CHAPTER TWELVE

Ralph, wounded and hiding near Castle Rock, observes the tribe feasting and recognizes the boys have become savages. He encounters the pig’s skull on a stick, smashes it, and keeps the sharpened stake as a weapon. At night he climbs to Samneric on watch; they warn him Jack and Roger will hunt him in a line across the island and hint at “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends.” They secretly give Ralph meat but cannot defect.

Ralph hides in a thicket at dawn. Jack, Roger, and a coerced twin confirm his hiding place. The tribe rolls boulders to crush him, then probes the thicket; Ralph wounds a boy who tries to crawl in. Unable to reach him, they ignite the forest, the smoke billowing around Ralph.

Forced out, Ralph stabs a guard and flees through the jungle as the hunters sweep forward, signaling by ululations. With the island roaring in flames, he alternates between plans—climb, break the line, or hide—until he’s flushed into the open by heat and pursuit.

Ralph bursts onto the beach and collapses before a naval officer, whose ship spotted the vast smoke. The tribe halts, stunned. Questioned, Ralph admits two deaths. The officer, mildly reproachful and oblivious to the boys’ ordeal, prepares to take them off. Overcome, Ralph weeps for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and Piggy’s fall, as the burning island smolders behind them.