“There was a glorious stillness after the vibration and rattle of the day. The silence was absolute. We were two hundred miles from Cairo, and there was nothing near by to make a sound. Outside in the open one listened expectantly for some small noise, a cricket chirping or a cock’s crow, but nothing came; only a little gust of cold dry air that eddied softly in the hollows of one’s ears. It seemed odd almost that the stars overhead, twinkling with a frosty vigour, could do so without making some sound about it.”