Ten minutes to twelve. The last machine gun chuckling over the cobbles. Six minutes to twelve. Files of men, with oil cans, going through the streets. Four minutes to twelve, and the streets emptied save for the last frantic stragglers coming with last armfuls of things. Three minutes to twelve—and the drum beating! The open space before the mosque was a mass of bodies, a suffocation of held breaths. Listen well, people of Tirana! Elez Jusuf asks for time. A council is talking. At two o’clock the machine guns will start, and the quarter will burn. At two o’clock. By order of Ahmet Bey Mati.
It would seem that the pressure of that giant hand would ease, but it continued to tighten slowly, minute by minute. It continued to tighten, even when at four minutes to two o’clock the crier called that the council was still talking. Four o’clock, the third, last order. At six minutes to four o’clock men were going with lighted torches; the oil had been spread and wooden sprayers had thrown it over the roofs. At five minutes to four o’clock the roar of an automobile in the streets, and Elez Jusuf appeared, riding to Government House in the English car, Mr. Eyres beside him. Tirana followed them to the gate in a wave of men, a wave that slowed, eddied before the gate, and stopped. It seemed that time stopped with it.
Out of the gate a rider, lashing a galloping horse. Clatter of spark-scattering hoofs on the cobbles, swish of the whip, and a swirl of wind following. Four o’clock, and the ripping sound of one machine gun, stopped abruptly. No more.
Ten minutes after four o’clock, and Elez Jusuf and Mr. Eyres riding out of the gate. Elez Jusuf sat straight and proudly; a fine old mountaineer in his Scanderbeg jacket and silver chains, overlooking the crowd as though it were not there. Only a glimpse of black Scanderbeg jacket, silver chains, gray hair, profile of firm lines, and Elez Jusuf had made entrance and exit.
Immediately after the automobile, while the gate of Government House still fascinated, two riders came through it. They were Austrian engineers, in khaki riding clothes and puttees. They rode pack mules, and camping outfit complete with tent was roped to the wooden saddles. We knew them slightly, and stopped them as they came leisurely by, to ask what they knew.
Nothing, they said. Ahmet had sent for them that morning—they were engineers employed by the government—and had asked them to make ready to go out toward Dibra, to investigate and report on the possibility of lighting Tirana with electricity from a waterfall twenty miles away. They had been ready at one o’clock, and Ahmet had sent asking them to wait, ready, in the courtyard of Government House until he gave them the word to start. Word had that moment come, and they were starting.
They stirred the smallest of interest as they rode on through Tirana. Tirana was relaxing, as a tired man sighs. Men sat on the curbs, on the low walls, on the ground. There was a crowd in the cafés, but no singing, and little talking. The sunset hour was beginning, but no one walked.
In the whitewashed dining room of the Vocational School we sat drinking tea. Mr. Eyres disclaimed the tiredness of his eyes. It had been most interesting, he said. An interview he would not forget, that between old Elez and Ahmet. “A strong man, Ahmet. Perhaps a little young, just twenty-six, they tell me. Well, time will remedy that.” Elez had been persuaded to go to Government House to meet and talk with Ahmet. “Really a remarkable man, old Elez. He’d never before seen an automobile, you know. Walked right up to it, sat in it, as though he had ridden in one all his life; never turned a hair, coming or going. Must have been a bit of a strain, after all he’d gone through.” He said to Ahmet that he had talked with his men. They would not give up their rifles. If it were required that they give up their rifles, Elez would go back to his men and they would die fighting. Ahmet said, “Mustapha Kruja will be hanged when we find him. Zija Dibra must leave Albania forever. Give me a besa of peace and go back to the Dibra with your rifles.”
Elez was silent a moment, and then gave the besa. The Dibra, he said, would be loyal to the Constitutional Government of Albania as long as he lived, and as long as his son’s sons ruled the Dibra. He saluted, Ahmet saluted; the official interview was ended. And the messenger left to countermand the orders given. “Something rather dramatic about these chaps, really. Done just like that. No palavering, no signing of papers. Not necessary, and Ahmet knows it. Elez would be cut into bits before he’d break a besa. They’re admirable, in their way, these men.”
Elez, turning to go, had turned back to speak again to Ahmet. The Dibra and the Mati had long been enemies, he said. There had been no friendship between them since the days of Scanderbeg. Was this not a time to forget that old enmity? In their mountains, Dibra had not understood the Tirana government. During those three days in Tirana, Elez said, he had learned many new things. He believed now that Ahmet Mati was fighting for Albania. Would Ahmet join him in a besa of peace between Mati and Dibra?