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The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their good-byes to Peter.

This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the trees.

They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands.

Rapidly and silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.

The more quickly this horror is disposed of the better.

The first to emerge from his tree was Curly.

He rose out of it into the arms of Cecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to Bill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to another till he fell at the feet of the black pirate.

All the boys were plucked from their trees in this ruthless manner; and several of them were in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand.

A different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last.

With ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his arm, escorted her to the spot where the others were being gagged.

He did it with such an air, he was so frightfully DISTINGUE [imposingly distinguished], that she was too fascinated to cry out.

She was only a little girl.

Perhaps it is tell-tale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her, and we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results.

Had she haughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her), she would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then Hook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children; and had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's secret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul attempt on Peter's life.

They were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees close to their ears; and for the trussing of them the black pirate had cut a rope into nine equal pieces.

All went well until Slightly's turn came, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up all the string in going round and leave no tags [ends] with which to tie a knot.

The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you kick the parcel (though in fairness you should kick the string); and strange to say it was Hook who told them to belay their violence.

His lip was curled with malicious triumph.

While his dogs were merely sweating because every time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one part he bulged out in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath Slightly's surface, probing not for effects but for causes; and his exultation showed that he had found them.

Slightly, white to the gills, knew that Hook had surprised [discovered] his secret, which was this, that no boy so blown out could use a tree wherein an average man need stick.

Poor Slightly, most wretched of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly regretted what he had done.

Madly addicted to the drinking of water when he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the others, whittled his tree to make it fit him.

Sufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay at his mercy, but no word of the dark design that now formed in the subterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips; he merely signed that the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be alone.

How to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be rolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass.

Chapter 13 DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?

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