From America, where they had been cast by the waves, they worked their way to Trieste, hoping from thence to return to their native place, ever dear to their hearts. This ill wind, so fatal, not only to the ship, but to the remainder of the crew, proved to be the young men's fortune. Trieste was, at the time, in the very beginning of its mushroom growth, before that host of adventurers had flocked thither from every part of the world with the hopes of making money.
It is not to be wondered that, after the hard life these young men had undergone, they understood the full strength of the Italian proverb—"Praise the sea, but keep to the shore." Sober and hard-working as they were, they made up their minds to try and acquire by trade what they could hardly get by a rough seafaring life—their daily bread and a little money for their old age.
Strongly built, they started life as porters. Like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to a cart the whole of the long summer days, or else they helped to unload the ships that came in port.
Having managed to scrape a little money together, they began to trade on their own account. They imported from Dalmatia, wine, sardines, carobs, and castradina, or smoked mutton; they exported cotton goods. They got to be shareholders, and then owners, of a bark, a trabacolo. The times were good; there was, as yet, little or no competition; therefore money begot money, and, though they could neither read nor write, still they soon found themselves the owners of a sum of money which—to them—was unlimited wealth. Had they remained in Trieste, they might have got to be millionaires, but they loved their birthplace even more than they did riches.
Once again in Budua, they added a good many acres of vineyards and of olive-trees to their paternal farms, and, from that time, they lived there in all the contentment this world can afford. They married, but, strange to say, they were not blessed with many children; each of them had only one son. Janko's son was, after his friend, named Milenko; the other infant was christened Uros.
These two children are the pobratim of our story.
"But what is the meaning of this strange word?" you ask.
Have but a little patience, and it will be explained to you in due time.
Uros and Milenko had inherited with their blood that friendship which had bound their fathers and forefathers before them. As children, they belonged to either mother, and they often slept together in the same trough-like cradle scooped out of the trunk of a tree; they ate out of the same zdila—the huge wooden porringer which served the family as table dish and plates; they drank out of the same bukara, or wooden bottle, for, being rich and having vineyards of their own, wine was never wanting at their meals.
At fourteen they, like their fathers, went off to sea, for lads must know something of the world. Happily, however, they both came back to Budua after a cruise of some months. Though they met with many squalls, still they never came to any grief.