"And you a lady; never." Already he had tied the tail round her.
She clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a
"Good-bye, Wendy," he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes
she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.

The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale
rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was
to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most
melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.

Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last.
A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea;
but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are
hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he
was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face
and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an
awfully big adventure."

"What is it?" she asked, anxious about him at once.

"I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly
nor swim."

"Do you mean we shall both be drowned?"

"Look how the water is rising."

They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight.
They thought they would soon be no more. As they sat thus
something brushed against Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed
there, as if saying timidly, "Can I be of any use?"

It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days
before. It had torn itself out of his hand and floated away.

"Michael's kite," Peter said without interest, but next moment
he had seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.

"It lifted Michael off the ground," he cried; "why should it
not carry you?"

"Both of us!"

"It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried."

"Let us draw lots," Wendy said bravely.

As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet,
and began pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her
slip from him, woke with a start, and was just in time to draw
her back. But he had to tell her the truth.

"We are on the rock, Wendy," he said, "but it is growing
smaller. Soon the water will be over it."

She did not understand even now.

"We must go," she said, almost brightly.

"Yes," he answered faintly.

"Shall we swim or fly, Peter?"

He had to tell her.

"Do you think you could swim for fly as far as the island,
Wendy, without my help?"

She had to admit that she was too tired.

He moaned.

When their voices died away there came cold silence over the
lagoon, and then a feeble cry.

"Help, help!"

Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had
fainted and lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter
pulled her up the rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he
also fainted he saw that the water was rising. He knew that they
would soon be drowned, but he could do no more.

A few moments afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water
striking wildly for the ship; no elation on the pestilent face
now, only white fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of
him. On ordinary occasions the boys would have swum alongside
cheering; but now they were uneasy, for they had lost both Peter
and Wendy, and were scouring the lagoon for them, calling them by
name. They found the dinghy and went home in it, shouting
"Peter, Wendy" as they went, but no answer came save mocking
laughter from the mermaids. "They must be swimming back or
flying," the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, because
they had such faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they
would be late for bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault!

It was then that Hook bit him.

Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter.
It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified.
Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated
unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you
to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he
will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same
boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except
Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that
was the real difference between him and all the rest.

So when he met it now it was like the first time; and he could
just stare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him.

Some of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before
they fell to [began combat] they had a sinking [feeling in the
stomach]. Had it been so with Peter at that moment I would admit
it. After all, he was the only man that the Sea-Cook had
feared. But Peter had no sinking, he had one feeling only,
gladness; and he gnashed his pretty teeth with joy. Quick
as thought he snatched a knife from Hook's belt and was about to
drive it home, when he saw that he was higher up the rock that
his foe. It would not have been fighting fair. He gave the
pirate a hand to help him up.

Strangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to
the rock to breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on
the opposite side. The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had
to crawl rather than climb. Neither knew that the other was
coming. Each feeling for a grip met the other's arm: in
surprise they raised their heads; their faces were almost
touching; so they met.

Here and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a
flash of steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion
some struck at their own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles
in the fourth rib, but he was himself pinked [nicked] in turn by
Curly. Farther from the rock Starkey was pressing Slightly and
the twins hard.

Where all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game.

The others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for
backing from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of
dead water round him, from which they fled like affrighted
fishes.

But there was one who did not fear him: there was one prepared
to enter that circle.

"No."

"Mineral?"

"No."

"Animal?"

"Yes."

"Man?"

"No!" This answer rang out scornfully.

"Boy?"

"Yes."

"Ordinary boy?"

"No!"

"Wonderful boy?"

To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was "Yes."

"Are you in England?"

"No."

"Are you here?"

"Yes."

Hook was completely puzzled. "You ask him some questions," he
said to the others, wiping his damp brow.

Smee reflected. "I can't think of a thing," he said
regretfully.

"Can't guess, can't guess!" crowed Peter. "Do you give it up?"

Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and
the miscreants [villains] saw their chance.

"Yes, yes," they answered eagerly.

"Well, then," he cried, "I am Peter Pan."

Pan!

In a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were
his faithful henchmen.

"Now we have him," Hook shouted. "Into the water, Smee.
Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive!"

He leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of
Peter.

"Are you ready, boys?"

"Ay, ay," from various parts of the lagoon.

"Then lam into the pirates."

The fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John,
who gallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was
fierce struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's
grasp. He wriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The
dinghy drifted away.

They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though
he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful
evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was
his own. He felt his ego slipping from him. "Don't desert me,
bully," he whispered hoarsely to it.

In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all
the great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions.
Suddenly he tried the guessing game.

"Hook," he called, "have you another voice?"

Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely
in his own voice, "I have."

"And another name?"

"Ay, ay."

"Vegetable?" asked Hook.

"You are not; you are not," Hook cried hoarsely.

"Brimstone and gall," the voice retorted, "say that again, and
I'll cast anchor in you."

Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. "If you are Hook," he
said almost humbly, "come tell me, who am I?"

"A codfish," replied the voice, "only a codfish."

"A codfish!" Hook echoed blankly, and it was then, but not till
then, that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from
him.

"Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!" they
muttered. "It is lowering to our pride."

"It is passing queer," Smee said, and they all fidgeted
uncomfortably. Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in
it.

"Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night," he cried, "dost
hear me?"

Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did
not. He immediately answered in Hook's voice:

"Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you."

In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills,
but Smee and Starkey clung to each other in terror.

"Who are you, stranger? Speak!" Hook demanded.

"I am James Hook," replied the voice, "captain of the JOLLY
ROGER."

They all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and
suddenly Hook remembered Tiger Lily.

"Where is the redskin?" he demanded abruptly.

He had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was
one of the moments.

"That is all right, captain," Smee answered complacently; "we
let her go."

"Let her go!" cried Hook.

"'Twas your own orders," the bo'sun faltered.

"You called over the water to us to let her go," said Starkey.

"Brimstone and gall," thundered Hook, "what cozening [cheating]
is going on here!" His face had gone black with rage, but he saw
that they believed their words, and he was startled. "Lads," he
said, shaking a little, "I gave no such order."

He was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice.

"Captain," said Smee, "could we not kidnap these boys' mother
and make her our mother?"

"It is a princely scheme," cried Hook, and at once it took
practical shape in his great brain. "We will seize the children
and carry them to the boat: the boys we will make walk the
plank, and Wendy shall be our mother.

Again Wendy forgot herself.

"Never!" she cried, and bobbed.

"What was that?"

But they could see nothing. They thought it must have been a
leaf in the wind. "Do you agree, my bullies?" asked Hook.

"There is my hand on it," they both said.

"And there is my hook. Swear."

"See," said Hook in answer to Smee's question, "that is a
mother. What a lesson! The nest must have fallen into the
water, but would the mother desert her eggs? No."

There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled
innocent days when -- but he brushed away this weakness with his
hook.

Smee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne
past, but the more suspicious Starkey said, "If she is a mother,
perhaps she is hanging about here to help Peter."

Hook winced. "Ay," he said, "that is the fear that haunts me."

"What's a mother?" asked the ignorant Smee.

Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed. "He doesn't know!"
and always after this she felt that if you could have a pet
pirate Smee would be her one.

Peter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up,
crying, "What was that?"

"I heard nothing," said Starkey, raising the lantern over the
waters, and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It
was the nest I have told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the
Never bird was sitting on it.

He signed to her to listen.

The two pirates were very curious to know what had brought
their captain to them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a
position of profound melancholy.

"Captain, is all well?" they asked timidly, but he answered
with a hollow moan.

"He sighs," said Smee.

"He sighs again," said Starkey.

"And yet a third time he sighs," said Smee.

Then at last he spoke passionately.

"The game's up," he cried, "those boys have found a mother."

Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.

"O evil day!" cried Starkey.