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To be short, Dan’l Leggo, after waiting the best part of two days at St. Peter’s Port and getting no news to the contrary, judged that the coast must be clear, and stood across with a light sou’-westerly breeze, timing it so as to make his landfall a little before sunset: which he did, and speaking the crew of a Mevagissey boat some miles off the Deadman, was told he might take the lugger in and bring her up to anchor without fear of interruption. (But whether or no they had been bribed to give this information he never discovered.) They told him, too, that his clients–a St. Austell company–had the boats ready at Rope Hauen under the Blackhead, and would be out as soon as ever he dropped anchor. So he crept in under darkness and brought up under the loom of the shore– having shifted his large lug for a trysail and leaving that set, with his jib and mizzen–and gave orders at once to cast off the hatches. While this was doing, sure enough he heard the boats putting off from the beach a cable’s length away, and was just congratulating himself on having to deal with such business-like people, when his mate, Billy Tregaskis, caught hold of him by the elbow.

“Hark to them oars, sir!” he whispered.

“I hear ’em,” said Dan’l.

“You never heard that stroke pulled by fishermen,” said Billy, straining to look into the darkness. “They’re man-o’-war’s boats, sir, or you may call me a Dutchman!”

“Cut the cable!” ordered Dan’l, sharp and prompt.

Billy whipped out his knife, ran forward, and cut loose in a jiffy; but before the Black Joke could gather headway the two boats had run up close under her stern. The bow-man of the first sheared through the mizzen-sheet with his cutlass, and boarding over the stern with three or four others, made a rush upon Dan’l as he let go the helm and turned to face them; while the second boat’s crew opened with a dozen musket-shots, firing high at the sails and rigging. In this they succeeded: for the second or third shot cut through the trysail tack and brought the sail down with a run; and almost at the same moment the boarders overpowered Dan’l and bore him down on deck, where they beat him silly with the flat of their cutlasses and so passed on to drive the rest of the lugger’s crew, that were running below in a panic.

The struggle had carried Dan’l forward, so that when he dropped ’twas across the fallen trysail. This served him an ill turn: for one of the cutlasses, catching in a fold of it, turned aslant and cut him cruelly over the bridge of the nose. But the sail being tanned, and therefore almost black in the darkness, it served him a good turn too; for after his enemies had passed on and were busy making prisoners of the rest of the crew, he lay there unperceived for a great while, listening to the racket, but faint and stunned, so that he could make neither head nor tail of it. At length a couple of men came aft and began handling the sail; and “Hullo!” says one of them, discovering him, “here’s one as dead as a haddock!”

“Put him below,” says the other.

“What’s the use?” asks the other, pulling Dan’l out by the legs and examining him; “the poor devil’s head is all jelly.” Just then a cry was raised that one of the boats had gone adrift, the boarders having forgotten to make her fast in their hurry, and someone called out an order to man the other and pull in search of her. The two fellows that had been handling Dan’l dropped him and ran aft, and Dan’l–all sick and giddy as he was–crawled into the scuppers and, pulling himself up till his eyes were level with the bulwarks, tried to measure the distance between him and shore. Now the lugger (you’ll remember) was adrift when the Navymen first boarded her, through Billy Tregaskis having cut the cable; and with the set of the tide she must been carried close in-shore during the scrimmage before they brought her up: for, to Dan’l’s amazement, she lay head-to-beach, and so close you could toss a biscuit ashore. There the shingle spread, a-glimmering under his nose, as you might say; and he put up a thanksgiving when he remembered that a minute ago his only hope had been to swim ashore–a thing impossible in his weak state; but now, if he could only drop overside without being observed, he verily believed he could wade for it–that is, after the first few yards–for the Black Joke drew from five to six feet of water, and since she lay afloat ’twas certain the water right under him must be beyond his depth. Having made up his mind to the risk–for anything was better than Bodmin prison–he heaved a leg across the bulwarks, and so very cautious-like rolled over and dropped. His toes–for he went down pretty plump–touched bottom for a moment: but when he came to strike out he found he’d over-calculated his strength, and gave himself up for lost. He swallowed some water, too, and was on the point of crying out to be taken aboard again and not left to drown, when the set of the tide swept him forward, so that he fetched 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.