Five drops of this he now added to Peter’s cup. His hand shook, but it was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole. Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him, holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, of which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself stole away through the trees.

Peter slept on. The light guttered and went out, leaving the tenement in darkness; but still he slept. It must have been not less than ten o’clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat up in his bed, wakened by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on the door of his tree.

Soft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for his dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke.

‘Who is that?’

For long there was no answer: then again the knock.

‘Who are you?’

No answer.

He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached his door. Unlike Slightly’s door it filled the aperture, so that he could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him.

‘I won’t open unless you speak,’ Peter cried.

Then at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely bell-like voice.

‘Let me in, Peter.’

It was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her face flushed and her dress stained with mud.

‘What is it?’

‘Oh, you could never guess,’ she cried, and offered him three guesses. ‘Out with it!’ he shouted; and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as the ribbons conjurers pull from their mouths, she told of the capture of Wendy and the boys.

Peter’s heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the pirate ship; she who loved everything to be just so!

‘I’ll rescue her,’ he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he thought of something he could do to please her. He could take his medicine.

His hand closed on the fatal draught.

‘No!’ shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook muttering about his deed as he sped through the forest.

‘Why not?’

‘It is poisoned.’

‘Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it?’