The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound,
not a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the
next tree, or stalking him from behind.
He swore this terrible oath: Hook or me this time.
Now he crawled forward like a snake, and again erect, he darted across
a space on which the moonlight played, one finger on his lip and his
dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy.
Chapter XIV.
THE PIRATE SHIP
One green light squinting over Kidd s Creek, which is near the mouth of
the pirate river, marked where the brig, the _Jolly Roger_, lay, low in
the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her
detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the
cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she
floated immune in the horror of her name.
She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from
her could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none
agreeable save the whir of the ship s sewing machine at which Smee sat,
ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic
Smee. I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were
because he was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had
to turn hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer
evenings he had touched the fount of Hook s tears and made it flow. Of
this, as of almost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious.
A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks, drinking in the miasma of
the night; others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards; and
the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the
deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skillfully to this side or
that out of Hook s reach, lest he should claw them mechanically in
passing.
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