an instant's delay, a solid wave of Greeks in brown--lightly fringed in
front with the figures of a few of the more active or impetuous who had
outdistanced their comrades in the scramble over the top--rose up out of
the earth and swept forward to meet the line of gray. The gust of their
first great cheer rolled up to us above the thunder of the artillery.

"Now for it!" repeated X----, focussing down his telescope and steadying
himself with his elbows. "I think you'll find the show from now on worth
all the trouble of coming up to see."

[Sidenote: the Bulgars break and retreat.]

I do not attempt to account for what happened now; I only record it. It
may have been that the Allied artillery had wrought more havoc in that
advancing wave of men than had been apparent from a distance, or it may
have been that the enemy artillery had done less to the entrenched
defenders than it was expected to do; at any rate, the line of gray
began to break at almost the first impact of the line of brown, and the
great hand-to-hand fight that X---- had promised me was transformed into
a Marathon.

[Sidenote: Greeks have always beaten the Bulgars.]

"As I expected," muttered my companion. "'Boris' has no stomach for a
fight to-day with the man who licked him yesterday, and will lick him
to-morrow and go right on licking him to the end if they'll only give
him a show. The Bulgar never has stood up to the Greek, and he never
will."

[Sidenote: The Greek Staff is in a mountain valley.]