by Unknown
She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark? Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what she wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst into the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without a goodbye to their hostess they rushed into the street.
But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing behind the curtains; and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.
We now return to the nursery.
‘It’s all right,’ John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. ‘I say, Peter, can you really fly?’
Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew round the room, taking the mantelpiece on the way.
‘How topping!’ said John and Michael.
‘How sweet!’ cried Wendy.
‘Yes, I’m sweet, oh, I am sweet!’ said Peter, forgetting his manners again.
It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.
‘I say, how do you do it?’ asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a practical boy.
‘You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,’ Peter explained, ‘and they lift you up in the air.’
He showed them again.
‘You’re so nippy at it,’ John said; ‘couldn’t you do it very slowly once?’
Peter did it both slowly and quickly. ‘I’ve got it now, Wendy!’ cried John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch, though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not know A from Z.
Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned, one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them, with the most superb results.
‘Now just wriggle your shoulders this way,’ he said, ‘and let go.’
They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne across the room.
‘I flewed!’ he screamed while still in mid-air.
John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.
‘Oh, lovely!’
‘Oh, ripping!’
‘Look at me!’
‘Look at me!’
‘Look at me!’
They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first, but had to desist, Tink was so indignant.
Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy’s word.
‘I say,’ cried John, ‘why shouldn’t we all go out!’
Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.
Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion miles. But Wendy hesitated.
‘Mermaids!’ said Peter again.
‘Oo!’
‘And there are pirates.’
‘Pirates,’ cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, ‘let us go at once.’
It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze with light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling round and round, not on the floor but in the air.
Not three figures, four!
In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed to him to go softly. She even tried to make her heart go softly.
Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them, and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story. On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will all come right in the end.
They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window open, and that smallest star of all called out:
‘Cave, Peter!’
Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. ‘Come,’ he cried imperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and Michael and Wendy.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown.
* * *
CHAPTER IV
THE FLIGHT
‘Second to the right, and straight on till morning.’
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.
John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.
They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.
Not so long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their second sea and their third night.
Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they merely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding them? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable for humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of goodwill. But Wendy noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that there are other ways.
Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful thing was that Peter thought this funny.
‘There he goes again!’ he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly dropped like a stone.
‘Save him, save him!’ cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life. Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility that the next time you fell he would let you go.
He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light that if you got behind him and blew he went faster.
‘Do be more polite to him,’ Wendy whispered to John, when they were playing ‘Follow my Leader.’
‘Then tell him to stop showing off,’ said John.
When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and touch each shark’s tail in passing, just as in the street you may run your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.
‘You must be nice to him,’ Wendy impressed on her brothers. ‘What could we do if he were to leave us?’
‘We could go back,’ Michael said.
‘How could we ever find our way back without him?’
‘Well, then, we co
uld go on,’ said John.
‘That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don’t know how to stop.’
This was true; Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.
John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come back to their own window.
‘And who is to get food for us, John?’
‘I nipped a bit out of that eagle’s mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.’
‘After the twentieth try,’ Wendy reminded him. ‘And even though we became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and things if he is not near to give us a hand.’
Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round Michael’s forehead by this time.
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 tell him her 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 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 out 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 out the island 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 tiptoe in the air to get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognised 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 the smoke curls whether they are on the warpath.’
‘There, just across the Mysterious River.’
‘I see now. Yes, they are on the warpath 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 in. 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. ‘Do you want 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 drawback.
‘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.’