“Quite, I think. The people here are very suspicious of Austrians, and Slavianski won’t venture to follow us any further. But we’ll start as soon as it is light to-morrow. Is there enough petrol to take us to Sofia?”
“That depends on whether we can make a straight run of it. If we have to double and wind as we have done up to the present, we certainly shall not have enough. It is about a hundred and fifty miles from here to Sofia, I think you said?”
“About that. We shall have to cross the railway. There’s a branch line to Mitrovitza, a few miles from here; a few miles further on there’s the main line running north to Nish and Belgrade; and about forty miles beyond that, across the hills, there’s Kustendil, from which there’s a wretched train service to Sofia; so if we do break down en route, we shall have opportunities of boarding a train. The mischief is that there’s such a poor service that we may be hung up for twenty-four hours or more.”
“Let us hope it won’t come to that,” said George.
Here one of the inn attendants offered him a cigarette which he had just rolled, and another a glass of a liqueur called rosolio. George accepted the former, but declined the latter, which led to a polite inquiry on the part of the host whether his guests were Mussulmans. Before Maurice could reply, there came a tremendous banging at the door, which had been fastened to keep out the crowd. The hanji sprang up and rushed, uttering loud imprecations, to deal with the inquisitive person who he supposed was intruding upon his guests. But on throwing open the door he became suddenly dumb, smiled with great deference, and bowed himself nearly double as a stout Turkish officer in a green-braided uniform clanked into the guest-room, followed by half-a-dozen soldiers similarly attired.
The inmates instantly rose from their stools or the bundles of hay on which they were sitting, and made humble obeisance. Maurice got up and saluted, telling George in a low tone to do the same. Ignoring the obsequious bowings of the company, the officer marched up to Maurice, gravely saluted him, and then, with an air of great importance, addressed him in Turkish.
“The effendi will have the goodness to show his teskereh,” he said.
Maurice smiled as he replied to the man, and produced the document from his breast-pocket.
“Who is the buffer?” whispered George.
“An officer of zaptiehs—a kind of gendarmerie,” said Maurice. “No doubt everybody in the town knows of the arrival of two strangers in a devil machine. We were bound to be questioned.”