He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death.

To him it stood as the greatest of hurts.

It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth.

He did not go down again.

Quite as though it had been a long-established custom of his he struck out with all his legs and began to swim.