The pier was not far distant from the house in which Joanna lay; it now only remained to get the men on shore, to surround the house with a strong party, burst in the door and carry off the captive.  They might then regard themselves as done with the Good Hope; it had placed them on the rear of their enemies; and the retreat, whether they should succeed or fail in the main enterprise, would be directed with a greater measure of 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 had shaken their discipline; the movement of the ship and the darkness of the night 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 certain clamour 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 the flashing of the surf, appeared before him like a solid body; and the howling and whistling of the gale drowned any lesser noise.
 
He had scarce reached the end of the pier, however, when there fell a lull of the wind; and in this he seemed to hear on shore the hollow footing of horses and the clash of arms.  Checking his immediate followers, he passed forward a step or two alone, even setting foot upon the down; and here he made sure he could detect the shape of men and horses moving.  A strong discouragement assailed him.  If their enemies were really on the watch, if they had beleaguered the shoreward end of the pier, he and Lord Foxham were taken in a posture of very poor defence, the sea behind, the men jostled in the dark upon a narrow causeway.  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 so close were the men huddled on the pier that more than one was hit, and the arrows were answered with cries of both fear and pain.  In this first discharge, Lord Foxham was struck down; Hawksley had him carried on board again at once; and his men, during the brief remainder of the skirmish, fought (when they fought at all) without guidance.  That was perhaps 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 own with a handful; one or two were wounded upon either side; steel crossed steel; nor had there 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 about-ship and bring them speedily ashore.  Lawless, grinding his teeth, continued in silence to steer the true course, guiding the Good Hope among the formidable billows.  To their empty terrors, as to their dishonourable threats, between drink and dignity he scorned to make reply.  The malcontents drew together a little abaft the mast, and it was plain they were like barnyard cocks, “crowing for courage.&rdq............