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, (a person who gets in pickles-predicaments) 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.{1}
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.{2}
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 (Portuguese gold pieces);
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.{3}
As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him.
In person he was cadaverous (dead looking) and blackavized (dark faced), 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 (storyteller) 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.{4}
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.{5}
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 (Diana = goddess of the woods) and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish (flirting), cold and amorous (loving) 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 tonight.