcined planks, almost expecting to find the handspike shoot through; but black as the timber looked it yielded a hearty echo to my thumps, and I returned to Miss Temple satisfied that the hull was still very staunch, and, but for her uncovered hatches, as seaworthy as ever she had been at any time since her launch.
Whilst turning over some of the mats and wearing apparel on the deck with my foot I spied a large cube of something yellow, and, picking it up and examining it, I was very happy to discover that it was tobacco. I made more of this than had I found a purse of a hundred guineas, for, though I had my pipe in my pocket, I was without anything to smoke, and I cannot express how hungrily during the night I had yearned for the exceeding solace of a few whiffs, and with what melancholy I had viewed the prospect of having to wait until we were rescued before I should obtain a cigar or a pipe of tobacco.
‘What have you there, Mr. Dugdale?’ cried Miss Temple.
‘A little matter that, coming on top of the discovery that this hull is as good as a cork under our feet, helps very greatly towards reestablishing my peace of mind—a lump of very beautiful tobacco,’ and I smelt it fondly again.
‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale, I thought it was a dead rat,’ she exclaimed. ‘What are all those mats?’
‘The privateersmen used them to sleep on, I expect. The quantity of them tells us how heavily manned this old waggon went.’
‘There is no wind, Mr. Dugdale. The rain falls in perfectly straight lines. Let us return to the deck-house.’
I took her hand and helped her to dismount. She gathered her dress about her as before, and passed with trepidation through the darksome cabin, holding tightly by my arm, and then, with a wearied despairful air, seated herself upon a locker and leaned her chin in her hand, biting her under lip whilst she gazed vacantly through the little window at the sullen raining gloom of the sky.