Chapter 12

THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF



The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof

that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to

surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.



By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the

redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it

just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the

whites to be at its lowest ebb. The white men have in the

meantime made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating

ground, at the foot of which a stream runs, for it is destruction

to be too far from water. There they await the onslaught, the

inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and treading on

twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just before

the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts

wriggle, snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade.

The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which

a mole has dived. Not a sound is to be heard, save when they

give vent to a wonderful imitation of the lonely call of the

coyote. The cry is answered by other braves; and some of them do

it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it.

So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is horribly

trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first

time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still

ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.



That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook

that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.



The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his

honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked

contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was consistent

with the reputation of their tribe. With that alertness of the

senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised

peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the

moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an incredibly

short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of ground

between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home

under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their

mocassins with the heels in front. The found only one hillock

with a stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he

must establish himself and wait for just before the dawn.

Everything being thus mapped out with almost diabolical cunning,

the main body of the redskins folded their blankets around them,

and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them, the pearl of manhood

squatted above the children's home, awaiting the cold moment when

they should deal pale death.



Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to

which they were to put him at break of day, those confiding

savages were found by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts

afterwards supplied by such of the scouts as escaped the

carnage, he does not seem even to have paused at the rising

ground, though it is certain that in that grey light he must have

seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears from first

to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even hold

off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy

but to fall to [get into combat]. What could the bewildered

scouts do, masters as they were of every war-like artifice save

this one, but trot helplessly after him, exposing themselves

fatally to view, the while they gave pathetic utterance to the

coyote cry.



Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest

warriors, and they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing

down upon them. Fell from their eyes then the film through which

they had looked at victory. No more would they torture at the

stake. For them the happy hunting-grounds now. They knew it;

but as their father's sons they acquitted themselves. Even then

they had time to gather in a phalanx [dense formation] that would

have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they

were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is

written that the noble savage must never express surprise in the

presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of

the pirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for

a moment, not a muscle moving; as if the foe had come by

invitation. Then, indeed, the tradition gallantly upheld, they

seized their weapons, and the air was torn with the war-cry; but

it was now too late.



It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather

than a fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the

Piccaninny tribe. Not all unavenged did they die, for with Lean

Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb the Spanish Main no more, and

among others who bit the dust were Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley,

and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the tomahawk of the

terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the pirates

with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.



To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this

occasion is for the historian to decide. Had he waited on the

rising ground till the proper hour he and his men would probably

have been butchered; and in judging him it is only fair to take

this into account. What he should perhaps have done was to

acquaint his opponents that he proposed to follow a new method.

On the other hand, this, as destroying the element of surprise,

would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole

question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least

withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived

so bold a scheme, and the fell [deadly] genius with which it was

carried out.



What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant

moment? Fain [gladly] would his dogs have known, as breathing

heavily and wiping their cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet

distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes at

this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart, but

his face did not reflect it: ever a dark and solitary enigma, he

stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.



The night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins

he had come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked,

so that he should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan

and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan.



Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the

man's hatred of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the

crocodile, but even this and the increased insecurity of life to

which it led, owing to the crocodile's pertinacity [persistance],

hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant.

The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded

the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not

his engaging appearance, it was not --. There is no beating about

the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to

tell. It was Peter's cockiness.



This had got on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch,

and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived,

the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a

sparrow had come.



The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get

his dogs down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for

the thinnest ones. They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he

would not scruple [hesitate] to ram them down with poles.



In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the

first clang of the weapons, turned as it were into stone figures,

open-mouthed, all appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and

we return to them as their mouths close, and their arms fall to

their sides. The pandemonium above has ceased almost as suddenly

as it arose, passed like a fierce gust of wind; but they know

that in the passing it has determined their fate.



Which side had won?



The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees,

heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard

Peter's answer.



"If the redskins have won," he said, "they will beat the tom-

tom; it is always their sign of victory."



Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting

on it. "You will never hear the tom-tom again," he muttered, but

inaudibly of course, for strict silence had been enjoined

[urged]. To his amazement Hook signed him to beat the tom-tom,

and slowly there came to Smee an understanding of the dreadful

wickedness of the order. Never, probably, had this simple man

admired Hook so much.



Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen

gleefully.



"The tom-tom," the miscreants heard Peter cry; "an Indian victory!"



The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the

black hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their

good-byes to Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their

other feelings were swallowed by a base delight that the enemy

were about to come up the trees. They smirked at each other and

rubbed their hands. Rapidly and silently Hook gave his orders:

one man to each tree, and the others to arrange themselves in a

line two yards apart.

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