midnight
Walking with his comrade through the silent places , lying beside him under the serene luminous light of the stars , Cameron began to feel the haunting presence of invisible things that were real to him -- phantoms whispering peace . In the moan of the cool wind , in the silken seep of sifting sand , in the distant rumble of a slipping ledge , in the faint rush of a shooting star he heard these phantoms of peace coming with whispers of the long pain of men at the last made endurable . Even in the white noonday , under the burning sun , these phantoms came to be real to him . In the dead silence of the midnight hours he heard them breathing nearer on the desert wind -- nature 's voices of motherhood , whispers of God , peace in the solitude . There came a morning when the sun shone angry and red through a dull , smoky haze . `` We 're in for sandstorms , '' said Cameron . They had scarcely covered a mile when a desert-wide , moaning , yellow wall of flying sand swooped down upon them .