We discovered him to be an intensely stupid and unintelligent being. This did not promise well. Here we were, two Englishmen, utterly ignorant of Turkish or Albanian, about to ride right across the country in the company of a man who would not be of the slightest use to us in any way.
We gave him a good feed, in hopes that this might develop some traces of intelligence in his dense skull. All in vain. The only effect was, that after having thoroughly gorged himself, he closed his eyes, gave vent to a sort of choking sound, and fell fast asleep.
Everything was ready; we had bid adieu to our Scutarine friends, left orders that our horses should be brought round early on the morrow—then we retired to our beds among the sausages.
It was scarce dawn. There was a loud knock at our door—a rather violent knock. The door opened; we expected to see the smiling face of Toshli, who had come to announce the arrival of our ghostly zaptieh and our brave steeds; but to our astonishment there entered, boisterously, two bronzed and travel-stained Britons—in short, the long-lost Jones and Robinson, whom we had given up long ago.
They stood laughing before us; but Brown and myself considered it incumbent upon us to receive them in a slightly distant and dignified manner as we sat up in our beds. We asked them to give an explanation of their great dilatoriness in catching us up.
We found that they had started from England a fortnight after us, but had been delayed at Cattaro and other ports, in consequence of some extremely ingenious arrangement Robinson, the inventor, had made for receiving money at different places on the route.
They had followed in our footsteps exactly—had taken boat from Trieste to Cattaro, and thence walked, viâ Cettinje, to Rieka, where they had taken a londra for Scutari. We inquired where the white elephant and other Robinsoniana were.
They had left them at Cettinje, they said, and were going to return for them. This further delay was by no means pleasing to Brown and myself. We laid our programme before them, and expected that they would fall in with it at once. A very warm discussion ensued, very nearly resulting in a re-separation of our forces.
They had been very well received, it seems, by the Montenegrins, and had promised some of the chieftains at Cettinje that they would return to that capital as soon as they had seen Scutari.
The war between the principality and the Albanians, so long talked of, was, they said, now but a question of a few days. They had been invited to accompany the army of Prince Nikita, which was on the point of advancing on Gussinje, as the honoured guests of the general in command.