While the tribe feasts inside Castle Rock, Ralph makes his way back to the platform. Once there, he is reluctant to spend the night alone in the shelter and decides to return to Jack’s end of the island to try reasoning with them again. On the way, he encounters the pig’s skull that had spoken to Simon. Finding it eerily life-like and knowing, he knocks it to the ground and takes the stake as a weapon.
Back at Castle Rock, he sees that Samneric are on watch, having been forced to join the tribe. He approaches them cautiously, hoping to win back their loyalty. They tell him of the manhunt planned for the next day and give him some meat. Someone from the tribe hears them talking to Ralph and punishes them.
Ralph finds a place to sleep for the night. The next morning, his hiding place, a dense thicket, is betrayed by Samneric. The tribe is unsuccessful at reaching him in the thicket, so they flush him out by rolling boulders into it and setting it on fire. Once Ralph is on the run, the tribe follows him, communicating with each other with an ululating cry.
Ralph finds another impenetrable thicket to hide in but is discovered there as well. Now the fire has spread across the island so that he has to outrun the savages and the fire. He makes it to the beach and falls at the feet of a newly arrived British naval officer, whose ship had been attracted by the smoke from the huge fire. The officer confirms that his ship will take them off the island. Ralph breaks into sobs, weeping for all he has lost.
