Peter Pan - The Children are Carried Off

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Genevieve Toakes, April late
two thousand seven, New Haven, Connecticut, Peter Pan by J. M. Barry,
Chapter twelve, The children are carried off. The pirate attack
had been a complete surprise, a sure proof that the

(00:23):
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 heave, in the meantime,
made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating ground,

(00:45):
at the foot of which a stream runs, for its 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 tranquility until just before the dawn.
Through the long black night, the seven scouts wriggle snakelike
among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood closes

(01:05):
behind them as silently as sand into which shimole 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,
Some of them do it even better than the coyotes,
who are not very good at it. So the chill
hours wear on, and a long suspense is horribly trying
to the pale face, who has to live through it

(01:25):
for the first time. But to the train hand, those
ghastly calls and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation
of how the night is marching. But 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 Picaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honor,
and their whole election of the night stands out in
marked contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was

(01:48):
consistent with the reputation of their tribe with that alertness
of the senses which is at once the marvel and
despair of civilized 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 Cayute cries began. Every foot of ground
between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and
the home owned of the trees was stealthily examined by

(02:10):
braves wearing their mucksains 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
man who had squatted above the children's home, awaiting a

(02:32):
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, but it is certain that in the gray
light he must have seen it. No thought of waiting

(02:55):
to be attacked appears from first to last to have
visited his shuttle 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? Are they aware of? Every warlike artist
saved this one, but trot helplessly after him, exposing themselves
fatally to view while they gave pathetic utterance to the

(03:16):
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 gruns was now they knew it, But as
their fathers sons, they quitted themselves. Even then they had

(03:39):
time to gather in a phalanx that would have been
far 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 daniy. Then indeed

(04:01):
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

(04:22):
alf Mason to disturb the Spanish man no more, and
among others who bit the dust were George Scry, Charles Turley,
and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the tomahawk of
the Terrible Panther, who ultimately cut away through the pirates
with Tronily 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

(04:43):
waited on the rising ground to 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. Neither hand,
this as destroying an ailment 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

(05:06):
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 discreet
distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes
at this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart,

(05:29):
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 Knight'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 in their band, but chiefly Pan.

(05:52):
Peter was such a small boy that one tends to
wonder at the man's hatred of him. True, he had
flung Hook's armed to the crocodile, But even then, and
the increased insecurity of life to which it led owing
to the crocodile's pertinacity, hardly account for a vignictiveness so
relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was something
about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It

(06:14):
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 it
got to tell. It was Peter's cockiness. This had got
on Hook's nerves. It made his iron clawed twitch, and
at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived,
the tortured man felt that he was aligned in a

(06:34):
cage into which a sparrow had gone. 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 reriddled uncomfortably, for they
knew he would not scruple to ram them down with poles.
In the meantime, one of the boys we have seen them,

(06:55):
at the first clang of the weapons, turned as it were,
into stone figures, open mouthed, all appeal with outstretched arms
to Peter. And we returned 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

(07:16):
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'll 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

(07:38):
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

(08:00):
then stopped to listen gleefully. The tom tom. Miss Grants
heard Peter cry an Indian victory. The doomed Cholbrend answered
with a cheer that was music to the black hearts above,
and almost immediately they repeated their goodbyes to Peter. This
puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were swallowed
by a base delight that the enemy were about to

(08:21):
thump 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. End of Chapter twelve