"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."
"Seems to me," growled John, "these are the only two things worth doing."
Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.
"If only one of us had a pocket," Peter said, "we could carry her in it." However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a pocket between the four of them.
He had a happy idea. John"s hat!
Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy took the hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew; and this, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be under an obligation to Wendy.
In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in silence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by a distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at the ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening their knives.