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All the circling horizon was piled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might have imagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host of Brobdingnagians. I leveled my photographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should have got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered.
But if instead of those multitudinous fortresses the French had constructed, say, three such intrenched-camp fortresses as have been sketched, each quartering 50,000 men, it would appear that they would have done better for themselves at far less cost. Each intrenched position containing a field army 50,000 strong would engross a beleaguering host of 100,000 men.
The Prince de Soubise, brother of the Duc de Rohan, and other French volunteers of quality, also threw themselves into the place, in order to take lessons in the latest methods of attack and defence. It was now admitted that no more accomplished pupil of the stadholder in the beleaguering art had appeared in Europe than his present formidable adversary.
So nearly, indeed, had Nicias completed his beleaguering lines, and so utterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seemingly become, that an assembly of the Syracusans was actually convened, and they were discussing the terms on which they should offer to capitulate, when a galley was seen dashing into the great harbor, and making her way toward the town with all the speed which her rowers could supply.
The Prince de Soubise, brother of the Duc de Rohan, and other French volunteers of quality, also threw themselves into the place, in order to take lessons in the latest methods of attack and defence. It was now admitted that no more accomplished pupil of the stadholder in the beleaguering art had appeared in Europe than his present formidable adversary.
There was nothing to see or hear, and she was rated for alarming the camp with foolish dreams; but dawn revealed the beleaguering line, and at the lifting of the sun a battle began that lasted for days, those within the earthworks sometimes fighting while ankle-deep in the blood of their fellows.
"The result was as Mirza Shah had predicted. The beleaguering army fled at the first onslaught, leaving many hundreds of dead on the field to keep the mangled corpse of their leader company. "So, you see, my friends," commented the astrologer, concluding his tale, "as Mirza Shah most truly said, the stars cannot speak falsely. Never again have I doubted.
Before me was the shallow vale with its bracken and sweet grass, and farther on the shining links of the stream, and the loch still grey in the shadow of the beleaguering hills. Here was a fresh, clean land, a land for homesteads and orchards and children. All of a sudden I realized that at last I had come out of savagery. The burden of the past days slipped from my shoulders.
Or the road-breakers, sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost track and demolish the beleaguering drifts. All sounds are sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain.
A person interests, or piques, or tantalises you, you do your best to make him out; yet strive as you will, you cannot read the riddle of his personality. From the invulnerable fortress of his own nature he smiles contemptuously on the beleaguering armies of your curiosity and analysis.
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