The unexpected sight came upon him with such surprise that, had not the height of the little table served as a screen to shelter him from view, his sudden movement must have betrayed his wakefulness.

“He’s a nice one for any woman to be tied to, he is!” replied the younger of the two sailors.  “Why, the only time as I ever had what you may call a fair look at un was one night in to the King o’ Proosia’s, and there he was dealing out his soft sawder to little Nancy Lagassick as if he couldn’t live a minute out o’ her sight.”

“That’s about it,” laughed the soldier.  “He’s one of your own sort there:  you Jacks are all alike, with a wife in every port.  However,” he added—­and as he spoke he gave a complacent stroke to his good-looking face—­“he may thank his stars that a matter of seven miles or so lays between his pretty Eve and Captain Van Courtland’s troop, or there’d have been a cutting-out expedition that, saving the presence of those I speak before”—­and he gave a most exasperating wink—­“might have proved a trifle more successful than such things have of late.”

“Here, I say,” said the sailor, flaming up at this ill-timed jocularity, “p’ra’ps you’ll tell me what ‘tis you’re drivin’ at; for I’ve got to hear of it if you, or any o’ your cloth either, ever made a find yet.  You’re mighty ’cute ’bout other folks, though when the spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through ’twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn’t lay hold on a single cask.  ’Tis true we mayn’t have nabbed the men, but by jingo if ’t has come to us bein’ made fools of by the women!”

“There, now, stash it there!” said his older comrade, who had no wish to see a quarrel ensue.  “So far as I can see, there’s no cause for bounce ‘twixt either o’ us; though only you give us a chance of getting near to them, sergeant,” he said, turning to the soldier, “and I’ll promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy while her lover’s cutting capers under Tyburn tree.”

“‘A chance?’” repeated his companion, despondingly:  “where’s it to come from, and the only one we’d got cut away from under us by those Hart chaps?”

“How so? where’s the Hart off to, then?” asked the sergeant.

“Off to Port Mellint,” said the man addressed.  “Nothing but a hoax, I fancy, but still she was bound to go;” and so saying he tossed off the remainder of his grog and began making a movement, saying, as he did so, to his somewhat quarrelsomely-disposed shipmate, “Here, I say, Bill, come ‘long down to the rendezvoos with me, and if there’s nothin’ up for to-night what d’ye say to stepping round to Paddy Burke’s?  He’s asked us to come ever so many times, you know.”

“Paddy Burke?” said the sergeant.  “What! do you know him?  Why, if you’re going there, I’ll step so far with you.”

“Well, we’re bound for the rendezvoos first,” said the sailor.

“All right!  I can find plenty to do while you’re in there.”