James Matthew Barrie - The Complete Works of J. M. Barrie (With Illustrations)

(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 flute). My hook thinks you did. Iwonder if it would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?

STARKEY. I'll swing before I go in there.

HOOK (gleaming). Is it mutiny? Starkey is ringleader.Shake hands, Starkey.

(STARKEY recoils from the claw. It follows him till he leaps overboard.)

Did any other gentleman say mutiny?

(They indicate that they did not even know the late STARKEY.)

SLIGHTLY. Four!

HOOK. I will bring out that doodle-doo myself.

(He raises a blunderbuss but casts it from him with a menacing gesture which means that he has more faith in the claw. With a lighted lantern in his hand he enters the cabin. Not a sound is to be heard now on the ship, unless it be SLIGHTLY wetting his lips to say 'Five.' HOOK staggers out.)

HOOK (unsteadily). Something blew out the light.

MULLINS (with dark meaning). Some—thing?

NOODLER. What of Cecco?

HOOK. He is as dead as Jukes.

(They are superstitious like all sailors, and MULLINS has planted a dire conception in their minds.)

COOKSON. They do say as the surest sign a ship's accurst is when there is one aboard more than can be accounted for.

NOODLER. I 've heard he allus boards the pirate craft at last. (With dreadful significance) Has he a tail, Captain?

MULLINS. They say that when he comes it is in the likenessof the wickedest man aboard.

COOKSON (clinching it). Has he a hook, Captain?

(Knives and pistols come to hand, and there is a general cry 'The ship is doomed!' But it is not his dogs that can frighten JAS HOOK. Hearing something like a cheer from the boys he wheels round, and his face brings them to their knees.)

HOOK. So you like it, do you! By Caius and Balbus, bullies, here is a notion: open the cabin door and drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they kill him we are so much the better; if he kills them we are none the worse.

(This masterly stroke restores their confidence; and the boys, affecting fear, are driven into the cabin. Desperadoes though the pirates are, some of them have been boys themselves, and all turn their backs to the cabin and listen, with arms outstretched to it as if to ward off the horrors that are being enacted there.

Relieved by Peter of their manacles, and armed with such weapons as they can lay their hands on, the boys steal out softly as snowflakes, and under their captain's hushed order find hiding-places on the poop. He releasesWENDY; and now it would be easy for them all to fly away, but it is to be HOOK or him this time. He signs to her to join the others, and with awful grimness folding her cloak around him, the hood over his head, he takes her place by the mast, and crows.)