-

"To-night no attack will be made. We shall keep guard outside."

We felt abashed. We confess thoughts of a nocturnal assassination had
not pleased us, and yet these wild mountaineers had already provided
for such a contingency. When we went outside the house before turning
in, Dr. S. pointed out the figure of a motionless sentinel leaning on
his rifle some little distance away.

"It is odd that the women are so respected," I remarked to the doctor,
"when no other law seems recognised. Do they never take part in a
vendetta?"

"Never as a woman," said the doctor. "If it should happen that a woman
is the last surviving member of a family, the rest having been killed
in a vendetta, she may continue the feud, but as a man. She then
assumes the clothes of the opposite sex, procures arms and cuts
herself off from the world, living as a hermit. Do you remember that
Albanian woman at Easter time in Podgorica who kissed me so
fervently?"

We nodded, for we had been much amused at the scene. A wild-looking,
unkempt Albanian woman had kissed the doctor most effusively.

"Though she had assumed the woman's garb for the Easter festival, she
is to all intents and purposes a man, and hence the man's kiss of
peace. She then asked me for a revolver which I had promised her some
time ago."

We turned in soon after, but not before we heard another story.

Two cairns on the road to Plavnica, and but half an hour from
Podgorica, had often been pointed out to us. They were erected to the
memory of an attack made on four gendarmes in connection with a
long-standing vendetta. A party of Albanians had hidden themselves in
two hollows beside the main road at night and as the gendarmes passed
they fired into them, killing one and badly wounding two others. This
happened shortly before our arrival.

Another scene had been enacted a few days ago which they now related
to us, to prevent us perhaps thinking too much of Keco's story, and
dreaming of it.

The men of the Zeta had sworn revenge for the death of their gendarme,
a famous man and great favourite, but at the time Prince Nicolas had
sternly forbidden reprisals. But such things are not forgotten, and a
man had crossed the Zem into Albania. Coming on a party of men working
in a field, he had fired, but his aim was unsteady, and he only
wounded his intended victim slightly. Then he fled, hotly pursued, and
received a bad wound as he crossed an open space. Still he managed to
elud