admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and
were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him
from giving us too much.

We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with
"Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the
meanwhile?"

That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French
fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola
Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the
"trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.

"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e
never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia
this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't
know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."

Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a
contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to
offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered
for our trip to Dechani.

We didn't like cicerones and demurred.

"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.

"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years
ago."

We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face,
strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a
very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.

And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had
avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with
an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to
hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs--such was our chariot.
Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on
tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, and
off we drove.

Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a
dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned
Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of
education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when
too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems,
the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were
fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and
mysterious murders were needed to keep down