There was a long pause while the assembly grinned at the thought of anyone going out in the darkness. Then Simon stood up and Ralph looked at him in astonishment.

“You! What were you mucking about in the dark for?”

Simon grabbed the conch convulsively.

“I wanted—to go to a place—a place I know.”

“What place?”

“Just a place I know. A place in the jungle.”

He hesitated.

Jack settled the question for them with that contempt in his voice that could sound so funny and so final.

“He was taken short.”

With a feeling of humiliation on Simon’s behalf, Ralph took back the conch, looking Simon sternly in the face as he did so.

“Well, don’t do it again. Understand? Not at night. There’s enough silly talk about beasts, without the littluns seeing you gliding about like a——”

The derisive laughter that rose had fear in it and condemnation. Simon opened his mouth to speak but Ralph had the conch, so he backed to his seat.

When the assembly was silent Ralph turned to Piggy.

“Well, Piggy?”

“There was another one. Him.”

The littluns pushed Percival forward then left him by himself. He stood knee-deep in the central grass, looking at his hidden feet, trying to pretend he was in a tent. Ralph remembered another small boy who had stood like this and he flinched away from the memory. He had pushed the thought down and out of sight, where only some positive reminder like this could bring it to the surface. There had been no further numberings of the littluns, partly because there was no means of ensuring that all of them were accounted for and partly because Ralph knew the answer to at least one question Piggy had asked on the mountain-top. There were little boys, fair, dark, freckled, and all dirty, but their faces were all dreadfully free of major blemishes. No one had seen the mulberry-coloured birthmark again. But that time Piggy had coaxed and bullied. Tacitly admitting that he remembered the unmentionable, Ralph nodded to Piggy.

“Go on. Ask him.”

Piggy knelt, holding the conch.

“Now then. What’s your name?”

The small boy twisted away into his tent. Piggy turned helplessly to Ralph, who spoke sharply.

“What’s your name?”

Tormented by the silence and the refusal the assembly broke into a chant.

“What’s your name? What’s your name?”

“Quiet!”

Ralph peered at the child in the twilight.

“Now tell us. What’s your name?”

“Percival Wemys Madison, The Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, Hants, telephone, telephone, tele——”

As if this information was rooted far down in the springs of sorrow, the littlun wept. His face puckered, the tears leapt from his eyes, his mouth opened till they could see a square black hole. At first he was a silent effigy of sorrow; but then the lamentation rose out of him, loud and sustained as the conch.

“Shut up, you! Shut up!”

Percival Wemys Madison would not shut up. A spring had been tapped, far beyond the reach of authority or even physical intimidation. The crying went on, breath after breath, and seemed to sustain him upright as if he were nailed to it.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

For now the littluns were no longer silent. They were reminded of their personal sorrows; and perhaps felt themselves to share in a sorrow that was universal. They began to cry in sympathy, two of them almost as loud as Percival.

Maurice saved them. He cried out.

“Look at me!”

He pretended to fall over. He rubbed his rump and sat on the twister so that he fell in the grass. He clowned badly; but Percival and the others noticed and sniffed and laughed. Presently they were all laughing so absurdly that the biguns joined in.

Jack was the first to make himself heard. He had not got the conch and thus spoke against the rules; but nobody minded.

“And what about the beast?”

Something strange was happening to Percival. He yawned and staggered, so that Jack seized and shook him.

“Where does the beast live?”

Percival sagged in Jack’s grip.

“That’s a clever beast,” said Piggy, jeering, “if it can hide on this island.”

“Jack’s been everywhere——”

“Where could a beast live?”

“Beast my foot!”

Percival muttered something and the assembly laughed again. Ralph leaned forward.

“What does he say?”

Jack listened to Percival’s answer and then let go of him. Percival, released, surrounded by the comfortable presence of humans, fell in the long grass and went to sleep.

Jack cleared his throat, then reported casually.

“He says the beast comes out of the sea.”

The last laugh died away. Ralph turned involuntarily, a black, humped figure against the lagoon. The assembly looked with him; considered the vast stretches of water, the high sea beyond, unknown indigo of infinite possibility; heard silently the sough and whisper from the reef.

Maurice spoke—so loudly that they jumped.

“Daddy said they haven’t found all the animals in the sea yet.”

Argument started again. Ralph held out the glimmering conch and Maurice took it obediently. The meeting subsided.

“I mean when Jack says you can be frightened because people are frightened anyway that’s all right. But when he says there’s only pigs on this island I expect he’s right but he doesn’t know, not really, not certainly I mean”—Maurice took a breath—“My daddy says there’s things, what d’you call’em that make ink—squids—that are hundreds of yards long and eat whales whole.” He paused again and laughed gaily. “I don’t believe in the beast of course. As Piggy says, life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean——”

Someone shouted.

“A squid couldn’t come up out of the water!”

“Could!”

“Couldn’t!”

In a moment the platform was full of arguing, gesticulating shadows. To Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking-up of sanity. Fear, beasts, no general agreement that the fire was all-important: and when one tried to get the thing straight the argument sheered off, bringing up fresh, unpleasant matter.

He could see a whiteness in the gloom near him so he grabbed it from Maurice and blew as loudly as he could. The assembly was shocked into silence. Simon was close to him, laying hands on the conch. Simon felt a perilous necessity to speak; but to speak in assembly was a terrible thing to him.

“Maybe,” he said hesitantly, “maybe there is a beast.”

The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement.

“You, Simon? You believe in this?”

“I don’t know,” said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. “But….”

The storm broke.

“Sit down!”

“Shut up!”

“Take the conch!”

“Sod you!”

“Shut up!”

Ralph shouted.

“Hear him! He’s got the conch!”

“What I mean is … maybe it’s only us.”

“Nuts!”

That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum. Simon went on.

“We could be sort of….”

Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness. Inspiration came to him.

“What’s the dirtiest thing there is?”

As an answer Jack dropped into the uncomprehending silence that followed it the one crude expressive syllable. Release was like an orgasm. Those littluns who had climbed back on the twister fell off again and did not mind. The hunters were screaming with delight.

Simon’s effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly and he shrank away defenceless to his seat.

At last the assembly was silent again. Someone spoke out of turn.

“Maybe he means it’s some sort of ghost.”

Ralph lifted the conch and peered into the gloom. The lightest thing was the pale beach. Surely the littluns were nearer? Yes—there was no doubt about it, they were huddled into a tight knot of bodies in the central grass. A flurry of wind made the palms talk and the noise seemed very loud now that darkness and silence made it so noticeable. Two grey trunks rubbed each other with an evil squeaking that no one had noticed by day.

Piggy took the conch out of his hands. His voice was indignant.

“I don’t believe in no ghosts—ever!”

Jack was up too, unaccountably angry.

“Who cares what you believe—Fatty!”

“I got the conch!”

There was the sound of a brief tussle and the conch moved to and fro.

“You gimme the conch back!”

Ralph pushed between them and got a thump on the chest. He wrested the conch from someone and sat down breathlessly.

“There’s too much talk about ghosts. We ought to have left all this for daylight.”

A hushed and anonymous voice broke in.

“Perhaps that’s what the beast is—a ghost.”

The assembly was shaken as by a wind.

“There’s too much talking out of turn,” Ralph said, “because we can’t have proper assemblies if you don’t stick to the rules.”

He stopped again. The careful plan of this assembly had broken down.

“What d’you want me to say then? I was wrong to call this assembly so late. We’ll have a vote on them; on ghosts I mean; and then go to the shelters because we’re all tired. No—Jack is it?—wait a minute. I’ll say here and now that I don’t believe in ghosts. Or I don’t think I do. But I don’t like the thought of them. Not now that is, in the dark. But we were going to decide what’s what.”

He raised the conch for a moment.

“Very well then. I suppose what’s what is whether there are ghosts or not——”

He thought for a moment, formulating the question.

“Who thinks there may be ghosts?”

For a long time there was silence and no apparent movement. Then Ralph peered into the gloom and made out the hands. He spoke flatly.

“I see.”

The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now—and the ship had gone.

The conch was snatched from his hands and Piggy’s voice shrilled.

“I didn’t vote for no ghosts!”

He whirled round on the assembly.

“Remember that all of you!”

They heard him stamp.

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grown-ups going to think? Going off—hunting pigs—letting fires out—and now!”

A shadow fronted him tempestuously.

“You shut up, you fat slug!”

There was a moment’s struggle and the glimmering conch jigged up and down. Ralph leapt to his feet.

“Jack! Jack! You haven’t got the conch! Let him speak.”

Jack’s face swam near him.

“And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there—telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing——”

“I’m chief. I was chosen.”

“Why should choosing make any difference? Just giving orders that don’t make any sense——”

“Piggy’s got the conch.”

“That’s right—favour Piggy as you always do——”

“Jack!”

Jack’s voice sounded in bitter mimicry.

“Jack! Jack!”

“The rules!” shouted Ralph, “you’re breaking the rules!”

“Who cares?”

Ralph summoned his wits.

“Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!”

But Jack was shouting against him.

“Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat——”

He gave a wild whoop and leapt down to the pale sand. At once the platform was full of noise and excitement, scramblings, screams and laughter. The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond night-sight. Ralph found his cheek touching the conch and took it from Piggy.

“What’s grown-ups going to say?” cried Piggy again. “Look at ’em!”

The sound of mock hunting, hysterical laughter and real terror came from the beach.

“Blow the conch, Ralph.”

Piggy was so close that Ralph could see the glint of his one glass.

“There’s the fire. Can’t they see?”

“You got to be tough now. Make ’em do what you want.”

Ralph answered in the cautious voice of one who rehearses a theorem.

“If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.”

“If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway. I can’t see what they’re doing but I can hear.”

The dispersed figures had come together on the sand and were a dense black mass that revolved. They were chanting something and littluns that had had enough were staggering away, howling. Ralph raised the conch to his lips and then lowered it.

“The trouble is: Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?”

“Course there aren’t.”

“Why not?”

“’Cos things wouldn’t make sense. Houses an’ streets, an’—TV—they wouldn’t work.”

The dancing, chanting boys had worked themselves away till their sound was nothing but a wordless rhythm.

“But s’pose they don’t make sense? Not here, on this island? Supposing things are watching us and waiting?”

Ralph shuddered violently and moved closer to Piggy, so that they bumped frighteningly.

“You stop talking like that! We got enough trouble, Ralph, an’ I’ve had as much as I can stand. If there is ghosts——”

“I ought to give up being chief. Hear ’em.”

“Oh lord! Oh no!”

Piggy gripped Ralph’s arm.

“If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be here till we died.”

His voice ran up to a squeak.

“Who’s that sitting there?”

“Me. Simon.”

“Fat lot of good we are,” said Ralph. “Three blind mice. I’ll give up.”

“If you give up,” said Piggy, in an appalled whisper, “what’ud happen to me?”

“Nothing.”

“He hates me. I dunno why. If he could do what he wanted—you’re all right, he respects you. Besides—you’d hit him.”

“You were having a nice fight with him just now.”

“I had the conch,” said Piggy simply. “I had a right to speak.”

Simon stirred in the dark.

“Go on being chief.”

“You shut up, young Simon! Why couldn’t you say there wasn’t a beast?”

“I’m scared of him,” said Piggy, “and that’s why I know him. If you’re scared of someone you hate him but you can’t stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he’s all right really, an’ then when you see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can’t breathe. I tell you what. He hates you too, Ralph——”

“Me? Why me?”

“I dunno. You got him over the fire; an’ you’re chief an’ he isn’t.”

“But he’s, he’s, Jack Merridew!”

“I been in bed so much I done some thinking. I know about people. I know about me. And him. He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.”

“Piggy’s right, Ralph. There’s you and Jack. Go on being chief.”

“We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home there was always a grown-up. Please, sir; please, miss; and then you got an answer. How I wish!”

“I wish my auntie was here.”

“I wish my father . . O, what’s the use?”

“Keep the fire going.”

The dance was over and the hunters were going back to the shelters.

“Grown-ups know things,” said Piggy. “They ain’t afraid of the dark. They’d meet and have tea and discuss. Then things ’ud be all right——”

“They wouldn’t set fire to the island. Or lose——”

“They’d build a ship——”

The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.

“They wouldn’t quarrel——”

“Or break my specs——”

“Or talk about a beast——”

“If only they could get a message to us,” cried Ralph desperately. “If only they could send us something grown-up … a sign or something.”

A thin wail out of the darkness chilled them and set them grabbing for each other. Then the wail rose, remote and unearthly, and turned to an inarticulate gibbering. Percival Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, lying in the long grass, was living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to help him.