“Ah!” Someone’s triumphant voice. I saw the back of a neck and a finger pointing to the sky. I remember very distinctly a yellow-pinkish nail and under the nail a crescent crawling out as if from under the horizon. The finger was like a compass; all eyes were raised to the sky.

There, running away from an invisible pursuit, masses of cloud were rushing upon each other; and colored by the clouds the aeros of the Guardians, with their tubes like antennae, were floating. And farther to the west⁠—something like.⁠ ⁠… At first nobody could understand what it was, even I, who knew (unfortunately) more than the others. It was like a great hive of black aeros swarming somewhere at an extraordinary height⁠—they looked like hardly noticeable, swiftly moving points.⁠ ⁠… Nearer and nearer.⁠ ⁠… Hoarse, guttural sounds began to reach the earth and finally we saw birds just over our heads! They filled the sky with their sharp, black, descending triangles. The stormy wind drove them down and they began to land on the cupolas, on the roofs, poles and balconies.