‘Take that end of the hatch-cover and lift with me,’ said Will, in a voice of excitement, looking behind him.
I put my hand to the cover, and between us we raised it. The hatch was little more than a man-hole, big enough to admit two men at a time.
‘Now look!’ cried Will. ‘Have you the heart? It’s not too late! See how black it is! And you may be obliged to remain down there a fortnight!’
‘Give me your sketch of the inside,’ said I.
He quickly handed it to me. I looked at it and then put it in my pocket, and, without another word, I put my foot on the ladder of rungs nailed to the bulkhead, and in a moment was at the bottom.
‘Keep that hatch open whilst I take a short look,’ I softly exclaimed.
‘The mate’s calling me,’ he answered. ‘I’ll come again, if possible, later on;’ and he closed the hatch.
The blackness was utter. I had heard tell of dark rooms in which jail-prisoners were locked up for punishment, but no dark jail-cell could be blacker than the blackness of this ship’s store-room. I stood for some time motionless under the hatch where I had stopped when Will shut me down; I hoped to get the use of my eyes, and imagined that this profound dye of blackness might be owing to my coming out of the light into it. The silence was that of a burial-vault: I heard the swift beat of my heart in my ears and nothing more. After a bit, small, delicate worms or fibres of fire began to tremble and crawl upon the blackness. I knew them to be the phosphorus in my vision, and heeded them not, but winked with a fancy of extinguishing the strange flames.
I now moved a little way forward, stooping, with my arms outstretched, and touched what I might know by the hempen smell and the feel of the stuff was a mass of twine. It was dry, and I seated myself upon it. I will not say that I was without fear; my heart beat very fast. And yet even at this early affrighting stage—for it was not only blackness; it was loneliness also—I rejoiced in the thought that I was in this hiding-place at last; that every difficulty had been overcome; that a most heart-breaking burden of anxieties had fallen from me with my descent into this hold, and that presently my dearest and I would be together in the same ship, with a future of possibilities before us such as I could only have sighed for and wept for and grieved myself into the grave for had I remained at home.
I then bethought me: Suppose the hatch should be suddenly opened, I shall be discovered. I carefully lighted one of my little wax candles, and, holding it up, looked around. The flame was small, but it enabled me to see as much as I needed. Will’s drawing of the interior was exact. To the left were the casks and coils of rope and bolts of canvas, and in the middle more coils of rope and a mass of twine and a quantity of canvas buckets, lanterns and so forth, and to the right were the fresh-water casks and the sails. Candle in hand, I easily made my way to that part of the sails which Will had cut adrift. I looked, and beheld stowed in the place Will had indicated a quantity of black bottles and tins, and a sack which I put my hand upon and found half full of ship’s biscuits.