together
to the next shelter. They lay  restlessly and noisily  among the dry leaves,
watching  the  patch  of  stars  that  was the  opening toward  the  lagoon.
Sometimes a littlun cried out from the other shelters and once a bigun spoke
in the dark. Then they too fell asleep.
     A sliver of moon rose over  the horizon, hardly  large enough to make a
path of light even when it sat right down on the water; but there were other
lights  in the sky, that moved fast, winked, or went out, though  not even a
faint popping came down from  the battle fought  at ten miles' neight. But a
sign came down  from the world of grownups, though  at the time there was no
child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion  and a corkscrew
trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars. There was a speck above
the  island,  a figure  dropping swiftly beneath a parachute,  a figure that
hung with  dangling limbs. The  changing winds of various altitudes took the
figure where they would. Then, three miles up, the wind steadied and bore it
in a descending curve round the sky and swept it in a great slant across the
reef and the  lagoon toward the mountain. The figure fell and crumpled among
the blue flowers of the mountain-side, but  now there was a gentle breeze at
this height  too and the parachute flopped  and  banged and pulled.  So  the
figure, with  feet that dragged  behind it, slid up  the  mountain. Yard  by
yard, puff by puff, the breeze hauled the  figure through the blue  flowers,
over the boulders  and red stones,  till it lay huddled  among the shattered
rocks  of  the mountain-top.  Here  the breeze  was fitful  and  allowed the
strings of  the  parachute to tangle  and festoon;  and the figure  sat, its
helmeted head  between its knees, held by a complication  of lines. When the
breeze blew, the  lines  would strain taut and some  accident  of this  pull
kited the bead and  chest upright  so that the  figure seemed to peer across
the brow of the mountain. Then,  each time me wind dropped, the lines  would
slacken  and  the figure bow forward again,  sinking  its  head  between its
knees.  So  as  the  stars  moved  across  the  sky,  the figure sat  on the
mountain-top and bowed and sank and bowed again.
     In the darkness of early morning there  were noises by a rock a  little
way  down  the side  of the mountain.  Two  boys  rolled out  of a  pile  of
brushwood and dead leaves, two dim shadows  talking sleepily to  each other.
They were the  twins, on duty at  the fire. In  theory one  should have been
asleep and one on watch.  But they  could never manage to do things sensibly
if  that meant acting  independently, and since staying awake all night  was
impossible, they had  both  gone  to sleep. Now  they approached  the darker
smudge that had been the signal  fire, yawning, rubbing their eyes, treading
with practiced  feet When they readied it they stopped yawning,  and one ran
quickly back for brushwood and leaves.
     The other knelt down.
     "I believe it's out."
     He fiddled with the sticks that were pushed into his hands.
     "No."
     He lay down and put his  lips close to the  smudge and blew softly. His
face appeared, lit redly. He'stopped blowing for a moment.
     "Sam-give us-"
     "-tinder wood."
     Eric  bent  down and blew softly again  till  the patch was  bright Sam
poked  the  piece of tinder wood into the hot spot,  then a branch. The glow
increased and the branch took fire. Sam piled on more branches.
     "Don't burn the lot," said Eric, "you're putting on too much."
     "Let's warm up."
     "We'll only have to fetch more wood."
     "I'm cold."
     "So'm I."
     "Besides, it's-"
     "-dark. All right, then."
     Eric squatted back and  watched Sam make up the fire. He built a little
tent of dead wood and the fire was safety alight.
     "That was near."
     "He'd have been-"
     "Waxy."
     "Huh."
     For  a  few  moments  the twins watched the fire in silence. Then  Eric
sniggered.
     "Wasn't he waxy?"
     "About the-"
     "Fire and the pig."
     "Lucky he went for Jack, 'stead of us."
     "Huh. Remember old Waxy at school?"
     " 'Boy-you-are-driving-me-slowly-insane!'"
     The twins shared their identical laughter, then remembered the darkness
and other  things  and glanced  round uneasily. The flames,  busy about  the
tent, drew their eyes  back again.  Eric watched the scurrying woodlice that
were  so frantically unable  to avoid the flames,  and thought of the  first
fire-just  down there, on  the steeper  side of the mountain, where  now was
complete darkness. He did not tike to remember  it, and  looked  away at the
mountain-top.
     Warmth radiated now, and beat pleasantly on them. Sam amused himself by
fitting branches into  the fire as closely as possible. Eric  spread out his
hands, searching for the distance at which the  heat was just bearable. Idly
looking beyond the  fire, he resettled the scattered  rocks from their  fiat
shadows into daylight  contours. Just there was the big  rock, and the three
stones there, that split rock, and there beyond was a gap-just there-
     "Sam."
     "Huh?"
     "Nothing."
     The flames  were  mastering the  branches,  the bark  was  curling  and
falling away, the wood exploding. The  tent  fell inwards  and flung  a wide
circle of light over the mountain-top.
     "Sam-"
     "Huh?"
     "Sam! Sam!"
     Sam  looked  at Eric irritably. The  intensity of  Eric's gaze made the
direction  in  which he  looked terrible,  for Sam had  his back  to  it. He
scrambled  round the fire, squatted by Eric, and  looked to see. They became
motionless, gripped in each  other's arms, four unwinking eyes aimed ana two
mouths open.
     Far beneath them, the trees of the forest sighed, then roared. The hair
on their  foreheads fluttered and flames blew out  sideways  from the  fire.
Fifteen yards away from them came the plopping noise of fabric blown open.
     Neither of the  boys  screamed but the grip of their arms tightened and
their  mouths grew peaked. For perhaps ten seconds  they crouched  tike that
while the flailing fire sent smoke and  sparks and waves of inconstant tight
over the top of the mountain.
     Then  as  though they  had but one  terrified  mind  between  them they
scrambled away over the rocks and fled.

     Ralph  was  dreaming. He  had fallen asleep after  what seemed hours of
tossing  and  turning  noisily  among  the dry  leaves.  Even the  sounds of
nightmare from the other shelters no longer reached him, for  he was back to
where he came from, feeding the ponies with sugar over the garden wall. Then
someone was shaking his arm, telling him that it was time for tea.
     "Ralph! Wake up!"
     The leaves were roaring tike the sea.
     "Ralph, wake up!"
     "What's the matter?"
     "We saw-"
     "-the beast-"
     "-plain!"
     "Who are you? The twins?"
     "We saw the beast-"
     "Quiet. Piggy!"
     The leaves were roaring still. Piggy bumped into him and a twin grabbed
him as he made tor the oblong of paling stars.
     "You can't go out-it's horrible!"
     "Piggy-where are the spears?"
     "I can hear the-"
     "Quiet then. Lie still."
     They lay  there listening,  at  first with doubt but then with tenor to
the description the twins breathed at them between bouts of extreme silence.
Soon the darkness was full of daws, full of the awful unknown and menace. An
interminable dawn faded  the  stars out, and  at last  light,  sad and grey,
filtered  into  the  shelter. They  began  to stir  though  still tile world
outside  the  shelter was impossibly  dangerous. The  maze of  the  darkness
sorted into near and  far, and  at the high  point of  the sky the cloudlets
were warmed with color. A single sea bird flapped upwards  with a hoarse cry
that was echoed presently, and something squawked in  the forest Now streaks
of cloud near the horizon began to glow rosily, and the feathery tops of the
palms were green.
     Ralph knelt in the entrance to the shelter and peered cautiously  round
him.
     "Sam `n Eric. Call them to an assembly. Quietly. Go on."
     The  twins,  holding tremulously  to each other, dared the few yards to
the next shelter and spread the dreadful news. Ralph stood up and walked for
the sake  of dignity, though with his back pricking,  to the platform. Piggy
and Simon followed him and the other boys came sneaking after.
     Ralph took the conch from where it lay on the polished seat and held it
to  his lips; but then he hesitated and did not blow.  He held  the shell up
instead and showed it to them and they understood.
     The rays  of the sun that  were fanning upwards  from below the horizon
swung downwards to eye-level Ralph looked  for a moment at the growing slice
of gold  that  lit  them  from the  right hand  and  seemed  to make  speech
possible. The circle of boys before him bristled with hunting spears.
     He handed the conch to Eric, the nearest of the twins.
     "We've seen the beast with our own eyes. No-we weren't asleep-"
     Sam took up the story. By custom now one conch  did for both twins, for
their substantial unity was recognized.
     "It was furry.  There was something moving  behind its head-wings.  The
beast moved too-"
     "That was awful. It kind of sat up-"
     "The fire was bright-"
     "We'd just made it up-"
     "-more sticks on-"
     "There were eyes-"
     "Teeth-"
     "Claws-"
     "We ran as fast as we could-"
     "Bashed into things-"
     The beast followed us-"
     "I saw it slinking behind the trees-"
     "Nearly touched me-"
     Ralph  pointed fearfully  at  Eric's face, which was striped with scars
where the bushes had torn him.
     "How did you do that?"
     Eric felt his face.
     "I'm all rough. Am I bleeding?"
     The  circle of boys shrank away in horror. Johnny, yawning still, burst
into noisy tears and was slapped by Bill  till he choked on them. The bright
morning was full  of threats and  the  circle began to change. It faced out,
rather than in,  and  the spears of  sharpened wood  were like a fence. Jack
called them back to the center.
     "This'll be a real hunt! Who'll come?"
     Ralph moved impatiently.
     "These spears are made of wood. Don't be silly."
     Jack sneered at him.
     "Frightened?"
     " 'Course I'm frightened. Who wouldn't be?"
     He turned to the twins, yearning but hopeless.
     "I suppose you aren't pulling our legs?"
     The reply was too emphatic for anyone to doubt them.
     Piggy took the conch.
     "Couldn't we-kind of-stay here? Maybe the beast won't come near us."
     But for the sense of something watching them, Ralph  would have shouted
at him.
     "Stay here? And be  cramped into this bit  of the island, always on the
lookout? How should we get our food? And what about the fire?"
     "Let's be moving," said Jack restlessly, "we're wasting time."
     "No we're not. What about the littluns?" "Sucks to the littluns!''
     "Someone's got to look after them."
     "Nobody has so far."
     "There was no need! Now there is. Piggy`ll look after them."
     "That's right. Keep Piggy out of danger."
     "Have some sense. What can Piggy do with only one eye?"
     The rest of the boys were looking from Jack to Ralph, curiously.
     "And another thing. You can't have an ordinary hunt  because  the beast
doesn't leave tracks. If it did you'd  have seen them. For all  we know, the
beast may swing through the trees like what's its name."
     They nodded.
     "So we've got to think."
     Piggy took off his damaged glasses and cleaned the remaining lens.
     "How about us, Ralph?"
     "You haven't got the conch. Here."
     "I  mean-how about us? Suppose the beast comes when  you're all away. I
can't see proper, and if I get scared-"
     Jack broke in, contemptuously.
     "You're always scared."
     "I got the conch-"
     "Conch!  Conch!"  shouted Jack. "We  don't need the conch any  more. We
know who  ought to say things. What good did  Simon do speaking, or Bill, or
Walter? It's  time  some people knew  they've  got to  keep quiet and  leave
deciding things to the rest of us."
     Ralph  could  no longer  ignore his speech. The blood  was  hot in  his
cheeks.
     "You haven't got the conch," he said. "Sit down."
     Jack's face  went so white  that the  freckles showed as  clear,  brown
flecks. He licked his lips and remained standing.
     "This is a hunter's job."
     The  rest  of  the  boys  watched  intently.   Piggy,  finding  himself
uncomfortably embroiled,  slid the conch to Ralph's knees  and sat down. The
silence grew oppressive and Piggy held his breath.
     "This  is more than a hunter's job,"  said  Ralph at last, "because you
can't track the beast And don't you want to be rescued?"
     He turned to the assembly.
     "Don't you all want to be rescued?"
     He looked back at Jack.
     "I said before, the fire is the main thing. Now the fire must be out-"
     The old exasperation saved him and gave him the energy to attack.
     "Hasn't anyone got any sense? We've got to relight that fire. You never
thought or that, Jack, did you? Or don't any of you want to be rescued?"
     Yes, they wanted to be rescued, there was no doubt about that; and with
a violent swing to Ralph's side, the crisis passed. Piggy let out his breath
with  a gasp, reached for it again and  failed. He  lay against  a  log, his
mouth gaping, blue shadows creeping round his lips. Nobody minded frim.
     "Now think, Jack. Is there anywhere on the island you haven't been?"
     Unwillingly Jack answered.
     "There's only-but of course! You remember? The tail-end part, where the
rocks  are all  piled up.  I've been  near there.  The rock makes a  sort of
bridge. There's only one way up."
     And the thing might live there."
     All the assembly talked at once.
     "Quite!  All  right That's where well look. If  the beast  isn't  there
we'll go up the mountain and look; and light the fire."
     "Let's go."
     "We'll eat first. Then go." Ralph paused. "We'd better take spears."
     After they had eaten, Ralph and  the biguns  set out  along  the beach.
They  left  Piggy propped up  on the platform.  This  day promised, like the
others, to be a sunbath under a blue dome. The  beach stretched away  before
them in a gentle  curve till perspective drew it  into one  with the forest;
for  the day was not advanced enough to be obscured by the shifting veils of
mirage. Under Ralph's  direction, they picked a careful way  along the  palm
terrace, rather than dare  the hot sand down by the water.  He let Jack lead
the way; and Jack trod with theatrical  caution though they could  have seen
an  enemy  twenty yards  away.  Ralph  walked in the rear,  thankful to have
escaped responsibility for a time.
     Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity-a beast
with claws that scratched, that sat on a  mountain-top, that  left no tracks
and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. However  Simon thought of the
beast,  there  rose before  his inward sight the picture of  a human at once
heroic and sick.
     He sighed.  Other people  could  stand  up and  speak  to  an assembly,
apparently, without that dreadful feeling  of  the pressure of  personality;
could say what they would as  though they were speaking to only one  person.
He stepped aside and looked back.  Ralph was coming along, holding his spear
over his  shoulder. Diffidently, Simon allowed  his pace to slacken until he
was walking side by side with Ralph and looking up at him through the coarse
black hair  that  now  fell  to  his eyes.  Ralph glanced  sideways,  smiled
constrainedly as  though  he  had  forgotten that Simon had  made a  fool of
himself,  then  looked away again at nothing. For a  moment or two Simon was
happy  to be accepted  and  then  he ceased to  think about himself. When he
bashed into a tree Ralph looked sideways impatiently  and Robert  sniggered.
Simon reeled and a white spot on his forehead turned red and trickled. Ralph
dismissed Simon  and returned to his  personal  hell  They  would reach  the
castle some time; and the chief would have to go forward.
     Jack came trotting back.
     "We're in sight now."
     "All right. We'll get as close as we can."
     He followed Jack toward the castle where the ground  rose  slightly. On
their left was at. impenetrable tangle of creepers and trees.
     "Why couldn't there be something in that?"
     "Because you can see. Nothing goes in or out."
     "What about the castle then?"
     "Look."
     Ralph  parted the screen of grass and looked out. There were only a few
more yards of stony ground  and then the two sides of the island came almost
together  so  that one  expected a peak  of headland. But instead  of this a
narrow ledge of rock, a  few yards wide and perhaps  fifteen long, continued
the  island out  into  the sea. There lay  another  of those pieces of  pink
squareness that  underlay  the structure of  the  island.  This  side of the
castle, perhaps a hundred feet high, was the pink bastion they had seen from
the  mountain-top. The rock of the cliff was split and the top littered with
great lumps that seemed to totter.
     Behind Ralph  the  tall  grass had  filled  with  silent hunters. Ralph
looked at Jack.
     "You're a hunter."
     Jack went red.
     "I know. All right. Something deep in Ralph spoke for him."
     "I'm chief. I'll go. Don t argue."
     He turned to the others.
     "You. Hide here. Wait for me."
     He found his  voice tended either to disappear or to come out too loud.
He looked at Jack.
     "Do you-think?"
     Jack muttered. I've been all over. It must be here."
     "I see."
     Simon mumbled confusedly: "I don't believe in the beast."
     Ralph answered him politely, as if agreeing about the weather.
     "No. 1 suppose not."
     His mouth was tight and pale. He put back his hair very slowly.
     "Well. So long."
     He  forced his feet to  move until  they had carried him  out on to the
neck of land.
     He  was  surrounded on all sides  by chasms  of empty  air.  There  was
nowhere to hide, even if one did not  nave to go on. He paused on the narrow
neck and looked down. Soon, in a matter of centuries, the sea would make  an
island of the castle. On the right hand was the lagoon, troubled by the open
sea; and on the left-
     Ralph  shuddered. The lagoon  had protected  them from the Pacific: and
for  some reason only Jack  had gone right down to the  water on  the  other
side. Now he saw  the landsman's view of the  swell  and  it seemed like the
breathing of some  stupendous  creature. Slowly the  waters  sank among  the
rocks, revealing pink  tables of  granite,  strange growths of coral, polyp,
and weed.  Down, down, the waters went,  whispering like the wind among  the
heads of the forest. There was one flat rock there, spread like a table, and
the waters sucking down on the four weedy sides made them seem like  cliffs.
Then  the  sleeping  leviathan  breathed  out, the  waters  rose,  the  weed
streamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar. There was no
sense of the passage of waves; only this minute-long fall and rise and fall.
     Ralph turned away to the red cliff. They were waiting behind him in the
long grass, waiting  to see  what he  would do. He noticed that the sweat in
his palm was  cool now; realized with surprise that he did not really expect
to meet any beast and didn't know what he would do about it if he did.
     He saw that  he could climb the  cliff but this  was not necessary. The
squareness of the rock allowed  a  sort of plinth  round it, so  mat to  the
right, over the lagoon, one could inch along a ledge and turn the corner out
of sight. It was easy going, and soon he was peering round the rock.
     Nothing  but what  you might expect:  pink, tumbled boulders with guano
layered on them like icing; and a steep slope up to the shattered rocks that
crowned the bastion.
     A sound behind him made him turn. Jack was edging along the ledge.
     Couldn't let you do it on your own."
     Ralph said nothing.  He led the way over the rocks, inspected a sort of
half-cave that held nothing more terrible than a clutch of rotten eggs,  and
at last sat down, looking round him and tapping  the  rock with the  butt of
his spear.
     Jack was excited.
     "What a place for a fort!"
     A column of spray wetted them.
     "No fresh water."
     "What's that then?"
     There was indeed a long green smudge half-way up the rock. They climbed
up and tasted the trickle of water.
     "You could keep a coconut shell there, filling all the time."
     "Not me. This is a rotten place."
     Side by side  they scaled the last height to where the diminishing pile
was crowned by the last broken  rock. Jack struck the near one with his fist
and it grated slightly.
     "Do you remember-?"
     Consciousness  of the  bad  times in  between  came to them  both. Jack
talked quickly.
     "Shove a palm trunk under that and if an enemy came -look!"
     A  hundred feet  below them was  the narrow  causeway,  then  the stony
ground, then the grass dotted with heads, and behind that the forest.
     "One heave," cried Jack, exulting, "and-wheee-!"
     He made a sweeping  movement  with his  hand.  Ralph looked toward  the
mountain.
     "What's the matter?"
     Ralph turned.
     "Why?"
     "You were looking-I don't know why."
     "There's no signal now. Nothing to show."
     "You're nuts on the signal."
     The taut blue horizon encircled them, broken only by the mountain-top.
     "That's all we've got"
     He  leaned  his  spear  against  the  rocking stone and pushed back two
handfuls of hair.
     "We'll  have to go back and climb the  mountain. That's  where they saw
the beast."
     "The beast won't be there."
     "What else can we do?"
     The others, waiting in the grass, saw Jack and Ralph unharmed and broke
cover into  the  sunlight. They  forgot  the  beast  in  the  excitement  of
exploration.  They  swarmed across the  bridge and  soon  were  climbing and
shouting.  Ralph stood now, one  hand against an enormous red block, a block
large as a mill wheel  that had been split off and hung, tottering. Somberly
he watched the mountain. He clenched  his fist  and  beat hammer-wise on the
red wall at his right His lips were  tightly compressed and his eyes yearned
beneath the fringe of hair.
     "Smoke."
     He sucked his bruised fist.
     "Jack! Come on."
     But Jack was not there. A knot of boys, making  a  great  noise that he
had not noticed, were heaving and pushing at  a rock. As he turned, the base
cracked and the  whole mass toppled into the sea so that, a thunderous plume
of spray leapt half-way up the cliff.
     "Stop it! Stop it!"
     His voice struck a silence among them.
     "Smoke."
     A  strange thing  happened  in his  head. Something flittered  there in
front of his mind like a bat's wing, obscuring his idea.
     "Smoke."
     At once the ideas were back, and the anger.
     "We want smoke. And you go wasting your time. You roll rocks."
     Roger shouted.
     "We've got plenty of time!"
     Ralph shook his head.
     "We'll go to-the mountain."
     The clamor broke out. Some of  the boys wanted to go back to the beach.
Some wanted to roll more rocks. The sun was bright and danger had faded with
the darkness.
     "Jack. The beast might be on the other side. You can lead again. You've
been."
     "We could go by the shore. There's fruit."
     Bill came up to Ralph.
     "Why can't we stay here for a bit?"
     "That's right."
     "Let's have a fort."
     "There's no food here," said  Ralph, "and  no  shelter. Not  much fresh
water."
     "This would make a wizard fort"
     "We can roll rocks-"
     "Right onto the bridge-"
     "I  say  we'll go  on!"  shouted  Ralph  furiously. "We've got to  make
certain. We'll go now."
     "Let's stay here-"
     "Back to the shelter-"
     "I'm tired-"
     "No!"
     Ralph struck the skin off his knuckles. They did not seem to hurt.
     "I'm chief. We've got  to  make  certain. Can't you see  the  mountain?
There's no signal showing.  There  may be a  ship out there. Are you all off
your rockers?"
     Mutinously, the boys fell silent or muttering.
     Jack led the way down the rock and across the bridge.





     CHAPTER SEVEN
     <i>Shadows and Tall Trees</i>

     The  pig-run kept close to the  jumble of rocks that  lay  down  by the
water on  the other side and  Ralph was content to follow  Jack along it. If
you could  shut your ears to the slow  suck down  of the sea and boil of the
return, if you could forget how dun and unvisited were the  ferny coverts on
either side, then there  was  a chance  that you might put the beast  out of
mind and  dream  for a while.  The sun had swung over the vertical  and  the
afternoon heat was closing in on the island. Ralph passed a message  forward
to Jack and when they next came to fruit the whole party stopped and ate.
     Sitting, Ralph was aware  of the heat for  the first time that day.  He
pulled  distastefully  at  his  grey  shirt  and  wondered whether  he might
undertake the adventure of washing  it. Sitting under what seemed an unusual
heat, even for this island, Ralph planned his  toilet. He would like to have
a pair of  scissors and cut this hair-he flung the mass back-cut this filthy
hair right back to half an  inch. He  would  like to have  a  bath, a proper
wallow  with soap.  He passed his tongue  experimentally over  his teeth and
decided  that a  toothbrush  would come in  handy  too.  Then there were his
nails-
     Ralph turned his hand over and examined them. They were bitten  down to
the quick though he could not remember when  he had restarted this habit nor
any time when he indulged it.
     "Be sucking my thumb next-"
     He looked round, furtively. Apparently  no one had heard.  The  hunters
sat, stuffing themselves with this easy meal,  trying to convince themselves
that  they  got sufficient  kick out of bananas  and that  other olive-grey,
jelly-like  fruit With  the memory of his sometime clean self as a standard,
Ralph looked them over.  They  were dirty, not with  the spectacular dirt of
boys who have  fallen into mud or been brought down hard on a rainy day. Not
one of them  was an  obvious  subject for a shower, and  yet-hair,  much too
long,  tangled  here and there, knotted round a dead  leaf or a  twig; faces
cleaned fairly well by the process  of eating and sweating but marked in the
less accessible angles with a kind of shadow; clothes, worn away, stiff like
his own with sweat, put on, not for decorum or  comfort  but out of  custom;
the skin of the body, scurfy with brine-
     He  discovered  with a  little  fall of the heart  that these were  the
conditions he took as normal now and  that  he did  not mind. He  sighed and
pushed  away the  stalk from which he had stripped the  fruit.  Already  the
hunters were stealing away to  do their business in the woods or down by the
rocks. He turned and looked out to sea.
     Here, on the other  side of the island, the view was utterly different.
The filmy enchantments of mirage could not endure the  cold ocean  water and
the horizon was hard, clipped blue.  Ralph wandered down to the rocks.  Down
here, almost on a  level  with the sea, you  could follow  with your eye the
ceaseless, bulging passage of  the deep sea waves.  They  were  miles  wide,
apparently not breakers or the banked ridges of shallow water. They traveled
the length  of the island  with  an air of disregarding  it and being set on
other business; they  were less a progress than a momentous rise and fall or
the whole ocean. Now the sea would suck down, making cascades and waterfalls
of retreating water, would sink past the rocks and plaster down the  seaweed
like shining hair: then,  pausing, gather and rise with a roar, irresistibly
swelling over point and outcrop, climbing the little cliff, sending  at last
an arm of surf up a gully to end a yard or so from him in fingers of spray.
     Wave after wave, Ralph  followed the  rise  and fall until something of
the  remoteness of  the  sea numbed  his  brain.  Then gradually the  almost
infinite  size  of this  water forced itself on his attention. This  was the
divider,  the barrier.  On the other side of  the island,  swathed at midday
with mirage, defended by the shield of  the quiet lagoon, one might dream of
rescue; but here, faced by the brute obtuseness of the  ocean, the miles  of
division, one was  clamped down, one was  helpless, one was  condemned,  one
was-
     Simon was speaking almost in  his  ear. Ralph found  that  he  had rock
painfully gripped  in both hands,  found his body arched, the muscles of his
neck stiff, his mouth strained open.
     "You'll get back to where you came from."
     Simon nodded as he spoke.  He  was  kneeling on  one knee, looking down
from a  higher rock which he held  with  both hands; his other leg stretched
down to Ralph's level.
     Ralph was puzzled and searched Simon's face for a clue.
     "It's so big, I mean-"
     Simon nodded.
     "All the same. You'll get back all right. I think so, anyway."
     Some  of the strain  had gone from Ralph's body.  He glanced at the sea
and then smiled bitterly at Simon.
     "Got a ship in your pocket?"
     Simon grinned and shook his head.
     "How do you know, then?"
     When Simon was still silent Ralph said curtly, "You're batty."
     Simon  shook  his  head violently  till  the  coarse  black  hair  flew
backwards and forwards across his face.
     "No, I'm not. I just <i>think you'll get back all right."</i>
     For  a moment  nothing more was said. And then  they suddenly smiled at
each other.

     Roger called from the coverts.
     "Come and see!"
     The ground was turned  over  near the pig-run and there were  droppings
that steamed. Jack bent down to them as though he loved them.
     "Ralph-we need meat even if we are hunting the other thing."
     "If you mean going the right way, well hunt."
     They  set  off  again, the  hunters  bunched a little  by  fear of  the
mentioned beast, while Jack quested ahead. They went  more slowly than Ralph
had bargained for; yet  in a  way he was glad to loiter, cradling his spear.
Jack  came  up against some emergency of his craft and  soon the  procession
stopped. Ralph leaned against a tree and at once the daydreams came swarming
up.  Jack was  in charge  of the mint and there would be time to get  to the
mountain-
     Once, following his father from Chatham to Devonport, they had lived in
a cottage on the  edge of the moors. In the succession of  houses that Ralph
had  known, this  one stood out with  particular clarity  because after that
house  he had  been sent  away to school. Mummy had still been with them and
Daddy  had come home every day. Wild  ponies came to the  stone wall  at the
bottom of the garden, and it had snowed. Just behind the cottage there was a
sort of shed and you could lie  up there, watching the flakes swirl past You
could see the damp spot where each flake died, then you could mark the first
flake  that lay down without melting and watch the whole  ground turn white.
You could go indoors  when you  were  cold and look out of the window,  past
that bright copper kettle and the plate with the little blue men.
     When  you went  to  bed there was a bowl of  cornflakes  with sugar and
cream.  And the  books-they stood on the shelf by the bed, leaning  together
with always two or three laid flat on top because he had not bothered to put
them back properly. They were dog-eared and scratched. There was the bright,
shining one  about  Topsy and Mopsy that he  never read because it was about
two girls;  there  was the one about the magician which you read with a kind
of  tied-down terror, skipping page twenty-seven with  the awful  picture of
the spider; there  was  a book about people who had dug  things up, Egyptian
things; there was <i>The Boy's Book of Trains, The Boy's Book of Ships.</i> Vividly
they came before him; he could have reached up and  touched them, could feel
the weight  and slow  slide with which <i>The Mammoth  Book for Boys</i> would come
out and slither  down. .  .  . Everything  was  all  right;  everything  was
good-humored and friendly.
     The bushes crashed ahead of them. Boys flung themselves wildly from the
pig track and  scrabbled in  the creepers, screaming. Ralph  saw Jack nudged
aside  and  fall.  Then there was a creature  bounding  along the  pig track
toward  him, with tusks  gleaming and an intimidating grunt. Ralph  found he
was  able to measure the  distance coldly and take aim. With the  boar  only
five yards away, he flung  the foolish wooden stick that he  carried, saw it
hit the great snout and hang  there for a moment. The boar's note changed to
a  squeal  and it swerved aside into  the covert.  The  pig-run filled  with
shouting  boys again,  Jack  came  running back,  and  poked  about  in  the
undergrowth.
     Through here-"
     "But he'd do us!"
     "Through here, I said-"
     The  boar  was floundering away from them.  They found  another pig-run
parallel  to the first and  Jack  raced away.  Ralph was  lull of  night and
apprehension and pride.
     "I hit him! The spear stuck in-"
     Now they came, unexpectedly, to an open space  by the  sea.  Jack  cast
about on the bare rock and looked anxious.
     "He's gone."
     "I hit him," said Ralph again, "and the spear stuck in a bit."
     He felt the need of witnesses.
     "Didn't you see me?"
     Maurice nodded.
     "I saw you. Right bang on his snout- Wheee!"
     Ralph talked on, excitedly.
     "I hit him all right The spear stuck in. I wounded him!"
     He  sunned himself in  their new respect and felt that hunting was good
after all.
     "I walloped him properly. That was the beast, I think!" Jack came back.
     "That wasn't the beast That was a boar."
     "I bit him."
     "Why didn't you grab him? I tried-"
     Ralph's voice ran up.
     "But a boar!"
     Jack flushed suddenly.
     "You said  he'd do us. What did you want  to throw for? Why  didn't you
wait?"
     He held out his arm.
     "Look."
     He turned his left forearm  for  them all  to see. On the outside was a
rip; not much, but bloody. . "He did mat with his tusks.  I couldn't  get my
spear down in time."
     Attention focused on Jack.
     "That's  a  wound,"  said  Simon,  "and  you  ought  to  suck  it  Like
Berengaria."
     Jack sucked.
     "I hit  him,"  said  Ralph  indignantly.  "I  bit  him with my spear, I
wounded him."
     He tried for their attention.
     "He was coming along the path. I threw, like this-"
     Robert  snarled at  him.  Ralph  entered into the  play  and  everybody
laughed. Presently they were all jabbing at Robert who made mock rushes.
     Jack shouted.
     "Make a ring!"
     The  circle moved in and round. Robert squealed in mock terror, then in
real pain.
     "Ow! Stop it! You're hurting!"
     The butt end of a spear fell on his back as he blundered among them.
     "Hold him!"
     They  got  his arms and  legs. Ralph, carried  away by a  sudden  thick
excitement, grabbed Eric's spear and jabbed at Robert with it.
     "Kill him! Kill him!"
     All at once, Robert  was screaming and struggling  with the strength of
frenzy. Jack had him by the  hair and  was brandishing his knife. Behind him
was Roger,  fighting to get close. The  chant rose ritually, as  at the last
moment of a dance or a hunt.
     "<i>Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!</i>"
     Ralph too  was  fighting to  get near, to  get a handful of that brown,
vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.
     Jack's  arm came down; the  heaving circle cheered and  made  pig-dying
noises.  Then they  lay  quiet,  panting, listening  to  Robert's frightened
snivels. He wiped his face with a dirty arm, and  made an effort to retrieve
his status.
     "Oh, my bum!"
     He rubbed his rump ruefully. Jack rolled over.
     "That was a good game."
     "Just a  game," said  Ralph uneasily. "I got jolly badly hurt at rugger
once."
     "We  ought  to  have  a  drum,"  said Maurice, "then  we  could  do  it
properly."
     Ralph looked at him.
     "How properly?"
     "I dunno. You want a fire,  I think,  and  a drum, and you keep time to
the drum."
     "You want a pig," said Roger, "Like in a real hunt."
     "Or someone to pretend," said Jack. "You could get  someone to dress up
as a pig  and then  he could act-you know, pretend to knock  me over and all
that."
     "You want a real pig," said Robert, still caressing  his rump, "because
you've got to kill him."
     "Use a littlun," said Jack, and everybody laughed.

     Ralph sat up.
     "Well. We shan't find what we're looking for at this rate."
     One by one they stood up, twitching rags into place.
     Ralph looked at Jack.
     "Now for the mountain."
     "Shouldn't we go back to Piggy," said Maurice, "before dark?"
     The twins nodded like one boy.
     "Yes, that's right. Let's go up there in the morning."
     Ralph looked out and saw the sea.
     "We've got to start the fire again."
     "You haven't got Piggy's specs," said Jack, "so you can't."
     "Then we'll find out if the mountain's clear."
     Maurice spoke, hesitating, not wanting to seem a funk.
     "Supposing the beast's up there?"
     Jack brandished his spear.
     "We`1l kill it."
     The sun seemed a little cooler. He slashed with the spear.
     "What are we waiting for?"
     "I suppose," said Ralph, "if we keep on by the sea this  way, well come
out below the burnt bit and then we can climb the mountain."
     Once  more  Jack led them along by the suck  and heave of the  blinding
sea.
     Once  more Ralph  dreamed,  letting  his skillful feet  deal  with  the
difficulties  of the  path. Yet  here his  feet seemed  less  skillful  than
before. For most of the way they were forced right down to the  bare rock by
the water and had to edge along between that and the dark luxuriance of  the
forest  There were  little cliffs  to  be scaled, some  to be used as paths,
lengthy traverses where one used hands as well as  feet. Here and there they
could clamber over wave-wet  rock, leaping across clear pools  that the tide
had  left. They  came to a gully  that split  the  narrow foreshore  like  a
defense. This seemed to have no bottom and they peered awe-stricken into the
gloomy crack where water gurgled. Then the wave  came back, the gully boiled
before  them and spray dashed up to  the very creeper so that  the boys were
wet and shrieking. They tried the forest  but ft  was thick and woven like a
bird's nest In the end they had to  jump one by one,  waiting till the water
sank; and even so, some of them got a second drenching. After that the rocks
seemed to  be growing impassable so they sat for a time, letting their  rags
dry and watching the clipped  outlines  of the rollers that  moved so slowly
past the island. They found  fruit in  a haunt  of bright little  birds that
hovered like insects. Then Ralph said they were going too slowly. He himself
climbed  a  tree and parted the canopy,  and  saw  the  square head  of  the
mountain seeming still  a great way off. Then they tried to hurry  along the
rocks  and  Robert cut his  knee quite badly and they  had to recognize that
this path must be taken slowly  if they were  to be safe. So  they proceeded
after that as if they  were climbing a dangerous  mountain, until the  rocks
became an uncompromising cliff, overhung with impossible jungle and  falling
sheer into the sea.
     Ralph looked at the sun critically.
     "Early evening. After tea-time, at any rate."
     "I don't remember this cliff," said Jack, crestfallen, "so this must be
the bit of the coast I missed."
     Ralph nodded.
     "Let me think."
     By now,  Ralph had no self-consciousness  in public thinking but  would
treat the day's  decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble
was  that  he would never be a very  good  chess player. He thought  of  the
littluns  and  Piggy.  Vividly  he imagined Piggy by himself,  huddled in  a
shelter that was silent except for the sounds of nightmare.
     "We can't leave the littluns alone with Piggy. Not all night."
     The other boys said nothing but stood round, watching him.
     "If we went back we should take hours."
     Jack cleared his throat and spoke in a queer, tight voice.
     "We mustn't let anything happen to Piggy, must we?"
     Ralph tapped his teeth with the dirty point of Eric's spear.
     "If we go across-"
     He glanced round him.
     "Someone's got to  go  across the island and  tell  Piggy we'll be back
after dark."
     Bill spoke, unbelieving.
     "Through the forest by himself? Now?"
     "We can't spare more than one."
     Simon pushed his way to Ralph's elbow.
     "I'll go if you like. I don't mind, honestly."
     Before Ralph  had time to reply, he smiled quickly, turned and  climbed
into the forest
     Ralph looked  back at  Jack, seeing  him,  infuriatingly, for the first
time.
     "Jack-that time you went the whole way to the castle rock."
     Jack glowered.
     "Yes?"
     "You came alone part of this shore-below the mountain, beyond there."
     "Yes."
     "And then?"
     "I found a pig-run. It went for miles."
     "So the pig-run must be somewhere in there."
     Ralph nodded. He pointed at the forest
     Everybody agreed, sagely.
     "All right then. We'll smash a way through till we find the pig-run."
     He took a step and halted.
     "Wait a minute though! Where does the pig-run go to?"
     "The mountain,"  said Jack, "I told you. He sneered. "Don't you want to
go to the mountain?"
     Ralph  sighed, sensing  the rising antagonism, understanding  that this
was how Jack felt as soon as he ceased to lead.
     "I was thinking of the light. We'll be stumbling about."
     "We were going to look for the beast."
     "There won't be enough light."
     "I don't mind going, said Jack hotly. "Ill go  when we get there. Won't
you? Would you rather go back to the shelters and tell Piggy?"
     Now it was Ralph's turn  to flush but he spoke despairingly, out of the
new understanding that Piggy had given him.
     "Why do you hate me?"
     The boys stirred uneasily, as  though something indecent had been said.
The silence lengthened.
     Ralph, still hot and hurt, turned away first.
     "Come on."
     He led the way and set himself as by right to hack at the tangles. Jack
brought up the rear, displaced and brooding.
     The pig-track was a dark tunnel, for the sun was sliding quickly toward
the edge of the  world and in the forest shadows were never-far to seek. The
track was broad and beaten and they ran along at a swift trot, Then the roof
of  leaves broke up and  they halted, breathing  quickly, looking at the few
stars that pricked round the head of the mountain.
     "There you are."
     The boys peered at each other doubtfully. Ralph made a decision.
     "We'll go straight across to the platform and climb tomorrow."
     They murmured agreement; but Jack was standing by his shoulder.
     "If you're frightened of course-"
     Ralph turned on him.
     "Who went first on the castle rock?"
     "I went too. And that was daylight."
     "All right. Who wants to climb the mountain now?"
     Silence was the only answer.
     "Samneric? What about you?"
     "We ought to go an' tell Piggy-"
     "-yes, tell Piggy that-"
     "But Simon went!"
     "We ought to tell Piggy-in case-"
     "Robert? Bill?"
     They were going straight back to the platform now. Not, of course, that
they were afraid-but tired.
     Ralph turned back to Jack.
     "You see?"
     "I'm going  up  the mountain." The words came from  Jack  viciously, as
though  they were a curse. He looked  at  Ralph,  his thin body  tensed, his
spear held as if he threatened him.
     "I'm going up the mountain to look for the beast-now." Then the supreme
sting, the casual, bitter, word. "Coming?"
     At  that  word the other  boys  forgot their urge to be gone and turned
back to sample this  fresh rub of two spirits in the  dark. The word was too
good, too bitter, too successfully daunting to be repeated. It took Ralph at
low water when  his nerve was relaxed  for the return to the shelter and the
still, friendly waters of the lagoon.
     "I don't mind."
     Astonished, he heard his voice  come out, cool and  casual, so that the
bitterness of Jack's taunt fell powerless.
     "If you don't mind, of course."
     "Oh, not at all."
     Jack took a step.
     "Well then-"
     Side by side, watched by silent boys, the two started up the mountain.
     Ralph stopped.
     "We're silly. Why should only two go? If we find anything, two won't be
enough."
     There  came  the sound of  boys scuttling away.  Astonishingly,  a dark
figure moved against the tide.
     "Roger?"
     "Yes."
     "That's three, then."
     Once more they set out to climb the slope of the mountain. The darkness
seemed to flow round them like a  tide. Jack, who had said nothing, began to
choke and cough, and a gust  of wind set all three spluttering. Ralph's eyes
were blinded with tears.
     "Ashes. We're on the edge of the burnt patch."
     Their footsteps and the occasional breeze were stirring up small devils
of dust.  Now  that they stopped again,  Ralph had  time while he coughed to
remember  how silly  they  were. If there was  no beast-and almost certainly
there was no beast-in  tiiat case, well and good; but if there was something
waiting  on  top  of  the  mountain-what  was  the  use  of  three of  them,
handicapped by the darkness and carrying only sticks?
     "We're being fools."
     Out of the darkness came the answer.
     "Windy?"
     Irritably Ralph shook himself. This was all Jack's fault
     " 'Course I am. But we're still being fools."
     "If you don't want to go on," said the voice sarcastically,
     Ralph heard the mockery and hated Jack. The sting of ashes in his eyes,
tiredness,  fear, enraged  him.  "Go on  then!  We'll wait  here." There was
silence.
     "Why don't you go? Are you frightened?"
     A stain in  the darkness, a  stain that  was Jack, detached  itself and
began to draw away. "All right. So long."
     The stain vanished. Another took its place.
     Ralph  felt his knee against something hard and rocked a  charred trunk
that was  edgy to  the touch. He felt the sharp cinders  that had been  bark
push against the back of his knee and knew that Roger had sat  down. He felt
with  his hands and  lowered himself beside Roger,  while  the  trunk rocked
among invisible  ashes. Roger, uncommunicative  by nature,  said nothing. He
offered no opinion on the beast nor told  Ralph why he had chosen to come on
this  mad expedition.  He  simply  sat  and rocked the  trunk gently.  Ralph
noticed a rapid and  infuriating  tapping noise and realized  that Roger was
banging his silly wooden stick against something.
     So they sat, the rocking, tapping,  impervious Roger and Ralph, fuming;
round  them the close sky was loaded  with stars,  save  where the  mountain
punched up a hole of blackness.
     There was  a  slithering noise high  above  them, the sound  of someone
taking giant and dangerous strides on rock or ash. Then Jack found them, and
was shivering and croaking in a voice they could just recognize as his.
     "I saw a thing on top."
     They heard him blunder against the trunk which rocked violently. He lay
silent for a moment, then muttered.
     "Keep a good lookout. It may be following."
     A shower of ash pattered round them. Jack sat up.
     "I saw a thing bulge on the mountain."
     "You only imagined  it,"  said Ralph  shakily,  "because nothing  would
bulge. Not any sort of creature."
     Roger spoke; they jumped, for they had forgotten him.
     "A frog."
     Jack giggled and shuddered.
     "Some frog.  There was a  noise  too. A kind of  'plop' noise. Then the
thing bulged."
     Ralph surprised himself, not so much by the quality of his voice, which
was even, but by the bravado of its intention.
     "We'll go and look."
     For the first time  since he had first known Jack, Ralph could feel him
hesitate.
     "Now-?"
     His voice spoke for him.
     "Of course."
     He got off the  trunk and  led the  way across  the clinking cinders up
into the dark, and the others followed.
     Now  that his physical voice was silent the inner  voice of reason, and
other voices  too,  made themselves  heard.  Piggy  was  calling him  a kid.
Another voice  told  him not to be  a fool; and the  darkness and  desperate
enterprise gave the night a kind of dentist's chair unreality.
     As they came to the last slope, Jack and Roger  drew near, changed from
the  ink-stains to distinguishable figures. By common consent  they  stopped
and crouched together.  Behind them, on the horizon,  was a patch of lighter
sky where  in  a moment the moon would  rise. The  wind  roared once in  the
forest and pushed their rags against them.
     Ralph stirred.
     "Come on."
     They crept forward, Roger lagging a little. Jack  and  Ralph turned the
shoulder of the mountain together. The  glittering lengths of the lagoon lay
below them and  beyond  that a long white smudge that  was the  reef.  Roger
joined them.
     Jack whispered.
     "Let's creep forward on hands and knees. Maybe it's asleep."
     Roger and Ralph moved on, this time leaving Jack  in  the rear, for all
his brave words. They came to the fiat top where the rock was hard to  hands
and knees. A creature that bulged.
     Ralph put his hand in the cold, soft ashes  of the fire and smothered a
cry.  His  hand and shoulder  were twitching  from the unlooked-for contact.
Green  lights of nausea appeared  for  a moment  and ate  into the darkness.
Roger lay behind him and Jack's mouth was at his ear.
     "Over there,  where there used to  be a  gap  in  the rock.  A sort  of
hump-see?"
     Ashes blew into Ralph's face from  the dead fire. He could not see  the
gap or  anything else,  because  the green  lights  were opening  again  and
growing, and the top of the mountain was sliding sideways.
     Once more, from a distance, he heard Jack's whisper.
     "Scared?"
     Not scared so much as paralyzed; hung up here immovable on the top of a
diminishing, moving mountain. Jack slid away from him, Roger bumped, fumbled
with a hiss of breath, and passed onwards. He heard them whispering.
     "Can you see anything?"
     "There-"
     In front  of them, only three or four yards away, was a rock-like  hump
where no rock  should  be. Ralph  could hear a tiny chattering  noise coming
from somewhere-perhaps  from  his own mouth. He bound himself  together with
his will, fused  his fear and loathing into  a hatred, and stood up. He took
two leaden steps forward.
     Behind them the sliver of  moon had  drawn dear of  the horizon. Before
them, something like a  great ape  was sitting  asleep with its head between
its knees. Then the wind  roared in the forest,  there was confusion in  the
darkness and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a
face.
     Ralph found himself taking  giant strides among the  ashes, heard other
creatures crying out and leaping and dared the impossible on the dark slope;
presently the mountain was deserted, save for the three abandoned sticks and
the thing that bowed.





     CHAPTER EIGHT
     <i>Gift for the Darkness</i>

     Piggy  looked  up  miserably  from  the  dawn-pale  beach to  the  dark
mountain. "Are you sure? Really sure, I mean?"
     "I told you a dozen times now," said Ralph, "we saw it."
     "D'you think we're safe down here?"
     "How the hell should I know?"
     Ralph jerked away from him and walked a few paces along the beach. Jack
was kneeling and drawing a circular pattern in the sand with his forefinger.
Piggy's voice came to them, hushed.
     "Are you sure? Really?"
     "Go up and see," said Jack contemptuously, "and good riddance."
     "No fear."
     "The beast had teeth," said Ralph, "and big black eyes."
     He shuddered  violently. Piggy took  off his  one round  of  glass  and
polished the surface.
     "What we going to do?"
     Ralph turned toward the  platform. The conch glimmered among the trees,
a white blob against the place where the sun would rise. He pushed back  his
mop.
     "I don't know."
     He remembered the panic flight down the mountainside.
     "I  don't think we'd ever  fight a thing that size, honestly, you know.
We'd talk but we wouldn't fight a tiger. We'd hide. Even Jack 'ud hide."
     Jack still looked at the sand.
     "What about my hunters?"
     Simon came stealing out of the shadows by  the  shelters. Ralph ignored
Jack's question. He pointed to the touch of yellow above the sea.
     "As long as there's  light we're  brave  enough. But then? And now that
thing squats by the fire as though it didn't want us to be rescued-"
     He was twisting his hands now, unconsciously. His voice rose.
     "So we can't have a signal fire. . . . We're beaten."
     A  point  of  gold  appeared above the  sea  and  at once  all  the sky
lightened.
     "What about my hunters?"
     "Boys armed with sticks."
     Jack got to his feet. His face was red as he marched away. Piggy put on
his one glass and looked at Ralph.
     "Now you done it. You been rude about his hunters."
     "Oh shut up!"
     The sound of the inexpertly blown conch  interrupted them. As though he
were serenading the  rising sun, Jack went on blowing till the shelters were
astir  and the  hunters crept to the platform  and the littluns whimpered as
now they so frequently did. Ralph rose obediently, and Piggy, and they  went
to the platform.
     "Talk," said Ralph bitterly, "talk, talk, talk."
     He took the conch from Jack.
     "This meeting-"
     Jack interrupted him.
     "I called it."
     "If you hadn't called it I should have. You just blew the conch."
     "Well, isn't that calling it?"
     "Oh, take it! Go on-talk!"
     Ralph thrust the conch into Jack's arms and sat down on the trunk.
     "I've called an assembly,"  said  Jack,  "because of a lot  of  things.
First, you know now, we've seen the beast. We crawled up. We were only a few
feet away. The beast sat  up and looked at us. I don't know what it does. We
don't even know what it is-"
     "The beast comes out of the sea-"
     "Out of the dark-"
     "Trees-"
     "Quiet!" shouted  Jack. "You,  listen.  The beast is  sitting up there,
whatever it is--"
     "Perhaps it's waiting-"
     "Hunting-"
     "Yes, hunting."
     "Hunting," said Jack. He remembered his  age-old tremors in the forest.
"Yes. The  beast is a  hunter.  Only-  shut  up! The next  thing is that  we
couldn't  kill it. And the next thing is that  Ralph said my hunters are  no
good."
     "I never said that!"
     "I've got the conch. Ralph thinks you're cowards, running away from the
boar and the beast. And that's not all."
     There was a  kind of  sigh on the platform as if everyone knew what was
coming. Jack's voice went  on, tremulous yet determined, pushing against the
uncooperative silence.
     "He's like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn't a proper chief."
     Jack clutched the conch to him.
     "He's a coward himself."
     For a moment he paused and then went on.
     "On top, when Roger and me went on-he stayed back."
     "I went too!"
     "After."
     The two boys glared at each other through screens of hair.
     "I went on too," said Ralph, "then I ran away. So did you."
     "Call me a coward then."
     Jack turned to the hunters.
     He's not a hunter. He'd never have got us meat  He  isn't a prefect and
we don't know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to
obey for nothing. All this talk-"
     "All this talk!" shouted Ralph. "Talk,  talk! Who wanted it? Who called
the meeting?"
     Jack turned, red in the face, his chin sunk back.  He glowered up under
his eyebrows.
     "All right then,"  he  said in tones  of  deep meaning, and menace, all
right."
     He held the conch  against his chest  with one hand and stabbed the air
with his index finger.
     "Who thinks Ralph oughtn't to be chief?"
     He looked expectantly at the  boys ranged  round, who had frozen. Under
the palms there was deadly silence.
     "Hands up," said Jack strongly, "whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?"
     The  silence continued, breathless and heavy and  full of shame. Slowly
the red drained  from Jack's cheeks, then came  back with a painful rush. He
licked  his lips and turned his  head at an angle, so that his  gaze avoided
the embarrassment of linking with another's eye.
     "How many think-"
     His voice tailed off. The hands that held the  conch shook. He  cleared
his throat, and spoke loudly.
     "All right then."
     He laid  the  conch with  great  care  in  the grass  at  his feet. The
humiliating tears were running from the comer of each eye.
     "I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you."
     Most of the  boys  were looking down now,  at the grass  or their feet.
Jack cleared his throat again.
     "I'm not going to be part of Ralph's lot-"
     He  looked along  the right-hand logs,  numbering  the hunters that had
been a choir.
     "I'm going off  by myself. He can catch his  own pigs. Anyone who wants
to hunt when I do can come too."
     He blundered out of the triangle toward the drop to the white sand.
     "Jack!"
     Jack turned and looked back at Ralph.  For a moment he paused  and then
cried out, high-pitched, enraged.
     "No!"
     He leapt down from the platform and ran along the beach, paying no heed
to the steady fall of his tears; and until he  dived into the  forest  Ralph
watched him.
     Piggy was indignant.
     "I been talking, Ralph, and you just stood there like-"
     Softly, looking at Piggy and not seeing him, Ralph spoke to himself.
     "He'll come back. When the sun goes  down he'll come." He looked at the
conch in Piggy's hand.
     "What?"
     "Well there!"
     Piggy gave up the attempt to  rebuke Ralph. He polished his glass again
and went back to his subject.
     "We can do without  Jack Merridew. There's  others besides  him on this
island. But  now we really  got a beast,  though  I can't hardly believe it,
well need to stay close to  the platform; there'll be  less need of him  and
his hunting. So now we can really decide on what's what."
     "There's no help, Piggy. Nothing to be done."
     For a while they sat in depressed silence. Then Simon stood up and took
the conch from Piggy, who was so  astonished that he  zremained on his feet.
Ralph looked up at Simon.
     "Simon? What is it this time?"
     A half-sound of jeering ran round the circle and Simon shrank from it.
     "I thought there might be something to do. Something we-"
     Again die pressure of  the assembly took his voice  away. He sought for
help and sympathy and  chose Piggy. He turned half toward him, clutching the
conch to his brown chest
     "I think we ought to climb the mountain."
     The circle shivered with dread. Simon broke off and turned to Piggy who
was looking at him with an expression of derisive incomprehension.
     "What's the good of climbing  up to this here beast when Ralph and  the
other two couldn't do nothing?"
     Simon whispered his answer.
     "What else is there to do?"
     His speech made, he allowed Piggy to lift the  conch  out of his hands.
Then he retired and sat as far away from the others as possible.
     Piggy was  speaking  now  with more  assurance  and with  what, if  the
circumstances had- not been so serious, the  others would have recognized as
pleasure.
     "I said we could all do without a certain  person. Now I  say we got to
decide on what can be done.  And I think I could tell you what Ralph's going
to say next. The  most  important thing on the island  is the smoke  and you
can't have no smoke without a fire."
     Ralph made a restless movement.
     "No go, Piggy.  We've got no fire. That thing  sits up there-we'll have
to stay here."
     Piggy lifted the conch as though to add power to his next words.
     "We got no fire  on the mountain.  But  what's wrong with a  fire  down
here?  A fire  could be built on them  rocks. On the  sand, even.  We'd make
smoke just the same."
     "That's right!"
     "Smoke!"
     "By the bathing pool!"
     The boys began to babble. Only Piggy could have the intellectual daring
to suggest moving the fire from the mountain.
     "So well have the fire down here," said Ralph. He looked about him. "We
can  build it just here  between  the  bathing pool  and  the  platform.  Of
course-"
     He broke off,  frowning, thinking  the thing out, unconsciously tugging
at the stub of a nail with his teeth.
     "Of  course the smoke won't show so much, not be seen  so far away. But
we needn't go near, near the-"
     The  others nodded in  perfect comprehension. There would be no need to
go near.
     "We'll build the fire now."
     The greatest ideas are  the simplest Now there was something to be done
they worked with passion. Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty
in Jack's  departure, so full of pride in his contribution to  the  good  of
society, that he  helped to fetch wood.  The wood  he fetched  was  close at
hand, a fallen tree on the platform that they did not need for the assembly,
yet to the others  the sanctity of  the platform had protected even what was
useless there. Then the twins realized they would have a fire near them as a
comfort in the night and this set a few littluns dancing and clapping hands.
     The wood was not so dry as the fuel they had used on the mountain. Much
of it was  damply rotten and full  of insects that scurried;  logs had to be
lined from the soil with care or they crumbled into sodden powder. More than
this, in order to avoid  going deep into the  forest the boys worked near at
hand on any fallen wood no matter how tangled with new growth. The skirts of
the forest  and the scar were familiar, near the conch and the shelters  and
sufficiently friendly in daylight. What they might become in darkness nobody
cared  to  think. They worked therefore with  great energy and cheerfulness,
though as time crept by  there was a suggestion of panic  in the energy  and
hysteria in  the cheerfulness.  They built a  pyramid  of  leaves and twigs,
branches and togs, on the  bare sand  by the platform. For the first time on
the  island, Piggy himself removed his one glass, knelt down and focused the
sun on tinder. Soon there was a ceiling of smoke and a bush of yellow flame.
     The  littluns who had seen few fires since the first catastrophe became
wildly excited. They danced and  sang and there was a partyish air about the
gathering.
     At  last Ralph stopped work and stood  up, smudging the  sweat from his
face with a dirty forearm.
     "We'll have to have a small fire. This one's too big to keep up."
     Piggy sat down carefully on the sand and began to polish his glass.
     "We  could experiment. We could find out  how to make a  small hot fire
and then put green branches  on  to  make smoke. Some of them leaves must be
better for that than the others."
     As the  fire died  down so did  the  excitement  The  littluns  stopped
singing and dancing  and drifted  away toward the sea or the fruit trees  or
the shelters.
     Ralph flopped down in the sand.
     "We'll have to make a new list of who's to took after the fire."
     "If you can find 'em."
     He looked round.  Then for the first time he saw how  few biguns  there
were and understood why the work had been so hard.
     "Where's Maurice?"
     Piggy wiped his glass again.
     "I expect ... no, he wouldn't go into the forest by himself, would he?"
     Ralph jumped up,  ran swiftly round  the  fire-  and  stood  by  Piggy,
holding up his hair.
     "But we've got to have a list! There's you and me and Samneric and-"
     He would not look at Piggy but spoke casually.
     "Where's Bill and Roger?"
     Piggy leaned forward and put a fragment of wood on the fire.
     "I expect they've gone. I expect they won't play either."
     Ralph sat  down  and  began to  poke little  holes in  the sand. He was
surprised  to see that one had a drop  of blood by it He examined his bitten
nail  closely and watched the little globe  of blood that gathered where the
quick was gnawed away.
     Piggy went on speaking.
     "I seen  them stealing off when we  was gathering  wood. They went that
way. The same way as he went himself."
     Ralph  finished his inspection and looked up into the air. The sky,  as
if in sympathy with the great changes among them, was different today and so
misty  that in some places the hot air seemed white. The disc of the sun was
dull silver as though it were nearer and not so hot, yet the air stifled.
     "They always been making trouble, haven't they?"
     The voice came near his shoulder and sounded anxious.
     "We can do without 'em. We'll be happier now, won't we?"
     Ralph sat. The twins came, dragging a  great log  and grinning in their
triumph. They dumped the log among the embers so that sparks flew.
     "We can do all right on our own, can't we?"
     For a  long time while  the log dried, caught fire and turned  red hot,
Ralph sat in the sand and said nothing. He did not see Piggy go to the twins
and whisper with them, nor how the three boys went together into the forest.
     "Here you are."
     He  came to himself with a jolt. Piggy and the  other  two were by him.
They were laden with fruit
     "I thought perhaps," said Piggy, "we ought to have a feast, kind of."
     The three boys  sat down. They had a great mass of  the fruit with them
and all of it properly ripe. They grinned at Ralph as he took some and began
to eat.
     'Thanks," he said. Then with an accent of pleased surprise-"Thanks!"
     "Do  all right on  our  own,"  said  Piggy. "It's them that haven't  no
common sense that  make trouble  on  this  island. We'll  make a  little hot
fire-"
     Ralph remembered what had been worrying him.
     "Where's Simon?"
     "I don't know."
     "You don't think he's climbing the mountain?"
     Piggy broke into noisy laughter and took more fruit.
     "He might be." He gulped his mouthful. "He's cracked."
     Simon had passed through the area of fruit trees but today the littluns
had  been  too busy with the fire  on the beach and they had not pursued him
there. He went on among the creepers until he reached the great mat that was
woven by the open space and  crawled inside. Beyond the screen of leaves the
sunlight pelted down and the butterflies danced in the middle their unending
dance. He  knelt down and the arrow of the sun fell on him. That other  time
the air had seemed to vibrate  with heat; but now  it  threatened. Soon  the
sweat was running from his long coarse hair. He shifted restlessly but there
was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty.
     He continued to sit

     Far  off alone  the beach,  Jack was standing before  a  small group of
boys. He was looking brilliantly happy.
     "Hunting," he said. He sized them up. Each of them  wore the remains of
a black cap and ages ago they had stood in two demure rows and  their voices
had been the song of angels.
     "We'll hunt. I'm going to be chief."
     They nodded, and the crisis passed easily.
     "And then-about the beast."
     They moved, looked at the forest.
     "I say this. We aren't going to bother about the beast."
     He nodded at them.
     "We're going to forget the beast."
     "That's right!"
     "Yes!"
     "Forget the beast!"
     If Jack was astonished by their fervor he did not show it.
     "And another thing. We shan't dream so much down here. This is near the
end of the island."
     They  agreed  passionately out of the depths of their tormented private
lives.
     "Now listen. We might go later to the castle rock. But now I'm going to
get more of the biguns away from the conch and all that We'll kill a pig and
give  a feast." He paused and went on more slowly. "And about the beast When
we  kill we'll  leave some  of  the kill  for  it. Then it won't  bother us,
maybe."
     He stood up abruptly.
     "We'll go into the forest now and hunt."
     He  turned and  trotted  away  and  after  a moment  they  followed him
obediently.
     They spread  out, nervously, in the forest. Almost at  once Jack  found
the dung and scattered roots that told of pig and soon the track  was fresh.
Jack signaled the  rest of the hunt to be quiet and went forward by himself.
He was happy and wore the damp darkness of the  forest like his old clothes.
He crept down a slope to rocks and scattered trees by the sea.
     The  pigs lay,  bloated bags of fat,  sensuously  enjoying the  shadows
under the trees. There was no wind and they  were unsuspicious; and practice
had made Jack silent as the  shadows. He stole away again and instructed his
hidden hunters.  Presently they  all began  to inch  forward sweating in the
silence  and heat. Under the trees an ear flapped idly.  A little apart from
the rest, sunk in deep maternal bliss, lay  the largest sow of the lot.  She
was black and pink; and the great  bladder of  her belly was fringed  with a
row of piglets that slept or burrowed and squeaked.
     Fifteen  yards from the drove Jack stopped, and his arm, straightening,
pointed at the sow.  he looked round in inquiry to make sure  that  everyone
understood and  the  other boys nodded  at him. The row of right  arms  slid
back.
     "Now!"
     The drove  of pigs started up; and  at  a  range of only ten yards  the
wooden  spears with  fire-hardened points flew toward  the  chosen  pig. One
piglet, with a demented  shriek, rushed into the sea  trailing Roger's spear
behind it. The sow gave a gasping squeal and staggered up,  with two  spears
sticking in her fat flank. The boys shouted and rushed forward, the  piglets
scattered and the  sow burst the  advancing  line  and  went  crashing  away
through the forest.
     "After her!"
     They raced along the pig-track, but the forest was too dark and tangled
so that Jack, cursing, stopped them  and cast among the trees.  Then he said
nothing for a time  but breathed fiercely so that  they were awed by him and
looked  at each other in uneasy admiration. Presently he stabbed down at the
ground with his finger.
     "There-"
     Before  the  others could examine the drop of  blood, Jack had  swerved
off,  judging  a  trace,  .touching a  bough  that  gave.  So  he  followed,
mysteriously right and assured, and the hunters trod behind him.
     He stopped before a covert.
     "In there."
     They surrounded the covert  but  the sow  got  away with the  sting  of
another  spear in her  flank. The trailing butts hindered her and the sharp,
cross-cut  points were a torment She blundered into a tree,  forcing a spear
still deeper; and after that any  of the hunters could  follow her easily by
the drops of vivid blood. The afternoon wore on, hazy and dreadful with damp
heat; the sow staggered  her way ahead of them,  bleeding  and  mad, and the
hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited  by the  long chase and the
dropped  blood. They could  see  her  now, nearly got  up with her,  out she
spurted with her last strength and held ahead of them again.  They were just
behind  her when she staggered into  an open space where bright flowers grew
and butterflies danced round each other and the air was hot and still.
     Here, struck down  by  the heat,  the sow fell  and  the hunters hurled
themselves  at her. This dreadful eruption  from an  unknown world made  her
frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and
blood and terror. Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear whenever
pigflesh  appeared. Jack was on top of the sow,  stabbing  downward with his
knife. Roger found a lodgment for his point  and began  to  push till he was
leaning with his whole weight The spear  moved  forward inch by inch and die
terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat
and  the hot  blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and
they  were heavy  and  fulfilled  upon her. The  butterflies  still  danced,
preoccupied in the center of die clearing.
     At last  the immediacy of the  kill  subsided.  The boys drew back, and
Jack stood up, holding out his hands.
     "Look."
     He  giggled and  flicked  them while  the boys laughed at  his  reeking
palms. Then Jack grabbed Maurice and rubbed the stuff over his cheeks. Roger
began  to withdraw his spear  and the  boys noticed it  for  the first time.
Robert stabilized the thing in a phrase which was received uproariously.
     "Right up her ass!"
     "Did you hear?"
     "Did you hear what he said?"
     "Right up her ass!"
     This time Robert and Maurice acted the two  parts; and Maurice's acting
of the pig's efforts to avoid the advancing spear was so funny that the boys
cried with laughter.
     At length even this palled. Jack began to clean his bloody hands on the
rock. Then he started work on the  sow and paunched her, lugging out the hot
bags  of colored guts, pushing them into a pile on the rock while the others
watched him. He talked as he worked.
     "We'll take the meat along the beach. I'll go back  to the platform and
invite them to a feast That should give us time."
     Roger spoke.
     "Chief-"
     "Uh-?"
     "How can we make a fire?"
     Jack squatted back and frowned at the pig.
     "We'll  raid them  and take fire. There must  be four of you; Henry and
you, Bill and Maurice.  We'll put on paint and sneak  up; Roger can snatch a
branch while I say what I want. The rest  of you  can get this back to where
we were. We'll build the fire there. And after that-"
     He paused and stood  up,  looking at  the shadows  under the trees. His
voice was lower when he spoke again.
     "But we'll leave part of the kill for ..."
     He knelt down again and was busy with his knife. The boys crowded round
him. He spoke over his shoulder to Roger.
     "Sharpen a stick at both ends."
     Presently he stood up, holding the dripping sow's head in his hands.
     "Where's that stick?"
     "Here."
     "Ram one end in the earth. Oh-it's rock. Jam it in that crack. There."
     Jack  held up the  head and  jammed the soft throat down on the pointed
end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the
head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick.
     Instinctively the boys drew  back too; and  the forest was very  still.
They  listened, and  the loudest noise was  the buzzing  of  flies over  the
spilled guts.
     Jack spoke in a whisper.
     ''Pick up the pig."
     Maurice and Robert  skewered the carcass, lifted the  dead weight,  and
stood  ready. In the silence,  and standing  over the dry blood, they looked
suddenly furtive.
     Jack spoke loudly.
     "This head is for the beast. It's a gift."
     The silence accepted the gift and  awed them.  The head remained there,
dim-eyed, grinning  faintly, blood blackening between the teeth. All at once
they were running away, as fast as they could, through the forest toward the
open beach.

     Simon  stayed where he was, a  small  brown  image,  concealed  by  the
leaves.  Even if he  shut his  eyes the  sow's  head still  remained like an
after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult
life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.
     "I know that."
     Simon discovered that he had spoken  aloud. He opened his eyes  quickly
and there was the head grinning  amusedly in the strange  daylight, ignoring
the flies, the spilled guts,  even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on
a stick.
     He looked away, licking his dry lips.
     A gift for the  beast. Might not  the  beast come for it?  The head, he
thought, appeared  to  agree with him. Run away, said the  head silently, go
back  to the others.  It was a joke really-why should  you  bother? You were
just wrong,  that's all. A little headache, something  you ate,  perhaps. Go
back, child, said the head silently.
     Simon looked up, feeling the weight of  his  wet hair, and gazed at the
sky. Up  there, for once,  were clouds, great bulging  towers  that sprouted
away  over  the island, grey and cream and  copper-colored. The clouds  were
sitting on  the land; they  squeezed, produced moment by  moment this close,
tormenting  heat.  Even  the butterflies deserted  the  open space where the
obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping
his  eyes  shut, then sheltered them with his  hand. There were  no  shadows
under the  trees but  everywhere a pearly  stillness, so  that what was real
seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of
flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged,
they  alighted by  his runnels  of  sweat and drank. They  tickled under his
nostrils and played leap-frog on his  thighs. They were black and iridescent
green and  without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung
on his stick and  grinned. At last  Simon gave up and looked back;  saw  the
white teeth and  dim eyes, the  blood-and his gaze was held by that ancient,
inescapable recognition.  In Simon's  right temple, a pulse began to beat on
the brain.

     Ralph and Piggy lay in the sand, gazing at the  fire  and idly flicking
pebbles into its smokeless heart.
     "That branch is gone."
     "Where's Samneric?"
     "We ought to get some more wood. We're out of green branches."
     Ralph sighed and stood up. There were no shadows under the palms on the
platform; only this strange  light that  seemed to come  from everywhere  at
once. High up among the bulging clouds thunder went off like a gun.
     "We're going to get buckets of rain."
     "What about the fire?"
     Ralph trotted into the forest  and returned with a wide spray  of green
which  he dumped on the fire. The branch crackled, the leaves curled and the
yellow smoke expanded.
     Piggy made an aimless little pattern in the sand with his fingers.
     "Trouble is, we haven't got enough people for a  fire. You got to treat
Samneric as one turn. They do everything together-"
     "Of course."
     "Well, that isn't fair. Don't you see? They ought to do two turns."
     Ralph considered this  and understood. He was vexed  to find how little
he thought like a grownup and sighed again. The island was getting worse and
worse.
     Piggy looked at the fire.
     "You'll want another green branch soon."
     Ralph rolled over.
     "Piggy. What are we going to do?"
     "Just have to get on without 'em."
     "But-the fire."
     He frowned at the black and white mess in which lay the unburnt ends of
branches. He tried to formulate.
     "I'm scared."
     He saw Piggy look up; and blundered on.
     "Not  of  the  beast. I mean I'm  scared  of that  too. But nobody else
understands about  the fire.  If  someone  threw  you a rope  when  you were
drowning. If a doctor  said take this  because if you  don't  take it you'll
die-you would, wouldn't you? I mean?"
     " 'Course I would."
     "Can't they  see? Can't they understand? Without the smoke signal we'll
die here? Look at that!"
     A wave of heated air  trembled above the ashes but  without a trace  of
smoke.
     "We can't keep one fire going.  And they don't  care. And what's more-"
He looked intensely into Piggy's streaming face.
     "What's  more, <I>I</I> don't sometimes. Supposing I  got like the  others-not
caring. What 'ud become of us?"
     Piggy took off his glasses, deeply troubled.
     "I dunno, Ralph. We just got to go on, that's all. That's what grownups
would do."
     Ralph, having begun the business of unburdening himself, continued.
     "Piggy, what's wrong?"
     Piggy looked at him in astonishment.
     "Do you mean the-?"
     "No, not it ... I mean . . . what makes things break up like they do?"
     Piggy rubbed his glasses slowly and thought. When he understood how far
Ralph had gone toward accepting him he flushed pinkly with pride.
     "I dunno, Ralph. I expect it's him."
     "Jack?"
     "Jack." A taboo was evolving round that word too.
     Ralph nodded solemnly.
     "Yes," he said, "I suppose it must be."
     The forest near them  burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of
white  and  red  and green  rushed out  howling,  so that the littluns  fled
screaming.  Out  of  the corner of  his  eye, Ralph  saw Piggy running.  Two
figures rushed  at  the fire and  he prepared  to  defend  himself  but they
grabbed half-burnt branches and raced away along the beach. The three others
stood still, watching  Ralph;  and he saw  that  the tallest of  them, stark
naked save for paint and a belt, was Jack.
     Ralph had his breath back and spoke.
     "Well?"
     Jack ignored him, lifted his spear and began to shout.
     "Listen all of you. Me and  my hunters, we're living along the beach by
a  flat rock. We hunt and  feast and have  fun. If you want to join my tribe
come and see us. Perhaps I'll let you join. Perhaps not."
     He   paused   and   looked   round.   He   was   safe   from  shame  or
self-consciousness behind the mask  of his  paint and could look  at each of
them in  turn. Ralph was kneeling by the remains of the fire like a sprinter
at his mark and his face  was half-hidden by hair  and smut. Samneric peered
together  round  a palm tree  at the  edge  of the forest A littlun  howled,
creased and crimson, by the  bathing pool and Piggy stood  on the  platform,
the white conch gripped in his hands.
     '"Tonight we're having a feast We've killed a pig and  we've  got meat.
You can come and eat with us if you like."
     Up  in the  cloud canyons  the thunder boomed again. Jack and  the  two
anonymous  savages with  him swayed, looking up,  and  then  recovered.  The
littlun  went  on  howling. Jack  was waiting for  something.  He  whispered
urgently to the others.
     "Go on-now!"
     The two savages murmured. Jack spoke sharply.
     "Go on!"  The two  savages looked  at each  other, raised their  spears
together and spoke in time.
     "The Chief has spoken."
     Then the three of them turned and trotted away.
     Presently  Ralph rose  to his feet,  looking  at  the  place where  the
savages had vanished. Samneric came, talking in an awed whisper.
     "I thought it was-"
     "-and I was-"
     "-scared."
     Piggy stood above them on the platform, still holding the conch.
     "That was Jack and Maurice and Robert," said Ralph. "Aren't they having
fun?"
     "I thought I was going to have asthma."
     "Sucks to your ass-mar."
     "When I saw Jack I was sure he'd go for the conch. Can't think why."
     The group  of boys looked at the white shell with affectionate respect.
Piggy  placed  it in  Ralph's hands  and the littluns,  seeing the  familiar
symbol, started to come back.
     "Not here."
     He turned toward the platform, feeling the need for  ritual. First went
Ralph, the white conch cradled,  then Piggy very grave, then the twins, then
the littluns and the others.
     "Sit down  all of you. They raided us for fire. They're having fun. But
the-"
     Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was
something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down.
     "But the-"
     They were regarding  him gravely, not yet troubled  by any doubts about
his sufficiency. Ralph pushed  the idiot hair out of his eyes and looked  at
Piggy.
     "But the ... oh ... the fire! Of course, the fire!"
     He started to laugh, then stopped and became fluent instead.
     "The  fire's the  most  important thing. Without the  fire we  can't be
rescued. I'd like to put on war-paint and be a savage. But we  must keep the
fire burning. The fire's the  most  important  thing on the island, because,
because-"
     He paused again and the silence became full of doubt and wonder.
     Piggy whispered urgently. "Rescue."
     "Oh yes. Without the fire  we  can't be rescued. So we must stay by the
fire and make smoke."
     When he stopped no one said anything. After the many brilliant speeches
that had been made  on  this very spot Ralph  s remarks seemed lame, even to
the littluns. At last Bill held out his  hands for the conch.  "Now we can't
have the fire up there-because we can't  have the fire up there-we need more
people  to keep it going. Let's  go to  this feast and  tell them the fire's
hard on  the  rest of  us.  And the hunting  and all that,  being  savages I
mean-it must be jolly good fun."
     Samneric took the conch.
     "That must be fun like Bill says-and as he's invited us-"
     "-to a feast-"
     "-meat-"
     "-crackling-"
     "-I could do with some meat-"
     Ralph held up his hand.
     "Why shouldn't we get our own meat?"
     The twins looked at each other. Bill answered.
     "We don't want to go in the jungle."
     Ralph grimaced.
     "He-you know-goes."
     "He's a hunter. They're all hunters. That's different."
     No one spoke for a moment, then Piggy muttered to the sand.
     "Meat-"
     The littluns sat, solemnly  thinking of meat, and  dribbling.  Overhead
the cannon boomed again and the dry  palm fronds clattered in a sudden  gust
of hot wind.

     "You are a  silly little  boy,"  said the Lord  of the Flies,  "just an
ignorant, silly little boy."
     Simon moved his swollen tongue but said nothing.
     "Don't you agree?" said the Lord of the Flies. "Aren't you just a silly
little boy?"
     Simon answered him in the same silent voice.
     "Well then," said the Lord of the Flies, "you'd better run off and play
with  the  others. They think  you're batty.  You don't want  Ralph to think
you're batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don't you? And Piggy, and Jack?"
     Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His  eyes could not break away and
the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him.
     "What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?"
     Simon shook.
     "There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast."
     Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words.
     "Pig's head on a stick."
     "Fancy thinking the Beast was  something you could hunt and kill!" said
the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated
places echoed with  the parody of laughter.  "You knew, didn't you? I'm part
of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no  go?  Why things are
what they are?"
     The laughter shivered again.
     "Come now," said  the  Lord of  the Flies. "Get back to  the others and
we'll forget the whole thing."
     Simon's head wobbled. His  eyes  were  half closed  as  though he  were
imitating the obscene thing on the stick.  He knew that one of his times was
coming on. The Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon.
     "This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well  you'll  only meet me down
there-so don't try to escape!"
     Simon's body was arched  and stiff. The Lord of the Flies  spoke in the
voice of a schoolmaster.
     "This has gone quite far enough. My poor, misguided child, do you think
you know better than I do?"
     There was a pause.
     "I'm warning you. I'm going to get angry. D'you see? You're not wanted.
Understand?  We are going  to  have  fun on this island.  Understand? We are
going to have fun on this island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy,
or else-"
     Simon  found  he  was  looking into  a vast  mouth. There was blackness
within, a blackness that spread.
     "-Or else," said the Lord of the Flies, "we shall do you. See? Jack and
Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?"
     Simon was inside the mouth. He fell down and lost consciousness.





     CHAPTER NINE
     <i>A View to a Death</i>

     Over  the island the build-up  of clouds continued. A steady current of
heated air rose all  day  from the mountain  and was  thrust to ten thousand
feet; revolving masses of gas piled up the static until the air was ready to
explode. By early evening the sun had gone and a brassy glare  had taken the
place of clear daylight. Even the  air that pushed in from  the sea was  hot
ana  held  no refreshment.  Colors  drained  from  water and  trees and pink
surfaces of rock, and the  white and brown clouds brooded, Nothing prospered
but the  flies who blackened their  lord and made the spilt guts look like a
heap of glistening coal Even  when the vessel broke in Simon's nose  and the
blood gushed out they left him alone, preferring the pig's high flavor.
     With  the running of the blood Simon's fit passed into the weariness of
sleep. He  lay in the mat of  creepers  while the  evening  advanced and the
cannon continued to play. At last he woke and saw dimly the dark earth close
by his cheek. Still he did not move but lay there, his face side-ways on the
earth, his eyes looking dully before him. Then he turned over, drew his feet
under  him  and laid  hold  of the creepers to  pull  himself up.  When  the
creepers shook the flies  exploded from  the  guts with a  vicious note  and
clamped back on  again. Simon got to  his feet. The light was unearthly. The
Lord of the Flies hung on his stick like a black ball.
     Simon spoke aloud to the clearing.
     "What else is there to do?"
     Nothing  replied.  Simon  turned away from the open  space and  crawled
through  the creepers  till he was  in  the dusk of  the  forest.  He walked
drearily between the trunks, his face empty of expression, and the blood was
dry  round  his mouth  and chin.  Only  sometimes  as he lifted the ropes of
creeper aside and chose his direction from the trend of the land, he mouthed
words that did not reach the air.
     Presently the creepers  festooned  the trees less frequently  and there
was  a scatter of pearly light from the sky down through the trees. This was
the backbone of the  island, the  slightly higher land  that lay beneath the
mountain where the  forest was no longer deep Jungle. Here there  were  wide
spaces interspersed with thickets and huge trees and the trend of the ground
led him up as the forest opened. He pushed on, staggering sometimes with his
weariness but  never stopping. The usual brightness was  gone  from his eyes
and he walked with a sort of glum determination like an old man.
     A  buffet  of wind  made him  stagger and he saw that he was out in the
open, on  rock, under a brassy  sky.  He found his  legs  were weak and  his
tongue gave him pain all the time. When the wind reached the mountain-top he
could see something happen, a flicker of blue stuff against brown clouds. He
pushed  himself forward and the wind came again, stronger  now,  cuffing the
forest heads till they ducked and  roared. Simon saw a humped thing suddenly
sit up on the top and look down at him. He hid his face, and toiled on.
     The flies had found the figure too. The life-like movement would  scare
them off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then as
the blue material of the  parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would bow
forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more.
     Simon  felt his  knees  smack the rock. He  crawled forward and soon he
understood.  The tangle of lines showed him the mechanics of this parody; he
examined the white  nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He saw
how pitilessly the layers  of rubber and  canvas held together the poor body
that should be rotting away. Then the wind blew again and the figure lifted,
bowed,  and  breathed foully at  him. Simon knelt on all  fours and was sick
till his  stomach was  empty. Then he took  the lines in his hands; he freed
them from the rocks and the figure from the wind's indignity.
     At last he turned away  and looked down at the beaches. The fire by the
platform appeared to be out, or at least making  no smoke. Further along the
beach, beyond the little river and near a great slab of rock, a thin trickle
of smoke was climbing into the sky. Simon, forgetful of the lies, shaded his
eyes with both hands  and peered  at the smoke. Even at that distance it was
possible to see most of the  boys-perhaps all the boys-were  there. So  they
had shifted camp then, away from the beast. As Simon thought this, he turned
to  the poor  broken  thing that sat  stinking by  his side.  The beast  was
harmless and horrible;  and  the  news must  reach  the others  as  soon  as
possible. He  started down  the mountain and his legs gave beneath him. Even
with great care the best he could do was a stagger.

     "Bathing," said Ralph, "that's the only thing to do."
     Piggy was inspecting the looming sky through his glass.
     "I  don't  like them  clouds.  Remember how  it  rained  just  after we
landed?"
     "Going to rain again."
     Ralph  dived into the  pool. A couple  of littluns were playing  at the
edge, trying to extract comfort from a wetness warmer than blood. Piggy took
off his glasses, stepped primly into the  water and then put  them on again.
Ralph came to the surface and squirted a jet of water at him.
     "Mind my specs," said Piggy. "If  I get water on the glass I got to get
out and clean 'em."
     Ralph squirted again and missed. He laughed at Piggys  expecting him to
retire meekly as usual and in pained  silence. Instead, Piggy beat the water
with his hands.
     "Stop it!" he shouted. "D`you hear?"
     Furiously he drove the water into Ralph's face.
     "All right, all right," said Ralph. "Keep your hair on."
     Piggy stopped beating the water.
     "I got a pain in my head. I wish the air was cooler."
     "I wish the rain would come."
     "I wish we could go home."
     Piggy lay back against the  sloping sand side of the  pool. His stomach
protruded and the water dried on it Ralph squirted up at the sky.  One could
guess at the movement of the sun by the progress of a light  patch among the
clouds. He knelt in the water and looked round.
     "Where's everybody?"
     Piggy sat up.
     "P`raps they're lying in the shelter."
     "Where's Samneric?"
     "And Bill?"
     Piggy pointed beyond the platform.
     "That's where they've gone. Jack's parry."
     "Let them go," said Ralph, uneasily, "I don't care."
     "Just for some meat-"
     "And for  hunting,"  said Ralph, wisely, "and for  pretending  to be  a
tribe, and putting on war-paint."
     Piggy stirred the sand under water and did not look at Ralph.
     "P'raps we ought  to go  too." Ralph looked  at him quickly  and  Piggy
blushed, "I mean-to make sure nothing happens." Ralph squirted water again.

     Long before  Ralph and Piggy  came up with  Jack's lot, they could hear
the party. There was a  stretch of grass  in a place where the  palms left a
wide band of turf between the forest and the snore. Just  one step down from
the edge of  the turf was the white, blown  sand of above high water,  warm,
dry,  trodden. Below that  again was  a rock that stretched away  toward the
lagoon. Beyond was a short stretch of sand and then the edge of the water. A
fire burned on the  rock and fat dripped from the roasting pig-meat into the
invisible flames.  All the boys of the  island, except Piggy, Ralph,  Simon,
and  the two tending the pig, were grouped on  the turf. They were laughing,
singing, lying,  squatting,  or standing on the grass, holding food in their
hands.  But to judge by the greasy faces, the meat  eating  was almost done;
and  some  held coconut  shells in their hands  and were drinking from them.
Before the party had started a great log had been dragged into the center of
the lawn and Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were
piles  of meat on green leaves  near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full
of drink.
     Piggy  and Ralph came to the edge of the grassy platform; and the boys,
as they noticed  them, fell silent one by one till only the boy next to Jack
was talking. Then  the silence intruded even there and Jack turned where  he
sat For a time he looked at them and the crackle of the fire was the loudest
noise over the  droning  of the  reef,  Ralph looked away; and Sam, thinking
that Ralph  had turned  to him accusingly, put down  his  gnawed bone with a
nervous giggle. Ralph  took an uncertain  step, pointed to a palm tree,  and
whispered something  inaudible  to  Piggy; and  they both giggled like  Sam.
Lifting  his feet high out of the sand,  Ralph started to stroll past. Piggy
tried to whistle.
     At this  moment the boys who  were cooking at  the fire suddenly hauled
off a  great  chunk of meat and ran  with  it toward the grass.  They bumped
Piggy, who was burnt, and  yelled  and danced.  Immediately, Ralph  and  the
crowd of boys were united and relieved  by a  storm of laughter.  Piggy once
more  was the center of social  derision so that  everyone felt cheerful and
normal.
     Jack stood up and waved his spear.
     "Take them some meat."
     The boys with  the  spit gave  Ralph and Piggy  each a succulent chunk.
They  took the gift,  dribbling.  So they stood and  ate beneath  a  sky  of
thunderous brass that rang with the storm-coming.
     Jack waved his spear again.
     "Has everybody eaten as much as they want?"
     There was still food left, sizzling on the wooden spits, heaped  on the
green platters. Betrayed by  his stomach, Piggy threw a picked bone  down on
the beach and stooped for more.
     Jack spoke again, impatiently.
     "Has everybody eaten as much as they want?"
     His tone conveyed  a warning, given out of the pride  of ownership, and
the  boys  ate  faster  while there  was still  time.  Seeing  there was  no
immediate likelihood of  a pause. Jack rose from the log that was his throne
and sauntered to the edge of the grass. He looked down from behind his paint
at Ralph and Piggy. They moved  a little farther off over the sand and Ralph
watched the fire  as he  ate. He  noticed,  without  understanding, how  the
flames were visible now against the  dull light. Evening was  come, not with
calm beauty but with the threat of violence.
     Jack spoke.
     "Give me a drink."
     Henry brought him a shell and he drank,  watching Piggy and Ralph  over
the jagged rim.. Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat
on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape.
     "All sit down."
     The boys  ranged themselves in  rows on  the grass before him but Ralph
and Piggy stayed a foot lower, standing  on the soft sand. Jack ignored them
for the moment,  turned his mask down to the seated boys and pointed at them
with the spear.
     "Who is going to join my tribe?"
     Ralph made a sudden movement that became a  stumble.  Some of  the boys
turned toward him.
     "I gave you food," said Jack, "and my hunters will protect you from the
beast. Who will join my tribe?"
     "I'm chief,"  said Ralph, "because you chose me. And  we  were going to
keep the fire going. Now you run after food-"
     "You ran yourself !" shouted Jack. "Look at that bone in your hands!"
     Ralph went crimson.
     "I said you were hunters. That was your job."
     Jack ignored him again.
     "Who'll join my tribe and have fun?"
     I'm chief," said Ralph  tremulously. "And what about the fire? And I've
got the conch-"
     "You haven't  got  it with  you,"  said  Jack,  sneering. "You  left it
behind. See, clever? And the conch doesn't count at this end of the island-"
     All at  once the thunder struck. Instead of the dull boom there  was  a
point of impact in the explosion.
     "The conch counts here too," said Ralph, "and all over the island."
     "What are you going to do about it then?"
     Ralph examined the ranks of boys.  There was  no help  in  them  and he
looked away, confused and sweating. Piggy whispered.
     "The fire-rescue."
     "Who'll join my tribe?"
     "I will."
     "Me."
     "I will."
     "I'll blow the conch," said Ralph breathlessly, "and call an assembly."
     "We shan't hear it."
     "Come away. There's going to be trouble. And we've had our meat."
     There was a blink of  bright  light beyond  the forest and  the thunder
exploded  again so that a littlun  started to  whine. Big drops of rain fell
among them making individual sounds when they struck.
     "Going to  be a storm," said Ralph,  "and you'll have rain like when we
dropped here. Who's clever now? Where  are your shelters? What are you going
to do about that?"
     The hunters were looking uneasily at the sky, flinching from the stroke
of  the  drops.  A wave  of  restlessness set the  boys swaying  and  moving
aimlessly. The flickering light became brighter and the blows of the thunder
were only just bearable. The littluns began to run about, screaming.
     Jack leapt on to the sand.
     "Do our dance! Come on! Dance!"
     He ran  stumbling  through the thick  sand  to the open space  of  rock
beyond  the  fire.  Between the flashes of  lightning the  air was dark  and
terrible; and the  boys followed him, clamorously.  Roger  became  the  pig,
grunting  and  charging  at Jack,  who side-stepped.  The hunters took their
spears, the cooks  took  spits, and the  rest  clubs of firewood, A circling
movement developed and a chant  While Roger mimed the terror of the pig, the
littluns ran and jumped OB the outside of the circle. Piggy and Ralph, under
the threat of  the sky,  found  themselves  eager  to  take a place  in this
demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch  the brown backs
of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable.
     <i>"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"</i>
     The movement became regular while the chant  lost its first superficial
excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Ro