Frantzis Was As Unconcerned As An Artist Painting A Big
Picture In His Studio.
The battle plain below him was his canvas,
and his nine mountain guns were his paint brushes.
And he painted
out Turks and Turkish cannon with the same concentrated, serious
expression of countenance that you see on the face of an artist when
he bites one brush between his lips and with another wipes out a
false line or a touch of the wrong color. You have seen an artist
cock his head on one side, and shut one eye and frown at his canvas,
and then select several brushes and mix different colors and hit the
canvas 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.
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