Like all the other tales that we have read, including Sir Gawain and
Wife of Bath, you can see too that the Pardoner's tale comes full
circle.  This is because in his tale, he speaks of three young men who
are gamblers, drinkers, and women seducers.  They themselves were
doing the devils work according to the pardoners, or so he said, and
they had found out death was taking people's lives.  The three men
decided that it was their duty to destroy and stop death from taking
innocent people's lives so they went out on a quest to find death and
through looking for death, they eventually find death by actually
being dead.  Through looking for death they actually found death in
the fact that they are no longer living, which makes the story go full
circle because they found what they were looking for but also they
died because of their selfish gluttonous ways that were "the devils
works."   So therefore they ultimately were punished for their sins
that they committed because thats what got them to search for death in
the first place because they were gluttonous drunkards looking for a
quest to go on.