vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him sharper than the iron one; and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped down his tallow countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he drew his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle.
Ah, envy not Hook.
There came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution. It was as if Peter's terrible oath had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy desire to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time for it.
'Better for Hook,' he cried, 'if he had had less ambition.' It was in his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person.
'No little children love me.'
Strange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him before; perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under the conviction that all children feared him.
Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with his fist; but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on his spectacles.
To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it, but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind: why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: 'Good form?'
Had the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of all?
He remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before you are eligible for Pop.
With a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head; but he did not tear. What arrested him was this reflection:
'To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be?'
'Bad form!'
The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward like a cut flower.
His dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly relaxed; and they broke into a bacchanalian dance, which brought him to his feet at once; all traces of human weakness gone, as if a bucket of water had passed over him.
'Quiet, you scugs,' he cried, 'or I'll cast anchor in you'; and at once the din was hushed. 'Are all the children chained, so that they cannot fly away?'
'Ay, ay.'
'Then hoist them up.'
The wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy, and ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious of their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously, snatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon the light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face.
'Now then, bullies,' he said briskly, 'six of you walk the plank to-night, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be?'
'Don't irritate him unnecessarily,' had been Wendy's instructions in the hold; so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea of signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would be prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person; and though a somewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be the buffer. All children know this about mothers, and despise them for it, but make constant use of it.
So Tootles explained prudently, 'You see, sir, I don't think my mother 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 scrubbed 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 gentleman 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
