The Turk who welcomed us was the keeper, and, with his wife, the only occupant of this vast estate, the empty home of an exiled bey. The house was shown to us by both the keeper and his wife, who, though, of course, a Mohamedan woman, wore no veil. The house was handsome for this part of the country, but depleted even of furniture. The only pictures on the walls were common paintings on the plaster now cracked and falling. The harem, where marble divans for five wives were built in nooks, was filled with newly harvested grain. A bold rooster, the only lord of the manor, cackled to half a dozen happy hens and scattered the corn. We helped the keeper eject the usurper and his feminine following.
A bridge, resembling the Bridge of Sighs, led out of the harem into the dwelling of the exiled lord, bare like the other house. We climbed the creaky, dust-covered stairs to a turret at the point of the roof, which overlooked the surrounding walls and afforded a view of the encircling mountains. A brilliant southern sun was setting in an Oriental sky, and a train of three buffalo teams, silhouetted in the glow, crept along the sky-line.
ALBANIAN WOMEN.
Late in the evening we passed through the long cemetery and entered Uskub. Lights were out for the night, and patrols paced the streets. We were halted several times, but our driver’s Turkish rang true, and we proceeded to the gates of Hôtel Turati, where, after much knocking, Nicola roused from his slumbers and removed the bars.
CHAPTER XI
METROVITZA AND THE ALBANIANS
‘Listen, my brothers! You must be ready for the Holy War. When you hear for the second time the voice of public crier Mecho, gather great and small, of all ages between seven and seventy, and range yourselves under the banners. Those who have blood debts have nothing to fear. God and the country pardon them. The Seven Kings[4] are banded together, but we do not fear them, nor would they frighten us if they were seventy, or as many more.’
The clans agreed upon a bessa, or truce, blood feuds were declared off for the time, and the Albanians of Jakova, Ipek, and other districts neighbouring Metrovitza banded together, great and small, of all ages, to combat the reforms imposed upon the Sultan by the Powers.