The wolf, having finally assured himself that Gwynplaine was there,

bounded on to the wharf. It was a long platform, floored and tarred,

supported by a network of joists, and under which flowed the river. Homo

and Gwynplaine shortly reached the brink.

The ship moored to the wharf was a Dutch vessel, of the Japanese build,

with two decks, fore and aft, and between them an open hold, reached by

an upright ladder, in which the cargo was laden. There was thus a

forecastle and an afterdeck, as in our old river boats, and a space

between them ballasted by the freight. The paper boats made by children

are of a somewhat similar shape. Under the decks were the cabins, the

doors of which opened into the hold and were lighted by glazed

portholes. In stowing the cargo a passage was left between the packages

of which it consisted. These vessels had a mast on each deck. The

foremast was called Paul, the mainmast Peter--the ship being sailed by

these two masts, as the Church was guided by her two apostles. A gangway

was thrown, like a Chinese bridge, from one deck to the other, over the

centre of the hold. In bad weather, both flaps of the gangway were

lowered, on the right and left, on hinges, thus making a roof over the

hold; so that the ship, in heavy seas, was hermetically closed. These

sloops, being of very massive construction, had a beam for a tiller, the

strength of the rudder being necessarily proportioned to the height of

the vessel. Three men, the skipper and two sailors, with a cabin-boy,

sufficed to navigate these ponderous sea-going machines. The decks, fore

and aft, were, as we have already said, without bulwarks. The great

lumbering hull of this particular vessel was painted black, and on it,

907

The Man Who Laughs