|
Читайте также: |
“Not for the two of us.”
Together, joined in 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 your?”
He cleared his throat and went on.
“Will you light the fire?”
Now the absurd situation was open, Jack blushed too. He began to mutter vaguely.
“You rub two sticks. You rub—”
He glanced at Ralph, who blurted out the last confession of incompetence. “Has anyone got any matches?”
“You make a bow and spin the arrow,” said Roger. He rubbed his hands in mime. “Psss. Psss.”
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.
Ralph shouted at him.
“Piggy! Have you got any matches?”
The other boys took up the cry till the mountain rang. Piggy shook his head and came to the pile.
“My! You've made a big heap, haven't you?”
Jack pointed suddenly.
“His specs—use them as burning glasses!”
Piggy was surrounded before he could back away.
“Here—let me go!” His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched toe glasses off his face. “Mind out! Give'em back! I can hardly see! You'll break the conch!”
Ralph elbowed him to one side and knelt by the pile.
“Stand out of the light.”
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 name 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!”
Дата добавления: 2015-09-11; просмотров: 77 | Поможем написать вашу работу | Нарушение авторских прав |