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Воскресенье, 11 Марта 2012 г. 19:56 + в цитатник

Chapter Twelve.
Cry of the Hunters

   Ralph lay in a covert, wondering about his wounds. The bruised flesh was inches in diameter over his right ribs, with a swollen and bloody scar where the spear had hit him. His hair was full of dirt and tapped like the tendrils of a creeper. All over he was scratched and bruised from his flight through the forest. By the time his breathing was normal again, he had worked out that bathing these injuries would have to wait. How could you listen for naked feet if you were splashing in water? How could you be safe by the little stream or on the open beach?

   Ralph listened. He was not really far from the Castle Rock, and during the first panic he had thought he heard sounds of pursuit But the hunters had only sneaked into the fringes of the greenery, retrieving spears perhaps, and then had rushed back to the sunny rock as if terrified of the darkness under the leaves. He had even glimpsed one of them, striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt.

   The afternoon died away; the circular spots of sunlight moved steadily over green fronds and brown fiber but no sound came from behind the rock. At last Ralph wormed out of the ferns and sneaked forward to the edge of that impenetrable thicket that fronted the neck of land. He peered with elaborate caution between branches at the edge and could see Robert sitting on guard at the top of the cliff. He held a spear in his left hand and was tossing up a pebble and catching it again with the right. Behind him a column of smoke rose thickly, so that Ralph’s nostrils flared and his mouth dribbled. He wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and for the first time since the morning felt hungry. The tribe must be sitting round the gutted pig, watching the fat ooze and burn among the ashes. They would be intent

   Another figure, an unrecognizable one, appeared by Robert and gave him something, then turned and went back behind the rock. Robert laid his spear on the rock beside him and began to gnaw between his raised hands. So the feast was beginning and the watchman had been given his portion.

   Ralph saw that for the time being he was safe. He limped away through the fruit trees, drawn by the thought of the poor food yet bitter when he remembered the feast. Feast today, and then tomorrow…

   He argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again. The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further. Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who therefore would never let him alone; never.

   He paused, sun-flecked, holding up a bough, prepared to duck under it A spasm of terror set him shaking and he cried aloud.

   “No. They’re not as bad as that. It was an accident.”

   He ducked under the bough, ran clumsily, then stopped and listened.

   He came to the smashed acres of fruit and ate greedily. He saw two littluns and, not having any idea of his own appearance, wondered why they screamed and ran.

   When he had eaten he went toward the beach. The sunlight was slanting now into the palms by the wrecked shelter. There was the platform and the pool. The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe had eaten, the thing to do was to try again. And anyway, he couldn’t stay here all night in an empty shelter by the deserted platform. His flesh crept and he shivered in the evening sun. No fire; no smoke; no rescue. He turned and limped away through the forest toward Jack’s end of the island.

   The slanting sticks of sunlight were lost among the branches. At length he came to a clearing in the forest where rock prevented vegetation from growing. Now it was a pool of shadows and Ralph nearly flung himself behind a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig’s skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless.

   Or was it?

   Little prickles of sensation ran up and down his back. He stood, the skull about on a level with his face, and held up his hair with two hands. The teeth grinned, the empty sockets seemed to hold his gaze masterfully and without effort.

   What was it?

   The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell. A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to the skull that lay grinning at the sky.

   When the green glow had gone from the horizon and night was fully accomplished, Ralph came again to the thicket in front of the Castle Rock. Peeping through, he could see that the height was still occupied, and whoever it was up there had a spear at the ready.

   He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the deep night were coming on.

   Ralph moaned faintly. Tired though he was, he could not relax and fall into a well of sleep for fear of the tribe. Might it not be possible to walk boldly into the fort, say—”I’ve got pax,” laugh lightly and sleep among the others? Pretend they were still boys, schoolboys who had said, “Sir, yes, Sir”—and worn caps? Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the horrors of death said no. Lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an outcast.

   “‘Cos I had some sense.”

   He rubbed his cheek along his forearm, smelling the acrid scent of salt and sweat and the staleness of dirt. Over to the left, the waves of ocean were breathing, sucking down, then boiling back over the rock.

   There were sounds coming from behind the Castle Rock Listening carefully, detaching his mind from the swing of the sea, Ralph could make out a familiar rhythm.

   “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

   The tribe was dancing. Somewhere on the other side of this rocky wall there would be a dark circle, a glowing fire, and meat. They would be savoring food and the comfort of safety.

   A noise nearer at hand made him quiver. Savages were clambering up the Castle Rock, right up to the top, and he could hear voices. He sneaked forward a few yards and saw the shape at the top of the rock change and enlarge. There were only two boys on the island who moved or talked like that.

   Ralph put his head down on his forearms and accepted this new fact like a wound. Samneric were part of the tribe now. They were guarding the Castle Rock against him. There was no chance of rescuing them and building up an outlaw tribe at the other end of the island. Samneric were savages like the rest; Piggy was dead, and the conch smashed to powder.

   At length the guard climbed down. The two that remained seemed nothing more than a dark extension of the rock. A star appeared behind them and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.

   Ralph edged forward, feeling his way over the uneven surface as though he were bund. There were miles of vague water at his right and the restless ocean lay under his left hand, as awful as the shaft of a pit. Every minute the water breathed round the death rock and flowered into a field of whiteness. Ralph crawled until he found the ledge of the entry in his grasp. The lookouts were immediately above him and he could see the end of a spear projecting over the rock.

   He called very gently.

   “Samneric—”

   There was no reply. To carry he must speak louder; and this would rouse those striped and inimical creatures from their feasting by the fire. He set his teeth and started to climb, finding the holds by touch. The stick that had supported a skull hampered him but he would not be parted from his only weapon. He was nearly level with the twins before he spoke again.

   “Samneric—”

   He heard a cry and a flurry from the rock. The twins had grabbed each other and were gibbering.

   “It’s me. Ralph.”

   Terrified that they would run and give the alarm, he hauled himself up until his head and shoulders stuck over the top. Far below his armpit he saw the luminous flowering round the rock.

   “It’s only me. Ralph.”

   At length they bent forward and peered in his face.

   “We thought it was—”

   “—we didn’t know what it was—”

   “—we thought—”

   Memory of their new and shameful loyalty came to them. Eric was silent but Sam tried to do his duty.

   “You got to go, Ralph. You go away now—”

   He wagged his spear and essayed fierceness.

   “You shove off. See?”

   Eric nodded agreement and jabbed his spear in the air. Ralph leaned on his arms and did not go.

   “I came to see you two.”

   His voice was thick. His throat was hurting him now though it had received no wound.

   “I came to see you two—”

   Words could not express the dull pain of these things. He fell silent, while the vivid stars were spilt and danced all ways.

   Sam shifted uneasily.

   “Honest, Ralph, you’d better go.”

   Ralph looked up again.

   “You two aren’t painted. How can you—? If it were light—”

   If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But the night was dark. Eric took up; and then the twins started their antiphonal speech.

   “You got to go because it’s not safe—”

   “—they made us. They hurt us—”

   “Who? Jack?”

   “Oh no—”

   They bent to him and lowered their voices.

   “Push off, Ralph—’

   “—it’s a tribe—”

   “—they made us—”

   “—we couldn’t help it—”

   When Ralph spoke again his voice was low, and seemed breathless.

   “What have I done? I liked him—and I wanted us to be rescued—”

   Again the stars spilled about the sky. Eric shook his head, earnestly.

   “Listen, Ralph. Never mind what’s sense. That’s gone—”

   “Never mind about the chief—”

   “—you got to go for your own good.”

   “The chief and Roger—”

   “—yes, Roger—”

   “They hate you, Ralph. They’re going to do you.”

   “They’re going to hunt you tomorrow.”

   “But why?”

   “I dunno. And Ralph, Jack, the chief, says it’ll be dangerous—”

   “—and we’ve got to be careful and throw our spears like at a pig.”

   “We’re going to spread out in a line across the island—”

   “—we’re going forward from this end—”

   “—until we find you.”

   “We’ve got to give signals like this.”

   Eric raised his head and achieved a faint ululation by beating on his open mouth. Then he glanced behind him nervously.

   “Like that—”

   “—only louder, of course.”

   “But I’ve done nothing,” whispered Ralph, urgently. I only wanted to keep up a fire!”

   He paused for a moment, thinking miserably of the morrow. A matter of overwhelming importance occurred to him.

   “What are you—?”

   He could not bring himself to be specific at first; but then fear and loneliness goaded him.

   “When they find me, what are they going to do?” The twins were silent. Beneath him, the death rock flowered again.

   “What are they—oh God! I’m hungry—”

   The towering rock seemed to sway under him.

   “Well—what—?”

   The twins answered his question indirectly.

   “You got to go now, Ralph.”

   “For your own good.”

   “Keep away. As far as you can.”

   “Won’t you come with me? Three of us—we’d stand a chance.”.

   After a moment’s silence, Sam spoke in a strangled voice.

   “You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.”

   “And the chief—they’re both—”

   “—terrors—”

   “—only Roger—”

   Both boys froze. Someone was climbing toward them from the tribe.

   “He’s coming to see if we’re keeping watch. Quick, Ralph!”

   As he prepared to let himself down the cliff, Ralph snatched at the last possible advantage to be wrung out of this meeting.

   “I’ll lie up close; in that thicket down there,” he whispered, “so keep them away from it. They’ll never think to took so close—”

   The footsteps were still some distance away.

   “Sam—I’m going to be all right, aren’t I?”

   The twins were silent again.

   “Here!” said Sam suddenly. “Take this—”

   Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it.

   “But what are you going to do when you catch me?”

   Silence above. He sounded silly to himself. He lowered himself down the rock.

   “What are you going to do—?”

   From the top of the towering rock came the incomprehensible reply.

   “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends.”

   Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning to this but could not. He used all the bad words he could think of in a fit of temper that passed into yawning. How long could you go without sleep? He yearned for a bed and sheets—but the only whiteness here was the slow spilt milk, luminous round the rock forty feet below, where Piggy had fallen. Piggy was everywhere, was on this neck, was become terrible in darkness and death. If Piggy were to come back now out of the water, with his empty head—Ralph whimpered and yawned like a littlun. The stick in his hand became a crutch on which he reeled.

   Then he tensed again. There were voices raised on the top of the Castle Rock. Samneric were arguing with someone. But the ferns and the grass were near. That was the place to be in, hidden, and next to the thicket that would serve for tomorrow’s hide-out. Here—and his hands touched grass—was a place to be in for the night, not far from the tribe, so that if the horrors of the supernatural emerged one could at least mix with humans for the time being, even if it meant…

   What did it mean? A stick sharpened at both ends. What was there in that? They had thrown spears and missed; all but one. Perhaps they would miss next time, too.

   He squatted down in the tall grass, remembered the meat that Sam had given him, and began to tear at it ravenously. While he was eating, he heard fresh noises—cries of pain from Samneric, cries of panic, angry voices. What did it mean? Someone besides himself was in trouble, for at least one of the twins was catching it. Then the voices passed away down the rock and he ceased to think of them. He felt with his hands and found cool, delicate fronds backed against the thicket. Here then was the night’s lair. At first light he would creep into the thicket, squeeze between the twisted stems, ensconce himself so deep that only a crawler like himself could come through, and that crawler would be jabbed. There he would sit, and the search would pass him by, and the cordon waver on, ululating along the island, and he would be free.

   He pulled himself between the ferns, tunneling in. He laid the stick beside him, and huddled himself down in the blackness. One must remember to wake at first light, in order to diddle the savages—and he did not know how quickly sleep came and hurled him down a dark interior slope.

   He was awake before his eyes were open, listening to a noise that was near. He opened an eye, found the mold an inch or so from his face and his fingers gripped into it, light filtering between the fronds of fern. He had just time to realize that the age-long nightmares of falling and death were past and that the morning was come, when he heard the sound again. It was an ululation over by the seashore—and now the next savage answered and the next. The cry swept by him across the narrow end of the island from sea to lagoon, like the cry of a flying bird. He took no time to consider but grabbed his sharp stick and wriggled back among the ferns. Within seconds he was worming his way into the thicket; but not before he had glimpsed the legs of a savage coming toward him. The ferns were thumped and beaten and he heard legs moving in the long grass. The savage, whoever he was, ululated twice; and the cry was repeated in both directions, then died away. Ralph crouched still, tangled in the ferns, and for a time he heard nothing.

   At last he examined the thicket itself. Certainly no one could attack him here—and moreover he had a stroke of luck. The great rock that had killed Piggy had bounded into this thicket and bounced there, right in the center, making a smashed space a few feet in extent each way. When Ralph had wriggled into this he felt secure, and clever. He sat down carefully among the smashed stems and waited for the hunt to pass. Looking up between the leaves he caught a glimpse of something red. That must be the top of the Castle Rock, distant and unmenacing. He composed himself triumphantly, to hear the sounds of the hunt dying away.

   Yet no one made a sound; and as the minutes passed, in the green shade, his feeling of triumph faded.

   At last he heard a voice—Jack’s voice, but hushed.

   “Are you certain?”

   The savage addressed said nothing. Perhaps he made a gesture.

   Roger spoke.

   “If you’re fooling us—”

   Immediately after this, there came a gasp, and a squeal of pain. Ralph crouched instinctively. One of the twins was there, outside the thicket, with Jack and Roger.

   “You’re sure he meant in there?”

   The twin moaned faintly and then squealed again.

   “He meant he’d hide in there?”

   “Yes—yes—oh—!”

   Silvery laughter scattered among the trees.

   So they knew.

   Ralph picked up his stick and prepared for battle. But what could they do? It would take them a week to break a path through the thicket; and anyone who wormed his way in would be helpless. He felt the point of his spear with his thumb and grinned without amusement Whoever tried that would be stuck, squealing like a pig.

   They were going away, back to the tower rock. He could hear feet moving and then someone sniggered. There came again that high, bird-like cry that swept along the line, So some were still watching for him; but some—?

   There was a long, breathless silence. Ralph found that he had bark in his mouth from the gnawed spear. He stood and peered upwards to the Castle Rock.

   As he did so, he heard Jack’s voice from the top.

   “Heave! Heave! Heave!”

   The red rock that he could see at the top of the cliff vanished like a curtain, and he could see figures and blue sky. A moment later the earth jolted, there was a rushing sound in the air, and the top of the thicket was cuffed as with a gigantic hand. The rock bounded on, thumping and smashing toward the beach, while a shower of broken twigs and leaves fell on him. Beyond the thicket, the tribe was cheering.

   Silence again.

   Ralph put his fingers in his mouth and bit them. There was only one other rock up there that they might conceivably move; but that was half as big as a cottage, big as a car, a tank. He visualized its probable progress with agonizing clearness—that one would start slowly, drop from ledge to ledge, trundle across the neck like an outsize steam roller.

   “Heave! Heave! Heave!”

   Ralph put down his spear, then picked it up again. He pushed his hair back irritably, took two hasty steps across the little space and then came back. He stood looking at the broken ends of branches.

   Still silence.

   He caught sight of the rise and fall of his diaphragm and was surprised to see how quickly he was breathing. Just left of center his heart-beats were visible. He put the spear down again.

   “Heave! Heave! Heave!”

   A shrill, prolonged cheer.

   Something boomed up on the red rock, then the earth jumped and began to shake steadily, while the noise as steadily increased. Ralph was shot into the air, thrown down, dashed against branches. At his right hand, and only a few feet away, the whole thicket bent and the roots screamed as they came out of the earth together. He saw something red that turned over slowly as a mill wheel. Then the red thing was past and the elephantine progress diminished toward the sea.

   Ralph knelt on the plowed-up soil, and waited for the earth to come back. Presently the white, broken stumps, the split sticks and the tangle of the thicket refocused. There was a kind of heavy feeling in his body where he had watched his own pulse.

   Silence again.

   Yet not entirely so. They were whispering out there; and suddenly the branches were shaken furiously at two places on his right. The pointed end of a stick appeared. In panic, Ralph thrust his own stick through the crack and struck with all his might.

   “Aaa-ah!”

   His spear twisted a little in his hands and then he withdrew it again.

   “Ooh-ooh—”

   Someone was moaning outside and a babble of voices rose. A fierce argument was going on and the wounded savage kept groaning. Then when there was silence, a single voice spoke and Ralph decided that it was not Jack’s.

   “See? I told you—he’s dangerous.”

   The wounded savage moaned again.

   What else? What next?

   Ralph fastened his hands round the chewed spear and his hair fell. Someone was muttering, only a few yards away toward the Castle Rock. He heard a savage say “No!” in a shocked voice; and then there was suppressed laughter. He squatted back on his heels and showed his teeth at the wall of branches. He raised his spear, snarled a little, and waited.

   Once more the invisible group sniggered. He heard a curious trickling sound and then a louder crepitation as if someone were unwrapping great sheets of cellophane. A stick snapped and he stifled a cough. Smoke was seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud, and then the smoke billowed round him.

   Someone laughed excitedly, and a voice shouted.

   “Smoke!”

   He wormed his way through the thicket toward the forest, keeping as far as possible beneath the smoke. Presently he saw open space, and the green leaves of the edge of the thicket. A smallish savage was standing between him and the rest of the forest, a savage striped red and white, and carrying a spear. He was coughing and smearing the paint about his eyes with the back of his hand as he tried to see through the increasing smoke. Ralph launched himself like a cat; stabbed, snarling, with the spear, and the savage doubled up. There was a shout from beyond the thicket and then Ralph was running with the swiftness of fear through the undergrowth. He came to a pig-run, followed it for perhaps a hundred yards, and then swerved off. Behind him the ululation swept across the island once more and a single voice shouted three times. He guessed that was the signal to advance and sped away again, till his chest was like fire. Then he flung himself down under a bush and waited for a moment till his breathing steadied. He passed his tongue tentatively over his teeth and lips and heard far off the ululation of the pursuers.

   There were many things he could do. He could climb a tree; but that was putting all his eggs in one basket. If he were detected, they had nothing more difficult to do than wait.

   If only one had time to think!

   Another double cry at the same distance gave him a clue to their plan. Any savage balked in the forest would utter the double shout and hold up the line till he was free again. That way they might hope to keep the cordon unbroken right across the island. Ralph thought of the boar that had broken through them with such ease. If necessary, when the chase came too close, he could charge the cordon while it was still thin, burst through, and run back. But run back where? The cordon would turn and sweep again. Sooner or later he would have to sleep or eat—and then he would awaken with hands clawing at him; and the hunt would become a running down.

   What was to be done, then? The tree? Burst the line like a boar? Either way the choice was terrible.

   A single cry quickened his heart-beat and, leaping up, be dashed away toward the ocean side and the thick jungle till he was hung up among creepers; he stayed there for a moment with his calves quivering. If only one could have quiet, a long pause, a time to think!

   And there again, shrill and inevitable, was the ululation sweeping across the island. At that sound he shied like a horse among the creepers and ran once more till he was panting. He flung himself down by some ferns. The tree, or the charge? He mastered his breathing for a moment, wiped his mouth, and told himself to be calm. Samneric were somewhere in that line, and hating it. Or were they? And supposing, instead of them, he met the chief, or Roger who carried death in his hands?

   Ralph pushed back his tangled hair and wiped the sweat out of his best eye. He spoke aloud.

   “Think.”

   What was the sensible thing to do?

   There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.

   “Think.”

   Most, he was beginning to dread the curtain that might waver in his brain, blacking out the sense of danger, making a simpleton of him.

   A third idea would be to hide so well that the advancing line would pass without discovering him.

   He jerked his head off the ground and listened. There was another noise to attend to now, a deep grumbling noise, as though the forest itself were angry with him, a somber noise across which the ululations were scribbled excruciatingly as on slate. He knew he had heard it before somewhere, but had no time to remember.

   Break the line.

   A tree.

   Hide, and let them pass.

   A nearer cry stood him on his feet and immediately he was away again, running fast among thorns and brambles. Suddenly he blundered into the open, found himself again in that open space—and there was the fathom-wide grin of the skull, no longer ridiculing a deep blue patch of sky but jeering up into a blanket of smoke. Then Ralph was running beneath trees, with the grumble of the forest explained. They had smoked him out and set the island on fire.

   Hide was better than a tree because you had a chance of breaking the line if you were discovered.

   Hide, then.

   He wondered it a pig would agree, and grimaced at nothing. Find the deepest thicket, the darkest hole on the island, and creep in. Now, as he ran, he peered about him. Bars and splashes of sunlight flitted over him and sweat made glistening streaks on his dirty body. The cries were far now, and faint.

   At last he found what seemed to him the right place, though the decision was desperate. Here, bushes and a wild tangle of creeper made a mat that kept out all the light of the sun. Beneath it was a space, perhaps a foot high, though it was pierced everywhere by parallel and rising stems. If you wormed into the middle of that you would be five yards from the edge, and hidden, unless the savage chose to lie down and look for you; and even then, you would be in darkness—and if the worst happened and he saw you, then you had a chance to burst out at him, fling the whole line out of step and double back.

   Cautiously, his stick trailing behind him, Ralph wormed between the rising stems. When he reached the middle of the mat he lay and listened.

   The fire was a big one and the drum-roll that he had thought was left so far behind was nearer. Couldn’t a fire outrun a galloping horse? He could see the sun-splashed ground over an area of perhaps fifty yards from where he lay, and as he watched, the sunlight in every patch blinked at him. This was so like the curtain that flapped in his brain that for a moment he thought the blinking was inside him. But then the patches blinked more rapidly, dulled and went out, so that he saw that a great heaviness of smoke lay between the island and the sun.

   If anyone peered under the bushes and chanced to glimpse human flesh it might be Samneric who would pretend not to see and say nothing. He laid his cheek against the chocolate-colored earth, licked his dry lips and closed his eyes. Under the thicket, the earth was vibrating very slightly; or perhaps there was a sound beneath the obvious thunder of the fire and scribbled ululations that was too low to hear.

   Someone cried out. Ralph jerked his cheek off the earth and looked into the dulled light. They must be near now, he thought, and his chest began to thump. Hide, break the line, climb a tree—which was the best after all? The trouble was you only had one chance.

   Now the fire was nearer; those volleying shots were great limbs, trunks even, bursting. The fools! The fools! The fire must be almost at the fruit trees—what would they eat tomorrow?

   Ralph stirred restlessly in his narrow bed. One chanced nothing! What could they do? Beat him? So what? Kill him? A stick sharpened at both ends.

   The cries, suddenly nearer, jerked him up. He could see a striped savage moving hastily out of a green tangle, and coming toward the mat where he hid, a savage who carried a spear. Ralph gripped his fingers into the earth. Be ready now, in case.

   Ralph fumbled to hold his spear so that it was point foremost; and now he saw that the stick was sharpened at both ends.

   The savage stopped fifteen yards away and uttered his cry.

   Perhaps he can hear my heart over the noises of the fire. Don’t scream. Get ready.

   The savage moved forward so that you could only see him from the waist down. That was the butt of his spear. Now you could see him from the knee down. Don’t scream. A herd of pigs came squealing out of the greenery behind the savage and rushed away into the forest. Birds were screaming, mice shrieking, and a little hopping thing came under the mat and cowered.

   Five yards away the savage stopped, standing right by the thicket, and cried out. Ralph drew his



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Суббота, 10 Марта 2012 г. 23:48 + в цитатник
Духи " Быть может"

Автор текста: Иван Дудин
Автор музыки: Колпаков Александр

Воспоминания похожи, на очень грустные стихи
В забытой сумочке из кожи, пылятся Польские духи.
Таится в маленьком флаконе, не только нежность Польских роз.
Огонь и лед твоих ладоней, и запахи твоих волос.

И злая память сердце гложет, расстаться легче чем забыть
Духи с названием Быть-Может, не зря забыты, Может быть.
И вдруг ты гордости прикажешь, осенним вечером глухим.
Откроешь дверь и тихо скажешь.... Я здесь оставила духи....!

Воспоминания похожи, на очень грустные стихи
В забытой сумочке из кожи, пылятся...Польские...духи!.

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Понедельник, 27 Февраля 2012 г. 20:26 + в цитатник

Chapter Ten.
The Shell and the Glasses

   “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 chiefs 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…”
   Piggy cleaned his lens.
   “After the feast,” said Sam in a stifled voice. Eric nodded. “Yes, after the feast.”
   “We left early,” said Piggy quickly, “because we were tired.”
   “So did we—”
   “—very early—”
   “—we were very tired.”
   Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand away. Eric fingered his split lip.
   “Yes. We were very tired,” repeated Sam, “so we left early. Was it a good—”
   The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene word shot out of him. “—dance?”
   Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all tour boys convulsively.
   “We left early.”

   When Roger came to the neck of land that joined the Castle Rock to the mainland he was not surprised to be challenged. He had reckoned, during the terrible night, on finding at least some of the tribe holding out against the horrors of the island in the safest place.
   The voice rang out sharply from on high, where the diminishing crags were balanced one on another.
   “Halt! Who goes there?”
   “Roger.”
   “Advance, friend.”
   Roger advanced.
   “The chief said we got to challenge everyone.”
   Roger peered up.
   “You couldn’t stop me coming if I wanted.”
   “Couldn’t I? Climb up and see.”
   Roger clambered up the ladder-like cliff.
   “Look at this.”
   A log had been jammed under the topmost rock and another lever under that. Robert leaned lightly on the lever and the rock groaned. A full effort would send the rock thundering down to the neck of land. Roger admired.
   “He’s a proper chief, isn’t he?”
   Robert nodded.
   “He’s going to take us hunting.”
   He jerked his head in the direction of the distant shelters where a thread of white smoke climbed up the sky. Roger, sitting on the very edge of the cliff, looked somberly back at the island as he worked with his fingers at a loose tooth. His gaze settled on the top of the distant mountain and Robert changed the unspoken subject.
   “He’s going to beat Wilfred.”
   “What for?”
   Robert shook his head doubtfully.
   “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been”—he giggled excitedly—”he’s been tied for hours, waiting—”
   “But didn’t the chief say why?’
   “I never heard him.”
   Sitting on the tremendous rocks in the torrid sun, Roger received this news as an illumination. He ceased to work at his tooth and sat still, assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority. Then, without another word, he climbed down the back of the rocks toward the cave and the rest of the tribe.
   The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background. Roger squatted with the rest.
   “Tomorrow,” went on the chief, “we shall hunt again.”
   He pointed at this savage and that with his spear.
   “Some of you will stay here to improve the cave and defend the gate. I shall take a few hunters with me and bring back meat. The defenders of the gate will see that the others don’t sneak in.”
   A savage raised his hand and the chief turned a bleak, painted face toward him.
   “Why should they try to sneak in, Chief?”
   The chief was vague but earnest.
   “They will. They’ll try to spoil things we do. So the watchers at the gate must be careful. And then—”
   The chief paused. They saw a triangle of startling pink dart out, pass along his lips and vanish again.
   “—and then, the beast might try to come in. You remember how he crawled—”
   The semicircle shuddered and muttered in agreement.
   “He came—disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head of our kill to eat. So watch; and be careful.”
   Stanley lifted his forearm off the rock and held up an interrogative finger.
   “Well?”
   “But didn’t we, didn’t we—?”
   He squirmed and looked down.
   “No!”
   In the silence that followed, each savage flinched away from his individual memory.
   “No! How could we—kill—it?”
   Half-relieved, half-daunted by the implication of further terrors, the savages murmured again.
   “So leave the mountain alone,” said the chief, solemnly, “and give it the head if you go hunting.”
   Stanley flicked his finger again.
   “I expect the beast disguised itself.”
   “Perhaps,” said the chief. A theological speculation presented itself. “We’d better keep on the right side of him, anyhow. You can’t tell what he might do.”
   The tribe considered this; and then were shaken, as if by a flaw of wind. The chief saw the effect of his words and stood abruptly.
   “But tomorrow we’ll hunt and when we’ve got meat we’ll have a feast—”
   Bill put up his hand.
   “Yes?”‘
   “What’ll we use for lighting the fire?”
   The chiefs blush was hidden by the white and red clay Into his uncertain silence the tribe spilled their murmur once more. Then the chief held up his hand.
   “We shall take fire from the others. Listen. Tomorrow well hunt and get meat. Tonight Ill go along with two hunters—who’ll come?”
   Maurice and Roger put up their hands.
   “Maurice—”
   “Yes, Chief?”
   “Where was their fire?”
   “Back at the old place by the fire rock.”
   The chief nodded.
   “The rest of you can go to sleep as soon as the sun sets. But us three, Maurice, Roger and me, we’ve got work to do. We’ll leave just before sunset—”
   Maurice put up his hand.
   “But what happens if we meet—”
   The chief waved his objection aside.
   “We’ll keep along by the sands. Then if he comes well do our, our dance again.”
   “Only the three of us?”
   Again the murmur swelled and died away.
   Piggy handed Ralph his glasses and waited to receive back his sight. The wood was damp; and this was the third time they had lighted it Ralph stood back, speaking to himself.
   “We don’t want another night without fire.”
   He looked round guiltily at the three boys standing by. This was the first time he had admitted the double function of the fire. Certainly one was to send up a beckoning column of smoke; but the other was to be a hearth now and a comfort until they slept. Eric breathed on the wood till it glowed and sent out a little flame. A billow of white and yellow smoke reeked up. Piggy took back his glasses and looked at the smoke with pleasure.
   “If only we could make a radio!”
   “Or a plane—”
   “—or a boat.”
   Ralph dredged in his fading knowledge of the world.
   “We might get taken prisoner by the Reds.”
   Eric pushed back his hair.
   “They’d be better than—”
   He would not name people and Sam finished the sentence for him by nodding along the beach.
   Ralph remembered the ungainly figure on a parachute.
   “He said something about a dead man.” He flushed painfully at this admission that he had been present at the dance. He made urging motions at the smoke with his body. “Don’t stop—go on up!”
   “Smoke’s getting thinner.”
   “We need more wood already, even when it’s wet.”
   “My asthma—”
   The response was mechanical.
   “Sucks to your ass-mar.”
   “If I pull logs about, I get my asthma bad. I wish I didn’t, Ralph, but there it is.”
   The three boys went into the forest and fetched armfuls of rotten wood. Once more the smoke rose, yellow and thick.
   “Let’s get something to eat.”
   Together they went to the fruit trees, carrying their spears, saying little, cramming in haste. When they came out of the forest again the sun was setting and only embers glowed in the fire, and there was no smoke.
   “I can’t carry any more wood,” said Eric. “I’m tired.”
   Ralph cleared his throat.
   “We kept the fire going up there.”
   “Up there it was small. But this has got to be a big one.”
   Ralph carried a fragment to the fire and watched the smoke that drifted into the dusk.
   ‘‘We’ve got to keep it going.”
   Eric flung himself down.
   “I’m too tired. And what’s the good?”
   “Eric!” cried Ralph in a shocked voice. “Don’t talk like that!”
   Sam knelt by Eric.
   “Well—what is the good?”
   Ralph tried indignantly to remember. There was something good about a fire. Something overwhelmingly good.
   “Ralph’s told you often enough,” said Piggy moodily. “How else are we going to be rescued?”
   “Of course! If we don’t make smoke—”
   He squatted before them in the crowding dusk.
   “Don’t you understand? What’s the good of wishing for radios and boats?”
   He held out his hand and twisted the fingers into a fist
   “There’s only one thing we can do to get out of this mess. Anyone can play at hunting, anyone can get us meat—”
   He looked from face to face. Then, at the moment of greatest passion and conviction, that curtain flapped in his head and he forgot what he had been driving at. He knelt there, his fist clenched, gazing solemnly from one to the other. Then the curtain whisked back.
   “Oh, yes. So we’ve got to make smoke; and more smoke—”
   “But we can’t keep it going! Look at that!”
   The fire was dying on them.
   “Two to mind the fire,” said Ralph, half to himself, “that’s twelve hours a day.”
   “We can’t get any more wood, Ralph—”
   “—not in the dark—”
   “—not at night—”
   “We can light it every morning,” said Piggy. “Nobody ain’t going to see smoke in the dark.’
   Sam nodded vigorously.
   “It was different when the fire was—”
   “—up there.”
   Ralph stood up, feeling curiously defenseless with the darkness pressing in.
   “Let the fire go then, for tonight.”
   He led the way to the first shelter, which still stood, though battered. The bed leaves lay within, dry and noisy to the touch. In the next shelter a littlun was talking in his sleep. The four biguns crept into the shelter and burrowed under the leaves. The twins lay together and Ralph and Piggy at the other end. For a while there was the continual creak and rustle of leaves as they tried for comfort.
   “Piggy.”
   “Yeah?”
   “All right?”
   “S’pose so.”
   At length, save for an occasional rustle, the shelter was silent. An oblong of blackness relieved with brilliant spangles hung before them and there was the hollow sound of surf on the reef. Ralph settled himself for his nightly game of supposing…
   Supposing they could be transported home by jet, then before morning they would land at that big airfield in Wiltshire. They would go by car; no, for things to be perfect they would go by train; all the way down to Devon and take that cottage again. Then at the foot of the garden the wild ponies would come and look over the wall…
   Ralph turned restlessly in the leaves. Dartmoor was wild and so were the ponies. But the attraction of wildness had gone.
   His mind skated to a consideration of a tamed town where savagery could not set foot. What could be safer than the bus center with its lamps and wheels?
   All at once, Ralph was dancing round a lamp standard. There was a bus crawling out of the bus station, a strange bus…
   “Ralph! Ralph!”
   “What is it?”
   “Don’t make a noise like that—”
   “Sorry.”
   From the darkness of the further end of the shelter came a dreadful moaning and they shattered the leaves in their fear. Sam and Eric, locked in an embrace, were fighting each other.
   “Sam! Sam!”
   “Hey—Eric!”
   Presently all was quiet again.
   Piggy spoke softly to Ralph.
   “We got to get out of this.”
   “What d’you mean?”
   “Get rescued.”
   For the first time that day, and despite the crowding blackness, Ralph sniggered.
   “I mean it,” whispered Piggy. “If we don’t get home soon we’ll be barmy.”
   “Round the bend.”
   “Bomb happy.”
   “Crackers.”
   Ralph pushed the damp tendrils of hair out of his eyes.
   “You write a letter to your auntie.”
   Piggy considered this solemnly.
   “I don’t know where she is now. And I haven’t got an envelope and a stamp. An’ there isn’t a mailbox. Or a postman.”
   The success of his tiny joke overcame Ralph. His sniggers became uncontrollable, his body jumped and
   Piggy rebuked him with dignity.
   “I haven’t said anything all that funny.”
   Ralph continued to snigger though his chest hurt. His twitchings exhausted him till he lay, breathless and woebegone, waiting for the next spasm. During one of these pauses he was ambushed by sleep.
   “Ralph! You been making a noise again. Do be quiet, Ralph—because.”
   Ralph heaved over among the leaves. He had reason to be thankful that his dream was broken, for the bus had been nearer and more distinct
   “Why—because?”
   “Be quiet—and listen.”
   Ralph lay down carefully, to the accompaniment of a long sigh from the leaves. Eric moaned something and then lay still. The darkness, save for the useless oblong of stars, was blanket-thick.
   “I can’t hear anything,”
   “There’s something moving outside.”
   Ralph’s head prickled. The sound of his blood drowned all else and then subsided.
   “I still can’t hear anything.”
   “Listen. Listen for a long time.”
   Quite clearly and emphatically, and only a yard or so away from the back of the shelter, a stick cracked. The blood roared again in Ralph’s ears, confused images chased each other through his mind. A composite of these things was prowling round the shelters. He could feel Piggy’s head against his shoulder and the convulsive grip of a hand.
   “Ralph! Ralph!”
   “Shut up and listen.”
   Desperately, Ralph prayed that the beast would prefer littluns.
   A voice whispered horribly outside.
   “Piggy—Piggy—”
   “It’s come! gasped Piggy. It’s real!”
   He clung to Ralph and reached to get his breath.
   “Piggy, come outside. I want you, Piggy.”
   Ralph’s mouth was against Piggy’s ear.
   “Don’t say anything.”
   “Piggy—where are you, Piggy?”
   Something brushed against the back of the shelter. Piggy kept still for a moment, then he had his asthma. He arched his back and crashed among the leaves with his legs. Ralph rolled away from him.
   Then there was a vicious snarling in the mouth of the shelter and the plunge and thump of living things. Someone tripped over Ralph and Piggy’s corner became a complication of snarls and crashes and flying limbs. Ralph hit out; then he and what seemed like a dozen others were rolling over and over, hitting, biting, scratching. He was torn and jolted, found fingers in his mouth ana bit them. A fist withdrew and came back like a piston, so that the whole shelter exploded into light Ralph twisted sideways on top of a writhing body and felt hot breath on his cheek He began to pound the mouth below him, using his clenched fist as a hammer; he hit with more and more passionate hysteria as the face became slippery. A knee jerked up between his legs and he fell sideways, busying himself with his pain, and the fight rolled over him. Then the shelter collapsed with smothering finality; and the anonymous shapes fought their way out and through. Dark figures drew themselves out of the wreckage and flitted away, till the screams of the littluns and Piggy’s gasps were once more audible.
   Ralph called out in a quavering voice.
   “All you littluns, go to sleep. We’ve bad 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. Honestly 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 at 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 chiefs 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 them, 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.

Chapter Eleven.
Castle Rock

   “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 forest 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 tiling 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. Co on, laugh. There’s them on this island as would laugh at anything. And what happened? What’s grown-ups 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. Well 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 that 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 tike 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. At 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 land 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?”
   At length Ralph took his lips away and paused to get his breath back. His first words were a gasp, but audible.
   “—calling an assembly.”
   The savages guarding the neck muttered among themselves but made no motion. Ralph walked forwards a couple of steps. A voice whispered urgently behind him.
   “Don’t leave me, Ralph.”
   “You kneel down,” said Ralph sideways, “and wait till I come back.”
   He stood halfway along the neck and gazed at the savages intently. Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were more comfortable than he was. Ralph made a resolution to tie his own back afterwards. Indeed he felt Eke telling them to wait and doing it there and then; but that was impossible. The savages sniggered a bit and one gestured at Ralph with his spear. High above, Roger took his hands off the lever and leaned out to see what was going on. The boys on the neck stood in a pool of their own shadow, diminished to shaggy heads. Piggy crouched, his back shapeless as a sack.
   “I’m calling an assembly.”
   Silence.
   Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins, aiming to miss. They started and Sam only just kept his footing. Some source of power began to pulse in Roger’s body.
   Ralph spoke again, loudly.
   “I’m calling an assembly.”
   He ran his eye over them.
   “Where’s Jack?”
   The group of boys stirred and consulted. A painted face spoke with the voice of Robert.
   “He’s hunting. And he said we weren’t to let you in.”
   “I’ve come to see about the fire,” said Ralph, “and about Piggy’s specs.”
   The group in front of him shifted and laughter shivered outwards from among them, light, excited laughter that went echoing among the tall rocks.
   A voice spoke from behind Ralph.
   “What do you want?”
   The twins made a bolt past Ralph and got between him and the entry. He turned quickly. Jack, identifiable by personality and red hair, was advancing from the forest A hunter crouched on either side. All three were masked in black and green. Behind them on the grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it.
   Piggy wailed.
   “Ralph! Don’t leave me!”
   With ludicrous care he embraced the rock, pressing himself to it above the sucking sea. The sniggering of the savages became a loud derisive jeer.
   Jack shouted above the noise.
   “You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is my end and my tribe. You leave me alone.”
   The jeering died away.
   “You pinched Piggy’s specs,” said Ralph, breathlessly. “You’ve got to give them back.”
   “Got to? Who says?”
   Ralph’s temper blazed out.
   “I say! You voted for me for chief. Didn’t you hear the conch? You played a dirty trick—we’d have given you fire if you’d asked for it—”
   The blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged-up eye throbbed.
   “You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn’t. You came sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy’s glasses!”
   “Say that again!”
   “Thief! Thief!”
   Piggy screamed.
   “Ralph! Mind me!”
   Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph’s chest with his spear. Ralph sensed the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught of Jack’s arm and put the thrust aside with his own butt. Then he brought the end round and caught Jack a stinger across the ear. They were chest to chest, breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring.
   “Who’s a thief?”
   “You are!”
   Jack wrenched free and swung at Ralph with his spear. By common consent they were using the spears as sabers now, no longer daring the lethal points. The blow struck Ralph’s spear and slid down, to fall agonizingly on his fingers. Then they were apart once more, their positions reversed, Jack toward the Castle Rock and Ralph on the outside toward the island.
   Both boys were breathing very heavily.
   “Come on then—”
   “Come on—”
   Truculently they squared up to each other but kept just out of fighting distance.
   “You come on and see what you get!”
   “You come on—”
   Piggy clutching the ground was trying to attract Ralph’s attention. Ralph moved, bent down, kept a wary eye on Jack.
   “Ralph—remember what we came for. The fire. My specs.”
   Ralph nodded. He relaxed his fighting muscles, stood easily and grounded the butt of his spear Jack watched him inscrutably through his paint. Ralph glanced up at the pinnacles, then toward the group of savages
   “Listen. We’ve come to say this. First you’ve got to give back Piggy’s specs. If he hasn’t got them he can’t see You aren’t playing the game—”
   The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph’s mind faltered. He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying to remember what Jack looked like.
   Piggy whispered.
   “And the fire.”
   “Oh yes. Then about the fire. I say this again. I’ve been saying it ever since we dropped in.”
   He held out his spear and pointed at the savages.
   “Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long as there’s light to see. Then maybe a ship’ll notice the smoke and come and rescue us and take us home. But without that smoke we’ve got to wait till some ship comes by accident. We might wait years; till we were old—”
   The shivering, silvery, unreal laughter of the savages sprayed out and echoed away. A gust of rage shook Ralph His voice cracked.
   “Don’t you understand, you painted fools? Sam, Eric, Piggy and me—we aren’t enough. We tried to keep the fire going, but we couldn’t. And then you, playing at hunting…”
   He pointed past them to where the trickle of smoke dispersed in the pearly air.
   “Look at that! Call that a signal fire? That’s a cooking fire Now you’ll eat and there’ll be no smoke. Don’t you understand? There may be a ship out there—”
   He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of the group guarding the entry. Jack opened a pink mouth and addressed Samneric, who were between him and his tribe.
   &l

[о путешествиях]

Суббота, 21 Января 2012 г. 03:45 + в цитатник

Конечно, лучше всего пишется ночью.

Тут на досуге решила посидеть, помечтать о том, куда можно было бы отправиться.

Подумала о теплых странах. Подумала о Европе. Подумала об Америке.

И к несчастью (а может и к счастью) обнаружила, что хочу побывать везде и везде успеть.

Потом начала придумывать, где возьму деньги, кого возьму с собой, что положу в чемодан.

В общем, что я хотела сказать-то... мечтайте, господа!

Мечтать - это круто!

У мечты есть такая особенность - сбываться. ;)


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[Навеяло]

Среда, 18 Января 2012 г. 23:16 + в цитатник
Как тихо снег летит с небес -
Почти на строчки,
Ловлю поштучно и в развес,
Леплю комочки.
Мир побелел до немоты,
Почти до звона,
И в этом белом мире ты -
Моя икона.
Январь - раздача покрывал,
Набитых пухом,
Тем, кто так долго замерзал,
И падал духом.
Тем, кто так долго был в пути,
Идя по кругу,
И грел на собственной груди
Как птицу вьюгу...
Но вот искристый снегопад
Принёс надежду,
Пусть не ко дню и невпопад,
Не в масть, а между,
И я ловлю её в ладонь,
Леплю комочки,
И жжётся холод как огонь
В последней строчке.
Пускай вымарывает век
Мечты построчно,
Но за твоим окошком снег
Такой же точно...



© Copyright: Безымянная Тетрадь, 2012

 

 

 


Итоги

Суббота, 31 Декабря 2011 г. 17:08 + в цитатник

сайты года: twitter
знакомство года: салютовские ребята и Чааааарли)
программа года: ППХ
фильмы года: Ёлки 2 =)
блюдо года: пицца)
напиток года: какао
язык года: английский)
мечта года: автомобиль
несбывшаяся мечта года: автомобиль)
город года: Рига
место года: ДОЛ Салют
открытие года: я знаю английский!)
персональное событие года: я умею работать с детьми
исполнитель года: Coldplay
песня года: Give me a sign
лучшая поездка года: в Салют.. или в Латвию.. еще не решила)
разочарование года: Макс
вещь года: iPod
человечище года: Баааах, Клю, Юля
коллега\однокурсник года: Бах
пожелание года: не парься)
препод года: Сосновская бляяя))
вопрос года: "и чё?"
время суток года: ночь
книги года: Константин Аврилов "Ангел"
одежда года: джинсы
покупка года: iPod, кухня, окна
фраза года: чиииииик
безумие года: 4ая смена


[Believe]

Воскресенье, 04 Декабря 2011 г. 21:38 + в цитатник

Сижу и смотрю фильм "Мост в Терабитию", пью чай и почему-то очень хочу Новый год

Я почему-то еще верю, что желание, загаданное в тот Новый год исполнится, а если нет - то загадаю его в этот Новый год и тогда уж оно точно исполнится.

А еще я верю, что у Катюшки все будет хорошо и она еще родит мне кучу племянников.

Верю, что случайности неслучайны.

Верю, что сказки - не вымысел, что чудеса и правда случаются, нужно только верить.

Верила, верю и буду верить.

 

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[ноябрь 2011]

Воскресенье, 27 Ноября 2011 г. 23:03 + в цитатник

Да о чем тут говорить, даже мой magic 8 ball без понятия, чего я хочу...


привет, мам

Пятница, 14 Октября 2011 г. 23:43 + в цитатник

У мамы сейчас много забот и всяких важных дел помимо меня. Почти каждый вечер уезжает к бабушке, оттуда на работу, с работы опять к бабушке. Она стала меньше за мной следить. В этом, конечно, есть свои плюсы. И минусы.

Она не знает - завтракаю я или нет. Что я одела в универ, что обула. Готова я к семинару или нет. До которого времени я гуляю, сижу за компом. Могу за ним просидеть до утра и перед ним же заснуть. Какая у меня температура.

Да, она поможет, если я попрошу. Да, она может со мной и поболтать, если она дома, что бывает крайне редко. Да, мне стало свободнее.

Но я в своей жизни еще никому так не была нужна, как моей маме. А сейчас я чувствую себя.. ненужной что ли.

Хорошо, что она знает, как я ее люблю.

 

 

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The End

Четверг, 13 Октября 2011 г. 15:00 + в цитатник

Все когда-то заканчивается. Теперь могу с уверенностью сказать, что сериал "Scrubs" - один из самых любимых.


Это не просто комедия, каждая серия наполнена  смыслом. Всю последнюю серию сидела с платком в руках, такая трогательная серия. Конечно, я смогу и буду пересматривать любимые серии, но такого чувства, как сейчас уже не будет. После последней серии, когда показывали, как снимали серию и моменты, которые не вошли в серию, показали самый-самый последний эпизод Зака Браффа (JD). Когда режиссер произнес "Зак Брафф закончил съемки", все начали обниматься, смеяться, плакать и благодарить друг друга. Похоже, что они сроднились. И я с ними =) "I'm no Superman"... Спасибо, ребята, вы всегда поднимаете мне настроение, вы клёвые)

Да, я сентиментальная)


 

0сень

Среда, 12 Октября 2011 г. 20:10 + в цитатник

Осень либо ставит все на свои места, либо запутывает еще больше.

 

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День 30 - Ваши взлеты и падения в этом месяце.

Пятница, 13 Мая 2011 г. 21:41 + в цитатник

У меня все монотонно, неинтересно. Без взлетов и падений. Comme il faut.


День 29 - Цели на ближайшие 30 дней.

Среда, 11 Мая 2011 г. 15:15 + в цитатник

сдать все экзамены и зачет по физ-ре

закрыть сессию

подготовиться к лагерю

все собрать, купить и отправиться в лагерь 1 июня


День 28 - То, что вы не пропустите.

Среда, 11 Мая 2011 г. 15:12 + в цитатник

Премьеру фильма Пираты Карибского моря 4 - На странных берегах.

А еще я не хочу пропустить лагерь в Латвии летом.


День 27 - Проблемы, которые у вас были.

Среда, 11 Мая 2011 г. 15:07 + в цитатник

Не думаю, что у меня были какие-то проблемы. Может какие-то временные трудности, но их нельзя назвать проблемами.



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