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I. THE SEARCH

She was only a big gulf yawl, which a man and a boy could manage at a pinch, with old-fashioned high bulwarks, but lying clean in the water. She had a tolerable record for speed, and for other things so important that they were now and again considered by the Government at Quebec. She was called the Ninety-Nine. With a sense of humour the cure had called her so, after an interview with her owner and captain, Tarboe the smuggler. When he said to Tarboe at Angel Point that he had come to seek the one sheep that was lost, leaving behind him the other ninety-and-nine within the fold at Isle of Days, Tarboe had replied that it was a mistake–he was the ninety-nine, for he needed no repentance, and immediately offered the cure some old brown brandy of fine flavour. They both had a whimsical turn, and the cure did not ask Tarboe how he came by such perfect liquor. Many high in authority, it was said, had been soothed even to the winking of an eye when they ought to have sent a Nordenfeldt against the Ninety-Nine.

The day after the cure left Angel Point he spoke of Tarboe and his craft as the Ninety-and-Nine; and Tarboe hearing of this–for somehow he heard everything–immediately painted out the old name, and called her the Ninety-Nine, saying that she had been so blessed by the cure. Afterwards the Ninety-Nine had an increasing reputation for exploit and daring. In brief, Tarboe and his craft were smugglers, and to have trusted gossip would have been to say that the boat was as guilty as the man.

Their names were much more notorious than sweet; and yet in Quebec men laughed as they shrugged their shoulders at them; for as many jovial things as evil were told of Tarboe. When it became known that a dignitary of the Church had been given a case of splendid wine, which had come in a roundabout way to him, men waked in the night and laughed, to the annoyance of their wives; for the same dignitary had preached a powerful sermon against smugglers and the receivers of stolen goods. It was a sad thing for monsignor to be called a Ninety-Niner, as were all good friends of Tarboe, high and low. But when he came to know, after the wine had been leisurely drunk and becomingly praised, he brought his influence to bear in civic places, so that there was nothing left to do but to corner Tarboe at last.

It was in the height of summer, when there was little to think of in the old fortressed city, and a dart after a brigand appealed to the romantic natures of the idle French folk, common and gentle.

Through clouds of rank tobacco smoke, and in the wash of their bean soup, the habitants discussed the fate of “Black Tarboe,” and officers of the garrison and idle ladies gossiped at the Citadel and at Murray Bay of the freebooting gentlemen, whose Ninety-Nine had furnished forth many a table in the great walled city. But Black Tarboe himself was down at Anticosti, waiting for a certain merchantman. Passing vessels saw the Ninety-Nine anchored in an open bay, flying its flag flippantly before the world–a rag of black sheepskin, with the wool on, in profane keeping with its name.

There was no attempt at hiding, no skulking behind a point, or scurrying from observation, but an indolent and insolent waiting–for something. “Black Tarboe’s getting reckless,” said one captain coming in, and another, going out, grinned as he remembered the talk at Quebec, and thought of the sport provided for the Ninety-Nine when she should come up stream; as she must in due time, for Tarboe’s home was on the Isle of Days, and was he not fond and proud of his daughter Joan to a point of folly? He was not alone in his admiration of Joan, for the cure at Isle of Days said high things of her.