Page:Peter Pan (1928).pdf/183

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V.]
PETER PAN
143


foot is on its blade. There is no deep gash on HOOK, but he is suffering torment as from innumerable jags.)

BOYS (exulting). Now, Peter, now!

(PETER raises the sword by its blade, and with an inclination of the head that is perhaps slightly overdone, presents the hilt to his enemy.)

HOOK. ’Tis some fiend fighting me! Pan, who and what art thou?

(The children listen eagerly for the answer, none quite so eagerly as WENDY.)

PETER (at a venture). I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

HOOK. To ’t again!

(He has now a damp feeling that this boy is the weapon which is to strike him from the lists of man; but the grandeur of his mind still holds and, true to the traditions of his flag, he fights on like a human flail. PETER flutters round and through and over these gyrations as if the wind of them blew him out of the danger zone, and again and again he darts in and jags.)