It was no longer an aggregate of individuals.

It was a mass--a compact, solid, slowly moving mass, huge, without form, like a thick-pressed growth of mushrooms, spreading out in all directions over the earth.

From it there arose a vague murmur, confused, inarticulate, like the sound of very distant surf, while all the air in the vicinity was heavy with the warm, ammoniacal odour of the thousands of crowding bodies.
All the colours of the scene were sombre--the brown of the earth, the faded yellow of the dead stubble, the grey of the myriad of undulating backs.

Only on the far side of the herd, erect, motionless--a single note of black, a speck, a dot--the shepherd stood, leaning upon an empty water-trough, solitary, grave, impressive.
For a few moments, Presley stood, watching.

Then, as he started to move on, a curious thing occurred.