Peter Pan
would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a
pirate, Slightly?”
He winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, “I don’t think so,” as if
he wished things had been otherwise. “Would your mother like you to be
a pirate, Twin?”
“I don’t think so,” said the first twin, as clever as the others.
“Nibs, would—”
“Stow this gab,” roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back.
“You, boy,” he said, addressing John, “you look as if you had a little
pluck in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?”
Now John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep.; and
he was struck by Hook’s picking him out.
“I once thought of calling myself Red-handed Jack,” he said
diffidently.
“And a good name too. We’ll call you that here, bully, if you join.”
“What do you think, Michael?” asked John.
“What would you call me if I join?” Michael demanded.
“Blackbeard Joe.”
Michael was naturally impressed. “What do you think, John?” He wanted
John to decide, and John wanted him to decide.
“Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King?” John inquired.
Through Hook’s teeth came the answer: “You would have to swear, ‘Down
with the King.’”
Perhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now.
“Then I refuse,” he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook.
“And I refuse,” cried Michael.
“Rule Britannia!” squeaked Curly.
The infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth; and Hook roared out,
“That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready.”
They were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco
preparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was
brought up.
No words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the
boys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling; but all
that she saw was that the ship had not been tidied for years. There was
not a porthole on the grimy glass of which you might not have written
with your finger “Dirty pig”; and she had already written it on
several. But as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of
course, save for them.
“So, my beauty,” said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, “you are to see
your children walk the plank.”
Fine gentlemen though he was, the intensity of his communings had
soiled his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a
hasty gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.
“Are they to die?” asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt
that he nearly fainted.
“They are,” he snarled. “Silence all,” he called gloatingly, “for a
mother’s last words to her children.”
At this moment Wendy was grand. “These are my last words, dear boys,”
she said firmly. “I feel that I have a message to you from your real
mothers, and it is this: ‘We hope our sons will die like English
gentlemen.’”
Even the pirates were awed, and Tootles cried out hysterically, “I am
going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?”
“What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?”
“What my mother hopes. John, what are—”
But Hook had found his voice again.
“Tie her up!” he shouted.
It was Smee who tied her to the mast. “See here, honey,” he whispered,
“I’ll save you if you promise to be my mother.”
But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. “I would almost
rather have no children at all,” she said disdainfully.
It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to
the mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they
were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would
walk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they
could stare and shiver only.
Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward
Wendy. His intention was to turn her face so that she should see the
boys walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never
heard the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something
else instead.
It was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.
They all heard it—pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was
blown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded,
but toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him
alone, and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.
Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as
if he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.
The sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly
thought, “The crocodile is about to board the ship!”
Even the iron claw hung inactive; as if knowing that it was no
intrinsic part of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully
alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell:
but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its
guidance he crawled on the knees along the deck as far from the sound
as he could go. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and
it was only when he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke.
“Hide me!” he cried hoarsely.
They gathered round him, all eyes averted from the thing that was
coming aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.
Only when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of
the boys so that they could rush to the ship’s side to see the
crocodile climbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of the
Night of Nights; for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid.
It was Peter.
He signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might
rouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking.
Chapter XV.
“HOOK OR ME THIS TIME”
Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our
noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance,
we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don’t
know how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come
that night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the
island with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had
seen the crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it,
but by and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he
thought this eerie, but soon concluded rightly that the clock had run
down.
Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a
fellow-creature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter
began to consider how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use; and
he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the
crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one
unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound,
and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what
it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again
ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like slaves to a
fixed idea, it was a stupid beast.
Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on, his legs
encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new
element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human
of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: “Hook or me this
time.” He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without
knowing that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for
to board the brig by help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had
not occurred to him.
On the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a
mouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with
Hook in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.
The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the
ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and
he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it
himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. “How clever of
me!” he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into
applause.
It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the
forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by
your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the
ill-fated pirate’s mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward.
Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and
the carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence.
How long has it taken?
“One!” (Slightly had begun to count.)
None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the
cabin; for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look
round. They could hear each other’s distressed breathing now, which
showed them that the more terrible sound had passed.
“It’s gone, captain,” Smee said, wiping off his spectacles. “All’s
still again.”
Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently
that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound,
and he drew himself up firmly to his full height.
“Then here’s to Johnny Plank!” he cried brazenly, hating the boys more
than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the
villainous ditty:
“Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,
You walks along it so,
Till it goes down and you goes down
To Davy Jones below!”
To terrorise the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of
dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he
sang; and when he finished he cried, “Do you want a touch of the cat
before you walk the plank?”
At that they fell on their knees. “No, no!” they cried so piteously
that every pirate smiled.
“Fetch the cat, Jukes,” said Hook; “it’s in the cabin.”
The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.
“Ay, ay,” said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They
followed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed
his song, his dogs joining in with him:
“Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,
Its tails are nine, you know,
And when they’re writ upon your back—”
What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song
was stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the
ship, and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well
understood by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than
the screech.
“What was that?” cried Hook.
“Two,” said Slightly solemnly.
The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin.
He tottered out, haggard.
“What’s the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?” hissed Hook, towering
over him.
“The matter wi’ him is he’s dead, stabbed,” replied Cecco in a hollow
voice.
“Bill Jukes dead!” cried the startled pirates.
“The cabin’s as black as a pit,” Cecco said, almost gibbering, “but
there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.”
The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both
were seen by Hook.
“Cecco,” he said in his most steely voice, “go back and fetch me out
that doodle-doo.”
Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying “No,
no”; but Hook was purring to his claw.
“Did you say you would go, Cecco?” he said musingly.
Cecco went, first flinging his arms despairingly. There was no more
singing, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a
crow.
No one spoke except Slightly. “Three,” he said.
Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. “’S’death and odds fish,” he
thundered, “who is to bring me that doodle-doo?”
“Wait till Cecco comes out,” growled Starkey, and the others took up
the cry.
“I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey,” said Hook, purring again.
“No, by thunder!” Starkey cried.