Ralph hides in the jungle and thinks miserably about the chaos that has overrun the island. He thinks about the deaths of Simon and Piggy and realizes that all signs of civilization have been taken away from the island. He stumbles across the sow’s head, the Lord of the Flies, now just a gleaming white skull, looking as white as the conch shell. Angry, Ralph knocks the skull to the ground and takes the stake it was impaled on to use as a weapon against Jack.
That night, Ralph sneaks down to the camp, and finds Sam and Eric guarding the entrance. The twins give him food but refuse to join him. They tell him that Jack plans to send the entire tribe after him the next day. Ralph hides in a thicket and falls asleep. In the morning, he hears Jack talking and torturing one of the twins to find out where Ralph is hiding. Several boys try to break into the thicket by rolling a boulder, but the thicket is too dense. A group of boys tries to fight their way into the thicket, but Ralph fends them off. Then Ralph smells smoke and realizes that Jack has set the jungle on fire in order to smoke him out. Ralph leaves his hiding place and fights his way past Jack and a group of his hunters. Chased by a group of boys who uses sharp wooden spears, Ralph tries to find a place to hide. At last, he ends up on the beach, where he collapses in exhaustion, when his pursuers close behind.
Suddenly, Ralph looks up to see a naval officer standing over him. The officer tells the boy that his ship has come to the island after seeing the blazing fire in the jungle. Jack’s hunters reach the beach and stop in their tracks upon seeing the officer. The officer matter-of-factly assumes the boys are up to, as he puts it, “fun and games.” When he learns what has happened on the island, the officer is disappointed, how could this group of boys, he asks—and English boys at that—have lost all reverence for the rules of civilization in so short a time? For his part, Ralph is