mportant
posts. The original gang of some fifty murderers, officers and
civilians, developed into a formidable society called the Tsrna Ruka
(Black Hand), which became a government within a government. The
Black Hand was responsible to none. Many members of the Government
were reported to belong to it, a convenient Jekyll and Hyde
arrangement, by means of which crimes of all kind could be
committed, for which the Government took no responsibility, and of
which it denied all knowledge. King Petar having been put on the
throne by this gang, had naturally no power over them, and Prince
Alexander was reported to have joined the society. Talk there was
about it all enough to lead one to think "No smoke without fire."
Members of the Tsrna Ruka joined the police force, and so secured
their plans against police interference. By means of a paper called
Premont they preach violent chauvinism, and advocated savage
methods. Damian Popovitch, the head assassin, held an important
post. Efforts on the part of politicians, who disapproved of its
methods, to break up the society failed. Unexplained deaths took
place. The Black Hand brooked no interference.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1910

Ill and crippled with sciatica, but hopeless of recovery in England,
I managed to get to Scutari in April 1910, hoping there to find a
sun-cure, and at least to learn what was happening.

Things had gone from bad to worse. No one now believed in
"Constitution." The attitude of the populace on the Sultan's
accession day showed this. No reforms or improvements had as yet
been even begun. People said: "We will not give money to the Turks
to buy gold braid for officers and guns to kill us with."

Lobatcheff had gone to Mitrovitza to hold it as a Slav outpost. My
friend, the attache, had left after having almost fought a duel
with the French Consul over his bulldog. Dushan Gregovitch
represented Montenegro. Italy and Austria were redoubling their
efforts to win over the Albanians by showering "benefits" upon
them, although each had formally agreed not to countenance the
partition of Albania, and the Nationalist Albanians were making
strides in spite of the efforts of enemies. At the time of the Young
Turk revolution some thirty Albanian papers were being published
abroad. Now, as the Constitution promised freedom of the Press,
printing was going on all over Albania, and the new alphabet was
universally adopted. The Albanian girls' school at Koritza was