Chapter Eight - Gift for the Darkness

When we arrived back at camp, I talked to Piggy about what I saw. I don't think he really believed me when I told him we saw it, though he looked scared. Jack called a meeting. I wanted to talk first but Jack insisted. I had thought he was going to talk about the beast, but instead he said a lot of untrue and mean things about me. He told everyone that I was coward and that I thought they were too. He said that I didn't go up the mountain, which I did. He asked the others if they also thought that I shouldn't be chief. No one raised their hand. Jack was hurt that they all thought I was a better chief and ran off into the forest. Simon took he conch and proposed that we climb the mountain, which of course was stupid, what could we do about an enormous beast. Piggy then took the conch and said that we could just have a fire on the beach, that way there would be smoke and we wouldn't have to worry about the beast as much. After the fire was built I realized just how few biguns had stayed. As far as I knew, there was only Piggy, SamnEric and I left, the others had joined Jack. There's no way the four of us can keep a fire going, it's impossible! Jack came back to the camp and told us that he would be hosting a feast and that if we wanted we could join. He is the chief of the boys who decided to leave. After he left I saw that someone had stolen our fire. Him asking us to attend the feast must have been a distraction. I called a sort of assembly with the boys who remained. I wanted to remind them of the importance of fire and why we didn't join Jack, but the words did not as come easy as usual, Piggy had to help me get my point across. We decided that we would attend the feast, we wanted meat.