“Then hold my satchel till I come out,” the steward said, putting it in Kit’s hands; and a minute later he stood in front of the bar, pouring out a tumblerful of something that looked stronger than wine.
While the steward was in the saloon, the two men who had been sitting in the park passed by on the other side of the street, and Kit noticed again that they were looking sharply at him and at Mr. MacNish. He was positive now that they were watched, and it startled him; but he was relieved to see that the two men paused and exchanged a few words with a Nassau policeman a little further up the street. They could hardly be highwaymen, he thought, if they were known to the police. When Mr. MacNish came out of the saloon he spoke about them.
“Two men who look like Americans seem to be taking a great interest in us,” he said. “They watched us pretty closely when we landed, and they just walked past here, looking at us again.”
“What’s that!” MacNish exclaimed; “two men! What did they look like?”
Kit wondered that such a trifling thing should excite him so much, but he described the men as well as he could.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” MacNish said, though his manner belied his words. “You just imagine it. Here, we’ll turn up this way toward the hill; I think the stores are better in the street above. You carry the satchel for me a bit, my lad.”
They turned into a dark side street, and were no sooner around the corner than the steward quickened the pace almost to a run. His manner was so changed that Kit for the first time became suspicious, and thought that he had better have nothing to do with the satchel.
“Here, you take your satchel, Mr. MacNish,” he said; “I can keep up with you better if I have nothing to carry. We don’t need to hurry so much, do we?”
MacNish snatched the satchel from his hands without replying, and before they had taken ten steps more Kit was almost knocked down by two men who sprang out from an alley and seized the steward by both arms as if they were used to such work. By the dim light from a neighboring shop window Kit saw that they were the men who had been in the park.
“Now, then, Slippery Jim, we want you,” one of the men said. “No nonsense, unless you want some lead in you.”