and a shed at the opposite side. Between the two lay a number of
boats. Trade appeared to be bad, for there was no life about the
place and everything was dirty and decaying.

"There she is," Hilliard cried, with a ring of pride in his voice.
"Isn't she a beauty?"

The Swallow was tied up alongside the wharf, her bow upstream, and
lay tugging at her mooring ropes in the swift run of the ebb tide.
Merriman's first glance at her was one of disappointment. He had
pictured a graceful craft of well-polished wood, with white deck
planks, shining brasswork and cushioned seats. Instead he saw a
square-built, clumsy-looking boat, painted, where the paint was not
worn off, a sickly greenish white, and giving a general impression
of dirt and want of attention. She was flush-decked, and sat high
in the water, with a freeboard of nearly five feet. A little
forward of amidships was a small deck cabin containing a brass wheel
and binnacle. Aft of the cabin, in the middle of the open space of
the deck, was a skylight, the top of which formed two short seats
placed back to back. Forward rose a stumpy mast carrying a lantern
cage near the top, and still farther forward, almost in the bows,
lay an unexpectedly massive anchor, housed in grids, with behind it
a small hand winch for pulling in the chain.

"We had a bit of a blow coming round the Coubre into the river,"
Hilliard went on enthusiastically, "and I tell you she didn't ship
a pint. The cabin bone dry, and green water coming over her all
the time."

Merriman could believe it. Though his temporary home was not