The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 8
Page 20
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 themon the rear of their enemies; and the retreat, whether they shouldsucceed or fail in the main enterprise, would be directed with a greatermeasure of hope in the direction of the forest and my Lord Foxham'sreserve.
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 ofthe night had cowed their spirits. They made a rush upon the pier; mylord, with his sword drawn on his own retainers, must throw himself infront; and this impulse of rabblement was not restrained without acertain clamour of voices, highly to be regretted in the case.
When some degree of order had been restored, Dick, with a few chosenmen, 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 beleagured 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 for 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 onboard again at once; and his men, during the brief remainder of theskirmish, fought (when they fought at all) without guidance. That wasperhaps the chief 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.Some one 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 withwhich Lawless had held his post in the confusion. But perhaps they hadalready begun to understand somewhat more clearly, perhaps another earhad overheard 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 ofinsubordination. So it was now; and the same men who had thrown awaytheir weapons and been hauled, feet foremost, into the _Good Hope_,began to cry out upon their leaders, and demand that some one should bepunished.
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 inshrill tones and with abominable oaths bade Lawless go about-ship andbring them speedily ashore.
Lawless, grinding his teeth, continued in silence to steer the truecourse, guiding the _Good Hope_ among the formidable billows. To theirempty terrors, as to their dishonourable threats, between drink anddignity he scorned to make reply. The malcontents drew together a littleabaft the mast, and it was plain they were like barnyard cocks, "crowingfor courage." Presently they would be fit for any extremity of injusticeor ingratitude. Dick began to mount by the ladder, eager to interpose;but one of the outlaws, who was also something of a seaman, gotbeforehand.
"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--"
Some one 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, witha staggering blow, she plunged head foremost through that liquid hill.The green water passed right over her from stem to stern, as high as aman's knees; the sprays ran higher than the mast; and she rose againupon the other side, with an appalling, tremulous indecision, like abeast that has been deadly wounded.
Six or seven of the malcontents had been carried bodily overboard; andas for the remainder, when they found their tongues again, it was tobellow to the saints and wail upon Lawless to come back and take thetiller.
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, steadyman, indeed, and crafty in the management of ships; I shall put threesure men to 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 Shelton," replied Lawless, "I have been a Grey Friar--I praisefortune--an archer, a thief, and a shipman. Of all these coats, I hadthe best fancy to die in the Grey Friars, as ye may readily conceive,and the least fancy to die in John Shipman's tarry jacket; and that fortwo excellent good reasons: first, that the death might take a mansuddenly; and second, for the horror of that great salt smother andwelter under my foot here"--and Lawless stamped with his foot."Howbeit," he went on, "an I die not a sailor's death, and that thisnight, I shall owe a tall candle to our Lady."
"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 likea twist 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 asteady hand."
Dick returned no answer; but he was surprised to find the old vagabondof so resolute a temper, and, fearing some fresh violence or treachery,set forth upon his quest for three sure men. The great bulk of the menhad now 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 tearthrough the smoking waves, and toss her stem and stern alternately highin air and deep into white foam, the number of these jolly companionsdiminished with every moment and with every lurch. Many sat apart,tending their hurts, but the majority were already prostrated withsickness, and lay moaning 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 abodyguard 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.