The Turk, a small man, with slightly grey hair, looked up, and said indifferently—
"And thy desire is mine."
So they separated.
Almost immediately an acquaintance joined us, and we asked him the meaning.
"That man," said he, "is the famous Achmet Uiko. A terrible man, who has killed many men, and at the present moment there is an enormous sum of money on his head in Albania."
We then went to him, and asked him to come to our hotel to-morrow, and to tell us the story of his life. He consented readily, saying that he would be with us at nine next morning, "if," he added significantly, "nothing occurred to detain him."
It happened that evening that an Englishman arrived on a short tour through the country, believing firmly that everything was as safe and as orderly as the average stranger thinks. A Turkish girl had been abducted from her home shortly before, and the town was in a state of great excitement, as it was the second case within the last few weeks. A rising of the Turkish inhabitants was feared nightly, and the house where the girl was confined—previous to her marriage with her Montenegrin lover—was carefully guarded by a score of armed Montenegrins.
We took the Englishman to this house, and as we were showing him the men with rifles around the doors and windows, we heard sounds of a sharp rifle fire some distance away on the border. Not long afterwards a Montenegrin doubled into the town with a report that heavy firing had been taking place at the village of Dinoš. Nothing further came of it, but our countryman went to bed with other ideas of Montenegro.
We awaited Achmet next morning, but at nine he had not arrived, and we began to wonder, as the hours went by, if his fate had at last overtaken him. But at noon he turned up, as quiet and self-possessed as yesterday, and excused himself in the following way. The Albanians who had expressed such murderous desires upon him yesterday at the market lived in Dinoš, and he had spent the night in emptying his magazine rifle repeatedly into their village.
"To show these dogs," he concluded, "that they cannot express such wishes to me with impunity."