An Englishman straightened himself suddenly, and one of the Spaniard's eyes flashed when the man Lister turned to did his bidding. Lister, however, grinned at them.
"The question," he said, "is simply do you feel I owe you any further satisfaction, or have you had enough? I want you to understand that I'm never coming here again, and if you care to double the stakes I'll play you another round."
There was no doubt that they had had enough, and while three of them might have taken another hand with a view to getting back the pile of silver by certain means they were acquainted with they refrained, perhaps because they felt that the man called Walters and the burly steamboat skipper would in case of necessity stand by Lister. The silence that lasted a moment or two grew uncomfortable, but it did not seem to trouble Lister, who sat still looking at them with a little sardonic smile.
"Well," he said, "it's evident that you don't expect anything more from me. Will you and Captain Wilson come with me, Walters?"
He rose when the men addressed reached out for their hats, and then clapped his hands until a girl came in. She was very young, and looked jaded, which was not particularly astonishing considering that she had been keeping the party supplied with refreshment for more than half the night. The smudgy patches of powder on it emphasized the weariness of her olive-tinted face, but there was for all that a certain suggestion of daintiness and freshness about her which was not what one would have expected in such surroundings.
Lister stood looking at her with half-closed eyes, while the others watched them both until he made a little abrupt gesture.
"It is not you, but your father, the patron, the man who owns this place, I want, but you can stop here and call him," he said in a half-intelligible muddle of Castilian and Portuguese.
Walters made it a little plainer, and the girl spread out her hands. "The patron does not live here," she said. "My father, he is only in charge."
"Call him!" said Lister.
The man came in, and his dark eyes as well as those of all the others were fixed expectantly on Lister when he once more turned to the girl.