It was that incessant and muffled roar which
disengages itself from all vast bodies, from oceans, from cities, from
forests, from sleeping armies, and which is like the breathing of an
infinitely great monster, alive, palpitating.
McTeague returned to his work. At six in the morning his shift was taken
off, and he went out of the mine and back to the bunk house. All day
long he slept, flung at length upon the strong-smelling blankets--slept
the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, crushed and overpowered with the
work, flat and prone upon his belly, till again in the evening the cook
sounded the alarm upon the crowbar bent into a triangle.
Every alternate week the shifts were changed. The second week McTeague's
shift worked in the daytime and slept at night. Wednesday night of this
second week the dentist woke suddenly. He sat up in his bed in the bunk
house, looking about him from side to side; an alarm clock hanging on
the wall, over a lantern, marked half-past three.
"What was it?" muttered the dentist. "I wonder what it was." The rest of
the shift were sleeping soundly, filling the room with the rasping sound
of snoring. Everything was in its accustomed place; nothing stirred.
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