the
hatch. A small lanthorn of an old pattern dangled over the table, and I
noticed that it contained two or three inches of candle. Abaft the
hatchway was a door on the starboard side which I opened, and found a
narrow dark passage. I could not pierce it with my eye beyond a few
feet; but perceiving within this range the outline of a little door, I
concluded that here were the berths in which the master and his mates
slept. There was nothing to be done in the dark, and I bitterly lamented
that I had left my tinder-box and flint in the boat, for then I could
have lighted the candle in the lanthorn.

"Perhaps," thought I, "one of those figures may have a tinder-box upon
him."

Custom was now somewhat hardening me; moreover I was spurred on by
mortal anxiety to discover if there was any kind of food to be met with
in the vessel. So I stepped up to the figure whose face I had touched,
and felt in his pockets; but neither on him nor on the other did I find
what I wanted, though I was not a little astonished to discover in the
pockets of the occupants of so small and humble a ship as this schooner
a fine gold watch as rich as the one I had brought away from the man on
the rocks, and more elegant in shape, a gold snuff-box set with
diamonds, several rings of beauty and value lying loose in the breeches
pocket of the man whose face was hidden, a handful of Spanish pieces in
gold, handkerchiefs of fine silk, and other articles, as if indeed these
fellows had been overhauling a parcel of booty, and then carelessly
returned the contents to their pockets.

But what I needed was the means of obtaining a light, so, after casting
about, I thought I would search the body on deck, and went to it, and to
my great satisfaction discovered what I wanted in the first pocket I
dipped my hand into, though I had to rip open the mouth of it away from
the snow with the hanger.

I returned to the cabin and lighted the candle, and carried the lanthorn
into the black passage or corridor. There were four small doors,
belonging to as many berths; I opened the first, and entered a
compartment that smelt so intolerably stale and fusty that I had to come
into the passage again and fetch a few breaths to humour my nose to the
odour. As in the cabin, however, so here I found this noxiousness of air
was not caused by putrefaction or any tainting qualities of a vegetable
or animal kind, but by the deadness of the pent-up air itself, as the
foulness of