HOOK (stung to madness). I’ll fire the powder magazine. (He disappears they know not where.)
CHILDREN. Peter, save us!
(PETER, alas, goes the wrong way and HOOK returns.)
HOOK (sitting on the hold with gloomy satisfaction). In two minutes the ship will be blown to pieces.
(They cast themselves before him in entreaty.)
CHILDREN. Mercy, mercy!
HOOK. Back, you pewling spawn. I’ll show you now the road to dusty death. A holocaust of children, there is something grand in the idea!
(PETER appears with the smoking bomb in his hand and tosses it overboard. HOOK has not really had much hope, and he rushes at his other persecutors with his head down like some exasperated bull in the ring; but with bantering cries they easily elude him by flying among the rigging.
Where is PETER? The incredible boy has apparently forgotten the recent doings, and