"* * *!"
We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.
"About an hour," she said.
Her husband turned and swore at her.
"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter of an hour."
We left them quarrelling.
It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in this queer pallid country.
At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a quarter of an hour distant.
We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy—one captain—not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also en route, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.