Acting like a crowd of kids/ the mask was a thin thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness/ He was safe fr… - William Golding

The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.

They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.

And dying is more natural than living, because what could be more unnatural than that panicstricken thing leaping and falling like a last flame beneath the ribs?

The chant was audible but at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pig's head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, across the bowl of blackened wood and ashes. "Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill the blood!" Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached the steepest part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the chant had died away.

There is nothing in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if you're not hunting, but - being hunted, as if something's behind you all the time in the jungle.