This ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance , but instead of souring his nature had sweetened it , so that he was quite the humblest of the boys . Poor kind Tootles , there is danger in the air for you to-night . Take care lest an adventure is now offered you , which , if accepted , will plunge you in deepest woe . Tootles , the fairy Tink who is bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool , and she thinks you the most easily tricked of the boys . ` Ware Tinker Bell . Would that he could hear us , but we are not really on the island , and he passes by , biting his knuckles . Next comes Nibs , the gay and debonair , followed by Slightly , who cuts whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes . Slightly is the most conceited of the boys . He thinks he remembers the days before he was lost , with their manners and customs , and this has given his nose an offensive tilt . Curly is fourth ; he is a pickle , and so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly , ` Stand forth the one who did this thing , ' that now at the command he stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not . Last come the Twins , who can not be described because we should be sure to be describing the wrong one . Peter never quite knew what twins were , and his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know , so these two were always vague about themselves , and did their best to give satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way . The boys vanish in the gloom , and after a pause , but not a long pause , for things go briskly on the island , come the pirates on their track . We hear them before they are seen , and it is always the same dreadful song : ` Avast belay , yo ho , heave to , A-pirating we go , And if we 're parted by a shot We 're sure to meet below ! ' A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock . Here , a little in advance , ever and again with his head to the ground listening , his great arms bare , pieces of eight in his ears as ornaments , is the handsome Italian Cecco , who cut his name in letters of blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao . That gigantic black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with which dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the Guadjo-mo . Here is Bill Jukes , every inch of him tattooed , the same Bill Jukes who got six dozen on the Walrus from Flint before he would drop the bag of moidores ; and Cookson , said to be Black Murphy 's brother -LRB- but this was never proved -RRB- ; and Gentleman Starkey , once an usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways of killing ; and Skylights -LRB- Morgan 's Skylights -RRB- ; and the Irish bo ` sun Smee , an oddly genial man who stabbed , so to speak , without offence , and was the only Nonconformist in Hook 's crew ; and Noodler , whose hands were fixed on backwards ; and Robt . Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on the Spanish Main . In the midst of them , the blackest and largest jewel in that dark setting , reclined James Hook , or as he wrote himself , Jas .
Hook , of whom it is XXXXX he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared .
Stand biting countenance drop looking lost said seen speak tattooed