“Don’t stop at the door,” whispered Harley, for our follower was only a few yards away.

Accordingly we passed the house in which Harley had rooms, and had proceeded some fifteen paces farther when the man who was following us stumbled in between Harley and myself, clutching an arm of either.  I scarcely knew what to expect, but was prepared for anything, when: 

“Mates!” said a man huskily.  “Mates, if you know where I can get a drink, take me there!”

Harley laughed shortly.  I cannot say if he remained suspicious of the newcomer, but for my own part I had determined after one glance at the man that he was merely a drunken fireman newly recovered from a prolonged debauch.

“Where ’ave yer been, old son?” growled Harley, in that wonderful dialect of his which I had so often and so vainly sought to cultivate.  “You look as though you’d ’ad one too many already.”

“I ain’t,” declared the fireman, who appeared to be in a semi-dazed condition.  “I ain’t ’ad one since ten o’clock last night.  It’s dope wot’s got me, not rum.”

“Dope!” said Harley sharply; “been ‘avin’ a pipe, eh?”

“If you’ve got a corpse-reviver anywhere,” continued the man in that curious, husky voice, “’ave pity on me, mate.  I seen a thing to-night wot give me the jim-jams.”

“All right, old son,” said my friend good-humouredly; “about turn!  I’ve got a drop in the bottle, but me an’ my mate sails to-morrow, an’ it’s the last.”

“Gawd bless yer!” growled the fireman; and the three of us—­an odd trio, truly—­turned about, retracing our steps.

As we approached the street lamp and its light shone upon the haggard face of the man walking between us, Harley stopped, and: 

“Wot’s up with yer eye?” he inquired.

He suddenly tilted the man’s head upward and peered closely into one of his eyes.  I suppressed a gasp of surprise for I instantly recognized the fireman of the Jupiter!

“Nothin’ up with it, is there?” said the fireman.

“Only a lump o’ mud,” growled Harley, and with a very dirty handkerchief he pretended to remove the imaginary stain, and then, turning to me: 

“Open the door, Jim,” he directed.

His examination of the man’s eyes had evidently satisfied him that our acquaintance had really been smoking opium.

We paused immediately outside the house for which we had been bound, and as I had the key I opened the door and the three of us stepped into a little dark room.  Harley closed the door and we stumbled upstairs to a low first-floor apartment facing the street.  There was nothing in its appointments, as revealed in the light of an oil lamp burning on the solitary table, to distinguish it from a thousand other such apartments which may be leased for a few shillings a week in the neighbourhood.  That adjoining might have told a different story, for it more closely resembled an actor’s dressing-room than a seaman’s lodging; but the door of this sanctum was kept scrupulously locked.