Chapter 18 - Page 2

been the least signal of advantage,
when in the twinkling of an eye the tide turned against the party
from the ship. Someone cried out that all was lost; the men were
in the very humour to lend an ear to a discomfortable counsel; the
cry was taken up. "On board, lads, for your lives!" cried another.
A third, with the true instinct of the coward, raised that
inevitable report on all retreats: "We are betrayed!" And in a
moment the whole mass of men went surging and jostling backward
down the pier, turning their defenceless backs on their pursuers
and piercing the night with craven outcry.

One coward thrust off the ship's stern, while another still held
her by the bows. The fugitives leaped, screaming, and were hauled
on board, or fell back and perished in the sea. Some were cut down
upon the pier by the pursuers. Many were injured on the ship's
deck in the blind haste and terror of the moment, one man leaping
upon another, and a third on both. At last, and whether by design
or accident, the bows of the Good Hope were liberated; and the
ever-ready Lawless, who had maintained his place at the helm
through all the hurly-burly by sheer strength of body and a liberal
use of the cold steel, instantly clapped her on the proper tack.
The ship began to move once more forward on the stormy sea, its
scuppers running blood, its deck heaped with fallen men, sprawling
and struggling in the dark.

Thereupon, Lawless sheathed his dagger, and turning to his next
neighbour, "I have left my mark on them, gossip," said he, "the
yelping, coward hounds."

Now, while they were all leaping and struggling for their lives,
the men had not appeared to observe the rough shoves and cutting
stabs with which Lawless had held his post in the confusion. But
perhaps they had already begun to understand somewhat more clearly,
or perhaps another ear had overheard, the helmsman's speech.

Panic-stricken troops recover slowly, and men who have just
disgraced themselves by cowardice, as if to wipe out the memory of
their fault, will sometimes run straight into the opposite extreme
of insubordination. So it was now; and the same men who had thrown
away their weapons and been hauled, feet foremost, into the Good
Hope, began to cry out upon their leaders, and demand that someone
should be punished.

This growing ill-feeling turned upon Lawless.

In order to get a proper offing, the old outlaw had put the head of
the Good Hope to seaward.

"What!" bawled one of the grumblers, "he carrieth us to seaward!"

"'Tis sooth," cried another. "Nay, we are betrayed for sure."

And they all began to cry out in chorus that they were betrayed,
and in shrill tones and with abominable oaths bade Lawless go