Noon
The vultures flew up hastily and Costobarus saw them for the first time . A chill rushed over him ; revulsion of feeling showed vividly on his face . He shut the window . Noon was high over Ascalon and Pestilence was Cæsar within its walls . It was the penalty of warfare , the long black shadow that the passage of a great army casts upon a battling nation . Physicians could not give it a name . It seized upon healthy victims , rent them , blasted them and cast them dead and distorted in their tracks , before help could reach them .