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Mr.—"
    "Carter is my name."
    "Ah! Mr. Carter. Come down, come down," went on Lingard, leading the way
down the cabin stairs.
    The steward had lighted the swinging lamp, and had put a decanter and
bottles on the table. The cuddy looked cheerful, painted white, with
gold mouldings round the panels. Opposite the curtained recess of the
stern windows there was a sideboard with a marble top, and, above it,
a looking-glass in a gilt frame. The semicircular couch round the stern
had cushions of crimson plush. The table was covered with a black
Indian tablecloth embroidered in vivid colours. Between the beams of the
poop-deck were fitted racks for muskets, the barrels of which glinted
in the light. There were twenty-four of them between the four beams. As
many sword-bayonets of an old pattern encircled the polished teakwood of
the rudder-casing with a double belt of brass and steel. All the doors
of the state-rooms had been taken off the hinges and only curtains
closed the doorways. They seemed to be made of yellow Chinese silk, and
fluttered all together, the four of them, as the two men entered the
cuddy.
    Carter took in all at a glance, but his eyes were arrested by a circular
shield hung slanting above the brass hilts of the bayonets. On its
red field, in relief and brightly gilt, was represented a sheaf of
conventional thunderbolts darting down the middle between the two
capitals T. L. Lingard examined his guest curiously. He saw a young
man, but looking still more youthful, with a boyish smooth face much
sunburnt, twinkling blue eyes, fair hair and a slight moustache. He
noticed his arrested gaze.
    "Ah, you're looking at that thing. It's a present from the builder of
this brig. The best man that ever launched a craft. It's supposed to be
the ship's name between my initials—flash of lightning—d'you see? The
brig's name is Lightning and mine is Lingard."
    "Very pretty thing that: shows the cabin off well," murmured Carter,
politely.
    They drank, nodding at each other, and sat down.
    "Now for the letter," said Lingard.
    Carter passed it over the table and looked about, while Lingard took
the letter out of an open envelope, addressed to the commander of any
British ship in the Java Sea. The paper was thick, had an embossed
heading: "Schooner-yacht Hermit" and was dated four days before. The
message said that on a hazy night the yacht had gone ashore upon some
outlying shoals off the coast of Borneo. The land was low. The opinion
of the sailing-master was that the vessel had gone ashore at the top
of high water, spring tides. The coast was completely deserted to all
appearance. During the four days they had been stranded there they
had sighted in the distance two small native vessels, which did
not approach. The owner concluded by asking any commander of a
homeward-bound ship to report the yacht's position in Anjer on his way
through Sunda Straits—or to any British or Dutch man-of-war he might
meet. The letter ended by anticipatory thanks, the offer to pay any
expenses in connection with the sending of messages from Anjer, and the
usual polite expressions.
    Folding the paper slowly in the old creases, Lingard said—"I am not
going to Anjer—nor anywhere near."
    "Any place will do, I fancy," said Carter.
    "Not the place where I am bound to," answered Lingard, opening the
letter again and glancing at it uneasily. "He does not describe very
well the coast, and his latitude is very uncertain," he went on. "I
am not clear in my mind where exactly you are stranded. And yet I know
every inch of that land—over there."
    Carter cleared his throat and began to talk in his slow drawl. He seemed
to dole out facts, to disclose with sparing words the features of the
coast, but every word showed the minuteness of his observation, the
clear vision of a seaman able to master quickly the aspect of a strange
land and of a strange sea. He presented, with concise lucidity, the
picture of the tangle of reefs and sandbanks, through which the