Silence now. Ralph lifted the cream and pink shell to his knees and a sudden breeze scattered light over the platform. He was uncertain whether to stand up or remain sitting. He looked sideways to his left, toward the bathing pool. Piggy was sitting near but giving no help.

By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded. There were differences between this meeting and the one held in the morning. The afternoon sun slanted in from the other side of the platform and most of the children, feeling too late the smart of sunburn, had put their clothes on. The choir, less of a group, had discarded their cloaks.

Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass.

All at once he found he could talk fluently and explain what he had to say. He passed a hand through his fair hair and spoke.

"Well then."

Ralph cleared his throat.

"And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school."

All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing struggling in the creepers.

"Before I could kill it -- but -- next time!"

The meeting hummed and was silent.

"Yes. There are pigs on the island."

"There aren't any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves."

"So you see," said Ralph, "We need hunters to get us meat. And another thing."

"We saw --"

The meeting settled down again.

"We're on an island. We've been on the mountain top and seen water all round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We're on an uninhabited island with no other people on it."

"Squealing --"

Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly.

He lifted the shell on his knees and looked round the sun-slashed faces.

"It broke away --"

Jack broke in.

"All the same you need an army -- for hunting. Hunting pigs --"

He held the conch before his face and glanced round the mouth.

"We'll have rules!" he cried excitedly. "Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks 'em --"

"They knew at the airport."

He paused effectively.

"That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking."

"The man with a trumpet-thing --"

"Bong!"

"Look --"

"And he won't be interrupted: Except by me."

"Who knows we're here? Eh?"

"But --"

Piggy put on his glasses.

"You're hindering Ralph. You're not letting him get to the most important thing."

"Then I'll give him the conch."

"Doink!"

Ralph felt the conch lifted from his lap. Then Piggy was standing cradling the great cream shell and the shouting died down. Jack, left on his feet, looked uncertainly at Ralph who smiled and patted the log. Jack sat down. Piggy took off his glasses and blinked at the assembly while he wiped them on his shirt.

"Wacco!"

"My dad."

"Conch?"

"Whee -- oh!"

"Nobody knows where we are," said Piggy. He was paler than before and breathless. "Perhaps they knew where we was going to; and perhaps not. But they don't know where we are 'cos we never got there." He gaped at them for a moment, then swayed and sat down. Ralph took the conch from his hands.

Jack was on his feet.

"Blue flowers --"

He gesticulated widely.

"So we may be here a long time."

"But this is a good island. We -- Jack, Simon and me -- we climbed the mountain. It's wizard. There's food and drink, and --"

The silence was so complete that they could hear the unevenness of Piggy's breathing. The sun slanted in and lay golden over half the platform. The breezes that on the lagoon had chased their tails like kittens were finding their way across the platform and into the forest. Ralph pushed back the tangle of fair hair that hung on his forehead.

"While we're waiting we can have a good time on this island."

Piggy, partly recovered, pointed to the conch in Ralph's hands, and Jack and Simon fell silent. Ralph went on.

At once there was a clamor.

Nobody said anything. He grinned suddenly.

"Rocks --"

"It's like in a book."

"That's what I was going to say," he went on, "when you all, all…" He gazed at their intent faces. "The plane was shot down in flames. Nobody knows where we are. We may be here a long time."

Ralph waved the conch.

Jack held out his hand for the conch.

"Coral Island --"

"Treasure Island --"

He handed the conch back to Ralph and sat down. Apparently no one had found anything.

The other little boys, whispering but serious, pushed him toward Ralph.

"There's pigs," he said. "There's food; and bathing water in that little stream along there -- and everything. Didn't anyone find anything else?"

The older boys first noticed the child when he resisted. There was a group of little boys urging him forward and he did not want to go. He was a shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and one side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry-colored birthmark. He stood now, warped out of the perpendicular by the fierce light of publicity, and he bored into the coarse grass with one toe. He was muttering and about to cry.

"Swallows and Amazons --"

"All right," said Ralph, "come on then."

"This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun."

The small boy looked round in panic.

"Let him have the conch!" shouted Piggy. "Let him have it!"

"Tell us about the snake-thing."

"Speak up!"

"In the woods."

"Where?"

"A snake-thing. Ever so big. He saw it."

"Beastie?'

"You couldn't have a beastie, a snake-thing, on an island this size," Ralph explained kindly. "You only get them in big countries, like Africa, or India."

Ralph laughed, and the other boys laughed with him. The small boy twisted further into himself.

"He wants to know what you're going to do about the snake-thing."

At last Ralph induced him to hold the shell but by then the blow of laughter had taken away the child's voice. Piggy knelt by him, one hand on the great shell, listening and interpreting to the assembly.

Either the wandering breezes or perhaps the decline of the sun allowed a little coolness to lie under the trees. The boys felt it and stirred restlessly.

The small boy held out his hands for the conch and the assembly shouted with laughter; at once he snatched back his hands and started to cry.

"Now he says it was a beastie."

"Then he couldn't see it!"

"He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back tonight?"

"He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an' came back and wanted to eat him --"

Murmur; and the grave nodding of heads.

"Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark --"

"But there isn't a beastie!"

"He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those creepers."

"He says the beastie came in the dark."

There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation.

"He was dreaming."

More grave nodding; they knew about nightmares.

"He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?"

Laughing, Ralph looked for confirmation round the ring of faces. The older boys agreed; but here and there among the little ones was the doubt that required more than rational assurance.

"But there isn't a beastie!"

Laughter and cheers.

The assembly was silent.

"But there isn't a snake!"

"Ralph's right of course. There isn't a snake-thing. But if there was a snake we'd hunt it and kill it. We're going to hunt pigs to get meat for everybody. And we'll look for the snake too --"

Jack seized the conch.

"Now we come to the most important thing. I've been thinking. I was thinking while we were climbing the mountain." He flashed a conspiratorial grin at the other two. "And on the beach just now. This is what I thought. We want to have fun. And we want to be rescued."

"But I tell you there isn't a beast!"

The passionate noise of agreement from the assembly hit him like a wave and he lost his thread. He thought again.

Ralph was annoyed and, for the moment, defeated. He felt himself facing something ungraspable. The eyes that looked so intently at him were without humor.

Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to make the point, loudly and again.

"But there isn't a beast!"

Ralph lifted the conch again and his good humor came back as he thought of what he had to say next.

"We'll make sure when we go hunting."

Voices babbled. The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the weight of Ralph's new authority, brought light and happiness. He had to wave the conch before he could make them hear him.

"We want to be rescued; and of course we shall be rescued."

"My father's in the Navy. He said there aren't any unknown islands left. He says the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are drawn there. So the Queen's got a picture of this island."

Again came the sounds of cheerfulness and better heart.

"And sooner or later a ship will put in here. It might even be Daddy's ship. So you see, sooner or later, we shall be rescued."

Ralph waved the conch.

He paused, with the point made. The assembly was lifted toward safety by his words. They liked and now respected him. Spontaneously they began to clap and presently the platform was loud with applause. Ralph flushed, looking sideways at Piggy's open admiration, and then the other way at Jack who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap.

"I bet it's gone tea-time," said Piggy. "What do they think they're going to do on that mountain?"

"Shut up! Wait! Listen!"

"A fire! Make a fire!"

At once half the boys were on their feet. Jack clamored among them, the conch forgotten.

"Like kids!" he said scornfully. "Acting like a crowd of kids!"

He went on in the silence, borne on his triumph.

The space under the palm trees was full of noise and movement. Ralph was on his feet too, shouting for quiet, but no one heard him. All at once the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone -- following Jack. Even the tiny children went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches. Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy.

Piggy's breathing was quite restored.

"Come on! Follow me!"

Ralph looked at him doubtfully and laid the conch on the tree trunk.

"There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire."

He caressed the shell respectfully, then stopped and looked up.

Piggy watched him in disgust.

Ralph was already clambering over the first smashed swathes of the scar. A long way ahead of him was crashing and laughter.

Below the other side of the mountain top was a platform of forest. Once more Ralph found himself making the cupping gesture.

"Ralph! Hey! Where you going?"

He sighed, bent, and laced up his shoes. The noise of the errant assembly faded up the mountain. Then, with the martyred expression of a parent who has to keep up with the senseless ebullience of the children, he picked up the conch, turned toward the forest, and began to pick his way over the tumbled scar.

"Like a crowd of kids --"

Jack nodded and pulled at his underlip. Starting perhaps a hundred feet below them on the steeper side of the mountain, the patch might have been designed expressly for fuel. Trees, forced by the damp heat, found too little soil for full growth, fell early and decayed: creepers cradled them, and new saplings searched a way up.

"Down there we could get as much wood as we want."

Jack turned to the choir, who stood ready. Their black caps of maintenance were slid over one ear like berets.

"We'll build a pile. Come on."

They found the likeliest path down and began tugging at the dead wood. And the small boys who had reached the top came sliding too till everyone but Piggy was busy. Most of the wood was so rotten that when they pulled, it broke up into a shower of fragments and woodlice and decay; but some trunks came out in one piece. The twins, Sam 'n Eric, were the first to get a likely log but they could do nothing till Ralph, Jack, Simon, Roger and Maurice found room for a hand-hold. Then they inched the grotesque dead thing up the rock and toppled it over on top. Each party of boys added a quota, less or more, and the pile grew. At the return Ralph found himself alone on a limb with Jack and they grinned at each other, sharing this burden. Once more, amid the breeze, the shouting, the slanting sunlight on the high mountain, was shed that glamour, that strange invisible light of friendship, adventure, and content.

"Not for the two of us."

Jack grinned back.

"Almost too heavy."

Together, joined in an effort by the burden, they staggered up the last steep Of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure, so that immediately Ralph had to stand on his head. Below them, boys were still laboring, though some of the small ones had lost interest and were searching this new forest for fruit. Now the twins, with unsuspected intelligence, came up the mountain with armfuls of dried leaves and dumped them against the pile. One by one, as they sensed that the pile was complete, the boys stopped going back for more and stood, with the pink, shattered top of the mountain around them. Breath came evenly by now, and sweat dried.

Ralph and Jack looked at each other while society paused about them. The shameful knowledge grew in them and they did not know how to begin confession.

Ralph spoke first, crimson in the face.

"Will you?"

Ralph shouted at him.

The other boys took up the cry till the mountain rang. Piggy shook his head and came to the pile.

Jack pointed suddenly.

"You rub two sticks. You rub --"

"You make a bow and spin the arrow," said Roger. He rubbed his hands in mime. "Psss. Psss."

"My! You've made a big heap, haven't you?"

"Will you light the fire?"

"Piggy! Have you got any matches?"

"Has anyone got any matches?"

He cleared his throat and went on.

Now the absurd situation was open, Jack blushed too. He began to mutter vaguely.

A little air was moving over the mountain. Piggy came with it, in shorts and shirt, laboring cautiously out of the forest with the evening sunlight gleaming from his glasses. He held the conch under his arm.

"His specs -- use them as burning glasses!"

Piggy was surrounded before he could back away.

He glanced at Ralph, who blurted out the last confession of incompetence.

"Here -- let me go!" His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face. "Mind out! Give 'em back! I can hardly see! You'll break the conch!"

"Stand out of the light."

Ralph elbowed him to ne side and knelt by the pile.

There was pushing and pulling and officious cries. Ralph moved the lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. Almost at once a thin trickle of smoke rose up and made him cough. Jack knelt too and blew gently, so that the smoke drifted away, thickening, and a tiny flame appeared. The flame, nearly invisible at first in that bright sunlight, enveloped a small twig, grew, was enriched with color and reached up to a branch which exploded with a sharp crack. The flame flapped higher and the boys broke into a cheer.

"My specs!" howled Piggy. "Give me my specs!"

Ralph stood away from the pile and put the glasses into Piggy's groping hands. His voice subsided to a mutter.

The boys were dancing. The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry, that whole limbs yielded passionately to the yellow flames that poured upwards and shook a great beard of flame twenty feet in the air. For yards round the fire the heat was like a blow, and the breeze was a river of sparks. Trunks crumbled to white dust.

"Jus' blurs, that's all. Hardly see my hand --"

"More wood! All of you get more wood!"

Life became a race with the fire and the boys scattered through the upper forest. To keep a clean flag of flame flying on the mountain was the immediate end and no one looked further. Even the smallest boys, unless fruit claimed them, brought little pieces of wood and threw them in. The air moved a little faster and became a light wind, so that leeward and windward side were clearly differentiated. On one side the air was cool, but on the other the fire thrust out a savage arm of heat that crinkled hair on the instant. Boys who felt the evening wind on their damp faces paused to enjoy the freshness of it and then found they were exhausted. They flung themselves down in the shadows that lay among the shattered rocks. The beard of flame diminished quickly; then the pile fell inwards with a soft, cindery sound, and sent a great tree of sparks upwards that leaned away and drifted downwind. The boys lay, panting like dogs.

Ralph shouted.

Ralph raised his head off his forearms.

"I got the conch," said Piggy indignantly. "You let me speak!"

"You shut up!"

"What d'you mean?"

"We haven't made a fire," he said, "what's any use. We couldn't keep a fire like that going, not if we tried."

Piggy wilted. Ralph took the conch from him and looked round the circle of boys.

"A fat lot you tried," said Jack contemptuously. "You just sat."

"I got the conch in my hand."

Roger spat efficiently into the hot dust.

"That was no good."

"We used his specs," said Simon, smearing a black cheek with his forearm. "He helped that way."

"Put on green branches," said Maurice. "That's the best way to make smoke."

"The conch doesn't count on top of the mountain," said Jack, "so you shut up."

"I got the conch --"

Jack turned fiercely.

"There wasn't any smoke. Only flame."

"We've got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day there may be a ship out there"-- he waved his arm at the taut wire of the horizon --"and if we have a signal going they'll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that's a meeting. The same up here as down there."

Piggy had settled himself in a space between two rocks, and sat with the conch on his knees.

"I agree with Ralph. We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right things."

They assented. Piggy opened his mouth to speak, caught Jack's eye and shut it again. Jack held out his hands for the conch and stood up, holding the delicate thing carefully in his sooty hands.

"Ralph, I'll split up the choir -- my hunters, that is -- into groups, and we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going --"

The assembly assented gravely.

"And we'll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship out there"-- they followed the direction of his bony arm with their eyes --"we'll put green branches on. Then there'll be more smoke."

"We'll let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at night-time, anyway? And we can start the fire again whenever we like. Altos, you can keep the fire going this week, and trebles the next --"

He turned to Ralph.

This generosity brought a spatter of applause from the boys, so that Jack grinned at them, then waved the conch for silence.

"I've been watching the sea. There hasn't been the trace of a ship. Perhaps we'll never be rescued."

"I said before we'll be rescued sometime. We've just got to wait, that's all."

"That's what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up --"

They gazed intently at the dense blue of the horizon, as if a little silhouette might appear there at any moment.

The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid nearer and nearer the sill of the world. All at once they were aware of the evening as the end of light and warmth.

Daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch.

Roger took the conch and looked round at them gloomily.

His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination. They stirred and began to shout him down.

A murmur rose and swept away. Ralph took back the conch.

He paused in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the unfriendly side of the mountain to the great patch where they had found dead wood. Then he laughed so strangely that they were hushed, looking at the flash of his spectacles in astonishment. They followed his gaze to find the sour joke.

"You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a hayrick. If I say anything," cried Piggy, with bitter realism, "you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon --"

"You got your small fire all right."

Smoke was rising here and there among the creepers that festooned the dead or dying trees. As they watched, a flash of fire appeared at the root of one wisp, and then the smoke thickened. Small flames stirred at the trunk of a tree and crawled away through leaves and brushwood, dividing and increasing. One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. At the sight of the flames and the irresistible course of the fire, the boys broke into shrill, excited cheering. The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches grew a brief foliage of fire. The heart of flame leapt nimbly across the gap between the trees and then went swinging and flaring along the whole row of them. Beneath the capering boys a quarter of a mile square of forest was savage with smoke and flame. The separate noises of the fire merged into a drum-roll that seemed to shake the mountain.

"We wanted smoke --"

The twins giggled together.

"You got your small fire all right."

"There ain't nothing we can do. We ought to be more careful. I'm scared --"

"Now look --!"

They looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw, and cocked ears at the drum-roll of the fire. Piggy glanced nervously into hell and cradled the conch.

"The conch. I got a right to speak."

"We got to let that burn out now. And that was our firewood."

Startled, Ralph realized that the boys were falling still and silent, feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free below them. The knowledge and the awe made him savage.

Unwillingly Ralph turned away from the splendid, awful sight.

A pall stretched for miles away from the island. All the boys except Piggy started to giggle; presently they were shrieking with laughter.

He licked his lips.

"You're always scared. Yah -- Fatty!"

Jack dragged his eyes away from the fire.

"What's that?"

"I got the conch," said Piggy, in a hurt voice. "I got a right to speak."

"I got the conch," said Piggy bleakly. He turned to Ralph. "I got the conch, ain't I Ralph?"

"Oh, shut up!"

Piggy lost his temper.

"I got the conch! Just you listen! The first thing we ought to have made was shelters down there by the beach. It wasn't half cold down there in the night. But the first time Ralph says 'fire' you goes howling and screaming up this here mountain. Like a pack of kids!"

By now they were listening to the tirade.

He took off his glasses and made as if to put down the conch; but the sudden motion toward it of most of the older boys changed his mind. He tucked the shell under his arm, and crouched back on a rock.

"How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper?"

"Then when you get here you build a bonfire that isn't no use. Now you been and set the whole island on fire. Won't we look funny if the whole island burns up? Cooked fruit, that's what we'll have to eat, and roast pork. And that's nothing to laugh at! You said Ralph was chief and you don't give him time to think. Then when he says something you rush off, like, like --"

He paused for breath, and the fire growled at them.

"I told you to. I told you to get a list of names!"

"How could I," cried Piggy indignantly, "all by myself? They waited for two minutes, then they fell in the sea; they went into the forest; they just scattered everywhere. How was I to know which was which?"

Ralph licked pale lips.

Piggy stood up and pointed to the smoke and flames. A murmur rose among the boys and died away. Something strange was happening to Piggy, for he was gasping for breath.

Jack turned on him.

"That's enough!" said Ralph sharply, and snatched back the conch. "If you didn't you didn't."

"And that's not all. Them kids. The little 'uns. Who took any notice of 'em? Who knows how many we got?"

"Then you don't know how many of us there ought to be?"

"You shut up!"

Ralph took a sudden step forward.

"How could I with them little 'uns running round like insects? Then when you three came back, as soon as you said make a fire, they all ran away, and I never had a chance --"

"-- then you come up here an' pinch my specs --"

"-- and them little 'uns was wandering about down there where the fire is. How d'you know they aren't still there?"

In the west, and unheeded, the sun lay only an inch or two above the sea. Their faces were lit redly from beneath. Piggy fell against a rock and clutched it with both hands.

"Him that talked about the snakes. He was down there --"

The crowd was as silent as death.

A tree exploded in the fire like a bomb. Tall swathes of creepers rose for a moment into view, agonized, and went down again. The little boys screamed at them.

"Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!"

"That little 'un --" gasped Piggy --"him with the mark on his face, I don't see him. Where is he now?"

"That little 'un that had a mark on his face -- where is -- he now? I tell you I don't see him."

Ralph muttered the reply as if in shame. "Perhaps he went back to the, the --"

Beneath them, on the unfriendly side of the mountain, the drum-roll continued.

"-- where is he now?"

The boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving.