For the silver and gold of the moon and the black muck of the fire refused to mingle, and while over their heads they could see the tiniest clouds and beyond to the farthest stars, all was black emptiness when they looked about them upon what once had been a living earth.

Only the two lines of steel caught the moon-glow and the charred ends of the fire-shriven stubs that rose up out of the earth shroud and silhouetted themselves against the sky.
To Peter it was not what he failed to see, but what he did not hear or smell that oppressed him and stirred him to wide-eyed watchfulness against impending evil.

Under many moons he had traveled with his master in their never-ending flight from the law, and many other nights with neither moon nor stars had they felt out their trails together.

But always, under him and over him on all sides of him, there had been LIFE.
And tonight there was no life, nor smell of life.

There was no chirp of night bird, or flutter of owl's wing, no plash of duck or cry of loon.
He listened in vain for the crinkling snap of twig, and the whisper of wind in treetops.