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 smiled,--a faint, half-bitter smile. He thought of the words in the ancient book of "Esdras:" "And the Angel bade me enter a waste field, and the field was barren and dry save of herbs, and the name of the field was Ardath. And I wandered therein through the hours of the long night, and the silver eyes of the field did open before me and therein I saw signs and wonders."