But the sound of the guns and the smoke of the firing carried too far. Kolocotrones, still encamped on the top of the Dervenaki, in the hope that the Turkish garrison of Nauplia would attempt to cut their way through the Greeks and escape to Corinth, was waiting there for the end, seeing that the most part of the treasure of Nauplia was exhausted in purchasing provisions, and that a fine harvest might be expected from the ransom of the Turks of rank who escaped. They must pass over the hills of the Dervenaki, and he would thus gain the honor of their capture, and also, what was the dearer to him, the money of their ransom. But repeated volleys from the Palamede, while no firing came from the lower town, could mean but one thing. Were the Turks opening fire on the Greeks, they would use the guns of the lower fortress at shorter range rather than those of the Palamede. Again no answer came from either side, the Burdjee or the fleet. Also his practised ear could distinguish even at that distance the hollow buffet of blank firing from the sharper noise of the discharge of shot or shell. So on went the brass helmet, and at the head of his eight thousand irregular but strangely efficient troops, he set out for the town. Certainly none could say that he spared himself. He marched on foot with the others, all smiles and bluff encouragement, going, with all his fifty years and gray head, with a foot as light as a boy's. He roared out strange and stimulating brigand songs one after the other, the men taking up the choruses; he sat with the rest under a desolating shower for dinner, and when the repeated rain put out the fire on which he was roasting a sheep for himself and his staff, he laughed, and cut off with his sword a great hunk of flesh more than half raw, and ate it as if it had been meat for a king. They had set off in such haste that they had forgotten to bring wine with them. It mattered not; rain-water, he said, was the best of drinks, and he washed down the raw lamb with a draught from a puddle among stones. Then when at the last a flask of spirits was produced, he would none of it; he had drunk his fill, let those who had not yet drunk have the brandy. Of what good were meat and drink but to fill the stomach? His own was full, and he licked his greasy fingers. All this endeared him in a savage way to his men. Here at least was a man who was of themselves, made generalissimo of the Peloponnesian troops by the supreme council. Indeed, had he not been without a sense of honor where treasure was concerned, they could have had no better. Petrobey had shown himself weak at Tripoli; Hypsilantes had never been otherwise; Mavrogordatos was busy with his titles. As his custom was, Kolocotrones came laughing and shouting into the Greek army with a joke and a slap on the back for his friends, an outburst of genuine affection for his son, Panos, total indifference to the cold faces of the Mainats, and an enormous appetite.