The next morning M. Stcherbina, attired in Russian uniform, followed by a Cossack, two heavily armed kavasses, and a troop of soldiers, officers, and officials—the Turks doing honour and service against their convictions—went out to inspect the line of battle, the plan of which, it was alleged, the Russian had directed. As the Consul in great state passed, the sentinels presented arms—which the Russians exact of the Turks. One Mohamedan, required thus to degrade himself, lowered his gun quickly as the Consul passed before him at a distance of three paces, and without waiting to aim, fired a fatal ball into the ‘infidel’s’ body. Then, flinging away his gun, the soldier started at a mad pace down the slope, over the rocks toward the mountains of Albania.
The Consul’s retinue, surprised for a moment, were soon after the fugitive, firing fast; but he travelled a hundred yards before they wounded him. The Cossack claimed, and no doubt fired, the telling shot.
At his first trial the murderer was condemned to prison for a term of fifteen years. Strange to say, Abdul Hamid is averse from capital punishment. But the Russians were not satisfied with this sentence and demanded a new trial; and at the second hearing, at Uskub (a mock affair with the verdict pre-determined) the soldier was condemned to death. Before he was executed the White Czar pardoned the murderer of M. Stcherbina! But a few months later, not only the murderer of M. Roskowsky, Russian Consul at Monastir, but also a soldier who stood by and saw the deed done, and made no attempt to prevent it, were hanged at Russian command.
The ways of the Turk and the ways of the Russian are wonderful and similar.
The display of the Russian dead was truly Russian. The body of M. Stcherbina was placed on a bier in a goods car, lined and completely covered with mourning, on each side and each end an immense white cross. This moving catafalque was dragged from Metrovitza to Salonica, met along the route by Servian and Bulgarian clergy and such Consuls as would participate in the demonstration, and opened for services at the chief stations. At Salonica the body was laid in state in a new Bulgarian church, from which there was a great parade to a Russian man-of-war, Consuls all participating, Turkish soldiers and officials doing honour.
The object of these proceedings seemed to be to impress Turks, Christians, and Jews alike with the power of Russia. Alas! for the power of Russia, the Japanese war soon followed, and its result delighted Turks and Jews and many Christians.
From Constantinople came a commission of holy men with gifts from the Sultan and arguments from the Koran to conciliate the injured Albanians. But they would not be reconciled. Abdul Hamid had kept them armed for generations for his own purposes, had chosen his bodyguard from among them because of their faithfulness, and now no amount of backsheesh, or multiloquence about their transgressing the will of God, would bring them to terms. They were going to fight. So the Albanian soldiers were brought out of the Albanian districts and replaced by purely Turkish regiments. More Anatolians were brought over from Asia Minor in vast numbers, and mobilised at Verisovitch.
Those who knew the Turkish Government doubted that actual hostilities against the Albanians would take place. But Russia was pressing—threatening a naval demonstration with the Black Sea fleet—and the Sultan fought his faithful friends.
Two small encounters took place. Of course the Albanians, badly armed and without organisation, were easily defeated. The chiefs were made prisoners and taken to Constantinople, where they were decorated, probably pensioned for life, and made altogether better off than they had been hitherto.