Эпитеты и их перевод

     The  c hildren who came along  the beach, singly or in twos, leapt  into visibility when  they crossed the line from heat haze  to nearer sand. Here, the eye was first attracted to a black, bat-like creature that danced on the sand,  and only later perceived the body above it.  The bat was  the child's shadow, shrunk by the  vertical sun  to  a patch between the hurrying  feet. Even while he blew, Ralph noticed the last pair of bodies  that reached  the platform above  a fluttering patch  of Hack. The two boys, bullet-headed and with  hair  like tow,  flung themselves down and lay grinning and panting at Ralph like dogs. They were twins, and the eye was shocked and incredulous at such cheery duplication. They breathed together, they grinned together, they were chunky  and  vital.  They raised wet lips at  Ralph,  for  they  seemed provided with not quite enough skin, so that their profiles were blurred and their mouths pulled open. Piggy bent his flashing glasses  to them and could be heard between the blasts, repeating their names.

     "Sam, Eric, Sam, Eric."

     Then he  got muddled; the twins shook their heads and  pointed  at each other and the crowd laughed.

     At last Ralph ceased to blow and sat there, the conch trailing from one hand, his head  bowed  on his knees. As  the echoes  died  away so  did  the laughter, and there was silence.

     Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along. Ralph  saw it first, and watched till the intentness  of his  gaze  drew all eyes that way. Then the creature  stepped  from mirage on to clear sand, and they  saw that the darkness  was not all  shadows but  mostly  clothing. The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines  and  dressed in  strangely  eccentric clothing.  Shorts,  shirts, and different garments  they carried in their hands; but each boy wore a  square black cap  with a silver badge  on it.  Their bodies,  from throat to ankle, were hidden by black  cloaks which bore  a  long  silver cross  on the  left breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill. The  heat of the tropics, the descent,  the search for food, and  now this sweaty march along the blazing  beach had given them the complexions of newly washed plums. The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about  ten yards from  the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating,  swaying in the fierce  light. The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with  his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness.

     "Where's the man with the trumpet?"

     Ralph, sensing his sun-blindness, answered him.

     "There's no man with a trumpet. Only me."

     The boy came close and peered down at Ralph, screwing up his face as he did so. What  he  saw of the fair-haired boy with  the creamy shell  on his knees  did not seem to  satisfy him. He  turned quickly,  his  black  cloak circling.

     "Isn't there a ship, then?"

     Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony: and his hair was red  beneath  the black  cap. His  face was crumpled  and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of.  this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.

     "Isn't there a man here?" Ralph spoke to his back.

     "No. We're having a meeting. Come and join in."

     The group of cloaked  boys  began to scatter from close line.  The tall boy shouted at them.

     "Choir! Stand still!"

     Wearily obedient, the choir huddled  into line and stood there  swaying in the sun. None the less, some began to protest faintly.

     "But, Merridew. Please, Merridew . . . can't we?"

     Then one of the boys flopped on his face in the sand and the line broke up. They heaved the fallen boy to the platform and let him be. Merridew, his eyes staring, made the best of a bad job.

     "All right then. Sit down. Let him alone." "But Merridew."

     "He's always throwing  a  faint," said  Merridew. "He  did in Gib.; and Addis; and at matins over the precentor."

     This last  piece of  shop brought  sniggers from the choir, who perched like black birds on the criss-cross trunks and examined Ralph with interest. Piggy asked no names. He was intimidated by this uniformed  superiority  and the offhand authority in Merridew's voice. He shrank  to the other  side  of Ralph and busied himself with his glasses.

     Merridew turned to Ralph.

     "Aren't there any grownups?"

     "No."

     Merridew sat down on a trunk and looked round the circle.

     "Then well have to look after ourselves."

     Secure on the other side of Ralph, Piggy spoke timidly.

     "That's why Ralph made a meeting. So as we can decide what to do. We've heard names.  That's Johnny. Those two -they're twins, Sam 'n Eric. Which is Eric-? You? No -you're Sam-"

     "I'm Sam-"

     "'n I'm Eric."

     "We'd better all have names," said Ralph, "so I'm Ralph."

     "We got most names," said Piggy. "Got 'em just now."

     "Kids' names," said Merridew. Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew."

     Ralph turned to him quickly. This was the voice of one who knew his own

mind.

     "Then," went on Piggy, "that boy-I forget-"

     "You're talking too much," said Jack Merridew. "Shut up, Fatty."

     Laughter arose.

     "He s not Fatty," cried Ralph, "his real name's Piggy!"

     "Piggy!" "Piggy!"

     "Oh, Piggy!"

     A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. For the moment  the  boys  were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy  outside: he went very pink, bowed his head and cleaned his glasses again.

     Finally  the  laughter died  away and the naming continued.  There  was Maurice, next in size among the choir boys to  Jack, but  broad and grinning all  the time. There was a slight, furtive boy whom no one knew, who kept to himself with  an inner  intensity of avoidance and secrecy. He muttered that his  name was Roger and was  silent again. Bill,  Robert, Harold, Henry; the choir  boy who had fainted sat  up against a palm trunk, smiled pallidly  at Ralph and said that his name was Simon.

     Jack spoke.

     "We've got to decide about being rescued."

     There was a buzz.  One of the small boys, Henry, said that he wanted to go home.

     "Shut up," said Ralph absently. He  lifted the  conch.  "Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things."

     "A chief! A chief!"

     "I ought to  be chief," said  Jack with simple arrogance,  "because I'mchapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."

     Another buzz.

     "Well then," said Jack, "I-"

     He hesitated. The dark boy, Roger, stirred at last and spoke up.

     "Let's have a vote."

     "Yes!"

     "Vote for chief!"

     "Let's vote-"

     This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but  the clamor  changed from  the  general  wish for a chief  to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for  this; what  intelligence had been shown  was  traceable to Piggy while  the  most  obvious leader was Jack.  But  there was a stillness about Ralph as  he sat  that  marked him out:  there was his size,  and attractive appearance;  and most  obscurely,  yet most powerfully, there was the conch.  The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform withthe delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.

     "Him with the shell." "Ralph! Ralph!"

     "Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing."

     Ralph raised a hand for silence.

     "All right. Who wants Jack for chief?"

     With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands.

     "Who wants me?"

     Every  hand  outside  the choir except Piggy's  was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly  into  the air.  Ralph  counted. "I'm chief then." The  circle  of boys  broke into applause. Even the  choir applauded;  and the freckles on Jack's  face disappeared under  a  blush  of mortification. He started up, then changed his mind and sat down again while the air rang. Ralph looked at him, eager to offer something.

     "The choir belongs to you, of course."

     "They could be the army-"

     "Or hunters-"

     "They could be-"

     The  suffusion drained  away  from Jack's face. Ralph waved  again  for silence.

     "Jack's in charge  of the choir. They can be-what do you  want them  to be?"

     "Hunters."

     Jack and Ralph smiled at each other with shy liking. The rest began  to talk eagerly.

     Jack stood up.

     "A11 right, choir. Take off your togs."

     As if  released from  class, the choir boys  stood up, chattered, piled their black cloaks on the grass.  Jack laid his  on the  trunk by Ralph. His grey  shorts  were  sticking  to  him  with  sweat.  Ralph  glanced at  them admiringly, and when Jack saw his glance he explained.

     "I tried to get over that hill to see if there was water all round. But your shell called us."

     Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence.

     "Listen, everybody.  I've got to have time  to think things out I can't decide what to  do straight off. If this isn't an island we might be rescued straight away. So we've got to  decide if this is  an island. Everybody must stay round here and  wait and not go away. Three of us-if we take more  we'd get all mixed, and lose  each other-three of us will go on an expedition and find out. I`ll go, and Jack, and, and...."

     He looked round the circle of eager faces. There was no lack of boys to choose from.