The morning was needed to search for such guidance , and he could not wait . The upper world had called him , but would give no help . 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 14 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 -LSB- speedy-looking -RSB- 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 -LSB- putrid mist -RSB- 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 . Hook trod the deck in thought . O man unfathomable . It was his hour of triumph . Peter had been removed for ever from his path , and all the other boys were in the brig , about to walk the plank . It was his grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel ; and knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man , could we be surprised had he now paced the deck unsteadily , bellied out by the winds of his success ? But there was no elation in his gait , which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind . Hook was profoundly dejected .
He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the quietude of the XXXXX .
Creek ROGER Smee bulwarks dagger days fount hour night obliging