He entered one of the gardens, clicking the gate-latch loudly after him, but no one challenged.

He drew a drink from the well with its loud-rattling chain and clumsy, water-sodden bucket, but no one called.

At the door of the house he whistled, stamped, pounded, and at last flung it open with all the noise he could make.

Still his hungry ears fed on nothing but sinister echoes, the barren husks of his own clamour.

There was no curt voice of a man, no quick, questioning tread of a woman.