The Luck of Thirteen Part 8

We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt--that came from the dirty bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time, but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there was peace.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII

TO CETTINJE

The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us _not_ to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked again, saying--

"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."

No explanations.

We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting in the bar room.

We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows how far from Cettinje.

The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked another man.

Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.

Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.

What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts to put us at our ease.

The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were pa.s.sing through some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.

The carriage settled down with a b.u.mp. Something wrong with the harness; string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.

Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to prevent it from coming in two.

We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational powers.

Women pa.s.sed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely unladen.

Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.

Pa.s.sers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered--

"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is to them writing.

One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing--

"If I could write, I would write _you_," she said.

We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.

At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.

When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up, adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.

Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think that was the end of it.

This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching Cettinje that night.

"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depot. No adjutant, nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady, subst.i.tuted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice, and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh, took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried to find excuses--the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with some friends.

Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.

"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.

The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant, came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.

But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat back haughtily and remarked--

"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."

"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful carriage," he added.

It arrived--a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare, so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.

The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.

"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large mouthful of cheese.

We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We pa.s.sed an encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird and jolly sight.

The hours pa.s.sed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing) we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.

A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness; we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from the _Strand Magazine_.

At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At last we wound slowly into wet streets, pa.s.sed our mysterious companion without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to stretch and to find really comfortable beds.

The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the English minister, and to inspect the town.

Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins have half covered it with Cettinje.

It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.

Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.

Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living within.

We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.

He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was done--a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold danglers, who immediately began to air his quite pa.s.sable French. We explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.

The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.