hed up with his breast against a shore-line that someone
had carried out from the bows: and hauling on this he dragged himself
along till the water reached no higher than his knees. Twice he tried to
run, and twice he fell through weakness, but he came ashore at last at a
place where the beach ended in a low ridge of rock covered with ore-weed.
Between the rocks ran stretches of whity-grey shingle, and he lay still
for a while and panted, considering how on earth he could cross these
without being spied by the Navymen, that had recovered their boat by this
time and were pulling back with her to the lugger. While he lay there
flat on his stomach, thinking as hard as his bruised head would let him,
a voice spoke out of the darkness close by his ear, and said the voice,
"You belong aboard the lugger, if I'm not mistook?"--which so terrified
Dan'l that he made no answer, but lifted himself and stared, with all his
teeth chattering. "You stay still where you are," the voice went on,
"till the coast is a bit clearer, as 'twill be in a minute or two.
There's a two-three friends up the beach, that were hired for this
business; but the Preventive men have bested us this time. Hows'ever,
you've had luck to get ashore--'tis better be lucky than rich, they say.
Hutted, are 'ee?" The boats being gone by this time, the man that owned
the voice stepped out of the darkness, lifted him--big-boned man though he
was--and hefted him over the rocks. A little higher up the foreshore he
was joined by two others, and the three between 'em took hold of Dan'l and
helped him up the cliff and through a furze-drake till they brought him to
a cottage, where, in a kitchen full of people, he found half a dozen of
the Cove-boys that had dropped overboard at the first alarm and swam for
shore--the lot gathered about a young doctor from St. Austell that was
binding up a man whose shoulder had been ripped open by a musket-ball.

Poor Dan'l's injury being more serious, and his face a clot of blood from
the cutlass-wound over his nose, the doctor turned to him at once and
plastered him up for dear life; after which his friends, well knowing that
a price would be set on him as skipper of the _Black Joke_, carried him
off to St. Austell in a cart that had been brought for the tubs; and at
St. Austell hired a chaise to carry him home to Marazion, taking the
precaution to wrap his head round with bandages, so that the post-boys
might not be able to swear to