JM Barrie’s Peter Pan Chapter 12:
Literature Review
Before dawn, Captain Hook’s pirates fall on Tiger Lily’s warriors as they keep watch above the children’s underground home, breaking every unwritten rule of native warfare by striking before the customary hour. The ambush turns into a massacre rather than a fight: pirates Alf Mason, Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty are killed, Turley falling to Panther’s tomahawk, but many more of Tiger Lily’s warriors perish, and only Panther manages to cut a path to freedom with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe. The narrator pauses to weigh whether Hook can be blamed for abandoning honorable warfare, since waiting for the proper hour would likely have meant his own death. But the native warriors were never Hook’s true target — he wanted Peter all along, and it is here revealed that Peter’s unbearable cockiness, not the loss of his hand, is the real source of Hook’s hatred. Below ground, the boys hear the fighting stop and anxiously wait to learn who has won. Peter tells them that a beaten tom-tom means a native victory, and the eavesdropping pirates seize on the code: Hook orders the reluctant Smee to beat the captured drum. Fooled into believing they have won, the boys cheerfully say their goodbyes to Peter and prepare to climb up, unaware that Hook has stationed a pirate at every tree to seize them the moment they appear.
Character Development
This chapter deepens Captain Hook far beyond a stock villain. His hatred of Peter is finally explained: it is not the crocodile or the missing hand that torments him, but the boy’s cockiness, an unbearable slight that leaves the pirate captain feeling, in his own words, like “a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.” Hook’s icy self-control is also on display — even at his moment of triumph over Tiger Lily’s tribe, his face betrays no elation. Smee, meanwhile, plays the loyal but uneasy henchman: he senses the “dreadful wickedness” of tricking the boys with the tom-tom, yet ends up admiring Hook’s cunning more than ever. Tiger Lily and her warriors are shown holding to their code even as death arrives, refusing to flinch in front of an enemy.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter contrasts honor with treachery: the native warriors observe the customary rules of warfare to the letter, while Hook wins by breaking them outright. That same willingness to cheat drives the tom-tom deception, where a simple drumbeat meant as an honest signal between allies becomes a lie that dooms the boys who trust it. Barrie also explores obsession and wounded pride, showing that Hook’s vengeance against Peter is fueled by ego rather than injury. Underneath the adventure-story surface runs a darker current: the boys’ joyful goodbyes to Peter, called out at the very moment of their capture, turn a game of loyalty and courage into real danger.
Literary Devices
Barrie’s narrator repeatedly steps outside the story to comment directly on the action, weighing Hook’s guilt and admitting “it is no part of ours to describe” the massacre in full — a hallmark of the novel’s playful, intrusive narrative voice. The tom-tom sequence is built on dramatic irony: readers and pirates alike know the drumbeat is a trick long before the boys do. Auditory imagery carries much of the chapter’s tension, from the coyote-call signals of the native scouts to the two ominous beats of the tom-tom itself. The chapter’s own title functions as foreshadowing, naming the very outcome the ambush is designed to produce.
Neverland, a magical but dark place where love stories are anything but innocent. The narrative follows a faerie, who, though mute, possesses deep empathy and keen observation skills, making her a unique witness to the unfolding events. The chapter begins with the faerie reflecting on her life and her curiosity about the world. She observes a group of teenage girls—the Sky Eaters—working in a manioc field. Among them is Tiger Lily, a striking girl with an animalistic grace, who stands out from the rest. Their peaceful day is disrupted when a shipwreck occurs nearby, resulting in chaos as the girls witness the sinking vessel and its desperate passengers, the Englanders. As they look on, a lone man in a lifeboat struggles against the waves, his determination to survive sparking a mixture of fear and excitement in the onlookers. The children’s response reveals the underlying tension in Neverland—fear of the dangers that Englanders bring with them. The young tribe members rush home to discuss what to do about the man, while Tiger Lily remains fixated on him, sensing a connection. This moment marks a significant turning point for her; it hints at impending changes in her life. We learn about Tiger Lily’s past, including how she was found and raised by Tik Tok, the village shaman, who
operates as both a caregiver and a mentor. Tick Tok’s unconventional character and their bond hint at gender norms and identity, as he embodies a nurturing spirit in a traditionally masculine role. Their discussion reveals the fears surrounding the Englander’s arrival—the unknown aging disease that could threaten the Sky Eaters. While the tribe decides to let the Englander die rather than risk their own lives, Tiger Lily’s compassion and bravery drive her to defy these fears. She prepares to help him, exhibiting both a sense of adventure and a moral dilemma: the tension between saving a stranger and preserving her community’s safety. As the chapter closes, evocative imagery highlights Tiger Lily’s restless spirit and longing for something greater than her current life. The faerie observes her as she sets off on a secret mission to help the Englander, suggesting that this choice is the beginning of a transformative journey for both Tiger Lily and the young man. Overall, themes of love, courage, and the struggle between safety and adventure blend beautifully, setting the tone for the story ahead
the eyes of a faerie narrator who observes the life and struggles of the enigmatic girl. The narrator reminds us of the warnings from her father about the dangers of the island, particularly concerning Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, who are rumored to be violent and unpredictable. These warnings only fuel the narrator’s curiosity and sense of rebellion, leading her to venture into forbidden areas of the forest. During her escapades, she encounters Tiger Lily for the first time in the Sky Eaters’ village. Tiger Lily, a girl who stands apart from her peers, endures teasing and bullying from village children yet remains remarkably composed. When one particularly cruel girl, Magnolia Bud, confines her in a vat of soup, Tiger Lily later emerges unharmed, solidifying her reputation as a mysterious figure protected by crows after Magnolia’s untimely death. The chapter introduces Pine Sap, a quiet boy who is drawn to Tiger Lily’s fierce spirit. While other boys are dismissive and envious of her talents, Pine Sap admires her and supports her in the face of bullying. Despite his mother’s harsh treatment of him, he seems to find solace in his connection with Tiger Lily. As the years pass, Tiger Lily grows stronger and more independent, mastering hunting skills and defying societal norms, which leads to her rejection from boy hunts due to her exceptional abilities.
In this intense chapter, Tiger Lily finds herself in a frantic rush after witnessing destruction at her home. The scene unfolds with her racing through the woods, gasping for breath, only to discover the aftermath of a devastating attack: her house has been demolished, and smoke rises from the ruins. The once-peaceful surroundings are shattered, and she follows the tracks of the pirates responsible, even though she should have remembered the fragile truce between their tribes. As she cautiously approaches the pirates, she encounters one man who lags behind the group. In a swift motion, she captures him, threatening him with her knife. However, she hesitates when she sees his tears; the sight ignites a fiery mix of compassion and disbelief within her. Unable to harm him, she ultimately lets him go, feeling unmoored and disconnected from her usual self. As she stumbles back through the woods, lost in her own turmoil, Peter Pan suddenly appears and seizes her, dragging her into the bushes just as she starts to lose her grip on her
The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.
By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream runs, for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle, snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.
That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.
The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children’s home, awaiting the cold moment when they should deal pale death.
Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy but to fall to [get into combat]. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they were of every war-like artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after him, exposing themselves fatally to view, while they gave pathetic utterance to the coyote cry.
Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy hunting-grounds was now. They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx [dense formation] that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was torn with the war-cry; but it was now too late.
It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb the Spanish Main no more, and among others who bit the dust were Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.
To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to follow a new method. On the other hand, this, as destroying the element of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme, and the fell [deadly] genius with which it was carried out.
What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain [gladly] would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.
The night’s work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan.
Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man’s hatred of him. True he had flung Hook’s arm to the crocodile, but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile’s pertinacity [persistance], hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not—. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter’s cockiness.
This had got on Hook’s nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.
The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones. They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple [hesitate] to ram them down with poles.
In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang of the weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed, all appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce gust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their fate.
Which side had won?
The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter’s answer.
“If the redskins have won,” he said, “they will beat the tom-tom; it is always their sign of victory.”
Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it. “You will never hear the tom-tom again,” he muttered, but inaudibly of course, for strict silence had been enjoined [urged]. To his amazement Hook signed him to beat the tom-tom, and slowly there came to Smee an understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably, had this simple man admired Hook so much.
Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen gleefully.
“The tom-tom,” the miscreants heard Peter cry; “an Indian victory!”
The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their good-byes to Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.
Significance of the Study
Asked Questions about Chapter 12 The Children Are Carried Off from Peter Pan
What happens in Chapter Frequently 12 of Peter Pan?
Captain Hook’s pirates launch a surprise pre-dawn ambush on Tiger Lily’s warriors, who have been keeping watch above the children’s underground home. The attack turns into a massacre: several pirates die alongside many native warriors, though Tiger Lily and the warrior Panther escape with a small remnant of the tribe. The assault was never really about the natives — Hook wants Peter, driven by a hatred rooted in Peter’s cockiness rather than the loss of his hand. Underground, the boys hear the fighting stop and anxiously wonder who has won. Peter tells them that a beaten tom-tom signals a native victory, so Hook secretly orders his man Smee to beat the captured drum and fake the signal. Fooled, the boys cheerfully say their goodbyes to Peter and prepare to climb up, unaware that Hook has stationed a pirate at every tree to seize them.
Why does Captain Hook attack before dawn in Peter Pan Chapter 12?
The unwritten rules of the story’s “savage warfare” hold that the native warriors always attack first, striking just before dawn when the whites’ courage is supposedly at its lowest. By attacking first himself, Hook denies Tiger Lily’s warriors any chance to use their customary advantage. The narrator is careful to note that Hook cannot claim ignorance of the custom — he knew exactly which rule he was breaking. This calculated dishonesty is what allows his surprise attack to succeed so completely, catching even the alert native scouts off guard.
Why does Captain Hook hate Peter Pan so much in this chapter?
The chapter finally explains that it isn’t the loss of his hand to the crocodile that fuels Hook’s hatred of Peter — the narrator states plainly that this “hardly account[s] for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant.” The true cause is Peter’s cockiness, an intolerable slight to Hook’s pride that leaves him feeling, in his own description, like “a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.” It is wounded ego, not injury, that drives his relentless pursuit of the boy.
What is the tom-tom trick in Peter Pan Chapter 12?
Peter has told the boys that if the native warriors win the battle above, they will hear a tom-tom beaten as the victory signal. When Hook’s men capture the actual drum, Hook silently signals his crewman Smee, who is sitting on it, to beat it and fake the exact signal Peter described. The trick works completely: believing the natives have triumphed, the boys cheer and prepare to climb out of their underground home, unaware they are walking straight into an ambush.
What happens to Tiger Lily’s tribe in this chapter?
Hook’s pirates catch Tiger Lily’s warriors by surprise before dawn, and what follows is described as a massacre rather than a fight. Several pirates are killed in the counterattack, including Alf Mason, Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty, with Turley falling to the warrior Panther’s tomahawk. Much of the tribe perishes, though Panther manages to cut a path through the pirates and escape alongside Tiger Lily and a small number of survivors.
Why is the chapter title “The Children Are Carried Off” ironic given how the chapter ends?
The chapter closes just as Hook springs his trap: convinced by the faked tom-tom that they have won, the boys cheerfully say their goodbyes to Peter and prepare to climb up from their underground home. Hook, however, has already stationed a pirate at every tree exit and lined up the rest of his crew two yards apart, ready to seize each boy the instant he appears. The title announces the very outcome this ambush is built to deliver, turning the boys’ celebration into dramatic irony for the reader.
Literature Sample:
Chapter XII.
THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF
The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.
By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream runs, for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle, snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.
That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.
The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children’s home, awaiting the cold moment when they should deal pale death.
Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy but to fall to. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they were of every war-like artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after him, exposing themselves fatally to view, while they gave pathetic utterance to the coyote cry.
Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy hunting-grounds was now. They knew it; but as their father’s sons they acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was torn with the war-cry; but it was now too late.
It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb the Spanish Main no more, and among others who bit the dust were Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.
To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to follow a new method. On the other hand, this, as destroying the element of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme, and the fell genius with which it was carried out.
What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.
The night’s work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan.
Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man’s hatred of him. True he had flung Hook’s arm to the crocodile, but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile’s pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not—. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter’s cockiness.
This had got on Hook’s nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.
The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones. They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple to ram them down with poles.
In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang of the weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed, all appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce gust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their fate.
Which side had won?
The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter’s answer.
“If the redskins have won,” he said, “they will beat the tom-tom; it is always their sign of victory.”
Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it. “You will never hear the tom-tom again,” he muttered, but inaudibly of course, for strict silence had been enjoined. To his amazement Hook signed him to beat the tom-tom, and slowly there came to Smee an understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably, had this simple man admired Hook so much.
Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen gleefully.
“The tom-tom,” the miscreants heard Peter cry; “an Indian victory!”
The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their good-byes to Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.
Before dawn, Captain Hook’s pirates fall on Tiger Lily’s warriors as they keep watch above the children’s underground home, breaking every unwritten rule of native warfare by striking before the customary hour. The ambush turns into a massacre rather than a fight: pirates Alf Mason, Geo. Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty are killed, Turley falling to Panther’s tomahawk, but many more of Tiger Lily’s warriors perish, and only Panther manages to cut a path to freedom with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe. The narrator pauses to weigh whether Hook can be blamed for abandoning honorable warfare, since waiting for the proper hour would likely have meant his own death. But the native warriors were never Hook’s true target — he wanted Peter all along, and it is here revealed that Peter’s unbearable cockiness, not the loss of his hand, is the real source of Hook’s hatred. Below ground, the boys hear the fighting stop and anxiously wait to learn who has won. Peter tells them that a beaten tom-tom means a native victory, and the eavesdropping pirates seize on the code: Hook orders the reluctant Smee to beat the captured drum. Fooled into believing they have won, the boys cheerfully say their goodbyes to Peter and prepare to climb up, unaware that Hook has stationed a pirate at every tree to seize them the moment they appear.