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No sooner had his flying ships escaped from Ciconia than they were struck by a terrific tempest which drove them far out of their course. For three days the storm continued; then, as it abated, they saw before them an unknown shore on which they landed to rest and recover their strength.
Not the ordinary Ciconia, that makes its home among the Hollanders or finds a still more welcome hospitality on the roof-tree of the Hungarian by the plains of the Puszta but a stork of far grander dimensions; in short, a stork that is the tallest of his tribe the Adjutant. On looking up, Karl recognised the species; so did Caspar, and at a glance.
And the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in use amongst them: "O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit, Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas, Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum." The Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly and should do still, were I to govern in this point. But there are whole books on this subject.
"You say he's from Præneste," said Gabinius, "and yet can he speak decent Latin? Doesn't he say 'conia' for 'ciconia, and 'tammodo' for 'tantummodo'? I wonder you invite such a boor." "Oh! he can speak good enough Latin," said Lucius. "But I invited him because he is rich; and it might be worth our while to make him gamble." "Rich!" lisped Servius Flaccus. For shame!"
Where they pass the winter in what Mentone or Madeira of the ralline race is not known. There is a pretty story, which circulated throughout Europe a little over fifty years ago, of a Polish gentleman, capturing a stork that built its nest on his roof every summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck with the inscription, "Haec Ciconia ex Polonia."
At the last, when Achilles was dead, and the Greeks were all worn out and despairing, it was his fertile brain which originated the snare into which the Trojans fell. Now, with the other Greeks, Ulysses set out to return to his home. Yet first he stopped with his Ithacans to attack the Trojan city of Ciconia. The assault was unexpected and successful.
The consequence was, that, from that time, Fritz had conceived a most rancorous antipathy towards all birds of the genus Ciconia and the species Argala in particular; and this it was that impelled him, on first perceiving the adjutant for being by the hut on their arrival he had not seen them before, to rush open-mouthed towards them, and seize the tail of one of them between his teeth.
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