“Yes, but he might show up here devilish strangely,” mused Hardwicke. “He is just the fellow for a dirty fluke. Watch over Nadine, Simpson,” cried Hardwicke, “for I’ve sworn to make her my wife, within three months, uncle or no uncle!” “I will,” growled Simpson. “I’ve an old grudge to settle with the Major, and I’ll tell you some day,” said the veteran. “Let us go in. There are some curious people here. I’ll tell you all when I’m your own man, and the young mistress is Mrs. Major Hardwicke!” On this very evening, as the gray mists hid the Jersey outline from the windows of Etienne Garcin’s den, Jack Blunt and Major Alan Hawke were seated in the Major’s bedroom in the cabaret. They were cheerfully discussing two steaming “grogs,” but there was doubt and a shifty lack of thorough confidence between the two scoundrels as yet. “So you think the boat will do?” flatly demanded Jack Blunt, offering some exceptional cigars. “Just the thing,” carefully replied the Major. “And your terms for a two weeks charter?” “Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum for the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal for two more-at the same rate,” doggedly said Blunt. “Now, you’ve got to make up your mind soon, Hawke,” said Jack Blunt roughly. “I’ve told you the whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of your money. If you can’t ‘come up,’ then I’m going to run a lugger load of brandy and ‘baccy over to the Irish coast. She’s a sixty tonner and by God! fit to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is getting impatient. Our being here, stops his ‘regular business,’” gloomily said Blunt. Hawke’s impassive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: “And you say that I can trust Garcin’s brother Andre down at Isle Dial.” “Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down there.” “I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or else safely forever there,” cried Jack Blunt, in a hoarse whisper. “It’s only a matter of money and damme if I believe you’ve got any! If you fool us, you’ll never get out of here alive!” Major Hawke only smiled, and dropped his hands lightly on the butts of two heavy bull-dog revolvers ready there in his velveteen trousers’ pockets. “Jack! Don’t be an ass!” he said. “I play this game to win. Do you think that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now, tell me what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser has hidden the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the job? I want to know when they return, and I want your help and the aid of the gang. You are to crack the crib--alone--while they are away, and then we, perhaps, may meet them, on their way home. The lugger lying off in that cove to the north of Rozel Head, below the old martello tower.” “Have you been over there?” amazedly cried Blunt. “Oh! I know every inch of the place of old,” laughed Hawke, still with his hands on his revolvers.