boy were clattering back
to a position of neutrality up the stony road. "BANG!" came a flight
of lead within a yard of Benham, and then the goatherd was in retreat
behind a rock and Giorgio was shouting "AVANTI, AVANTI!" to Amanda.

She grasped his intention and in another moment she had Benham's horse
by the bridle and was leading the retreat. Giorgio followed close,
driving the two baggage mules before him.

"I am tired of dogs," Benham said. "Tired to death of dogs. All savage
dogs must be shot. All through the world. I am tired--"

Their road carried them down through the rocky pass and then up a long
slope in the open. Far away on the left they saw the goatherd running
and shouting and other armed goatherds appearing among the rocks. Behind
them the horse-owner and his boy came riding headlong across the zone of
danger.

"Dogs must be shot," said Benham, exalted. "Dogs must be shot."

"Unless they are GOOD dogs," said Amanda, keeping beside him with an eye
on his revolver.

"Unless they are good dogs to every one," said Benham.

They rushed along the road in a turbulent dusty huddle of horses and
mules and riders. The horse-owner, voluble in Albanian, was trying
to get past them. His boy pressed behind him. Giorgio in the rear had
unslung his rifle and got it across the front of his saddle. Far
away they heard the sound of a shot, and a kind of shudder in the air
overhead witnessed to the flight of the bullet. They crested a rise and
suddenly between the tree boughs Monastir was in view, a wide stretch of
white town, with many cypress and plane trees, a winding river with many
wooden bridges, clustering minarets of pink and white, a hilly cemetery,
and scattered patches of soldiers' tents like some queer white crop to
supplement its extensive barracks.

As they hurried down towards this city of refuge a long string of mules
burthened with great bales of green stuff appeared upon a convergent
track to the left. Besides the customary muleteers there were, by way of
an escort, a couple of tattered Turkish soldiers. All these men watched
the headlong approach of Benham's party with apprehensive inquiry.
Giorgio shouted some sort of information that made the soldiers brighten
up and stare up the hill, and set the muleteers whacking and shouting at
their convoy. It struck Amanda that Giorgio must be telling lies about
a Bulgarian band. In another moment Benham and Amanda found themselves
swimming in a torrent of