‘Why!’ came the answer, ‘the man who should take you over those mountains would be shot by the committajis, for we have refused to arm. Were the Turks to find out that one of us had left here without a teskeré, and taken you to see a village which they had destroyed, they would come and do the same to this place.’
‘Please leave us,’ they begged, as we still argued, ‘and get away before the Turks see you.’ Several old women began to cry.
We returned to our guide, our last card played, and said demurely, ‘Lead us back to Veles.’
We made our way slowly, and waited at the next khan for a cloud of dust on our trail to develop into a troop of cavalry, who kept a close cordon about us for the rest of the journey back to the railway.
Defeated we had been, but we had learned a lesson in the ways of the Turk, who thinks his intelligence is superior to that of a mere ‘giaour.’
CHAPTER X
USKUB AND THE SERBS
After our attempt to evade the authorities we were closely watched until we left Veles, the police, as is their way, pretending to wait upon us only for our convenience. When we departed two mounted gendarmes accompanied us to the railway station, though we needed no protection, and a careful sleuth, with painful politeness, assisted us in taking tickets for Uskub—an unnecessary courtesy—and went with us to the train to see, he alleged, that we secured a comfortable compartment. There was only one first-class compartment in the train, and this was occupied by a well-dressed officer whose trousers had been pressed inside out. The Turkish gentleman stood not upon ceremony, as does his admiring British contemporary on such occasions; he introduced himself before we had taken our seats, immediately inquired our life history, and soon divulged what purported to be his. He was no other than Hamdi Pasha, of Albanian extraction, the youngest general in the Turkish army, so he informed us, on his way to the Bulgarian border, of which he was military inspector.
It was raining heavily when we arrived at Uskub; nevertheless, a picked company of Nizams (regulars) was drawn up in honour of our travelling companion, and presented arms as the train pulled in. The pasha alighted, saluted, and, with us on either side of him, sharing a great white umbrella, proceeded to the Hôtel Turati. Then the bedraggled band struck up one of several Sousa compositions which have been Orientalised for the Ottoman army, and the company marched away through the slush, doing the German ‘goose’ step, acquired from the Kaiser’s officers in the Sultan’s service, which showy effort spattered the mud on civil pedestrians on both sides of the narrow street.