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 saying, To die will be an awfully big adventure.
Chapter IX.
THE NEVER BIRD
The last sound Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids
retiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far
away to hear their doors shut; but every door in the coral caves where
they live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the
nicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells.
Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to
pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only
thing on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper,
perhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to
drift ashore.
85