Rangsley repeated slowly.

The grunt answered again.

"Here's three men to be set aboard the _Thames_ at a quarter after
eleven. . . ." Rangsley said again.

"Here's... a-cop... three men to be set aboard _Thames_ at quarter after
eleven," a voice hiccoughed back to us.

"Well, see you do it," Rangsley said. "He's as drunk as a king,"
he commented to us; "but when you've said a thing three times, he
remembers--hark to him."

The drunken voice from below kept up a constant babble of, "Three men to
be set aboard _Thames_... three men to be set . . ."

"He'll not stop saying that till he has you safe aboard," Rangsley
said. He showed a glimmer of light down the ladder--Carlos and Castro
descended. I caught sight below me of the silver head and the deep
red ears of the drunken uncle of Rangsley. He had been one of the most
redoubtable of the family, a man of immense strength and cunning, but a
confirmed habit of consuming a pint and a half of gin a night had made
him disinclined for the more arduous tasks of the trade. He limited his
energies to working the underground passage, to the success of which his
fox-like cunning, and intimate knowledge of the passing shipping, were
indispensable. I was preparing to follow the others down the ladder when
Rangsley touched my arm.