They were alone.
"I've been talking an awful lot of rot about myself," Dominey said.
"Tell me a little about your career now and your life in Germany before you came out here ?" Von Ragastein made no immediate reply, and a curious silence ebbed and flowed between the two men.

Every now and then a star shot across the sky.

The red rim of the moon rose a little higher from behind the mountains.

The bush stillness, always the most mysterious of silences, seemed gradually to become charged with unvoiced passion.

Soon the animals began to call around them, creeping nearer and nearer to the fire which burned at the end of the open space.
"My friend," Von Ragastein said at last, speaking with the air of a man who has spent much time in deliberation, "you speak to me of Germany, of my homeland.