"What assistance did you expect to find down here?"

"The letter will tell you that. May I ask, Captain, for a little water
for the chaps in my boat? And I myself would thank you for a drink.
We haven't had a mouthful since this afternoon. Our breaker leaked out
somehow."

"See to it, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard. "Come down the cabin, Mr.--"

"Carter is my name."

"Ah! Mr. Carter. Come down, come down," went on Lingard, leading the way
down the cabin stairs.

The steward had lighted the swinging lamp, and had put a decanter and
bottles on the table. The cuddy looked cheerful, painted white, with
gold mouldings round the panels. Opposite the curtained recess of the
stern windows there was a sideboard with a marble top, and, above it,
a looking-glass in a gilt frame. The semicircular couch round the stern
had cushions of crimson plush. The table was covered with a black
Indian tablecloth embroidered in vivid colours. Between the beams of the
poop-deck were fitted racks for muskets, the barrels of which glinted
in the light. There were twenty-four of them between the four beams. As
many sword-bayonets of an old pattern encircled the polished teakwood of
the rudder-casing with a double belt of brass and steel. All the doors
of the state-rooms had been taken off the hinges and only curtains
closed the doorways. They seemed to be made of yellow Chinese silk, and
fluttered all together, the four of them, as the two men entered the
cuddy.