Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Passage 2 (page 41)

     “–and them little ’uns was wandering about down there where the fire is. How d’you know they aren’t still there?”
     Piggy stood up and pointed to the smoke and flames. A murmur rose among the boys and died away. Something strange was happening to Piggy, for he was gasping for breath.
     “That little ’un–” gasped Piggy– “him with the mark on his face, I don’t see him. Where is he now?”
     The crowd was as silent as death.
     “Him that talked about the snakes. He was down there–” A tree exploded in the fire like a bomb.Tall swathes of creepers rose for a moment into view, agonized, and went down again.

     In "Lord of the Flies," Piggy is a symbol of wisdom and sense. This passage is an example of a time when he was the only one who thought about all aspects of a situation. Everyone else just thinks about the fact that there's a big fire, but Piggy is the one who brings up the fact that it may have been deadly. Golding carefully chose his words to imply that the death really happened. He says that the murmur "died away" and later that the crowd was "silent as death." Coincidence? I think not.