This onslaught passes and is gone like a fierce wind. The victors wipe their cutlasses, and squint, ferret-eyed, at their leader. He remains, as ever, aloof in spirit and in substance. He signs to them to descend the trees, for he is convinced that PAN is down there, and though he has smoked the bees it is the honey he wants. There is something in PETER that at all times goads this extraordinary man to frenzy; it is the boy's cockiness, which disturbs HOOK like an insect. If you have seen a lion in a cage futilely pursuing a sparrow you will know what is meant. The pirates try to do their captain's bidding, but the apertures prove to be not wide enough for them; he cannot even ram them down with a pole. He steals to the mouth of a tree and listens.)
PETER (prematurely). All is over!
WENDY. But who has won?
PETER. Hst! If the Indians have won they will beat the tom-tom; it is always their signal of victory.
(HOOK licks his lips at this and signs to SMEE, who is sitting on it, to hold up the tom-tom. He beats upon it with his claw, and listens for results.)
TOOTLES. The tom-tom!
PETER (sheathing his sword). An Indian victory!
(The cheers from below are music to the black hearts above.)
You are quite safe now, Wendy. Boys, good-bye. (He resumes his pipes.)
WENDY. Peter, you will remember about changing your flannels, won't you?'
PETER. Oh, all right!
WENDY. And this is your medicine.
(She puts something into a shell and leaves it on a ledge between two of the trees. It is only water, but she measures it out in drops.)
PETER. I won't forget.
WENDY. Peter, what are you to me?
PETER (through the pipes). Your son, Wendy.
WENDY. Oh, good-bye!
(The travellers start upon their journey, little witting that HOOK has issued his silent orders: a man to the mouth of each tree, and a row of men between the trees and the little house. As the children squeeze up they are plucked from their trees, trussed, thrown like bales of cotton from one pirate to another, and so piled up in the little house. The only one treated differently is WENDY, whom HOOK escorts to the house on his arm with hateful politeness. He signs to his dogs to be gone, and they depart through the wood, carrying the little house with its strange merchandise and singing their ribald song. The chimney of the little house emits a jet of smoke fitfully, as if not sure what it ought to do just now.
HOOK and PETER are now, as it were, alone on the island. Below, PETER is on the bed, asleep, no weapon near him; above, HOOK, armed to the teeth, is searching noiselessly for some tree down which the nastiness of him can descend. Don't be too much alarmed by this; it is precisely the situation PETER would have chosen; indeed if the whole thing were pretend——. One of his arms droops over the edge of the bed, a leg is arched, and the mouth is not so tightly closed that we cannot see the little pearls. He is dreaming, and in his dreams he is always in pursuit of a boy who was never here, nor anywhere: the only boy who could beat him.
HOOK finds the tree. It is the one set apart for SLIGHTLY who being addicted when hot to the drinking of water has swelled in consequence and surreptitiously scooped his tree for easier descent and egress. Down this the pirate wriggles a passage. In the aperture below his face emerges and goes green as he glares at the sleeping child. Does no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The man is not wholly evil: he has a Thesaurus in his cabin, and is no mean performer on the flute. What really warps him is a presentiment that he is about to fail. This is not unconnected with a beatific smile on the face of the sleeper, whom he cannot reach owing to being stuck at the foot of the tree. He, however, sees the medicine shell within easy reach, and to WENDY'S draught he adds from a bottle five drops of poison distilled when he was weeping from the red in his eye. The expression on PETER'S face merely implies that something heavenly is going on. HOOK worms his way upwards, and winding his cloak around him, as if to conceal his person from the night of which he is the blackest part, he stalks moodily toward the lagoon.
A dot of light flashes past him and darts down the nearest tree, looking for PETER, only for PETER, quite indifferent about the others when she finds him safe.)
PETER (stirring). Who is that? (TINK has to tell her tale, in one long ungrammatical sentence.) The redskins were defeated? Wendy and the boys captured by the pirates! I'll rescue her, I'll rescue her! (He leap first at his dagger, and then at his grindstone, to sharpen it. TINK alights near the shell, and rings out a warning cry.) Oh, that is just my medicine. Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it? I promised Wendy to take it, and I will as soon as I have sharpened my dagger. (TINK, who sees its red colour and remembers the red in the grate's eye, nobly swallows the draught as PETER'S hand is reaching for it.) Why, Tink, you have drunk my medicine! (She flutters strangely about the room, answering him now in a very thin tinkle.) It was poisoned and you drank it to save my life! Tink, dear Tink, are you dying? (He has never called her dear TINK before, and for a moment she is gay; she alights on his shoulder, gives his chin a loving bite, whispers 'You silly ass' and falls on her tiny bed. The boudoir, which is lit by her, flickers ominously. He is on his knees by the opening.)
Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is dead! Her voice is so low I can scarcely tell what she is saying. She says—she says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies! (He rises and throws out his arms he knows not to whom, perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one.) Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe, clap your hands! (Many clap, some don't, a few hiss. Then perhaps there is a rush of Nanas to the nurseries to see what on earth is happening. But TINK is saved.) Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to rescue Wendy!
(TINK is already as merry and impudent as a grig, withnot a thought for those who have saved her. PETER ascends his tree as if he were shot up it. What he is feeling is 'HOOK or me this time!' He is frightfully happy. He soon hits the trail, for the smoke from the house has lingered here and there to guide him. He takes wing.)
Act V.
SCENE 1
THE PIRATE SHIP
The stage directions for the opening of this scene are as follows:—
1 Circuit Amber checked to 80. Battens, all Amber checked, 3 ship's lanterns alight. Arcs: prompt perch 1. Open dark Amber flooding back, O.P. perch open dark Amber flooding upper deck. Arc on tall steps at back of cabin to flood back