ear as they have come like shadows, and soon their
place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,
tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee
from them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly, all the
man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are
hanging out, they are hungry to-night.

When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic
crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.

The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession
must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its
pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.

All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the
danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island
was.

The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung
themselves down on the sward [turf], close to their underground home.

"I do wish Peter would come back," every one of them said nervously,
though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than
their captain.

"I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates," Slightly said, in
the tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some
distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, "but I wish he
would come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
Cinderella."

They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother
must have been very like her.

It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the
subject being forbidden by him as silly.

"All I remember about my mother," Nibs told them, "is that she often
said to my father, 'Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!' I
don't know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my
mother one."

While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild
things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it
was the grim song:

"Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o' skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones."

At once the lost boys--but where are they? They are no longer there.
Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.

I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has
darted away to reconnoitre [look around], they are already in their home
under the ground, a very del