So, Pan, said Hook at last, this is all your doing.
Ay, James Hook, came the stern answer, it is all my doing.
Proud and insolent youth, said Hook, prepare to meet thy doom.
Dark and sinister man, Peter answered, have at thee.
Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage
to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with
dazzling rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge
that got past his foe s defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill
stead, and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his
inferior in brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced
him back by the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a
favourite thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his
astonishment he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he
sought to close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this
time had been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging
fiercely, pierced him in the ribs. At the sight of his own blood, whose
peculiar colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell
from Hook s hand, and he was at Peter s mercy.
Now! cried all the boys, but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited
his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a
tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.
Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker
suspicions assailed him now.
Pan, who and what art thou? he cried huskily.
I m youth, I m joy, Peter answered at a venture, I m a little bird
that has broken out of the egg.
This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook
that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the
very pinnacle of good form.
To t again, he cried despairingly.
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