"About an hour," was the invariable answer all along the line.
But the dignified guide was right. After four hours we reached the main street, arriving slowly to the music of incredible clatter as our little carts leapt and jolted over hundreds of big pointed stones laid carefully side by side—Tutigne's concession to Macadam.
There were faint lights in some of the little wooden houses. Others stood dark and unfriendly. We stopped. Curses filled the air. An ox-cart was lying right across the road. After shouting himself hoarse the policeman woke up an old man in a house near by—the owner. He rheumatically grumbled in his doorway; so the gendarme called our Albanians, and in two twos they had turned the cart upside down in a ditch, saying—
"It serves you right."
Voices sounded in the darkness. The carriages lurched on. Presently they left the road and turned on to grass, they seemed to be leaving the village behind. We did not know where they were going, and were so tired that we did not care, if only they would get somewhere and stop, which at last they did. We jumped off into a squelch of water.
"Good heavens, this won't do!"
We searched the whole field for a dry spot, but though it was a hillside, it was a swamp. We chose the least marshy place and built a fire.
"Where is the mayor?" we asked of the strange faces dimly to be seen in the light of our fire.
They pointed to two cottage window lights. We went towards them, at last realizing our proximity by stumbling into a dung-heap and knocking against a pig-stye. There was a narrow stairway, and above it a big landing. A man followed and knocked at a door for us.
The mayor appeared—a little man—square in face, hair, beard and figure.