He walked on for some time, and presently stopped a moment to
examine his map by the light of the moon. As he did so, he became
aware of the extraordinary, almost terrible, stillness surrounding
him. He had thought the "Hermitage" silent as a closed tomb--but
it was nothing to the silence here. He felt it inclosing him like
a thick wall on all sides,--he heard the regular pulsations of his
own heart--even the rushing of his own blood--but no other sound
was audible. Earth and the air seemed breathless, as though with
some pent-up mysterious excitement,--the stars were like so many
large living eyes eagerly gazing down on the solitary human being
who thus wandered at night in the land of the prophets of old--the
moon itself appeared to stare at him in open wonderment. He grew
uncomfortably conscious of this speechless watchfulness of
nature,--he strained his ears to listen, as it were to the
deepening dumbness of all existing things,--and to conquer the
strange sensations that were overcoming him, he proceeded at a
more rapid pace,--but in two or three minutes came again to an
abrupt halt. For there in front of him, right across his path, lay
the fallen pillar which, according to Heliobas, marked the
boundary to the field he sought! Another glance at his map decided
the position ... he had reached his journey's end at last! What
was the time? He looked--it was just twenty minutes past eleven.

A curious, unnatural calmness suddenly possessed him, ... he
surveyed with a quiet, almost cold, unconcern the prospect before
him,--a wide level square of land covered with tufts of coarse
grass and clumps of wild tamarisk, ... nothing more. This was the
Field of Ardath ... this bare, unlovely wilderness without so much
as a tree to grace its outline! From where he stood he could view
its whole extent,--and as he beheld its complete desolation he