partially, through the tremble of the heat haze over the flashing
sands, and his own long hair and injuries. Behind him came the
twins, worried now for a while but full of unquenchable vitality. They
said little but trailed the butts of their wooden spears; for Piggy had
found that, by looking down and shielding his tired sight from the
sun, he could just see these moving along the sand. He walked
between the trailing butts, therefore, the conch held carefully
between his two hands. The boys made a compact little group that
moved over the beach, four plate-like shadows dancing and
mingling beneath them. There was no sign left of the storm, and the
beach was swept clean like a blade that has been scoured. The sky
and the mountain were at an immense distance, shimmering in the
heat; and the reef was lifted by mirage, floating in a land of silver pool
halfway up the sky.
They passed the place where the tribe had danced. The charred
sticks still lay on the rocks where the rain had quenched them but the
sand by the water was smooth again. They passed this in silence.
No one doubted that the tribe would be found at the Castle Rock
and when they came in sight of it they stopped with one accord.
The densest tangle on the island, a mass of twisted stems, black
and green and impenetrable, lay on their left and tall grass swayed
before them. Now Ralph went forward.
Here was the crushed grass where they had all lain when he
had gone to prospect. There was the neck of land, the ledge
skirting the rock, up there were the red pinnacles.
Sam touched his arm.
"Smoke."
There was a tiny smudge of smoke wavering into the air on the
other side of the rock.
"Some fire—I don't think."
Ralph turned.
"What are we hiding for?"
He stepped through the screen of grass on to the little open space
that led to the narrow neck.
"You two follow behind. I’ll go first, then Piggy a pace behind me.
Keep your spears ready."
Piggy peered anxiously into the luminous veil that hung between
him and the world.
"Is it safe? Ain't there a cliff? I can hear the sea."
"You keep right close to me."
Ralph moved forward on to the neck. He kicked a stone and it
bounded into the water. Then the sea sucked down, revealing a red,
weedy square forty feet beneath Ralph's left arm.
"Am I safe?" quavered Piggy. "I feel awful—"
High above them from the pinnacles came a sudden shout and
then an imitation war-cry that was answered by a dozen voices
from behind the rock.
"Give me the conch and stay still."
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Ralph bent back his head and glimpsed Roger's dark face at the
top.
"You can see who I am!" he shouted. "Stop being silly!"
He put the conch to his lips and began to blow. Savages
appeared, painted out of recognition, edging round the ledge
toward the neck. They carried spears and disposed themselves to
defend the entrance. Ralph went on blowing and ignored
Piggy's terrors.
Roger was shouting.
"You mind out—see?"
At length Ralph took his lips away and paused to get his breath
back. His first words were a gasp, but audible.
"—calling an assembly."
The savages guarding the neck muttered among themselves but
made no motion. Ralph walked forwards a couple of steps. A voice
whispered urgently behind him.
"Don't leave me, Ralph."
"You kneel down," said Ralph sideways, "and wait till I come
back."
He stood halfway along the neck and gazed at the savages
intently. Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were
more comfortable than he was. Ralph made a resolution to tie his
own back afterwards. Indeed he felt Eke telling them to wait and
doing it there and then; but that was impossible. The savages
sniggered a bit and one gestured at Ralph with his spear. High
above, Roger took his hands off the lever and leaned out to see what
was going on. The boys on the neck stood in a pool of their own
shadow, diminished to shaggy heads. Piggy crouched, his back
shapeless as a sack.
"I’m calling an assembly."
Silence.
Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins,
aiming to miss. They started and Sam only just kept his footing.
Some source of power began to pulse in Roger's body.
Ralph spoke again, loudly.
"I'm calling an assembly."
He ran his eye over them.
"Where's Jack?"
The group of boys stirred and consulted. A painted face spoke
with the voice of Robert.
"He's hunting. And he said we weren't to let you in."
"I've come to see about the fire," said Ralph, "and about Piggy's
specs."
The group in front of him shifted and laughter shivered outwards
from among them, light, excited laughter that went echoing among the
tall rocks.
A voice spoke from behind Ralph.
"What do you want?"
The twins made a bolt past Ralph and got between him and the
entry. He turned quickly. Jack, identifiable by personality and red
hair, was advancing from the forest A hunter crouched on either
side. All three were masked in black and green. Behind them on the
grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had
dropped it.
Piggy wailed.
"Ralph! Don't leave me!"
With ludicrous care he embraced the rock, pressing himself to
it above the sucking sea. The sniggering of the savages became a
loud derisive jeer.
Jack shouted above the noise.
"You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is my end and
my tribe. You leave me alone."
The jeering died away.
"You pinched Piggy`s specs," said Ralph, breathlessly. "You've
got to give them back."
"Got to? Who says?"
Ralph's temper blazed out.
"I say! You voted for me for chief. Didn't you hear the conch?
You played a dirty trick—we'd have given you fire if you'd asked for
it—"
The blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged-up eye
throbbed.
"You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you
didn't. You came sneaking up like a thiefand sto l e Piggy's
glasses!"
"Say that again!"
"Thief! Thief!"
Piggy screamed.
"Ralph! Mind me!"
Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph's chest with his spear.
Ralph sensed the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught
of Jack's arm and put the thrust aside with his own butt. Then he
brought the end round and caught Jack a stinger across the ear.
They were chest to chest, breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring.
"Who's a thief?"
"You are!"
Jack wrenched free and swung at Ralph with his spear. By
common consent they were using the spears as sabers now, no
longer daring the lethal points. The blow struck Ralph's spear and slid
down, to fall agonizingly on his fingers. Then they were apart once
more, their positions reversed, Jack toward the Castle Rock and
Ralph on the outside toward the island.
Both boys were breathing very heavily.
"Come on then—"
"Come on—"
Truculently they squared up to each other but kept just out of
fighting distance.
"You come on and see what you get!"
"You come on—"
Piggy clutching the ground was trying to attract Ralph's attention.
Ralph moved, bent down, kept a wary eye on Jack.
"Ralph—remember what we came for. The fire. My specs."
Ralph nodded. He relaxed his fighting muscles, stood easily and
grounded the butt of his spear Jack watched him inscrutably through
his paint. Ralph glanced up at the pinnacles, then toward the group of
savages
"Listen. We've come to say this. First you've got to give back
Piggy's specs. If he hasn't got them he can’t see You aren't playing
the game—"
The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph's mind faltered.
He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before
him, trying to remember what Jack looked like. Piggy whispered.
"And the fire."
"Oh yes. Then about the fire. I say this again. I've been saying it
ever since we dropped in."
He held out his spear and pointed at the savages.
"Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long as there's
light to see. Then maybe a ship`ll notice the smoke and come and
rescue us and take us home. But without that smoke we've got to
wait till some ship comes by accident. We might wait years; till we
were old—"
The shivering, silvery, unreal laughter of the savages sprayed
out and echoed away. A gust of rage shook Ralph His voice
cracked.
"Don't you understand, you painted fools? Sam, Eric, Piggy and
me—we aren't enough. We tried to keep the fire going, but we
couldn't. And then you, playing at hunting. . . ."
He pointed past them to where the trickle of smoke dispersed in
the pearly air.
"Look at that! Call that a signal fire? That's a cooking fire Now
you'll eat and there'll be no smoke. Don't you understand? There
may be a ship out there—"
He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of
the group guarding the entry. Jack opened a pink mouth and
addressed Samneric, who were between him and his tribe.
"You two. Get back."
No one answered him. The twins, puzzled, looked at each Other;
while Piggy, reassured by the cessation of violence, stood up
carefully. Jack glanced back at Ralph and then at the twins.
"Grab them!"
No one moved. Jack shouted angrily.
"I said 'grab them'!"
The painted group moved round Samneric nervously and
unhandily. Once more the silvery laughter scattered.
Samneric protested out of the heart of civilization.
"Oh, I say!"
"—honestly!"
Their spears were taken from them.
"Tie them up!"
Ralph cried out hopelessly against the black and green mask.
"Jack!"
"Go on. Tie them."
Now the painted group felt the otherness of Samneric, felt the
power in their own hands. They felled the twins clumsily and
excitedly. Jack was inspired. He knew that Ralph would attempt a
rescue. He struck in a humming circle behind him and Ralph only just
parried the blow. Beyond them the tribe and the twins were a loud
and writhing heap. Piggy crouched again. Then the twins lay,
astonished, and the tribe stood round them. Jack turned to Ralph and
spoke between his teeth.
"See? They do what I want."
There was silence again. The twins lay, inexpertly tied up,
and the tribe watched Ralph to see what he would do. He
numbered them through his fringe, glimpsed the ineffectual smoke.
His temper broke. He screamed at Jack.
"You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!"
He charged.
Jack, knowing this was the crisis, charged too. They met with a
jolt and bounced apart. Jack swung with his fist at Ralph and aught
him on the ear. Ralph hit Jack in the stomach and made him grunt.
Then they were facing each other again, panting and furious, but
unnerved by each other's ferocity. They became aware of the noise
that was the background to this fight, the steady shrill cheering of the
tribe behind them.
Piggy's voice penetrated to Ralph.
"Let me speak."
He was standing in the dust of the fight, and as the tribe saw his
intention the shrill cheer changed to a steady booing.
Piggy held up the conch and the booing sagged a little, then came
up again to strength.
"I got the conch!"
He shouted.
"I tell you, I got the conch!"
Surprisingly, there was silence now; the tribe were curious to hear
what amusing thing he might have to say.
Silence and pause; but in the silence a curious air-noise, close by
Ralphs head. He give it half his attention—and there it was again; a
faint "Zup!" Someone was throwing stones: Roger was dropping
them, his one hand still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock
of hair and Piggy a bag of fat.
"I got this to say. You're acting like a crowd of lads."
The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magic
shell.
"Which is better—to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or
to be sensible like Ralph is?"
A great clamor rose among the savages. Piggy shouted again.
"Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?"
Again the clamor and again——"Zup!"
Ralph shouted against the noise.
"Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things
up?"
Now Jack was veiling too and Ralph could no longer make
himself heard. Jack had backed right against the tribe and they were
a solid mass of menace that bristled with spears. The intention of a
charge was forming among them; they were working up to it and the
neck would be swept clear. Ralph stood facing them, a little to one
side, his spear ready. By him stood Piggy still holding out the
talisman, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The storm of sound
beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a
sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.
Ralph heard the great rock long before he saw it. He was aware of
a jolt in the earth that came to him through the soles of his feet, and
the breaking sound of stones at the top of the cliff. Then the
monstrous red thing, bounded across the neck and he flung himself
fiat while the tribe shrieked.
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the
conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through
the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock
bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and
landed on his back across that square red rock in the sea. His head
opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs
twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea
breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and
pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body
of Piggy was gone.
This time the silence was complete. Ralph's lips formed a word
but no sound came.
Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming
wildly.
"See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe
for you any morel The conch is gone—"
He ran forward, stooping.
"I'm chief!"
Viciously, with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph. The
point tore the skin and flesh over Ralph's ribs, then sheared off and
fell in the water. Ralph stumbled, feeling not pain but panic, and
the tribe, screaming now like the chief, began to advance. Another
spear, a bent one that would not fly straight, went past his face and
one fell from on high where Roger was. The twins lay hidden behind
the tribe and the anonymous devils' faces swarmed across the neck.
Ralph turned and ran. A great noise as of sea gulls rose behind him.
He obeyed an instinct that he did not know he possessed and
swerved over the open space so that the spears went wide. He saw
the headless body of the sow and jumped in time. Then he was
crashing through foliage and small boughs and was hidden by the
forest.
The chief stopped by the pig, turned and held up his hands.
"Back! Back to the fort!"
Presently the tribe returned noisily to the neck where Roger joined
them.
The chief spoke to him angrily.
"Why aren’t you on watch?"
Roger looked at him gravely.
"I just came down—"
The hangman's horror clung round him. The chief said no more to
him but looked down at Samneric.
"You got to join the tribe."
"You lemme go—"
"—and me."
The chief snatched one of the few spears that were left and poked
Sam in the ribs.
"What d'you mean by it, eh?" said the chief fiercely, "What d'you
mean by coming with spears? What d'you mean by not joining my
tribe?"
The prodding became rhythmic. Sam yelled.
"That's not the way."
Roger edged past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with
his shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in
quiet terror. Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a nameless
authority.
| 