MDDM 32: "Vegetables don't tick"

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>From _The Adventures of Peter Pan_ by James Barrie, Chapter 14: "The Pirate 
Ship"


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 if knowing that it was no intrinsic part 
of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully alone, any other man 
would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell: but the gigantic brain of 
Hook was still working, and under its guidance he crawled on the knees along 
the deck as far from the sound as he could go. The pirates respectfully 
cleared a passage for him, and it was only when he brought up against the 
bulwarks that he spoke. 
"Hide me!" he cried hoarsely. 

They gathered round him, all eyes averted from the thing that was coming 
aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.

http://www.literature.org/authors/barrie-james-matthew/the-adventures-of-peter

-pan/index.html