"Come, mother," said Uros, smiling pleasantly as he stood on the doorstep before starting, "what harm can befall me? I haven't mixed up in any of the karvarina business, nor am I running away as an outlaw; if we have some enemies they are all here, not there. I suppose I'll find father at Zwillievic's or some other friend's house. Your fears are quite unfounded, are they not?"
All Uros said was quite true, but still his mother refused to be comforted. As he bade Milena good-bye, "Remember!" she whispered to him, and she slipped back into her room.
Did she wish him to remember that she was Radonic's wife?
Uros thereupon started with a heavy heart; everybody seemed to have changed since he had left Budua.
The early morning was grey and cloudy, and although Uros was very fond of his father, and anxious to see him, still he was loth to leave his home.
At the town gate Uros met Milenko, who had come to walk part of the way with him. Uros, who was thinking of his mother and especially of Milena, had quite forgotten his bosom friend. Seeing him so unexpectedly, his heart expanded with a sudden movement of joy, and he felt at that moment as if they had met after having been parted for ages.
"Well?" asked Milenko, as they walked along. "Do you remember when we first started from Budua, we thought that we'd have reached the height of happiness the day we'd sail on our own ship?"
"I remember."
"The ship is almost our own, and happiness is farther off than ever."
"Wait till we come back next voyage, and things might look quite different then."