The high road to Uskub was without a crossing, and when we departed the following day, bound back the way we had come, the authorities of Egri-Palanka seemed relieved and assured. Considering our foreign susceptibilities, our escort did not surround us; it followed at a distance of half a mile.
We pulled up the hood of the carriage—not because of the sun—and hustled the driver. At every stiff hill we got out, to relieve the horses and to get a sight of the party in the rear. They were suffering, apparently, from the pace we were setting. It was extremely hot, and we left them further and further behind. After an hour of this we were quite a mile in the lead.
We had packed our few effects in shape to sling over our shoulders, one sack for Alexander. At a convenient bend in the road we halted our shandrydan, passed Alexander his pack, and handed a letter to the driver. The letter was to be delivered at Uskub that night without fail, and upon the presentation of it he was to receive his fare. Had we paid him he would have gone to Palanka again to pick up another load. This much through the mouth of the equally bewildered Alexander, who was then dragged from the box and hustled through three acres of standing barley before he knew what had got him.
It came off! How we slogged through that corn and down into the valley, looking back, with the perspiration streaming off our faces, to see our driver toiling away through the dust, presenting a large and discreet carriage hood to the unsuspecting escort. Presently a kindly hill shut out the road, and we struck our route by the map and the sun.
Three or four miles up the road the driver would come to the military post already mentioned, where he would halt to feed his horses; the escort would overtake him, and he would tell of our flight. A couple of hours was the most we could count on before the pursuit was started.
What a day of dodging roads and skirting villages, of scrambling up perpendicular mountain sides, and peering for Turkish patrols on the red line of high road below! It was fun the first day. We made a wager of a mijidieh, the optimistic Man of Yorkshire betting that we would not be caught before the night. I lost. I was glad to lose—the first day. We renewed the wager for the following day.
We spied a snug, secluded little village—Christian, because there was no minaret—and dropped down to it at dark. It was Servian, and the Servian schoolmaster gave us supper and shelter.
‘The peasants think you are Bulgarian,’ he said.
‘Committaji?’ we asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.