a bold stroke, and then lean back to note the effect.
Frantzis acted in just that way. He would stand with his legs apart and
his head on one side, pulling meditatively at his pointed beard, and then
taking a closer look through his field-glasses, would select the three
guns he had decided would give him the effect he wanted to produce, and
he would produce that effect. When the shot struck plump in the Turkish
lines, and we could see the earth leap up into the air like geysers of
muddy water, and each gunner would wave his cap and cheer, Frantzis would
only smile uncertainly, and begin again, with the aid of his
field-glasses, to puzzle out fresh combinations.

The battle that had begun in a storm of hail ended on the first day in a
storm of bullets that had been held in reserve by the Turks, and which
let off just after sundown. They came from a natural trench, formed by
the dried-up bed of a stream which lay just below the hill on which the
first Greek trench was situated. There were bushes growing on the bank
of the stream nearest to the Greek lines, and these hid the men who
occupied it. Throughout the day there had been an irritating fire from
this trench from what appeared to be not more than a dozen rifles, but we
could see that it was fed from time to time with many boxes of
ammunition, which were carried to it on the backs of mules from the
Turkish position a half mile farther to the rear. Bass and a corporal
took a great aversion to this little group of Turks, not because there
were too many of them to be disregarded, but because they were so near;
and Bass kept the corporal's services engaged in firing into it, and in
discouraging the ammunition mules when they were being driven in that
direction. Our corporal was a sharp-shooter, and, accordingly, felt his
superiority to his comrades; and he had that cheerful contempt for his
officers that all true Greek soldiers enjoy; and so he never joined in
the volley-firing, but kept his ammunition exclusively for the dozen men
behind the bushes and for the mules. He waged, as it were, a little
battle on his own account. The other men rose as commanded and fired
regular volleys, and sank back again, but he fixed his sights to suit his
own idea of the range, and he rose when he was ready to do so, and fired
whenever he thought best. When his officer, who kept curled up in the
hollow of the trench, commanded him to lie down, he would frown and shake
his head at