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by another, and then another: `We want the cannon, we want the cannon.'
    Velisarios was immensely proud of his cannon. It was an old Turkish culverin, just too heavy for anyone else to lift. It was made of solid brass, with a Damascus barrel bound with riveted iron hoops, and it was engraved with the date 1739 and some swirling characters that no one could decipher. It was a most mysterious, untranslatable cannon that generated copious verdigris no matter how often it was polished. Part of the secret of Velisarios' titanic strength was that he had been carrying it around with him for so long.
    He looked down at Pelagia, who was still awaiting a response to her demand that he apologise to the priest, said to her, `I'll go later, pretty one,' and then raised his arms to announce, `Good people of the village, to see the cannon, all you must do is give me your old rusty nails, your broken bolts, your shards of pots, and the stones of your streets. Find me these things whilst I pack the gun with powder. Oh, and somebody bring me a rag, a nice big one.'
    Little boys scuffed the dust of the streets for stones, old men searched their sheds, the women ran for the one shirt of their husband that they had been trying to make him discard, and shortly all were reassembled for the great explosion. Velisarios poured a generous dole of powder down into the magazine, tamped it ceremoniously in the full consciousness of the need to prolong the drama, tamped down one of the rags, and teen allowed the little boys to scoop handfuls of the accumulated ammunition into the barrel. He followed this with another tattered rag, and then demanded, `What do you want me to shoot?'
    `Prime Minister Metaxas,' cried Kokolios, who was unashamed of his Communist convictions and devoted much time in the kapheneion to criticising the dictator and the King. Some people laughed, others scowled, and some thought `There goes Kokolios again.'
    `Shoot Pelagia, before she bites somebody's balls off,' suggested Nicos, a young man whose advances she had successfully deterred by means of acerbic remarks about his intelligence and general honesty.
    `I'll shoot you,' said Velisarios. `You should mind your tongue when there are respectable people present.'
    `I have an old donkey with the spavins. I hate to part with an old friend, but really she's useless. She just eats, and she falls over when I load her up. She'd make a good target, it would take her off my hands, and it would make a terrific mess.'
    It was Stamatis.
    `May you have female children and male sheep for even thinking of such a terrible thing,' exclaimed Velisarios. `Do you think I am a Turk? No, I will simply fire the gun down the road, for lack of a better target. Everybody out of the way now. Stand back, all the children put their hands over their ears: With theatrical aplomb the enormous man lit the fuse of the gun where it stood propped against the wall, picked it up as though it were as light as a carbine, and braced himself with one foot forward and the cannon cradled above the hip. Silence fell. The fuse sputtered brightly. Breaths were held. Children clamped their hands over their ears, grimaced, closed one eye, and hopped from one foot to another. There was a moment of excruciating suspense as the flame of the fuse reached the touch-hole and sputtered out. Perhaps the powder hadn't caught. But then there was a colossal roar, a spout of orange and lilac flame, a formidable cloud of acrid-tasting smoke, a wonderful spitting of dust as the projectiles tore into the surface of the road, and a long moan of pain.
    There was a moment of confusion and hesitation. People looked around at each other to see who might have caught a ricochet. A renewed moan, and Velisarios dropped his cannon and ran forward. He had spotted a huddled form amid the settling dust.
    Mandras was later to thank Velisarios for shooting him with a Turkish culverin as he came round the bend at the entrance of the village. But at the time he