Mr Lawrence led the way below.
A barque of five hundred tons, though she would be regarded as a considerable ship in those days, will not supply lofty nor extensive cabin accommodation. This little ship's interior consisted of a cabin into which daylight passed through a skylight in the deck above. In the middle of this cabin was a short table capable of seating one at each end and two of a side. The cabin was painted brown and was somewhat gloomy. The furniture merely supplied the ordinary needs of the occupants. There were four sleeping berths, and a little compartment which was used as a pantry.
"I never was in a place like this before," said Lucy, resting her hand upon the table and gazing round her with the curiosity which a new and striking scene of life must always excite in an intelligent mind.
"The bedrooms are very small," said Mr Lawrence, going to the berth that confronted the aftermost end of the cabin table and opening the door. "But at sea any little hole is good enough to stow oneself away in. Amongst other things, a sailor learns how to sleep, and the habit is so strong with me of slumbering anywhere that if there was room for me I believe I could sleep in a hawse-pipe when the ship is pitching bows under."
"What a very little room!" said Lucy, peering in through the door Mr Lawrence held open. "How fearful to be locked up in such a box when the ship is sinking."
"Oh, you must not think of such things, madam. How fearful to be locked up in your bedroom, though it should be half as big as this ship, when the house is on fire! Would not you enjoy a short voyage? The trip to the West Indies is short. It is a tropical journey, and all the romance of the sea is in it."
"In what things, sir?"
"Oh, madam, in magnificent sunsets, in storms of fire which harm not, though they are as sublime as one might figure a vision of Hell viewed through such tremendous doors as Milton described; in birds of exquisite plumage, and flight which is beyond all other forms of grace; in fish of a thousand lustrous dyes, and the dark wet blue of the long shark; in nights magnificent with such stars as do not shine upon these Islands. For as you strike south, madam, the glory of things which are glorious waxes hourly, the moon expands into a nobler shield, and her path upon the water is a torrent of silver that seems to mark the depth of the mystic realm it sounds——"
As he spoke these words the companion ladder was darkened, and a moment or two later Captain Acton entered the cabin.