of his speech is nevertheless for ever lost, as eight bells strikes and his crew pour forth in bacchanalian orgy. From, the poop he watches their dance till it frets him beyond bearing.) Quiet,you dogs, or I'll cast anchor in you! (He descends to a barrel on which there are playing-cards, and his crew stand waiting, as ever, like whipped curs.) Are all the prisoners chained, sothat they can't fly away?
JUKES. Ay, ay, Captain.
HOOK. Then hoist them up.
STARKEY (raising the door of the hold). Tumble up, you ungentlemanly lubbers.
(The terrified boys are prodded up and tossed about the deck. HOOK seems to have forgotten them; he is sitting by the barrel with his cards.)
HOOK (suddenly). So! Now then, you bullies, six of you walk the plank to-night, but I have room for two cabin-boys.Which of you is it to be? (He returns to his cards.)
TOOTLES (hoping to soothe him by putting the blame on the only person, vaguely remembered, who is always willing to act as a buffer). 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?
SLIGHTLY (implying that otherwise it would be a pleasure to him to oblige). I don't think so. Twin, would your mother like——
HOOK. Stow this gab. (To JOHN) You boy, you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?
JOHN (dazzled by being singled out). When I was at school I——what do you think, Michael?
MICHAEL (stepping into prominence). What would you call me if I joined?
HOOK. Blackbeard Joe.
MICHAEL. John, what do you think?
JOHN. Stop, should we still be respectful subjects of KingGeorge?
HOOK. You would have to swear 'Down with KingGeorge.'
JOHN (grandly). Then I refuse!
MICHAEL. And I refuse.
HOOK. That seals your doom. Bring up their mother.
(WENDY is driven up from the hold and thrown to him. She sees at the first glance that the deck has not been scrubbed for years.)
So, my beauty, you are to see your children walk the plank.
WENDY (with noble calmness). Are they to die?
HOOK. They are. Silence all, for a mother's last words to her children.
WENDY. These are my last words. Dear boys, 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.'
(The boys go on fire.)
TOOTLES. I am going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?
FIRST TWIN. What my mother hopes. John, what are——
HOOK. Tie her up! Get the plank ready.
(WENDY is roped to the mast; but no one regards her, for all eyes are fixed upon the plank now protruding from the poop over the ship's side. A great change, however, occurs in the time HOOK takes to raise his claw and point to this deadly engine. No one is now looking at the plank: for the tick, tick of the crocodile is heard. Yet it is not to bear on the crocodile that all eyes slew round, it is that they may bear on HOOK. Otherwise prisoners and captors are equally inert, like actors in some play who have found themselves 'on' in a scene in which they are not personally concerned. Even the iron claw hangs inactive, as if aware that the crocodile is not coming for it. Affection for their captain, now cowering from view, is not what has given HOOK his dominance over the crew, but as the menacing sound draws nearer they close their eyes respectfully.
There is no crocodile. It is PETER, who has been circling the pirate ship, ticking as he flies far more superbly than any clock. He drops into the water and climbs aboard, warning the captives with upraised finger (but still ticking) not for the moment to give audible expression to their natural admiration. Only one pirate sees him, WHIBBLES of the eye patch, who comes up from below. JOHN claps a hand on WHIBBLES'S mouth to stifle the groan; four boys hold him to prevent the thud; PETER delivers the blow, and the carrion is thrown overboard. 'One!' says SLIGHTLY, beginning to count.
STARKEY is the first pirate to open his eyes. The ship seems to him to be precisely as when he closed them. He cannot interpret the sparkle that has come into the faces of the captives, who are cleverly pretending to be as afraid as ever. He little knows that the door of the dark cabin has just closed on one more boy. Indeed it is for HOOKalone he looks, and he is a little surprised to see him.)
STARKEY (hoarsely). It is gone, Captain! There is not a sound.
(The tenement that is HOOK heaves tumultuously and he is himself again.)
HOOK (now convinced that some fair spirit watches over him). Then here is to Johnny Plank——
Avast, belay, the English brig We took and quickly sank, And for a warning to the crew We made them walk the plank!
(As he sings he capers detestably along an imaginary plank and his copy-cats do likewise, joining in the chorus.)
Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky cat, You walks along it so, Till it goes down and you goes down To tooral looral lo!
(The brave children try to stem this monstrous torrent by breaking into the National Anthem.)
STARKEY (paling). I don't like it, messmates!
HOOK. Stow that, Starkey. Do you boys want a touch of the cat before you walk the plank? (He is more pitiless than ever now that he believes he has a charmed life.) Fetch the cat, Jukes; it is in the cabin.
JUKES. Ay, ay, sir. (It is one of his commonest remarks, and is only recorded now because he never makes another. The stage direction 'Exit JUKES' has in this case a special significance. But only the children know that some one is awaiting this unfortunate in the cabin, and HOOK tramples them down as he resumes his ditty:)
Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat Its tails are nine you know, And when they're writ upon your back, You 're fit to——
(The last words will ever remain a matter of conjecture, for from the dark cabin comes a curdling screech which wails through the ship and dies away. It is followed by a sound, almost more eerie in the circumstances, that can only be likened to the crowing of a cock.)
HOOK. What was that?
SLIGHTLY (solemnly). Two!
(CECCO swings into the cabin, and in a moment returns, livid.)
HOOK (with an effort). What is the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?
CECCO. The matter with him is he is dead——stabbed.
PIRATES. Bill Jukes dead!
CECCO. The cabin is as black as a pit, but there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard a-crowing.
HOOK (slowly). Cecco, go back and fetch me out that doodle-doo.
CECCO (unstrung). No, Captain, no. (He supplicates on his knees, but his master advances on him implacably.)
HOOK (in his most syrupy voice). Did you say you would go, Cecco?
(CECCO goes. All listen. There is one screech, one crow.)
SLIGHTLY (as if he were a bell tolling). Three!
HOOK. 'Sdeath and oddsfish, who is to bring me out that doodle-doo?
(No one steps forward.)
STARKEY (injudiciously). Wait till Cecco comes out.
(The black looks of some others encourage him.)
HOOK. I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey.
STARKEY (emphatically). No, by thunder!
HOOK (in that syrupy voice which might be more engaging when accompanied by his