Lord of the Flies - William Golding [37]
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 grownup. Please, sir, please, miss; and then you got an answer. How I wish!"
"I wish my auntie was here."
"I wish my father. . . Oh, what's the use?"
"Keep the fire going."
The dance was over and the hunters were going back to the shelters.
"Grownups 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 grownup. . . 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.
CHAPTER SIX Beast from Air
There was no light left save that of the stars. When they had understood what made this ghostly noise and Percival was quiet again, Ralph and Simon picked him up unhandily and carried him to a shelter. Piggy hung about near for all his brave words, and the three bigger boys went 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' height. 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 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