When I had got into my pyjamas I lit a pipe--not of Olympio’s tobacco--and taking down the lamp made a more thorough examination of the chest. Its nautical character was now evident, for on each side, near the bottom, was a perforated chock through which a lanyard had been passed to secure it to a ring-bolt in the deck of the cabin. The ornamentation, too, savoured of the sea, for the drawers were enriched by rude shallow carvings of ropes in festoons, coils and hitches, and each corner terminated above in a kind of diminutive figure-head representing a buxom, blowsy sea-maiden with a very full bust and a dolphin’s tail. The handles of the drawers were of hippo ivory, carved with a knife and now cracked and yellow with age, and the flap that let down to form the writing-table had once been decorated with a painted design, but this was now obliterated. I drew out the sliding supports and let down the flap, intending to stow away my stationery in the upper part conveniently for writing. Here I found a row of drawers, and one of pigeon-holes above them, while the centre was occupied by a little tabernacle-like cupboard, the door of which was decorated with a roughly executed painting, very yellow and faded, of a sea-maiden, similar to those carved on the corners. When I opened this door there was revealed a set of four very small drawers, all of which were empty; and I noticed, when I pulled out one, that it was only half the length of the drawers below the pigeon-holes. Evidently this little nest of drawers masked some secret repository--if that could be described as “secret” which was so artlessly concealed. Now, there is something highly stimulating to curiosity in the idea of a secret drawer or cupboard, no matter how transparent the secrecy may be, and I had no sooner ascertained the existence of this hiding-place than I was all agog to lay bare its secret. First I drew the drawers right out and felt at the back, thinking there might be a cavity there; but the back of the drawer-case was quite unyielding. Then I noticed that the nest which held the drawers was a separate and independent structure let into the row of pigeon-holes, and not continuous with them; so I took hold of one of the partitions between the drawer spaces and gave a gentle pull, when, sure enough, the whole nest came sliding forward, and I lifted it bodily out of the cavity in which it fitted. The back of the nest was formed by a panel, which I could see slid in grooves, and I was about to slide it up when I suddenly bethought me that I was perhaps invading the holy of holies of my too-confiding host, who might quite conceivably make the secret drawers behind the panel the repository of his most treasured possessions. However, I considered that, even if it were so, I had no intention of abstracting anything, while most likely the drawers were empty, so banishing my scruples I boldly slid up the panel.