I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg!
Look, Michael, there s your cave!
John, what s that in the brushwood?
It s a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that s your little
whelp!
There s my boat, John, with her sides stove in!
No, it isn t. Why, we burned your boat.
That s her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin
camp!
Where? Show me, and I ll tell you by the way smoke curls whether they
are on the war-path.
There, just across the Mysterious River.
I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.
Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much, but if he
wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not
told you that anon fear fell upon them?
It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.
In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little
dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it
and spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts
of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty
that you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were on.
You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over
here, and that the Neverland was all make-believe.
Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it was
real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker
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