r.

"Quel pays," he said, bounding up. "Et les Bulgars, quoi?"

"Good Lord," said Jan. "Let's go out and get some fresh air."

The only people lacking to complete the scene were the Sirdar and Dr.
Clemow.

A doctor who had just arrived from Salonika asked us to look after four
English orderlies who, new to the country, were travelling to the Red
Cross mission at Vrntze. With them were two trim, short-skirted, heavy
booted, Belgian nurses, who were going to a Serbian field hospital.

The train crawled. At times it was necessary to hold one's breath to see
if we were moving at all. It was always possible that the Bulgars had
blown up a bridge or so. One could imagine an anxious driver, his eyes
fixed on the line in front, looking for Bulgarian comitaj.

The travellers were restless. Our little French courier stood in the
corridor looking fiercely at the black night; his back view eloquently
expressive of his opinion of the Balkans.

Later on we all slept. A frightful braying sound awoke us.

No, not Bulgars--only the band. Same band, same station, same hour, same
awful incompetence.

So the princess had nothing to do with it!

Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us--open truck-loads of
them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the
steps and to the buffers.

Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing
everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters
were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away. These were run
to earth in the station-master's office, and as the party had no idea
where to go, we suggested they should come with us to the rest-house.

The first person we met there was Dr. Clemow.

"Have you got the Sirdar with you?" we asked.

He answered that he had brought Paul, the young Montenegrin interpreter,
with him. The English units in Montenegro had been recalled, and he had
come to Nish to try to rescind the order for his unit.

The town was at its gayest. The cloud had not yet dimmed the market.
Peasants poured in, knowing nothing of the Bulgars, little thinking that
they would be flying, starving, dying, in a few weeks' time. A Chinese
vendor of paper gauds had come into the town, and all the pretty girls
were wearing his absurdities pinned on to their head kerchiefs. One girl
was so fine and bejewelled that we photographed her, to the delight of
her lover, who stood aside to let us have a good vie