Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/209

 there will be a score of them in presently, and if the dear little Turks happen to meet any of them in the street as they go home again, I would not be surprised if we find them hanging upsidedown by the heels in the morning. You will be near two metres high, Mitsgos!"

The clan, as Katsi Mavromichales had prophesied, soon learned that there was something going forward, and dropped into his house in groups of three and four to learn what it was. The recital had to be gone through again to a most appreciative audience, for Katsi took on his own broad shoulders the responsibility of making it public, and the only thing that failed to make the harmony of the evening complete was that the little soldiers had all gone home before the clan came out. The latter contemptuously supposed the soldiers were tired, for were they not little men? A few of the younger of the members had gone in a party to the barracks and tried to rouse the little men by throwing stones at the windows, but without result, and had subsequently quarrelled so violently at the café over the rival merits of the two corollaries, "The little men sleep sound" and "The little men are very deaf," that Katsi had to go out and knock their heads together, which he did with cheerful impartiality, the one against the other.

Confirmatory news of the effects of the explosion came from Nymphia next morning, and fulfilled the most sanguine hopes. The mill, so said the Greek who brought word, was blown to atoms, and as for Krinos, he was as if he had never been. A broken skull had been found some yards off, but of the rest of him no adequate remains were extant. It appeared also that there had been another man with him at the same time, for over forty teeth had been found by the enter-