Master OF THE FLIES
a novel by
WILLIAM GOLDING
Substance
1. The Sound of the Shell
2. Fire on the Mountain
3. Hovels on the Beach
4. Painted Faces and Long Hair
5. Monster from Water
6. Monster from Air
7. Shadows and Tall Trees
8. Present for the Darkness
9. A View to a Death
10. The Shell and the Glasses
11. Château Rock
12. Cry of the Hunters
Notes
4
24
36
44
58
73
84
96
112
120
132
143
159
For my mom and father
Section ONE
The Sound of the Shell
The kid with reasonable hair dropped himself down the last couple of feet of shake and started to pick
his way toward the tidal pond. Despite the fact that he had removed his school sweater and trailed it now from
one hand, his dark shirt adhered to him and his hair was put to his brow. Surrounding him
the long scar crushed into the wilderness was a shower of warmth. He was climbing vigorously among the
creepers and broken trunks when a winged animal, a dream of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a
witch-like cry; and this cry was resounded by another.
"Hello!" it said. "Hold up a moment!"
The undergrowth along the edge of the scar was shaken and a large number of raindrops fell
pattering.
"Hold up a moment," the voice said. "I got made up for lost time."
The reasonable kid halted and jolted his leggings with a programmed motion that made the
wilderness appear for a minute like the Home Counties.
The voice talked once more.
"I can't barely move with all these creeper things."
The proprietor of the voice came pulling out of the undergrowth with the goal that twigs scratched
on an oily jacket. The bare hoodlums of his knees were full, gotten and scratched by
thistles. He bowed down, evacuated the thistles precisely, and pivoted. He was shorter than
the reasonable kid and exceptionally fat. He approached, hunting out safe lodgments down his feet, and after that
turned upward through thick displays.
"Where's the man with the bull horn?"
The reasonable kid shook his head.
"This is an island. In any event I believe it's an island. That is a reef out in the ocean. Maybe
there aren't any adults anyplace."
The fat kid looked startled.
"There was that pilot. Yet, he wasn't in the traveler lodge, he was up in front."
The reasonable kid was peering at the reef through spoiled eyes.
"All them different children," the fat kid went on. "Some of them more likely than not got out. They
must have, mustn't they?"
The reasonable kid started to pick his way as coolly as conceivable toward the water. He attempted to
be spur of the moment and not too clearly uninterested, but rather the fat kid rushed after him.
"Aren't there any adults whatsoever?"
"I don't think so."
The reasonable kid said this gravely; yet then the enjoyment of an acknowledged desire survived
him. Amidst the scar he remained on his head and smiled at the turned around fat kid.
"No adults!"
The fat kid thought for a minute.
"That pilot."
The reasonable kid enabled his feet to descend and sat on the hot earth.
"He probably taken off after he dropped us. He couldn't arrive here. Not in a place
with wheels."
"We was assaulted!"
"He'll be back good."
The fat kid shook his head.
"When we was descending I glanced through one of them windows. I saw the other
some portion of the plane. There were flares leaving it."
He gazed upward and down the scar.
"Furthermore, this is the thing that the lodge done."
The reasonable kid connected and contacted the barbed end of a trunk. For a minute he
looked intrigued.
"The end result for it?" he inquired. "Where's it got to now?"
"That tempest hauled it out to ocean. It wasn't half hazardous with all them tree trunks
falling. There more likely than not been a few children still in it."
He faltered for a minute, at that point talked once more.
"What's your name?"
"Ralph."
The fat kid held up to be asked his name thus however this proffer of associate was
not made; the reasonable kid called Ralph grinned ambiguously, stood up, and started to advance once
more toward the tidal pond. The fat kid hung relentlessly at his shoulder.
"I expect there's much more of us scattered about. You haven't seen any others, have
you?"
Ralph shook his head and expanded his speed. At that point he stumbled over a branch and came
down with a crash.
The fat kid remained by him, breathing hard.
"My close relative let me know not to run," he clarified, "because of my asthma."
"Ass-damage?"
"Truth is stranger than fiction. Can't rest. I was the main kid in our school what had
asthma," said the fat kid with a dash of pride. "What's more, I've been wearing specs since I was
three."
He removed his glasses and held them out to Ralph, squinting and grinning, and after that
begun to wipe them against his grimy jacket. A declaration of agony and internal
fixation modified the pale shapes of his face. He spread the perspiration from his cheeks and
immediately balanced the scenes on his nose.
"Them natural product."
He looked round the scar.
"Them natural product," he stated, "I expect- - "
He put on his glasses, swam far from Ralph, and hunched down among the tangled
foliage.
"I'll be out again in one moment - "
Ralph unraveled himself circumspectly and stole away through the branches. In a couple
seconds the fat kid's snorts were behind him and he was hustling toward the screen that still
lay amongst him and the tidal pond. He moved over a broken trunk and was out of the wilderness.
The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or inclined or leaned back against the
light and their green quills were a hundred feet uncertain. The ground underneath them was
a bank secured with coarse grass, torn wherever by the changes of fallen trees, scattered
with rotting coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the dimness of the backwoods appropriate
what's more, the open space of the scar. Ralph stood, one hand against a dark trunk, and botched his
eyes against the shining water. Out there, maybe a mile away, the white surf flinked on a
coral reef, and past that the untamed ocean was dim blue. Inside the unpredictable circular segment of coral the
tidal pond was still as a mountain lake- - blue all things considered and shadowy green and purple. The
shoreline between the palm porch and the water was a thin stick, unending clearly, for to
Ralph's left the viewpoints of palm and shoreline and water attracted to a point at vastness; and
continuously, relatively unmistakable, was the warmth.
He hopped down from the porch. The sand was thick finished his dark shoes and the
warm hit him. He ended up aware of the heaviness of garments, kicked his shoes off wildly and
ripped off each stocking with its versatile tie in a solitary development. At that point he jumped back on
the patio, pulled off his shirt, and remained there among the skull-like coconuts with green
shadows from the palms and the timberland sliding over his skin. He fixed the snake-catch of his
belt, hauled off his shorts and pants, and remained there exposed, taking a gander at the astonishing shoreline and
the water.
He was mature enough, twelve years and a couple of months, to have lost the conspicuous stomach
of youth and not yet mature enough for immaturity to have made him unbalanced. You could
see now that he may make a boxer, to the extent width and largeness of shoulders went, yet there
was a mellowness about his mouth and eyes that broadcasted no fallen angel. He praised the palm trunk
delicately, and, constrained finally to have faith in the truth of the island chuckled delightedly again and
remained on his head. He turned perfectly on to his feet, bounced down to the shoreline, stooped and cleared
a twofold armful of sand into a heap against his chest. At that point he sat back and took a gander at the water
with brilliant, energized eyes.
"Ralph- - "
The fat kid brought down himself over the porch and sat down painstakingly, utilizing the edge as a
situate.
"I'm sad I been such a period. Them organic product - "
He wiped his glasses and balanced them on his catch nose. The casing had made a
profound, pink "V" on the extension. He took a gander at Ralph's brilliant body and after that down at his
possess garments. He laid a hand on the finish of a zipper that reached out down his chest.
"My close relative - "
At that point he opened the zipper with choice and pulled the entire jacket over his
head.
"There!"
Ralph took a gander at him sidelong and said nothing.
"I anticipate that we'll need will know every one of their names," said the fat kid, "and make a rundown. We
should have a gathering."
Ralph did not take the indication so the fat kid was compelled to proceed.
"I couldn't care less what they call me," he said privately, "inasmuch as they don't call me
what they used to call me at school."
Ralph was faintly intrigued.
"What was that?"
The fat kid looked behind him, at that point inclined toward Ralph.
He whispered.
"They used to call me 'Piggy.'"
Ralph yelled with chuckling. He bounced up.
"Piggy! Piggy!"
"Ralph- - please!"
Piggy caught his hands in misgiving.
"I said I didn't need - "
"Piggy! Piggy!"
Ralph moved out into the hot quality of the shoreline and after that returned as a military aircraft,
with wings cleared back, and machine-gunned Piggy.
"Sche-aa-ow!"
He made a plunge the sand at Piggy's feet and lay there snickering.
"Piggy!"
Piggy smiled reluctantly, satisfied notwithstanding himself at even this much acknowledgment.
"Insofar as you don't tell the others- - "
Ralph snickered into the sand. The outflow of torment and fixation came back to
Piggy's face.
"A large portion of a sec'."
He hurried once more into the woods. Ralph stood up and jogged along to one side.
Here the shoreline was intruded on unexpectedly by the square theme of the scene; an incredible
stage of pink stone push up uncompromisingly through backwoods and patio and sand and
tidal pond to make a raised breakwater four feet high. The highest point of this was secured with a thin layer of
soil and coarse grass and shaded with youthful palm trees. There was insufficient soil for them to
develop to any stature and when they achieved maybe twenty feet they fell and dried, shaping a
confuse example of trunks, extremely advantageous to sit on. The palms that still stood made a green
rooftop, secured on the underside with a shuddering tangle of reflections from the tidal pond. Ralph
pulled himself onto this stage, noticed the coolness and shade, close one eye, and chose
that the shadows on his body were extremely green. He picked his way to the toward the ocean edge of the
stage and stood looking down
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