A painter, or rather sculptor, would have seized
the attitudes of these young combatants for a rich exhibition of the power
of his art.
Mark, like most of his friends, had cast aside all superfluous vestments
ere he approached the scene of strife. The upper part of his body was
naked to the shirt, and even this had been torn asunder by the rude
encounters through which he had already passed. The whole of his full and
heaving chest was bare, exposing the white skin and blue veins of one
whose fathers had come from towards the rising sun. His swelling form
rested on a leg that seemed planted in defiance, while the other was
thrown in front, like a lever, to control the expected movements. His arms
were extended to the rear, the hands grasping the barrel of a musket,
which threatened death to all who should come within its sweep. The head,
covered with the short, curling, yellow hair of his Saxon lineage, was a
little advanced above the left shoulder, and seemed placed in a manner to
preserve the equipoise of the whole frame. The brow was flushed, the lips
compressed and resolute, the veins of the neck and temples swollen nearly
to bursting, and the eyes contracted, but of a gaze that bespoke equally
the feelings of desperate determination and of entranced surprise.
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