ang in and rowed steadily out to
sea. The others stood, hands on hips, watching them silently till the boat
turned the corner of Les Laches and passed out of sight, and then their
tongues were loosed.

"So!" said one. "That's the end of Monsieur Martel."

"Nom de Gyu! We'll hope so," said the other. "But I'd sooner seen him dead
and buried."

"'Crais b'en!" said the other with a knowing nod. For all the world knew
that if Paul Martel had never come to Sercq, Rachel Carre might have become
Mistress Hamon instead of Madame Martel--and very much better for her if
she had.

For Martel, in spite of his taking ways and the polished manners of his
courting days, had proved anything but a good husband, and he had wound up
a long period of indifference and neglect with a grievous bodily assault
which had stirred the clan spirit of the Islanders into active reprisal.
They would make of it an object-lesson to the other Island girls which
would be likely to further the wooings of the Island lads for a long time
to come.

Martel, you see, came from Guernsey, but he was only half a Guernsey man at
that. His father was a Manche man from Cherbourg, who happened to get
wrecked on the Hanois, and settled and married in Peter Port. Paul Martel
had grown up to the sea. He had sailed to foreign parts and seen much of
the world. He was an excellent sailor, and when he tired of a roving life
turned his abilities to account in those peculiar channels of trade which
the situation of the Islands and their ancient privileges particularly
fitted them for. The Government in London had, indeed, tried, time after
time, to suppress the free-trading, and passed many laws and ordinances
against it, but these attempts had so far only added zest to the business,
and seemed rather to stimulate that which they were intended to suppress.

Martel was successful as a smuggler, and might in time have come to own his
own boat and run his own cargoes if he had kept steady.

The Government now and again had harsh fits which made things difficult for
the time being in Guernsey, and at such times the smaller islands were
turned to account, and the goods were stored and shipped from there. And
that is how he came to frequent Sercq and made the acquaintance of Rachel
Carre.

George Hamon, I know, never to his dying day forgave himself for having
been the means of bringing Martel to Sercq, and truly he got paid for it as
bitterly as man could.

Martel might,