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“Can’t we come aboard without that?” feebly urged Mr. Martin.

“I’ll see you damned first, Mr. Martin. Come quick, or I’ll give you what for.”

“We surrender,” answered the officer gently.

A few minutes later he and his men were on board, with their rifles stacked in a corner at Bissonnette’s hand.

Then Tarboe brought the Ninety-Nine close to the wreck, and with his little cannon put a ball into her. This was the finish. She shook her nose, shivered, shot down like a duck, and was gone.

Mr. Martin was sad even to tears.

“Now, my beauties,” said Tarboe, “now that I’ve got you safe, I’ll show you the kind of cargo I’ve got.” A moment afterwards he hoisted a keg on deck. “Think that’s whisky?” he asked. “Lift it, Mr. Martin.” Mr. Martin obeyed. “Shake it,” he added.

Mr. Martin did so. “Open it, Mr. Martin.” He held out a hatchet-hammer. The next moment a mass of gold pieces yellowed to their eyes. Mr. Martin fell back, breathing hard.

“Is that contraband, Mr. Martin?”

“Treasure-trove,” humbly answered the stricken officer.

“That’s it, and in a month, Mr. Martin, I’ll be asking the chief of your department to dinner.”

Meanwhile Lafarge saw how near he had been to losing a wife and a fortune. Arrived off Isle of Day; Tarboe told Mr. Martin and his men that if they said “treasure-trove” till they left the island their live would not be worth “a tinker’s damn.” When they had sworn, he took them to Angel Point, fed then royally, gave them excellent liquor to drink, and sent them in a fishing-smack with Bissonnette to Quebec where, arriving, they told strange tales.

Bissonnette bore a letter to a certain banker in Quebec, who already had done business with Tarboe, and next midnight Tarboe himself, with Gobal, Lafarge, Bissonnette, and another, came knocking at the banker’s door, each carrying a keg on his shoulder and armed to the teeth. And, what was singular two stalwart police-officers walked behind with comfortable and approving looks.

A month afterwards Lafarge and Joan were married in the parish church at Isle of Days, and it was said that Mr. Martin, who, for some strange reason, was allowed to retain his position in the customs, sent a present. The wedding ended with a sensation, for just as the benediction was pronounced a loud report was heard beneath the floor of the church. There was great commotion, but Tarboe whispered in the curb’s ear, and he blushing, announced that it was the bursting of a barrel. A few minutes afterwards the people of the parish knew the old hiding-place of Tarboe’s contraband, and, though the cure rebuked them, they roared with laughter at the knowledge.

“So droll, so droll, our Tarboe there!” they shouted, for already they began to look upon him as their Seigneur.

In time the cure forgave him also.

Tarboe seldom left Isle of Days, save when he went to visit his daughter, in St. Louis Street, Quebec, not far from the Parliament House, where Orvay Lafarge is a member of the Ministry. The ex-smuggler was a member of the Assembly for three months, but after defeating his own party on a question of tariff, he gave a portrait of himself to the Chamber, and threw his seat into the hands of his son-in-law. At the Belle Chatelaine, where he often goes, he sometimes asks Bissonnette to play “The Demoiselle with the Scarlet Hose.”