The Wasp, 1913 · page 289 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 289: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page depicts a dramatic murder scene from what appears to be a pirate adventure narrative. Bill Hook, a rival pirate, creeps through a darkened jungle where twelve sleeping sailors rest, locating Tom Croft by feeling for a gold cross on his chest. Hook then kills Croft with a knife while he sleeps. The text frames this as a matter of pirate "honor"—Hook justifies the murder as necessary revenge, claiming he's merely matching Croft's own brutal nature. The satire lies in the elaborate rationalization: Hook presents himself as a "practical anatomist" and "self-respecting gentleman of fortune" while committing cold-blooded murder, highlighting the hypocrisy of criminals who adopt genteel language to justify violence. The page likely satirizes contemporary adventure literature's romanticization of piracy and moral relativism among outlaws.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
284 THE WASP them know, even if he wasn’t hog-fat and ruddy as a dairymaid. He’d live to see them all cut down or aswing! He was as good a sailorman as Tom Croft, he was, and just as bloody a pirate, though : maybe not so dirty and brutish in his habits. He’d just put Tom Croft away, that he would, instead of letting Tom put him away. No self-respecting gentleman of fortune could do less. He didn’t hold with knifing messmates as a general rule, but he considered this to be a very exceptional case. The twelve slumbered deeply in the dark of that high jungle. Poor Bill Hook crawled around them and among them, unseen and unheard. He paused frequently to listen to the breathing of his mates, sometimes to pass inquiring, feather-light finger- tips over an unconscious breast. ; At last his fingers encountered the little gold cross which adorned the hairy bosom of Tom Croft. In his right hand he held his heavy knife, which was keen of edge. Bill Hook was a practical anatomist. The red spirit of Croft the sentimentalist fled his stalwart carcass without so much as a grunt. Comichooks.com