第 十二 章 · THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF

. 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. They 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. 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, 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 was now. They knew it; but as their father’s sons they

acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx

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 genius with which it was carried out.

What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment?

Fain 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, 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

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. 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.