The Greek rifles crackled and flashed at the lines, but the men below
came on quite steadily, picking their way over the furrows and
appearing utterly unconscious of the seven thousand rifles that were
calling on them to halt. They were advancing directly toward a
little sugar-loaf hill, on the top of which was a mountain battery
perched like a tiara on a woman's head. It was throwing one shell
after another in the very path of the men below, but the Turks still
continued to pick their way across the field, without showing any
regard for the mountain battery. It was worse than threatening; it
seemed almost as though they meant to insult us. If they had come up
on a run they would not have appeared so contemptuous, for it would
have looked then as though they were trying to escape the Greek fire,
or that they were at least interested in what was going forward. But
the steady advance of so many men, each plodding along by himself,
with his head bowed and his gun on his shoulder, was aggravating.

There was a little village at the foot of the hill. It was so small
that no one had considered it. It was more like a collection of
stables gathered round a residence than a town, and there was a wall
completely encircling it, with a gate in the wall that faced us.
Suddenly the doors of this gate were burst open from the inside, and
a man in a fez ran through them, followed by many more. The first
man was waving a sword, and a peasant in petticoats ran at his side
and pointed up with his hand at our trench. Until that moment the
battle had lacked all human interest; we might have been watching a
fight against the stars or the man in the moon, and, in spite of the
noise and clatter of the Greek rifles, and the ghostlike whispers and
the rushing sounds in the air, there was nothing to remind us of any
other battle of which we had heard or read. But we had seen pictures