“Why won’t the priest take us in?” I asked, shivering in my wet garments, for night had brought chill down from the snow-covered peaks above us. They were still pale fawn color and pink where the clouds left them unhidden, but the valleys were black, and far away on some distant slope there was a small light, red as a ruby—the flare from a charcoal burner’s fire.
“He says he has no servant,” replied the man who had run ahead to tell the priest that we were coming, and even Cheremi, the joyous gendarme, snorted aloud.
“Priest though he is, he is a macaroni!” and, “Only a macaroni would so disgrace our villages!” the Albanians exclaimed, shamed before the strangers by such incredible inhospitality.
“Perhaps he knows who you are and is afraid to take us in?” I said to Perolli.
“No. He doesn’t know who we are, and is afraid to shelter strangers who may be Serbian or English spies. Cowardly Italian!” said Perolli.
“My house,” Cheremi volunteered, hopefully, “is only across two mountain ranges. You would be welcome there.”
CHAPTER IV
WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF MARKE GJONNI—WE HEAR THE VOICE OF AN OREAD—A GUARDIAN SPIRIT OF THE TRAILS.
Concealed by the darkness, we lay back in our wet clothes on the wet rocks and shook with smothered laughter. How Albanian! While Perolli with a hundred honeyed words made excuses for the feebleness of foreign women, already weary with only sixteen miles of mountain climbing. He was still explaining when up the trail came the flare of a torch, and an Albanian boy of perhaps fourteen years appeared, a turban on his head, a rifle on his back, and a silver-hilted knife stuck through his orange sash.
“May you live long!” said he.