The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses by Robert Louis Stevenson
CHAPTER V--THE GOOD HOPE (continued)
The pier was not far distant from the house in which Joanna lay; it nowonly remained to get the men on shore, to surround the house with astrong party, burst in the door and carry off the captive. They mightthen regard themselves as done with the Good Hope; it had placed them onthe rear of their enemies; and the retreat, whether they should succeedor fail in the main enterprise, would be directed with a greater measureof hope in the direction of the forest and my Lord Foxham's reserve.
To get the men on shore, however, was no easy task; many had been sick,all were pierced with cold; the promiscuity and disorder on board hadshaken their discipline; the movement of the ship and the darkness of thenight had cowed their spirits. They made a rush upon the pier; my lord,with his sword drawn on his own retainers, must throw himself in front;and this impulse of rabblement was not restrained without a certainclamour of voices, highly to be regretted in the case.
When some degree of order had been restored, Dick, with a few chosen men,set forth in advance. The darkness on shore, by contrast with theflashing of the surf, appeared before him like a solid body; and thehowling and whistling of the gale drowned any lesser noise.
He had scarce reached the end of the pier, however, when there fell alull of the wind; and in this he seemed to hear on shore the hollowfooting of horses and the clash of arms. Checking his immediatefollowers, he passed forward a step or two alone, even setting foot uponthe down; and here he made sure he could detect the shape of men andhorses moving. A strong discouragement assailed him. If their enemieswere really on the watch, if they had beleaguered the shoreward end ofthe pier, he and Lord Foxham were taken in a posture of very poordefence, the sea behind, the men jostled in the dark upon a narrowcauseway. He gave a cautious whistle, the signal previously agreed upon.
It proved to be a signal far more than he desired. Instantly there fell,through the black night, a shower of arrows sent at a venture; and soclose were the men huddled on the pier that more than one was hit, andthe arrows were answered with cries of both fear and pain. In this firstdischarge, Lord Foxham was struck down; Hawksley had him carried on boardagain at once; and his men, during the brief remainder of the skirmish,fought (when they fought at all) without guidance. That was perhaps thechief cause of the disaster which made haste to follow.
At the shore end of the pier, for perhaps a minute, Dick held his ownwith a handful; one or two were wounded upon either side; steel crossedsteel; nor had there been the least signal of advantage, when in thetwinkling 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 tolend an ear to a discomfortable counsel; the cry was taken up. "Onboard, lads, for your lives!" cried another. A third, with the trueinstinct of the coward, raised that inevitable report on all retreats:"We are betrayed!" And in a moment the whole mass of men went surgingand jostling backward down the pier, turning their defenceless backs ontheir pursuers and piercing the night with craven outcry.
One coward thrust off the ship's stern, while another still held her bythe bows. The fugitives leaped, screaming, and were hauled on board, orfell back and perished in the sea. Some were cut down upon the pier bythe pursuers. Many were injured on the ship's deck in the blind hasteand terror of the moment, one man leaping upon another, and a third onboth. At last, and whether by design or accident, the bows of the GoodHope were liberated; and the ever-ready Lawless, who had maintained hisplace at the helm through all the hurly-burly by sheer strength of bodyand a liberal use of the cold steel, instantly clapped her on the propertack. The ship began to move once more forward on the stormy sea, itsscuppers running blood, its deck heaped with fallen men, sprawling andstruggling in the dark.
Thereupon, Lawless sheathed his dagger, and turning to his nextneighbour, "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 menhad not appeared to observe the rough shoves and cutting stabs with whichLawless had held his post in the confusion. But perhaps they had alreadybegun to understand somewhat more clearly, or perhaps another ear hadoverheard, the helmsman's speech.
Panic-stricken troops recover slowly, and men who have just disgracedthemselves 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 andbeen hauled, feet foremost, into the Good Hope, began to cry out upontheir 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 theGood 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 inshrill tones and with abominable oaths bade Lawless go about-ship andbring them speedily ashore. Lawless, grinding his teeth, continued insilence to steer the true course, guiding the Good Hope among theformidable billows. To their empty terrors, as to their dishonourablethreats, between drink and dignity he scorned to make reply. Themalcontents drew together a little abaft the mast, and it was plain theywere like barnyard cocks, "crowing for courage." Presently they would befit for any extremity of injustice or ingratitude. Dick began to mountby the ladder, eager to interpose; but one of the outlaws, who was alsosomething of a seaman, got beforehand.
"Lads," he began, "y' are right wooden heads, I think. For to get back,by the mass, we must have an offing, must we not? And this oldLawless--"
Someone struck the speaker on the mouth, and the next moment, as a firesprings among dry straw, he was felled upon the deck, trampled under thefeet, and despatched by the daggers of his cowardly companions. At thisthe wrath of Lawless rose and broke.
"Steer yourselves," he bellowed, with a curse; and, careless of theresult, he left the helm.
The Good Hope was, at that moment, trembling on the summit of a swell.She subsided, with sickening velocity, upon the farther side. A wave,like a great black bulwark, hove immediately in front of her; and, with astaggering blow, she plunged headforemost through that liquid hill. Thegreen water passed right over her from stem to stern, as high as a man'sknees; the sprays ran higher than the mast; and she rose again upon theother side, with an appalling, tremulous indecision, like a beast thathas been deadly wounded.
Six or seven of the malcontents had been carried bodily overboard; and asfor the remainder, when they found their tongues again, it was to bellowto the saints and wail upon Lawless to come back and take the tiller.
Nor did Lawless wait to be twice bidden. The terrible result of hisfling of just resentment sobered him completely. He knew, better thanany one on board, how nearly the Good Hope had gone bodily down belowtheir feet; and he could tell, by the laziness with which she met thesea, that the peril was by no means over.
Dick, who had been thrown down by the concussion and half drowned, rosewading to his knees in the swamped well of the stern, and crept to theold helmsman's side.
"Lawless," he said, "we do all depend on you; y' are a brave, steady man,indeed, and crafty in the management of ships; I shall put three sure mento watch upon your safety."
"Bootless, my master, bootless," said the steersman, peering forwardthrough the dark. "We come every moment somewhat clearer of thesesandbanks; with every moment, then, the sea packeth upon us heavier, andfor all these whimperers, they will presently be on their backs. For, mymaster, 'tis a right mystery, but true, there never yet was a bad manthat was a good shipman. None but the honest and the bold can endure methis tossing of a ship."
"Nay, Lawless," said Dick, laughing, "that is a right shipman's byword,and hath no more of sense than the whistle of the wind. But, prithee,how go we? Do we lie well? Are we in good case?"
"Master She
"Is it so?" asked Dick.
"It is right so," replied the outlaw. "Do ye not feel how heavy and dullshe moves upon the waves? Do ye not hear the water washing in her hold?She will scarce mind the rudder even now. Bide till she has settled abit lower; and she will either go down below your boots like a stoneimage, or drive ashore here, under our lee, and come all to pieces like atwist of string."
"Ye speak with a good courage," returned Dick. "Ye are not thenappalled?"
"Why, master," answered Lawless, "if ever a man had an ill crew to cometo port with, it is I--a renegade friar, a thief, and all the rest on't.Well, ye may wonder, but I keep a good hope in my wallet; and if that Ibe to drown, I will drown with a bright eye, Master Shelton, and a steadyhand."
Dick returned no answer; but he was surprised to find the old vagabond ofso resolute a temper, and fearing some fresh violence or treachery, setforth upon his quest for three sure men. The great bulk of the men hadnow deserted the deck, which was continually wetted with the flyingsprays, and where they lay exposed to the shrewdness of the winter wind.They had gathered, instead, into the hold of the merchandise, among thebutts of wine, and lighted by two swinging lanterns.
Here a few kept up the form of revelry, and toasted each other deep inArblaster's Gascony wine. But as the Good Hope continued to tear throughthe smoking waves, and toss her stem and stern alternately high in airand deep into white foam, the number of these jolly companions diminishedwith every moment and with every lurch. Many sat apart, tending theirhurts, but the majority were already prostrated with sickness, and laymoaning in the bilge.
Greensheve, Cuckow, and a young fellow of Lord Foxham's whom Dick hadalready remarked for his intelligence and spirit, were still, however,both fit to understand and willing to obey. These Dick set, as abody-guard, about the person of the steersman, and then, with a last lookat the black sky and sea, he turned and went below into the cabin,whither Lord Foxham had been carried by his servants.