The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the yards, we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the canvas.  This left us at liberty to examine the craft, though, unfortunately, the night was growing hazy.

All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done to the Chamois.

It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no boats, a circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea.  But marking this, I was exceedingly gratified.  It seemed to indicate, as I had opined, that from some cause or other, she must have been abandoned of her crew.  And in a good measure this dispelled my fears of foul play, and the apprehension of contagion.  Encouraged by these reflections, I now resolved to descend, and explore the cabin, though sorely against Jarl’s counsel.  To be sure, as he earnestly said, this step might have been deferred till daylight; but it seemed too wearisome to wait.  So bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, I sent him into the boat for them.  Presently, two candles were lit; one of which the Skyeman tied up and down the barbed end of his harpoon; so that upon going below, the keen steel might not be far off, should the light be blown out by a dastard.

Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and murkiest den in the world.  The altar-like transom, surmounted by the closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky-light overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the Hermit.  But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this impression.  Two doors, one on each side, led into wee little state-rooms, the berths of which also were littered.  Among other things, was a large box, sheathed with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a keg partly filled with powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of bullets, and a case for a sextant—­a brass plate on the lid, with the maker’s name.  London.  The broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty and stained; and the iron hilt bent in.  It looked so tragical that I thrust it out of sight.

Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the “run,” we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together at sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.

Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through the bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of the hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and the pouch of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the other end of the vessel.  Previous to so doing, however, I loaded a musket, and belted a cutlass to my side.  But my Viking preferred his harpoon.