to see
your children walk the plank."

Fine gentlemen though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled
his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty
gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.

"Are they to die?" asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt
that he nearly fainted.

"They are," he snarled. "Silence all," he called gloatingly, "for a
mother's last words to her children."

At this moment Wendy was grand. "These are my last words, dear boys,"
she said firmly. "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.'"

Even the pirates were awed, and Tootles cried out hysterically, "I am
going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?"

"What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?"

"What my mother hopes. John, what are--"

But Hook had found his voice again.

"Tie her up!" he shouted.

It was Smee who tied her to the mast. "See here, honey," he whispered,
"I'll save you if you promise to be my mother."

But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. "I would almost
rather have no children at all," she said disdainfully [scornfully].

It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to
the mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they
were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would
walk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they
could stare and shiver only.

Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy.
His intention was to turn her face so that she should see they boys
walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard
the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else
instead.

It was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.

They all heard it--pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was
blown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but
toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone,
and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.

Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if
he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.

The sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly
thought, "The crocodile is about to board the ship!"

Even the iron claw hung inactive; as