"How do you know I am a Servian?" asked the stranger.
"Partly from your accent. You have not got our pure Albanian tongue, though it is now six years you have been talking it. And then Arnaud—Colonel Kabilovitsch—came back as a Servian. Is it not so?" asked Amesa, noticing the surprised look which the mention of Kabilovitsch's name brought to the man's face.
For a while the stranger was lost in thought; but with an effort throwing off a sort of reverie, he said:
"Pardon my silence. I have been thinking of your proposal. May I follow you to the village after a little? I would think over how best I can meet your proposition, my Prince Amesa."
"I will await you at the konak. But first let us swear friendship!" said the voivode.
"Heartily!" was the response. "With Amesa as against Scanderbeg."
"You will induce the girl to go with me to my castle. She will fare better there than here, playing Dodola to these ignorant peasants."
"It is agreed."
As Amesa disappeared, the man sat down upon a huge root of a tree, which for lack of earth had twined itself over the rock. He buried his face in his hands—
"Strange! strange! is all this. Kabilovitsch? the girl? Not my little playmate on the Balkans—sweet faced Morsinia. The Dodola here is not she. If Uncle Kabilovitsch is Colonel Kabilovitsch, or this Arnaud he speaks of, then this treacherous Amesa is on the wrong track. Can it be that Constantine—dear little Constantine—is in Albania, and that I am mistaken for him? No, this is impossible. But still I must be wary, and not do that which would harm a golden hair of Morsinia's head, if she be living, or Constantine's, or Uncle Kabilovitsch's. There's some mystery here. Only one thing is certain—Amesa mistakes this pretty impudent Dodola girl for somebody else. To get her off with him may serve that somebody else: for the voivode is a villain: that much is sure. The cursed Giaour serpent! I will help him to get this saucy belle of the hamlet, and so save somebody else, whoever she may be who is the game for which he lays his snares."