“I found myself in the most profound darkness—­that darkness, if I may use the paradox, of a peopled desolation that men of but little nerve or resolution find insupportable.  To me, trained to a serenity of stoicism, it could make no demoralizing appeal.  I had out my matchbox, opened it at leisure, and, while the whole vaulting blackness seemed to tick and rustle with secret movement, took a half-dozen vestas into my hand, struck one alight, and, by its dim radiance, made my way through the building by the passages we had penetrated in the morning.  If at all I shrank or perspired on my spectral journey, I swear I was not conscious of doing so.

“I came to the door of the cabin.  All was black and silent.

“‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘the rogue has played me false.’

“Not to subscribe to an uncertainty, I pushed at the door, saw only swimming dead vacancy before me, and tripping at the instant on the sill, stumbled crashing into the room below and slid my length on the floor.

“Now, I must tell you, it was here my heart gave its first somersault.  I had fallen, as I say, into a black vault of emptiness; yet, as I rose, bruised and dazed, to my feet, there was the cabin all alight from a great lanthorn that swung from the ceiling, and our friend of the morning seated at a table, with a case-bottle of rum and glasses before him.

“I stared incredulous.  Yes, there could be no doubt it was he, and pretty flushed with drink, too, by his appearance.

“‘Incandescent light in a West Indiaman!’ I muttered; for not otherwise could I account for the sudden illumination.  ‘What the deuce!’

“‘Belay that!’ he growled.  He seemed to observe me for the first time.

“‘A handsome manner of boarding a craft you’ve got, sir,’ said he, glooming at me.

“I was hastening to apologize, but he stopped me coarsely.

“’Oh, curse the long jaw of him!  Fill your cheek with that, you Barbary ape, and wag your tail if you can, but burn your tongue.’

“He pointed to the case-bottle with a forefinger that was like a dirty parsnip.  What induced me to swallow the insult, and even some of the pungent liquor of his rude offering?  The itch for ‘copy’ was, no doubt, at the bottom of it.

“I sat down opposite my host, filled and drained a bumper.  The fire ran to my brain, so that the whole room seemed to pitch and courtesy.

“‘This is an odd fancy of yours,’ I said.

“‘What is?’ said he.

“‘This,’ I answered, waving my hand around—­’this freak of turning a back room into a cabin.’

“He stared at me, and then burst into a malevolent laugh.

“‘Back room, by thunder!’ said he.  ’Why, of course—­just a step into the garden where the roses and the buttercupses be agrowing.’

“Now I pricked my ears.

“‘Has the night turned foul?’ I muttered.  ’What a noise the rain makes beating on the window!’