text:  Strongly excited by the recollections it called up the disagreeable and rather mean expression of his tawny physiognomy vanished his forehead seemed to expand and a sarcastic and scornful smile that at times played over his features gave him an air of superiority to his hearers as with that extraordinary flexibility of organ that is to be remarked in southern nations he narrated the various stirring events of the first patriot campaign; the struggles and sufferings of his countrymen the unbounded cruelty and excesses of their ruthless oppressors