Act III.

       The Mermaids' Lagoon

       Table of Contents

      It is the end of a long playful day on the lagoon. The sun's rays have persuaded him to give them another five minutes, for one more race over the waters before he gathers them up and lets in the moon. There are many mermaids here, going plop-plop, and one might attempt to count the tails did they not flash and disappear so quickly. At times a lovely girl leaps in the air seeking to get rid of her excess of scales, which fall in a silver shower as she shakes them off. From the coral grottoes beneath the lagoon, where are the mermaids' bedchambers, comes fitful music.

      One of the most bewitching of these blue-eyed creatures is lying lazily on Marooners' Rock, combing her long tresses and noting effects in a transparent shell. Peter and his band are in the water unseen behind the rock, whither they have tracked her as if she were a trout, and at a signal ten pairs of arms come whack upon the mermaid to enclose her. Alas, this is only what was meant to happen, for she hears the signal (which is the crow of a cock) and slips through their arms into the water. It has been such a near thing that there are scales on some of their hands. They climb on to the rock crestfallen.

      WENDY (preserving her scales as carefully as if they were rare postage stamps). I did so want to catch a mermaid.

      PETER (getting rid of his). It is awfully difficult to catch a mermaid.

      (The mermaids at times find it just as difficult to catch him, though he sometimes joins them in their one game,which consists in lazily blowing their bubbles into the air and seeing who can catch them. The number of bubbles PETER has flown away with! When the weather grows cold mermaids migrate 'to the other side of the world, and he once went with a great shoal of them half the way.)

      They are such cruel creatures, Wendy, that they try to pull boys and girls like you into the water and drown them.

      WENDY (too guarded by this time to ask what he means 'precisely by 'like you,' though she is very desirous of knowing). How hateful!

      (She is slightly different in appearance now, rather rounder, while JOHN and MICHAEL are not quite so round. The reason is that when new lost children arrive at his underground home PETER finds new trees for them to go up and down by, and instead of fitting the tree to them he makes them fit the tree. Sometimes it can be done by adding or removing garments, but if you are bumpy, or the tree is an odd shape, he has things done to you with a roller, and after that you fit. The other boys are now playing King of the Castle, throwing each other into the water, taking headers and so on; but these two continue to talk.)

      PETER. Wendy, this is a fearfully important rock. It is called Marooners' Rock. Sailors are marooned, you know, when their captain leaves them on a rock and sails away.

      WENDY. Leaves them on this little rock to drown?

      PETER (lightly). Oh, they don't live long. Their hands are tied, so that they can't swim. When the tide is full this rock is covered with water, and then the sailor drowns.

      (WENDY is uneasy as she surveys the rock, which is the only one in the lagoon and no larger than a table. Since she last looked around a threatening change has come over the scene. The sun has gone, but the moon has not come. What has come is a cold shiver across the waters which has sent all the wiser mermaids to their coral recesses. They know that evil is creeping over the lagoon. Of the boys PETER is of course the first to scent it, and he has leapt to his feet before the words strike the rock—

      'And if we 're parted by a shot We 're sure to meet below.'

      The games on the rock and around it end so abruptly that several divers are checked in the air. There they hang waiting for the word of command from PETER.When they get it they strike the water simultaneously, and the rock is at once as bare as if suddenly they had been blown off it. Thus the pirates find it deserted when their dinghy strikes the rock and is nearly stove in by the concussion.)

      SMEE. Luff, you spalpeen, luff! (They are SMEE and STARKEY, with TIGER LILY, their captive, bound hand and foot.) What we have got to do is to hoist the redskin on to the rock and leave her there to drown.

      (To one of her race this is an end darker than death by fire or torture, for it is written in the laws of the Piccaninnies that there is no path through water to the happy hunting ground. Yet her face is impassive; she is the daughter of a chief and must die as a chief's daughter; it is enough.)

      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.