Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up there by themselves.He could go so much faster than they that he would suddenly shoot out of sight,to have some adventure in which they had no share.He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had been saying to a star,but he had already forgotten what it was,or he would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him,and yet not be able to say for certain what had been happening.It was really rather irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.
“And if he forgets them so quickly,” Wendy argued,“how can we expect that he will go on remembering us?”
Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least not well.Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she had to call him by name.
“I’m Wendy,” she said agitatedly.
He was very sorry. “I say, Wendy,” he whispered to her, “always if you see me forgetting you,just keep on saying ‘I’m Wendy,’ and then I’ll remember.”
Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However,to make amends he showed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their way,and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several times and found that they could sleep thus with security.Indeed they would have slept longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping,and soon he would cry in his captain voice, “We get off here.” So with occasional tiffs,but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for after many moons they did reach it,and, what is more, they had been going pretty straight all the time,not perhaps so much owing to the guidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was looking for them.It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.
“There it is,” said Peter calmly.
“Where, where?”
“Where all the arrows are pointing.”
Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing it out to the children,all directed by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be sure of their way before leaving them for the night.
Wendy and John and Michael stood on tip-toe in the air to get their first sight of the island.Strange to say, they all recognized it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it,not as something long dreamt of and seen at last,but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home for the holidays.
“John, there’s the lagoon.”
“Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand.”
“I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg!”
“Look, Michael, there’s your cave!”
“John, what’s that in the brushwood?”
“It’s a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that’s your little whelp!”
“There’s my boat, John, with her sides stove in!”
“No, it isn’t. Why, we burned your boat.”
“That’s her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin camp!”
“Where?Show me, and I’ll tell you by the way smoke curls whether they are on the war-path.”
“There, just across the Mysterious River.”
“I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.”
Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much,but if he wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand,for have I not told you that anon fear fell upon them?
It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.
In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime.Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows moved about in them,the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all,you lost the certainty that you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were on.You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here,and that the Neverland was all make-believe.
Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it was real now,and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana?
They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now.His careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling,and a tingle went through them every time they touched his body.They were now over the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their feet.Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had become slow and laboured,exactly as if they were pushing their way through hostile forces.Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had beaten on it with his fists.
“They don’t want us to land,” he explained.
“Who are they?” Wendy whispered, shuddering.
But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his shoulder,but now he wakened her and sent her on in front.
Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently, with his hand to his ear,and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they seemed to bore two holes to earth.Having done these things, he went on again.
His courage was almost appalling. “Would you like an adventure now,” he said casually to John,“or would you like to have your tea first?”
Wendy said “tea first” quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in gratitude, but the braver John hesitated.
“What kind of adventure?” he asked cautiously.
“There’s a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us,” Peter told him. “If you like, we’ll go down and kill him.”
“I don’t see him,” John said after a long pause.
“I do.”
“Suppose,” John said, a little huskily, “he were to wake up.”
Peter spoke indignantly. “You don’t think I would kill him while he was sleeping!I would wake him first, and then kill him. That’s the way I always do.”
“I say!Do you kill many?”
“Tons.”
John said “How ripping,” but decided to have tea first.He asked if there were many pirates on the island just now,and Peter said he had never known so many.
“Who is captain now?”
“Hook,” answered Peter, and his face became very stern as he said that hated word.
“Jas. Hook?”
“Ay.”
Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps only, for they knew Hook’s reputation.
“He was Blackbeard’s bo’sun,” John whispered huskily. “He is the worst of them all.He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.”
“That’s him,” said Peter.
“What is he like?Is he big?”
“He is not so big as he was.”
“How do you mean?”
“I cut off a bit of him.”
“You!”
“Yes, me,” said Peter sharply.
“I wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful.”
“Oh, all right.”
“But, I say, what bit?”
“His right hand.”
“Then he can’t fight now?”
“Oh, can’t he just!”
“Left-hander?”
“He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it.”
“Claws!”
“I say, John,” said Peter.
“Yes.”
“Say, ‘Ay, ay, sir.’”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“There is one thing,” Peter continued, “that every boy who serves under me has to promise, and so must you.”
John paled.
“It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.”
“I promise,” John said loyally.
For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying with them,and in her light they could distinguish each other.Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they,and so she had to go round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo.Wendy quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawbacks.
“She tells me,” he said, “that the pirates sighted us before the darkness came, and got Long Tom out.”
“The big gun?”
“Yes. And of course they must see her light,and if they guess we are near it they are sure to let fly.”
“Wendy!”
“John!”
“Michael!”
“Tell her to go away at once, Peter,” the three cried simultaneously, but he refused.
“She thinks we have lost the way,” he replied stiffly, “and she is rather frightened.You don’t think I would send her away all by herself when she is frightened!”
For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a loving little pinch.
“Then tell her,” Wendy begged, “to put out her light.”
“She can’t put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can’t do.It just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars.”
“Then tell her to sleep at once,” John almost ordered.
“She can’t sleep except when she’s sleepy. It is the only other thing fairies can’t do.”
“Seems to me,” growled John, “these are the only two things worth doing.”
Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.
“If only one of us had a pocket,” Peter said, “we could carry her in it.” However,they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a pocket between the four of them.
He had a happy idea. John’s hat!
Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John carried it,though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy took the hat,because John said it struck against his knee as he flew; and this, as we shall see,led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be under an obligation to Wendy.
In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in silence.It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by a distant lapping,which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at the ford,and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches of trees rubbing together,but he said it was the redskins sharpening their knives.
Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. “If only something would make a sound!” he cried.
As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them.
The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to cry savagely, “Where are they, where are they, where are they?”
Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.
When at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found themselves alone in the darkness.John was treading the air mechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating.
“Are you shot?” John whispered tremulously.
“I haven’t tried yet,” Michael whispered back.
We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however,had been carried by the wind of the shot far out to sea,while Wendy was blown upwards with no companion but Tinker Bell.
It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the hat.
I don’t know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had planned it on the way,but she at once popped out of the hat and began to lure Wendy to her destruction.
Tink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand,sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other,because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are,however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy.What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand,and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she flew back and forward,plainly meaning “Follow me, and all will be well.”
What else could poor Wendy do?She called to Peter and John and Michael, and got only mocking echoes in reply.She did not yet know that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so,bewildered, and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.
Chapter V. THE ISLAND COME TRUE
Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life.We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.
In his absence things are usually quiet on the island.The fairies take an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young,the redskins feed heavily for six days and nights,and when pirates and lost boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other.But with the coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are under way again:if you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island seething with life.
On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows.The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys,the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins.They were going round and round the island,but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.
All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule,but to-night were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers,according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up,which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them,counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.
They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him,and they wear the skins of the bears slain by themselves,in which they are so round and furry that when they fall they roll.They have therefore become very sure-footed.
The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most unfortunate of all that gallant band.He had been in fewer adventures than any of them,because the big things constantly happened just when he had stepped round the corner;all would be quiet, he would take the opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood,and then when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood.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 are 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 cannot 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 (but this was never proved), and Gentleman Starkey,once an usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways of killing;and Skylights (Morgan’s Skylights); and the Irish bo’sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed,so to speak, without offence, and was the only Non-conformist 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 in that dark setting, reclined James Hook,or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared.He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men,and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace.As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him.In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls,which at a little distance looked like black candles,and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance.His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy,save when he was plunging his hook into you,at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner,something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air,and I have been told that he was a _raconteur_ of repute.He was never more sinister than when he was most polite,which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction,even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour,showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage,it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood,which was thick and of an unusual colour.In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II,having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts;and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.
Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As they pass,Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth,there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on.He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth.
Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will win?
On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,which is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins,every one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives,and their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are scalps,of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny tribe,and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the Hurons. In the van, on all fours,is Great Big Little Panther, a brave of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress.Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect,a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies,coquettish, cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife,but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest noise.The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing.The fact is that they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging,but in time they will work this off. For the moment, however, it constitutes their chief danger.
The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their place is taken by the beasts,a great and motley procession: lions, tigers, bears,and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from them, for every kind of beast, and,more particularly, all the man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island.Their tongues are hanging out, they are hungry to-night.
When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic crocodile.We shall see for whom she is looking presently.
The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again,for the procession must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its pace.Then quickly they will be on top of each other.
All are keeping a sharp look-out in front,but none suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island was.
The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home.
“I do wish Peter would come back,” every one of them said nervously,though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than their captain.
“I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,” Slightly said,in the tone that prevented his being a general favourite;but perhaps some distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, “but I wish he would come back,and tell us whether he has heard anything more about Cinderella.”
They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother must have been very like her.
It was only in Peter’s absence that they could speak of mothers,the subject being forbidden by him as silly.
“All I remember about my mother,” Nibs told them, “is that she often said to my father, ‘Oh,how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!’ I don’t know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother one.”
While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild things of the woods,would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it was the grim song:
“Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life, The flag o’ skull and bones, A merry hour, a hempen rope, And hey for Davy Jones.”
At once the lost boys—but where are they?They are no longer there. Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.
I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has darted away to reconnoitre,they are already in their home under the ground,a very delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal presently. But how have they reached it?for there is no entrance to be seen, not so much as a large stone, which if rolled away,would disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however,and you may note that there are here seven large trees,each with a hole in its hollow trunk as large as a boy.These are the seven entrances to the home under the ground,for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons. Will he find it tonight?
As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs disappearing through the wood,and at once his pistol flashed out. But an iron claw gripped his shoulder.
“Captain, let go!” he cried, writhing.
Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice. “Put back that pistol first, ” it said threateningly.
“It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead.”
“Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily’s redskins upon us. Do you want to lose your scalp?”
“Shall I after him, Captain,” asked pathetic Smee, “and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?” Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew,because he wiggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance,after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.
“Johnny’s a silent fellow,” he reminded Hook.
“Not now, Smee,” Hook said darkly. “He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them.”
The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their Captain and Smee were alone.Hook heaved a heavy sigh, and I know not why it was,perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening,but there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo’sun the story of his life.He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about Smee, who was rather stupid, did not know in the least.
Anon he caught the word Peter.
“Most of all,” Hook was saying passionately, “I want their captain, Peter Pan.’Twas he cut off my arm.” He brandished the hook threateningly.“I’ve waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I’ll tear him!”
“And yet,” said Smee, “I have often heard you say that hook was worth a score of hands,for combing the hair and other homely uses.”
“Ay,” the captain answered, “if I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this instead of that,” and he cast a look of pride upon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he frowned.
“Peter flung my arm,” he said, wincing, “to a crocodile that happened to be passing by.”
“I have often,” said Smee, “noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.”
“Not of crocodiles,” Hook corrected him, “but of that one crocodile.” He lowered his voice.“It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed me ever since,from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips for the rest of me.”
“In a way,” said Smee, “it’s sort of a compliment.”
“I want no such compliments,” Hook barked petulantly. “I want Peter Pan,who first gave the brute its taste for me.”
He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his voice. “Smee,” he said huskily,“that crocodile would have had me before this,but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick inside it,and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.” He laughed, but in a hollow way.
“Some day,” said Smee, “the clock will run down, and then he’ll get you.”
Hook wetted his dry lips. “Ay,” he said, “that’s the fear that haunts me.”
Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. “Smee,” he said, “this seat is hot.” He jumped up.“Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I’m burning.”
They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown on the mainland;they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in their hands, for it had no root.Stranger still, smoke began at once to ascend. The pirates looked at each other. “A chimney!” they both exclaimed.
They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground.It was the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were in the neighbourhood.
Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children’s voices,for so safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place that they were gaily chattering.The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom.They looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees.
“Did you hear them say Peter Pan’s from home?” Smee whispered, fidgeting with Johnny Corkscrew.
Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought,and at last a curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it.“Unrip your plan, captain,” he cried eagerly.
“To return to the ship,” Hook replied slowly through his teeth,“and cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it.There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney.The silly moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece.That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of the Mermaids’ Lagoon.These boys are always swimming about there, playing with the mermaids.They will find the cake and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother,they don’t know how dangerous’tis to eat rich damp cake.” He burst into laughter,not hollow laughter now, but honest laughter. “Aha, they will die.”
Smee had listened with growing admiration.
“It’s the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of!” he cried, and in their exultation they danced and sang:
“Avast, belay, when I appear, By fear they’re overtook;Nought’s left upon your bones when you Have shaken claws with Hook.”
They began the verse, but they never finished it, for another sound broke in and stilled them.There was at first such a tiny sound that a leaf might have fallen on it and smothered it,but as it came nearer it was more distinct.
Tick tick tick tick!
Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.
“The crocodile!” he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo’sun.
It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins,who were now on the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook.
Once more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers of the night were not yet over,for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their midst, pursued by a pack of wolves.The tongues of the pursuers were hanging out; the baying of them was horrible.
“Save me, save me!” cried Nibs, falling on the ground.
“But what can we do, what can we do?”
It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their thoughts turned to him.
“What would Peter do?” they cried simultaneously.
Almost in the same breath they cried, “Peter would look at them through his legs.”
And then, “Let us do what Peter would do.”
It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves,and as one boy they bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long one,but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in the terrible attitude,the wolves dropped their tails and fled.
Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw.
“I have seen a wonderfuller thing,” he cried, as they gathered round him eagerly.“A great white bird. It is flying this way.”
“What kind of a bird, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Nibs said, awestruck, “but it looks so weary, and as it flies it moans, ‘Poor Wendy. ’”
“Poor Wendy?”
“I remember,” said Slightly instantly, “there are birds called Wendies.”
“See, it comes!” cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens.