Page:Peter Pan (1928).pdf/178

138

it is not his dogs that can frighten. Hearing something like a cheer from the boys he wheels round, and his face brings them to their knees.)

. 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 ''of their manacles, and armed with such weapons as they can lay their hands on, the boys steal out softly as snow-flakes, and under their captain’s hushed order find hiding-places on the poop. He releases ; and now it would be easy for them''