When we saw that the ocean was bare, we gazed with curiosity at the little ship we were aboard of. Tom told Bates that he reckoned her about two hundred tons. I have her before me as though I stood on her deck at this moment. She was brig-rigged. Her lower masts were painted white. Her bulwarks were tall and pierced for six guns, three of a side. She carried, however, but two small carronades, one on either hand amidships, and a small pivoted brass piece on her forecastle. The inside of her bulwarks was painted green; the planks of the deck were white; and she looked a very staunch, strong, clean little ship. A tiny caboose stood just abaft the forecastle. Her long-boat was gone, and she was without a boat. The after-part of her deck was filled with a long house, with a narrow gangway on either side to enable you to pass aft. This house sparkled with little windows; it was painted white and green, and a short flight of steps conducted you to the roof, that was somewhat elegantly protected by a brass rail. Everything that met the eye was fine and smart. The harness cask, for instance, was handsome and hooped with brass; the binnacle was as pretty a quarter-deck ornament as ever I saw; the rigging was good, the sails fairly new, and all things in their place. The keen eyes of Tom and Mr. Bates found nothing amiss anywhere. Yet she had a somewhat mildewed look, as of a craft that had been for some time drifting about without men, and in a short hencoop on the main-deck lay eight or nine dead cocks and hens. Tom overhung her side, and said that she was black, with a gilt line running her length. He sounded the well when the light came, and found the water exactly at the height at which it had stood when they had left off pumping. ‘Bates,’ said he, ‘we’ll get that quarter-boat aboard presently. First let’s overhaul the vessel and see what sort of yarn about herself she can spin us. Will, hold the wheel. My lad, you look half dead; you used not to look so when we went our walks with Marian. You shall take rest soon--but there’s something to be done first.’ He picked up my bundle of clothes off the deck, and I and Mr. Bates followed him into the deck-house.