We went on, our nervous feet apologetic to the grit they crunched; and, when we were come to near the end of this dreary annexe, turned off to the left into a short gloom of passage that led to a closed door.

Pushing this open, we found a drop of some half-dozen steps, and, going gingerly down these, stopped with a common exclamation of surprise on our lips.

Perhaps our wonder was justified, for we were in the stern cabin of an ancient West Indiaman.

Some twenty feet long by twelve wide—­there it all was, from the deck transoms above, to the side lockers and great curved window, sloping outwards to the floor and glazed with little panes in galleries, that filled the whole end of the room.  Thereout we looked, over the degraded garden, to the lower quarters of the town—­as if, indeed, we were perched high up on waves—­and even to a segment of the broad bay that swept by them.

But the room itself!  What phantasy of old sea-dog or master-mariner had conceived it?  What palsied spirit, condemned to rust in inactivity, had found solace in this burlesque of shipcraft?  To renew the past in such a fixture, to work oneself up to the old glow of flight and action, and then, while one stamped and rocked maniacally, to feel the refusal of so much as a timber to respond to one’s fervour of animation!  It was a grotesque picture.

Now, this cherished chamber had shared the fate of the rest.  The paint and gilding were all cracked and blistered away; much of the glass of the stern-frame was gone or hung loose in its sashes; the elaborately carved lockers mouldered on the walls.

These were but dummies when we came to examine them—­mere slabs attached to the brickwork, and decaying with it.

“There should be a case-bottle and rummers in one, at least,” said William Tyrwhitt.

“There are, sir, at your service,” said a voice behind us.

We started and turned.

It had been such a little strained voice that it was with something like astonishment I looked upon the speaker.  Whence he had issued I could not guess; but there he stood behind us, nodding and smiling—­a squab, thick-set old fellow with a great bald head, and, for all the hair on his face, a tuft like a teasel sprouting from his under lip.

He was in his shirt-sleeves, without coat or vest; and I noticed that his dirty lawn was oddly plaited in front, and that about his ample paunch was buckled a broad belt of leather.  Greased hip-boots encased his lower limbs, and the heels of these were drawn together as he bowed.

William Tyrwhitt—­a master of nervous English—­muttered “Great Scott!” under his breath.

“Permit me,” said the stranger—­and he held out to us a tin pannikin (produced from Heaven knows where) that swam with fragrance.

I shook my head.  William Tyrwhitt, that fated man, did otherwise.  He accepted the vessel and drained it.