The emptiness of primeval desolation stretched from him leagues and leagues upon either hand.

The gigantic silence of the night lay close over everything, like a muffling Titanic palm.

Of what was he suspicious?
In that treeless waste an object could be seen at half a day's journey distant.

In that vast silence the click of a pebble was as audible as a pistol-shot.

And yet there was nothing, nothing.
The dentist settled himself in his blankets and tried to sleep.