He answered Redwood's brief questions in monosyllables, and gruffly.

Athwart the southern sky the beams of searchlights waved noiseless passes; the sole strange evidences of life they seemed in all that derelict world about the hurrying machine.
The road was presently bordered on either side by gigantic blackthorn shoots that made it very dark, and by tail grass and big campions, huge giant dead-nettles as high as trees, flickering past darkly in silhouette overhead.

Beyond Keston they came to a rising hill, and the driver went slow.

At the crest he stopped.

The engine throbbed and became still.