'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.
'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.'
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 but 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.'
'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 is 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.'
'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.'
'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.'
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.
'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 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 a 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.
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 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.
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.