Now Wendy understood.

The real Hook was also in the water.

He was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to
guide him he had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern
Wendy saw his hook grip the boat's side; she saw his evil swarthy
face as he rose dripping from the water, and, quaking, she would
have liked to swim away, but Peter would not budge. He was
tingling with life and also top-heavy with conceit. "Am I not a
wonder, oh, I am a wonder!" he whispered to her, and though she
thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his
reputation that no one heard him except herself.

"This is queer!" Smee gasped.

"Better do what the captain orders," said Starkey nervously.

"Ay, ay." Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once
like an eel she slid between Starkey's legs into the water.

Of course Wendy was very elated over Peter's cleverness; but
she knew that he would be elated also and very likely crow and
thus betray himself, so at once her hand went out to cover his
mouth. But it was stayed even in the act, for "Boat ahoy!" rang
over the lagoon in Hook's voice, and this time it was not Peter
who had spoken.

Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a
whistle of surprise instead.

"Boat ahoy!" again came the voice.

"Ahoy there, you lubbers!" he called. It was a marvellous
imitation.

"The captain!" said the pirates, staring at each other in
surprise.

"He must be swimming out to us," Starkey said, when they had
looked for him in vain.

"We are putting the redskin on the rock," Smee called out.

"Set her free," came the astonishing answer.

"Free!"

"Yes, cut her bonds and let her go."

"But, captain -- "

"At once, d'ye hear," cried Peter, "or I'll plunge my hook in
you."

Quite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing
up and down, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was
the first tragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies,
but he had forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for
Tiger Lily: it was two against one that angered him, and he
meant to save her. An easy way would have been to wait until the
pirates had gone, but he was never one to choose the easy way.

There was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated
the voice of Hook.

"Luff, you lubber," cried an Irish voice that was Smee's;
"here's the rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the
redskin on to it and leave her here to drown."

It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl
on the rock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.

They had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in
her mouth. No watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast
that the wind of his name guarded the ship for a mile around.
Now her fate would help to guard it also. One more wail would go
the round in that wind by night.

In the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did
not see the rock till they crashed into it.

There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed
deserted. Marooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters
as if it were itself marooned.

The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three
figures in her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no
other than Tiger Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she
knew what was to be her fate. She was to be left on the rock to
perish, an end to one of her race more terrible than death by
fire or torture, for is it not written in the book of the tribe
that there is no path through water to the happy hunting-ground?
Yet her face was impassive; she was the daughter of a chief, she
must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough.

It was well for those boys then that there was one among them
who could sniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as
wide awake at once as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused
the others.

He stood motionless, one hand to his ear.

"Pirates!" he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange
smile was playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered.
While that smile was on his face no one dared address him; all
they could do was to stand ready to obey. The order came sharp
and incisive.

"Dive!"

Of course she should have roused the children at once; not
merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but
because it was no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown
chilly. But she was a young mother and she did not know this;
she thought you simply must stick to your rule about half an hour
after the mid-day meal. So, though fear was upon her, and she
longed to hear male voices, she would not waken them. Even when
she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her heart was in her
mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to let them
have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy?

While she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers
ran over it, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the
water, turning it cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her
needle, and when she looked up, the lagoon that had always
hitherto been such a laughing place seemed formidable and
unfriendly.

It was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as
dark as night had come. No, worse than that. It had not come,
but it had sent that shiver through the sea to say that it was
coming. What was it?

There crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of
Marooners' Rock, so called because evil captains put sailors on
it and leave them there to drown. They drown when the tide
rises, for then it is submerged.

It must also have been rather pretty to see the children
resting on a rock for half an hour after their mid-day meal.
Wendy insisted on their doing this, and it had to be a real rest
even though the meal was make-believe. So they lay there in the
sun, and their bodies glistened in it, while she sat beside them
and looked important.

It was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The
rock was not much larger than their great bed, but of course they
all knew how not to take up much room, and they were dozing, or
at least lying with their eyes shut, and pinching occasionally
when they thought Wendy was not looking. She was very busy,
stitching.

But the moment the children tried to join in they had to play
by themselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared.
Nevertheless we have proof that they secretly watched the
interlopers, and were not above taking an idea from them; for
John introduced a new way of hitting the bubble, with the head
instead of the hand, and the mermaids adopted it. This is the
one mark that John has left on the Neverland.

They treated

all the boys in the same way, except of course
Peter, who chatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and
sat on their tails when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of
their combs.

The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of
the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon
is dangerous for mortals then, and until the evening of which we
have now to tell, Wendy had never seen the lagoon by moonlight,
less from fear, for of course Peter would have accompanied her,
than because she had strict rules about every one being in bed by
seven. She was often at the lagoon, however, on sunny days after
rain, when the mermaids come up in extraordinary numbers to play
with their bubbles. The bubbles of many colours made in rainbow
water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily from one to another
with their tails, and trying to keep them in the rainbow till
they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and the
keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes a dozen
of these games will be going on in the lagoon at a time, and it
is quite a pretty sight.

Chapter 8

The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon,
swimming or floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games
in the water, and so forth. You must not think from this that
the mermaids were on friendly terms with them: on the contrary,
it was among Wendy's lasting regrets that all the time she was on
the island she never had a civil word from one of them. When she
stole softly to the edge of the lagoon she might see them by the
score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where they loved to bask,
combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite irritated her; or
she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within a yard of
them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her
with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.