But suddenly there was a stamping overhead, and banging and a clashing, and a shouting, and a sound of heavy people wrestling and struggling to and fro. The Pirates had taken the Red Indians by surprise. The children heard the fighting, and listened like mice to the squalling of cats, as frightened as could be, while Peter waited with his sword. The battle was very soon over. The Redskins were beaten and ran like hares, or crawled dangerously wounded into the thickets. The triumphant Pirates were left victorious, though a little out of breath, close above the children's heads.
Hook, their captain, more wicked-looking than ever, listened at the mushroom chimney. "If the Indians have won," Peter was saying, "they'll beat the tom-tom."
"Aha!" thought Hook, and he picked up a tom-tom that one of the flying Indians had left behind, and sounded it loudly; "rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, dub, dub, dub."
"Hurrah!" shouted the children down below. "An Indian victory!"
"All will be safe," said Peter. "You may go now! Tink will show you the way," and bidding a hurried good-bye to Peter, away they all went up the stairways in the tree-trunks, out into the forest.
The Pirates were ready for them. As each child came above the ground, he was seized by one of the swarthy ruffians who stood waiting. One by one, and silently, they were captured and flung into boats and transported to the pirate ship, which had anchored in the lake close by.
SEIZED BY ONE OF THE SWARTHY RUFFIANS
Everything had been done so quietly that Peter was quite unaware of his friends' sad fate. He only knew that he was all alone, that Wendy had left him, and that she, and Michael, and John, and all the Lost Boys who had been his companions were on their way from the Never-Never-Never Land to the country of the ordinary people who wear tall hats and tail-coats as soon as they are old enough, and grow up one after the other. Poor Peter threw himself on his bed and sobbed himself to sleep.