| Chapter # | Sentence # | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| 49 | 108 | In any View more quotes about event">event, as the account goes, these warring armies were not the only creatures discomfited by the sudden, unexpected cruelty of the weather. |
| Chapter # | Sentence # | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| 49 | 105 | In any event, the winter, in the year in question, apparently set in early, and unexpectedly, and with ferocity. |
| 49 | 106 | A blizzard, with its bitter cold, fierce winds, and blinding snow enveloped the two armies, not only postponing hostilities, but rendering the most tentative efforts at reconnaissance impractical. |
| 49 | 107 | Dispatched scouts might be disoriented and lost in the storm, and freeze, or even, under the conditions, might wander, distraught and aimless, into the enemy camp itself. |
| 49 | 108 | In any event, as the account goes, these warring armies were not the only creatures discomfited by the sudden, unexpected cruelty of the weather. |
| 49 | 109 | Thousands of tiny defts, a small, flocking, gray, migratory bird, undistinguished in its plumage and not noted for its song, on their way to the shores of the Cartius, had been caught in the storm, as well, and, paralyzed with cold, with wings coated with ice, unable to continue their journey, had fallen to the snow-covered ground, littering the no-man's-land between the two armies, the projected field of battle. |
| 49 | 110 | This became clear on the morning after the third day of the storm when the weather suddenly cleared, and, to the surprise of the potential combatants, a dreadful landscape was revealed, dark with the tiny bodies of stricken, half-frozen birds, partly buried in the snow. |
| 49 | 111 | In short, the truce standards were raised, and hundreds of men, from each army, came onto the field, gathered up the birds in their helmets and the basins of their shields, and returned to their respective camps, where the birds were nursed, being warmed and fed, and, two days later, on a common signal, between the two armies, were lofted into the air, where they rose above the field, circled it three times, and then resumed their journey. |