y 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.
Some one 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, 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 opposi