And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a silence so intense, so⁠—weighted that it seemed to have substance; an alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from us⁠—the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long tramping of millions into the grave; it was⁠—paradoxical as it may be⁠—filled with the withdrawal of life.

Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known something of such silence⁠—but never such intensity as this. Larry felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow, felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of ice within them, watched the channel before us.

As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there by the sinking of their deep foundations.