Piggy eyed the advancing figure carefully. Nowadays he sometimes found that he saw more clearly if he removed his glasses and shifted the one lens to the other eye; but even through the good eye, after what had happened, Ralph remained unmistakably Ralph. He came now out of the coconut trees, limping, dirty, with dead leaves hanging from his shock of yellow hair. One eye was a slit in his puffy cheek and a great scab had formed on his right knee. He paused for a moment and peered at the figure on the platform.
'Piggy? Are you the only one left?'
'There's some littluns.'
'They don't count. No biguns?'
'Oh-Samneric. They're collecting wood.'
'Nobody else?'
'Not that I know of.'
Ralph climbed on to the platform carefully. The coarse grass was still worn away where the assembly used to sit; the fragile white conch still gleamed by the polished seat. Ralph sat down in the grass facing the chief's seat and the conch. Piggy knelt at his left, and for a long minute there was silence.
At last Ralph cleared his throat and whispered something.
Piggy whispered back.
'What you say?'
Ralph spoke up.
'Simon.'
Piggy said nothing but nodded, solemnly. They continued to sit, gazing with impaired sight at the chief's seat and the glittering lagoon. The green light and the glossy patches of sunshine played over their befouled bodies.
At length Ralph got up and went to the conch. He took the shell caressingly with both hands and knelt, leaning against the trunk.
'Piggy.'
'Uh?'
'What we going to do?'
Piggy nodded at the conch.
'You could-'
'Call an assembly?'
Ralph laughed sharply as he said the word and Piggy frowned.
'You're still chief.'
Ralph laughed again.
'You are. Over us.'
'I got the conch.'
'Ralph! Stop laughing like that. Look, there ain't no need, Ralph! What's the others going to think?'
At last Ralph stopped. He was shivering.
'Piggy.'
'Uh?'
'That was Simon.'
'You said that before.'
'Piggy.'
'Uh?'
'That was murder.'
'You stop it!' said Piggy, shrilly. 'What good're you doing talking like that?'
He jumped to his feet and stood over Ralph.
'It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!'
'I wasn't scared,' said Ralph slowly, 'I was-I don't know what I was.'
'We was scared!' said Piggy excitedly. 'Anything might have happened. It wasn't-what you said.'
He was gesticulating, searching for a formula.
'Oh, Piggy!'
Ralph's voice, low and stricken, stopped Piggy's gestures. He bent down and waited. Ralph, cradling the conch, rocked himself to and fro.
'Don't you understand, Piggy? The things we did-'
'He may still be-'
'No.'
'P'raps he was only pretending-'
Piggy's voice trailed off at the sight of Ralph's face.
'You were outside. Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn't you see what we-what they did?'
There was loathing, and at the same time a kind of feverish excitement, in his voice.
'Didn't you see, Piggy?'
'Not all that well. I only got one eye now. You ought to know that, Ralph.'
Ralph continued to rock to and fro.
'It was an accident,' said Piggy suddenly, 'that's what it was. An accident.' His voice shrilled again. 'Coming in the dark-he hadn't no business crawling like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it.' He gesticulated widely again. 'It was an accident.'
'You didn't see what they did-'
'Look, Ralph. We got to forget this. We can't do no good thinking about it, see?'
'I'm frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home.'
'It was an accident,' said Piggy stubbornly, 'and that's that.'
He touched Ralph's bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human contact.
'And look, Ralph'-Piggy glanced round quickly, then leaned close-'don't let on we was in that dance. Not to Samneric.'
'But we were! All of us!'
Piggy shook his head.
'Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I was only on the outside.'
'So was I,' muttered Ralph, 'I was on the outside too.'
Piggy nodded eagerly.
'That's right. We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never seen nothing.'
Piggy paused, then went on.
'We'll live on our own, the four of us-'
'Four of us. We aren't enough to keep the fire burning.'
'We'll try. See? I lit it.'
Samneric came dragging a great log out of the forest. They dumped it by the fire and turned to the pool. Ralph jumped to his feet.
'Hi! You two!'
The twins checked a moment, then walked on.
'They're going to bathe, Ralph.'
'Better get it over.'
The twins were very surprised to see Ralph. They flushed and looked past him into the air.
'Hullo. Fancy meeting you, Ralph.'
'We just been in the forest-'
'-to get wood for the fire-'
'-we got lost last night.'
Ralph examined his toes.
'You got lost after the . . .'
