"Ay, ay, mate," sang out Jones; "right enough."
"Ah! thin it was small shiners I went in for then; but I'll lay a couple of fivers now against a brad, and play you fair to-morrow against any of them in there," with a back-handed wave to the house, whence unmistakable sounds of noisy mirth were proceeding. "Is it done?"
"I'll consider your offer--shiver my timbers but I will!" said Jones, with a burst of Jack-tar-ism--"and let you know in the morning."
"Just as you please; you pays your money and you takes your choice;" and nodding to Jones, who responded to the salute in approved style, De Vos passed into the tap-room of the "Ark."
"Is it he?" hurriedly whispered Jones when he was out of hearing.
"Yes, without doubt," answered I, in the same tones.
"Then follow me, sir; and keep silent unless I speak to you;" and we likewise entered through the swing-doors of the gayly-lighted bar.
A glance sufficed to show us that the man we sought was not there; but Jones was far from being disconcerted; indeed he seemed most thoroughly up to the mark in the task before him, and threw himself into the part he had assigned himself with all the genius and facility of a Billington or Toole. Three or four men with physiognomies that would not have disgraced the hangman's rope were drinking, smoking, and exchanging low badinage with a flashy-looking young woman, who stood behind the bar-counter. Woman, did I say? Angels pity her! There was little of womanly nature left in the fierce glitter of her eyes, in the hard lines of premature age which dissipation and sin and woe had left carved upon her forehead and around her mouth. Little enough of this though, no doubt, thought Detective Jones, intent upon his own purposes, as he quickly made up to her, and asked with all the swaggering audacity of a "jolly tar," for two stiff glasses of the primest pine-apple rum-and-water.
Jones extracted a long clay pipe from the lot standing before us in a broken glass, and passed it to me, and handed his pouch of tobacco, with an expressive glance that told me I was to smoke. Whilst filling the pipe and lighting it, the woman returned with the rum-and-water, which she placed ungraciously before us with a bang and clatter that caused the liquid to spill out of the glasses.
"Look here, miss," said Jones in his most insinuating tones; "I'll forgive you for upsetting the grog, and give you five bob to buy a blue ribbon for your pretty hair, if you'll manage to get me and my mate a snug comer inside there," pointing to a door on the left, whence issued voices; "for we've a bit of money business to settle to-night, and he's off first thing in the morning for the Indies."