It was in this room that a crowd of us sought refuge from the storm, and here, when most of the others took their departure, we elected to remain. Our small host was very kind—he gave up his bed to us—but it was quite beyond his power to make the general conditions anything but disgusting in the extreme. We shiver still at the recollection of them.
Our young friend had been lavish in his hospitality, and so we shared the room with some half-dozen men—excellent fellows, but whose habits could hardly commend them as companions for the night. The fact that there was a lady in the party made no difference to them at all.
Oh, the atmosphere of that room! It was redolent of stale fish, cigarette smoke, and the smell of foul garments sodden with rain. The storm that raged outside made it quite impossible to open door or window.
It was very cold, and we, like the rest, had been drenched to the skin, but, of course, we could not think of removing any of our wet clothes. We were faint for want of food, too; expecting to reach Scutari that night, we had brought but little with us, and that we had consumed at midday. But in that fœtid atmosphere we could not have eaten much, however richly supplied we might have been.
Our little host sat on a box and smoked and talked with his other guests for the best part of the night. It was the same with them all. When they were not smoking and spitting they were eating dried fish and cheese, the order of which was sickening to sensitive nostrils.
The boy was bare-footed, and his clothes hung about his wizened, deformed body in rags. They were palpably verminous, and, knowing this, we shuddered for the bed upon which we lay. Nevertheless, the poor little fellow was so cold when at last, like the rest of the company, he stretched himself out on the filthy floor to sleep, that we were impelled to give him one of our coverings, ill as we could spare it.
We had but a small fragment of candle, which spluttered to its end somewhere in the early hours of the morning. After that we lay, sleepless, in total darkness, listening to the moaning of the wind outside and the contented, unconcerned snoring of our companions. And there was a great fear upon us—that the coming of day might not bring us relief, for if the storm continued, as was by no means unlikely, the steamer would be indefinitely held up, nor could any rowing-boat venture forth. If there had only been a road to fall back upon! But there was none.
We shall not easily forget our night upon the quay at Plavnitza, and it certainly never occurred to us that we were likely to be envied the experience!
III—STORY OF THE LAST HOURS BEFORE RETREAT
But to return to Prokuplje, where we occupied "the finest room in the town"—which meant that it possessed a fairly comfortable bed, carpet, curtains, and abundant decoration upon the walls in the way of Berlin wool-work and cheaply-framed photographs. We were sorry that we had to leave it in such a hurry, though, perhaps, we should have regretted our comfortable quarters still more had it not been that our host had elected to slaughter three large pigs that day in the yard just beneath our window, and so all the resultant processes were thrust upon our unwilling view.