Peter Pan
I don’t know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had
planned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began
to lure Wendy to her destruction.
Tink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the
other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or
the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one
feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it
must be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of
Wendy. What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course
understand, and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded
kind, and she flew back and forward, plainly meaning “Follow me, and
all will be well.”
What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and
Michael, and got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know
that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so,
bewildered, and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her
doom.
Chapter V.
THE ISLAND COME TRUE
Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke
into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is
better and was always used by Peter.
In his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take
an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the
redskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and
lost boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with
the coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are under way again: if
you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island
seething with life.
On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as
follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out
looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the
pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were
going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all
were going at the same rate.
All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night
were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of
course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when
they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins
them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins
as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them
as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.
They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they
wear the skins of the bears slain by themselves, in which they are so
round and furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore
become very sure-footed.
The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most
unfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures
than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when
he had stepped round the corner; all would be quiet, he would take the
opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then
when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This
ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead
of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the
humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for
you to-night. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if
accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink, who
is bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks
you are the most easily tricked of the boys. ’Ware Tinker Bell.
Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and
he passes by, biting his knuckles.
Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts
whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes.
Slightly is the most conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the
days before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has
given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, and
so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly,
“Stand forth the one who did this thing,” that now at the command he
stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not. Last come the
Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be
describing the wrong one. Peter never quite knew what twins were, and
his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these
two were always vague about themselves, and did their best to give
satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way.
The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause,
for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track.
We hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful
song:
“Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go,
And if we’re parted by a shot
We’re sure to meet below!”
A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.
Here, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the ground
listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as
ornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters
of blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That
gigantic black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one
with which dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of
the Guadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same
Bill Jukes who got six dozen on the _Walrus_ from Flint before he would
drop the bag of moidores; and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy’s
brother (but this was never proved), and Gentleman Starkey, once an
usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways of killing; and
Skylights (Morgan’s Skylights); and the Irish bo’sun Smee, an oddly
genial man who stabbed, so to speak, without offence, and was the only
Non-conformist in Hook’s crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on
backwards; and Robt. Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian
long known and feared on the Spanish Main.
In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting,
reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is
said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his ease
in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a
right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged
them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and
addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was
cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls,
which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a
singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes
were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy,
save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red
spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something
of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up
with an air, and I have been told that he was a _raconteur_ of repute.
He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is
probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction,
even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his
demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of
indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was
the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour.
In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of
Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career
that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his
mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke
two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his
iron claw.
Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As
they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace
collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one
screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has
not even taken the cigars from his mouth.
Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will
win?
On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,
which is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every
one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and
their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are
scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny
tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the
Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave
of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his
progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes
Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most
beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies,
coquettish, cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would
not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a
hatchet. Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the
slightest noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy
breathing. The fact is that they are all a little fat just now after
the heavy gorging, but in time they will work this off. For the moment,
however, it constitutes their chief danger.
The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their
place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,
tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from
them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly, all the
man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues
are hanging out, they are hungry to-night.
When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic
crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.
The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the
procession must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or
changes its pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.
All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the
danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island
was.
The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung
themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home.
“I do wish Peter would come back,” every one of them said nervously,
though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than
their captain.
“I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,” Slightly said, in
the tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some
distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, “but I wish he would
come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
Cinderella.”
They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother
must have been very like her.
It was only in Peter’s absence that they could speak of mothers, the
subject being forbidden by him as silly.
“All I remember about my mother,” Nibs told them, “is that she often
said to my father, ‘Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!’ I
don’t know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my
mother one.”
While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild
things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and
it was the grim song:
“Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o’ skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones.”