The small boy knew, too, that both the Boutiques and the Gouliot caves had nooks and niches in their higher ranges, boarded off and secured with stout padlocked doors, where goods were stored for transfer to the cutters and chasse-marees as occasion offered, just as they were in the great warehouses of the Guernsey merchants.

He had vague ideas that so long as the goods were on dry land the preventive men could not touch them, but of that he was not perfectly certain.

These troublesome Customs' officers were constantly having new powers conferred on them.

He had overheard the men discussing them many a time, and the very fact of this man trying to find the Boutiques was in itself suspicious.

But the man was a stranger.