His companion watched him pass out with a relieved yet protecting air, and then, closing the door softly, drew nearer to Breeze, and said in husky confidence,—­

“Ye ain’t seein’ him at his best, mister!  He’s bin drinkin’ too much, and this yer news has upset him.”

“What news?” asked Breeze.

“This yer suicide o’ Irish Jack!”

“Was he his friend?”

“Friend?” ejaculated the man, horrified at the mere suggestion.  “Not much!  Why, Irish Jack was the only man that could hev hung Jim!  Now he’s dead, in course the Vigilants ain’t got no proof agin Jim.  Jim wants to face it out now an’ stay here, but his wife and me don’t see it noways!  So we are taking advantage o’ the lull agin him to get him off down the coast this very night.  That’s why he’s been off his head drinkin’.  Ye see, when a man has been for weeks hidin’—­part o’ the time in that room and part o’ the time on the wharf, where them Vigilants has been watchin’ every ship that left in order to ketch him, he’s inclined to celebrate his chance o’ getting away”—­

“Part of the time in that room?” interrupted Breeze quickly.

“Sartin!  Don’t ye see?  He allus kem in as you went out—­sabe!—­and got away before you kem back, his wife all the time just a-hoverin’ between the two places, and keeping watch for him.  It was killin’ to her, you see, for she wasn’t brought up to it, whiles Jim didn’t keer—­had two revolvers and kalkilated to kill a dozen Vigilants afore he dropped.  But that’s over now, and when I’ve got him safe on that ‘plunger’ down at the wharf to-night, and put him aboard the schooner that’s lying off the Heads, he’s all right agin.”

“And Roberts knew all this and was one of his friends?” asked Breeze.

“Roberts knew it, and Roberts’s wife used to be a kind of servant to Jim’s wife in the South, when she was a girl, but I don’t know ez Roberts is his friend!”

“He certainly has shown himself one,” said Breeze.

“Ye-e-s,” said the stranger meditatively, “ye-e-s.”  He stopped, opened the door softly, and peeped out, and then closed it again softly.  “It’s sing’lar, Mr. Breeze,” he went on in a sudden yet embarrassed burst of confidence, “that Jim thar—­a man thet can shoot straight, and hez frequent; a man thet knows every skin game goin’—­that thet man Jim,” very slowly, “hezn’t really—­got—­any friends—­’cept me—­and his wife.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Breeze dryly.

“Sure!  Why, you yourself didn’t cotton to him—­I could see thet.”

Mr. Breeze felt himself redden slightly, and looked curiously at the man.  This vulgar parasite, whom he had set down as a worshiper of sham heroes, undoubtedly did not look like an associate of Bodine’s, and had a certain seriousness that demanded respect.  As he looked closer into his wide, round face, seamed with small-pox, he fancied he saw even in its fatuous imbecility something of that haunting devotion he had seen on the refined features of the wife.  He said more gently,—­