He stopped, backed toward the bar, and, glaring at his companion, leaned heavily against it.
Unseen by either Slattery or Tisdale, his hand stole behind him like a flash, grasping a large cheese-knife which lay upon the bar of the "Donegal Shades," carelessly left there by the proprietor himself after cutting up the free lunch which it was his custom each night to spread.
"Is your mind made up, Reuben Tisdale? Will no argument bring you to reason? Speak—you had best be quick."
"No—I am resolved to do it, Lije, no matter what you say. I tell you still again I can't help it; I'm doomed to be the Jonah of the gang."
He stood dejectedly by the stove, his eyes fixed upon the sanded floor.
With measured step the man at the bar advanced toward him, one hand still held behind his back.
"And do you know what the men on the ship did to Jonah?" he hissed. "No? Then I'll tell you—they threw him overboard, as I now throw you, Reuben Tisdale, and the pit beneath this house, which already numbers its victims by the score, is the whale, and will swallow up the Jonah of the gang to which you and I belong, and you can bet your sweet life that from out of the depths of that whale's belly you'll never come forth to give my secrets away!"
The words had not fully left his lips when with a sudden spring, his now upraised hand descended, and Reuben Tisdale fell to the floor with a groan.
And while these events are transpiring how fares it with our old friend, Mr. Detective Hook.