What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant
moment? Fain [gladly] 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 [persistance],
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.
moment? Fain [gladly] 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 [persistance],
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.
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