“I called it.”
“If you hadn't called it I should have. You just blew the conch.”
“Well, isn't that calling it?”
“Oh, take it! Go on—talk!”
Ralph thrust the conch into Jack's arms and sat down on the trunk.
“I've called an assembly,” said Jack, “because of a lot of things. First, you know now, we've seen the beast. We crawled up. We were only a few feet away. The beast sat up and looked at us. I don't know what it does. We don't even know what it is—”
“The beast comes out of the sea—”
“Out of the dark—”
“Trees—”
“Quiet!” shouted Jack. “You, listen. The beast is sitting up there, whatever it is-—”
“Perhaps it's waiting—”
“Hunting—”
“Yes, hunting.”
“Hunting,” said Jack. He remembered his age-old tremors in the forest. “Yes. The beast is a hunter. Only—shut up! The next thing is that we couldn't kill it. And the next thing is that Ralph said my hunters are no good.”
“I never said that!”
“I’ve got the conch. Ralph thinks you're cowards, running away from the boar and the beast. And that's not all.”
There was a kind of sigh on the platform as if everyone knew what was coming. Jack's voice went on, tremulous yet determined, pushing against the uncooperative silence.
“He's like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn't a proper chief.”
Jack clutched the conch to him.
“He's a coward himself.”
For a moment he paused and then went on.
“On top, when Roger and me went on—he stayed back.”
“I went too!”
“After.”
The two boys glared at each other through screens of hair.
“I went on too,” said Ralph, “then I ran away. So did you.”
“Call me a coward then.”
Jack turned to the hunters.
He's not a hunter. He'd never have got us meat He isn't a prefect and we don't know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing. All this talk—”
“All this talk!” shouted Ralph. “Talk, talk! Who wanted it? Who called the meeting?”
Jack turned, red in the face, his chin sunk back. He glowered up under his eyebrows.
“All right then,” he said in tones of deep meaning, and menace, all right.”
He held the conch against his chest with one hand and stabbed the air with his index finger.
“Who thinks Ralph oughtn't to be chief?”
He looked expectantly at the boys ranged round, who had frozen. Under the palms there was deadly silence.
“Hands up,” said Jack strongly, “whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?”
The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame. Slowly the red drained from Jack's cheeks, then came back with a painful rush. He licked his lips and turned his head at an angle, so that his gaze avoided the embarrassment of linking with another's eye.
“How many think—”
His voice tailed off. The hands that held the conch shook. He cleared his throat, and spoke loudly.
“All right then.”
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