A day or two later, a very different spectacle could have been witnessed. The main street leading to the church on the outskirts of the town was lined by waiting Montenegrins, and not a Turk was to be seen. Soon a carriage drove rapidly from the church, with a blushing Montenegrin girl and a gold-embroidered Montenegrin at her side. It was the late Turkish maiden, now a radiant Montenegrin bride and Christian. Several Turks had been caught endeavouring to approach the church with revolvers concealed, but were promptly turned back.
And so ended an eventful week.
One day, quite by accident, we discovered the arrest-house, or place where prisoners are detained pending their trial and sentence. We were passing a door which led down by a few steps into a courtyard, when an acquaintance of ours accosted us.
We went inside and spoke to him for some minutes. He was a merry individual and a clerk in a Government office.
He requested us to bring our camera and photograph him on the next day. Then he moved and a chain clanked. Neither of us had realised that this was a prison till that moment, though we had passed that door many times.
Next day we came again, and took a picture of our genial friend, whom we found seated and playing the gusla to a crowd of other prisoners, some exceedingly heavily chained.
One or two guards came up and we spent an hour in a pleasant chat.
Our friend was only "in" for a few days for making a rude remark about the Chief of Police. The chained men were mostly murderers, if we may use such a harsh term for those who are compelled to kill their enemies by the relentless laws of the vendetta, and who would be punished by the laws of man should they prove themselves guilty of cowardice.
The vendetta in Montenegro is a legal anomaly. Men are punished in either case.