The Riddle Of The Sands - Childers Robert Erskine ... - Cove Systems

I was not nautical enough to draw any very
definite conclusions from this, but what I did
draw were not promising. The latter sentences
were spoken from the forecastle, whither
Davies had crept through a low sliding door,
like that of a rabbit-hutch, and was already
busy with a kettle over a stove which I made
out to be a battered and disreputable twin
brother of the No. 3 Rippingille.
'It'll be boiling soon,' he remarked, 'and we'll
have some grog.'
My eyes were used to the light now, and I
took in the rest of my surroundings, which may
be very simply described. Two long
cushion-covered seats flanked the cabin,
bounded at the after end by cupboards, one of
which was cut low to form a sort of miniature
sideboard, with glasses hung in a rack above
it. The deck overhead was very low at each
side but rose shoulder high for a space in the
middle, where a 'coach-house roof' with a