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."