They were unable to get the desired scent in that land trodden down and disfigured by the transit of thousands of men.

A family cat was watching the birds that were beginning to return to their haunts.

With timid flutterings they were picking at what the horses had left, and an ownerless hen was disputing the banquet with the winged band, until then hidden in the trees and roofs.

The silence intensified the rustling of the leaves, the hum of the insects, the summer respiration of the sunburnt soil which appeared to have contracted timorously under the weight of the men in arms.
Desnoyers was losing exact track of the passing of time.

He was beginning to believe that all which had gone before must have been a bad dream.