STARKEY (chagrined because she does not mewl). No mewling. This is your reward for prowling round the ship with a knife in your mouth.
TIGER LILLY (stoically). Enough said.
SMEE (who would have preferred a farewell palaver). So that's it! On to the rock with her, mate.
STARKEY (experiencing for perhaps the last time the stirrings of a man). Not so rough, Smee; roughish, but not so rough.
SMEE (dragging her on to the rock). It is the captain's orders.
(A stave has in some past time been driven into the rock, probably to mark the burial place of hidden treasure, and to this they moor the dinghy.)
WENDY (in the water). Poor Tiger Lily!
STARKEY. What was that? (The children bob.)
PETER (who can imitate the captain's voice so perfectly that even the author has a dizzy feeling that at times he was really HOOK). Ahoy there, you lubbers!
STARKEY. It is the captain; he must be swimming out to us.
SMEE (calling). We have put the redskin on the rock,Captain.
PETER. Set her free.
SMEE. But, Captain——
PETER. Cut her bonds, or I 'll plunge my hook in you.
SMEE. This is queer:
STARKEY (unmanned). Let us follow the captain's orders.
(They undo the thongs and TIGER LILY slides between their legs into the lagoon, forgetting in her haste to utter her war-cry, but PETER utters it for her, so naturally that even the lost boys are deceived. It is at this moment that the voice of the true HOOK is heard.)
HOOK. Boat ahoy!
SMEE (relieved). It is the captain.
(HOOK is swimming, and they help him to scale the rock. He is in gloomy mood.)
STARKEY. Captain, is all well?
SMEE. He sighs.
STARKEY. He sighs again.
SMEE (counting). And yet a third time he sighs. (With foreboding) What's up, Captain?
HOOK (who has perhaps found the large rich damp cake untouched). The game is up. Those boys have found a mother!
STARKEY. Oh evil day!
SMEE. What is a mother?
WENDY (horrified). He doesn't know!
HOOK (sharply). What was that?
(PETER makes the splash of a mermaid's tail.)
STARKEY. One of them mermaids.
HOOK. Dost not know, Smee? A mother is—— (He finds it more difficult to explain than he had expected, and looks about him for an illustration. He finds one in a great bird which drifts past in a nest as large as the roomiest basin) There is a lesson in mothers for you! The nest must have fallen intothe water, but would the bird desert her eggs? (PETER, who is now more or less off his head, makes the sound of a bird answering in the negative. The nest is borne out of sight.)
STARKEY. Maybe she is hanging about here to protect Peter?
(HOOK'S face clouds still further and PETER just manages not to call out that he needs no protection.)
SMEE (not usually a man of ideas). Captain, could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make her our mother?
HOOK. Obesity and bunions, 'tis a princely scheme. We will seize the children, make them walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our mother!
WENDY. Never! (Another splash from PETER.)
HOOK. What say you, bullies?
SMEE. There is my hand on 't.
STARKEY. And mine.
HOOK. And there is my hook. Swear. (All swear.) But I had forgot; where is the redskin?
SMEE (shaken). That is all right, Captain; we let her go.
HOOK (terrible). Let her go?
SMEE. 'Twas your own orders, Captain.
STARKEY (whimpering). You called over the water to us to let her go.
HOOK. Brimstone and gall, what cozening is here? (Disturbed by their faithful faces) Lads, I gave no such order.
SMEE 'Tis passing queer.
HOOK (addressing the immensities). Spirit that haunts thisdark lagoon to-night, dost hear me?
PETER (in the same voice). Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.
HOOK (gripping the stave for support). Who are you, stranger, speak.
PETER (who is only too ready to speak). I am Jas Hook, Captain of the Jolly Roger.
HOOK (now white to the gills). No, no, you are not.
PETER. Brimstone and gall, say that again and I 'll cast anchor in you.
HOOK. If you are Hook, come tell me, who am I?
PETER. A codfish, only a codfish.
HOOK (aghast). A codfish?
SMEE (drawing back from him). Have we been captained all this time by a codfish?
STARKEY. It's lowering to our pride.
HOOK (feeling that his ego is slipping from him). Don't desert me, bullies.
PETER (top-heavy). Paw, fish, paw!
(There is a touch of the feminine in HOOK, as in all the greatest prates, and it prompts him to try the guessing game.)
HOOK. Have you another name?
PETER (falling to the lure). Ay, ay.
HOOK (thirstily). Vegetable?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Mineral?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Animal?
PETER (after a hurried consultation with TOOTLES). Yes.
HOOK. Man?
PETER (with scorn). No.
HOOK. Boy?
PETER, Yes.
HOOK. Ordinary boy?
PETER. No!
HOOK. Wonderful boy?
PETER (to WENDY'S distress). Yes!
HOOK. Are you in England?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Are you here?
PETER. Yes.
HOOK (beaten, though he feels he has very nearly got it). Smee, you ask him some questions.
SMEE (rummaging his brains). I can't think of a thing,
PETER. Can't guess, can't guess! (Foundering in his cockiness) Do you give it up?
HOOK (eagerly). Yes.
PETER. All of you?
SMEE and STARKEY. Yes.
PETER (crowing). Well, then, I am Peter Pan!
(Now they have him.)
HOOK. Pan! Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive!
PETER (who still has all his baby teeth). Boys, lam into the pirates!
For a moment the only two we can see are in the dinghy, where JOHN throws himself on STARKEY. STARKEY wriggles into the lagoon and JOHN leaps so quickly after him that he reaches it first. The impression left on STARKEY is that he is being attacked by the TWINS. The water becomes stained. The dinghy drifts away. Here and there a head shows in the water, and once it is the head of the crocodile. In the growing gloom