r was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he
could do no more.

As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began
pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him,
woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to
tell her the truth.

"We are on the rock, Wendy," he said, "but it is growing smaller. Soon
the water will be over it."

She did not understand even now.

"We must go," she said, almost brightly.

"Yes," he answered faintly.

"Shall we swim or fly, Peter?"

He had to tell her.

"Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without
my help?"

She had to admit that she was too tired.

He moaned.

"What is it?" she asked, anxious about him at once.

"I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim."

"Do you mean we shall both be drowned?"

"Look how the water is rising."

They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought
they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against
Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, "Can I
be of any use?"

It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It
had torn itself out of his hand and floated away.

"Michael's kite," Peter said without interest, but next moment he had
seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.

"It lifted Michael off the ground," he cried; "why should it not carry
you?"

"Both of us!"

"It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried."

"Let us draw lots," Wendy said bravely.

"And you a lady; never." Already he had tied the tail round her. She
clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a "Good-bye,
Wendy," he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne
out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.

The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of
light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a
sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the
mermaids calling to the moon.

Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A
tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on
the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and
Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock
again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was
sa