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254 "Good-by" as they disappeared through the openings between the houses.

Straining every nerve, the cutter's men grounded their own boat in an incredibly short time; and, profiting by the precious moments the smugglers had lost in emptying their cargo, they raced up the stony beach in pursuit, believing that, encumbered as they were, the "free-traders" would find it impossible to keep ahead of them long.

But alas! they had reckoned without their host; for while they, the representatives of law and order, were fighting alone and unaided, the smugglers had each a brother or a mother, a sister or a sweetheart, in one or other of the mean, picturesque little hovels that nestled together in the shelter of the tall cliffs beneath the castle, and lined the narrow, tortuous streets of the ancient town.

No sooner had the first of the revenue-men turned the corner into the High Street, up which the smugglers were making their way towards some chosen haunt of their own, than the hindermost of the rascals, who alone carried no burden, gave a peculiar kind of shrill whistle.