A little ahead of him was that gloomy, sunless part of the chasm into which he had peered so often from the top of the ridge on the north.

As he advanced step by step into its mysterious silence, his eyes alert, his nerves stretched to a tension of the keenest expectancy, there crept over him a feeling that he was invading that enchanted territory which, even at this moment, might be guarded by the spirits of the two mortals who had died because of the treasure it held.
Narrower and narrower became the walls high over his head.

Not a ray of sunlight penetrated into the soundless gloom.

Not a leaf shivered in the still air.

The creek gurgled and spattered among its rocks, without the note of a bird or the chirp of a squirrel to interrupt its monotony.
Everything was dead.