Ralph called out in a quavering voice.
"All you littluns, go to sleep. We've had a fight with the others. Now go to sleep."
Samneric came close and peered at Ralph.
"Are you two all right?"
"I think so--"
"--I got busted."
"So did I. How's Piggy?"
They hauled Piggy clear of the wreckage and leaned him against a tree. The night was cool and purged of immediate terror. Piggy's breathing was a little easier.
"Did you get hurt, Piggy?"
"Not much."
"That was Jack and his hunters," said Ralph bitterly. "Why can't they leave us alone?"
"We gave them something to think about," said Sam. Honesty compelled him to go on. "At least you did. I got mixed up with myself in a corner."
"I gave one of 'em what for," said Ralph, "I smashed him up all right. He won't want to come and fight us again in a hurry."
"So did I," said Eric. "When I woke up one was kicking me in the face. I got an awful bloody face, I think, Ralph. But I did him in the end."
"What did you do?"
"I got my knee up," said Eric with simple pride, "and I hit him with it in the pills. You should have heard him holler! He won't come back in a hurry either. So we didn't do too badly."
Ralph moved suddenly in the dark; but then he heard Eric working his mouth.
"What's the matter?"
"Jus' a tooth loose."
Piggy drew up his legs.
"You all right, Piggy?"
"I thought they wanted the conch."
Ralph trotted down the pale beach and jumped on to the platform. The conch still glimmered by the chief's seat. He gazed for a moment or two, then went back to Piggy.
"They didn't take the conch."
"I know. They didn't come for the conch. They came for something else. Ralph--what am I going to do?"
Far off along the bowstave of beach, three figures trotted toward the Castle Rock. They kept away from the forest and down by the water. Occasionally they sang softly; occasionally they turned cartwheels down by the moving streak of phosphorescence. The chief led then, trotting steadily, exulting in his achievement. He was a chief now in truth; and he made stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken glasses.
In the short chill of dawn the four boys gathered round the black smudge where the fire had been, while Ralph knelt and blew. Grey, feathery ashes scurried hither and thither at his breath but no spark shone among them. The twins watched anxiously and Piggy sat expressionless behind the luminous wall of his myopia. Ralph continued to blow till his ears were singing with the effort, but then the first breeze of dawn took the job off his hands and blinded him with ashes. He squatted back, swore, and rubbed water out of his eyes.
"No use."
Eric looked down at him through a mask of dried blood. Piggy peered in the general direction of Ralph.
" 'Course it's no use, Ralph. Now we got no fire."
Ralph brought his face within a couple of feet of Piggy's.
"Can you see me?"
"A bit."
Ralph allowed the swollen flap of his cheek to close his eye again.
"They've got our fire."
Rage shrilled his voice.
"They stole it!"
"That's them," said Piggy. "They blinded me. See? That's Jack Merridew. You call an assembly, Ralph, we got to decide what to do."
"An assembly for only us?"
"It's all we got. Sam--let me hold on to you."
They went toward the platform.
"Blow the conch," said Piggy. "Blow as loud as you can."
The forests re-echoed; and birds lifted, crying out of the treetops, as on that first morning ages ago. Both ways the beach was deserted. Some littluns came from the shelters. Ralph sat down on the polished trunk and the three others stood before him. He nodded, and Samneric sat down on the right. Ralph pushed the conch into Piggy's hands. He held the shining thing carefully and blinked at Ralph.
"Go on, then."
"I just take the conch to say this. I can't see no more and I got to get my glasses back. Awful things has been done on this island. I voted for you for chief. He's the only one who ever got anything done. So now you speak, Ralph, and tell us what. Or else--"
Piggy broke off, sniveling. Ralph took back the conch as he sat down.
"Just an ordinary fire. You'd think we could do that, wouldn't you? Just a smoke signal so we can be rescued. Are we savages or what? Only now there's no signal going up. Ships may be passing. Do you remember how he went hunting and the fire went out and a ship passed by? And they all think he's best as chief. Then there was, there was . . . that's his fault, too. If it hadn't been for him it would never have happened. Now Piggy can't see, and they came, stealing--" Ralph's voice ran up "--at night, in darkness, and stole our fire. They stole it. We'd have given them fire if they'd asked. But they stole it and the signal's out and we can't ever be rescued. Don't you see what I mean? We'd have given them fire for themselves only they stole it. I--"
He paused lamely as the curtain flickered in his brain. Piggy held out his hands for the conch.
"What you goin' to do, Ralph? This is jus' talk without deciding. I want my glasses."
"I'm trying to think. Supposing we go, looking like we used to, washed and hair brushed--after all we aren't savages really and being rescued isn't a game--"
He opened the flap of his cheek and looked at the twins.
"We could smarten up a bit and then go--"
"We ought to take spears," said Sam. "Even Piggy."
"--because we may need them."
"You haven't got the conch!"
Piggy held up the shell.
"You can take spears if you want but I shan't. What's the good? I'll have to be led like a dog, anyhow. Yes, laugh. Go on, laugh. There's them on this island as would laugh at anything. And what happened? What's grownups goin' to think? Young Simon was murdered. And there was that other kid what had a mark on his face. Who's seen him since we first come here?"
"Piggy! Stop a minute!"
"I got the conch. I'm going to that Jack Merridew an' tell him, I am."
"You'll get hurt."
"What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him what's what. You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got."
Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim figures. The shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him.
"I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses, I'm going to say--you got to!"
Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ralph's feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star.
At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair.
"All right. I mean--you can try if you like. We'll go with you."
"He'll be painted," said Sam, timidly. "You know how he'll be--"
"--he won't think much of us--"
"--if he gets waxy we've had it--"
Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered something Simon had said to him once, by the rocks.
"Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go."
He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride.
"You must carry it."
"When we're ready I'll carry it--"
Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his passionate willingness to carry the conch against all odds.
"I don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to be led."
Ralph put the conch back on the shining log.
"We better eat and then get ready."
They made their way to the devastated fruit trees. Piggy was helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of the afternoon.
"We'll be like we were. We'll wash--"
Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested.
"But we bathe every day!"
Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed.
"We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long."
"I've got both socks left in the shelter," said Eric, "so we could pull them over our heads like caps, sort of."
"We could find some stuff," said Piggy, "and tie your hair back."
"Like a girl!"
"No. 'Course not."
"Then we must go as we are," said Ralph, "and they won't be any better."
Eric made a detaining gesture.
"But they'll be painted! You know how it is." The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.
"Well, we won't be painted," said Ralph, "because we aren't savages."
Samneric looked at each other.
"All the same--"
Ralph shouted.
"No paint!"
He tried to remember.
"Smoke," he said, "we want smoke."
He turned on the twins fiercely.
"I said 'smoke'! We've got to have smoke."
There was silence, except for the multitudinous murmur of the bees. As last Piggy spoke, kindly.
" 'Course we have. 'Cos the smoke's a signal and we can't be rescued if we don't have smoke."
"I knew that!" shouted Ralph. He pulled his arm away from Piggy. "Are you suggesting--?"
"I'm jus' saying what you always say," said Piggy hastily. "I'd thought for a moment--"
"I hadn't," said Ralph loudly. "I knew it all the time. I hadn't forgotten."
Piggy nodded propitiatingly.
"You're chief, Ralph. You remember everything."
"I hadn't forgotten."
" 'Course not."
The twins were examining Ralph curiously, as though they were seeing him for the first time.
They set off along the beach in formation. Ralph went first, limping a little, his spear carried over one shoulder. He saw things 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 kind 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?"