The affair was engineered in Belgrade, and the bombs were manufactured by a Servian officer at the State Arsenal of Kragujevats. It was also rumoured by those who might be expected to know that the dreams of the blood-stained authorities in Belgrade are to unite Montenegro, a Slav nation speaking the Servian language, with Servia, and the idea was that if there were no member of the House of Petrovitch left alive the throne might possibly fall to the share of a Prince Karageorgevitch, one of the sons of Prince Nicholas’s eldest daughter.
The Crown Prince George of Servia is not exactly one’s ideal of a model ruler. This young gentleman, whose hobby is said to be to bury cats in the ground up to their necks and then stamp them to death, is more one’s idea of a youthful Nero or Caligula, and Heaven help the nation delivered over to his tender mercies. Before the trial, however, rumours were all that one heard; so everyone was on tiptoe with expectation, wondering what sensational revelations would come to light.
By great good luck we happened to arrive in Montenegro just a week before the trial began. We steamed in one of the excellent boats of the Austrian Lloyd past the grey mountains of Istria and through the wonderful fjords of the Bocche di Cattaro till we cast anchor under the peak of Lovcen. In a victoria drawn by two tough little Dalmatian horses we climbed the mountain side in zigzags, persevering up the vast rocky wall till we found ourselves some four thousand feet above the sea below. I have neither time nor words to describe the view, a task which needs the pen of a poet like Prince Nicholas himself, but must dash on, like our game little horses, to Cetinje, down the steep sides of silver mountains, which gleam in the tropical sun without a vestige of green to relieve their Quaker-like hues.
THE JUDGES IN THEIR GORGEOUS NATIONAL COSTUMES—TO THE RIGHT OF THE SOLDIER WILL BE SEEN THE BOMBS WHICH WERE AN IMPORTANT “EXHIBIT” IN THE TRIAL.
From a Photograph.
As a town Cetinje is not thrilling, but it lies in a lovely neighbourhood and is peopled with perhaps the most picturesque race in the world. For the Montenegrins are not only the most magnificent specimens of humanity in point of size, clad in gorgeous raiment which, I feel sure, Solomon in all his glory could not have beaten, but they have behind them a past which can scarcely be beaten by any fighting race on earth.
Some five hundred years ago the Turks defeated all South-Eastern Europe in the Battle of Kossovo, and Servia and Bulgaria entirely, and Roumania to a certain extent, fell under the sway of the Ottomans. Then, the story goes, the bravest and the noblest of those lands, disdaining to live beneath the banner of the Crescent, withdrew to the eyries of the Black Mountains, where, thanks partly to their valour and partly to the favourable position of the land (which is a natural fortress), they defied the Turks. They never intermarried with the inferior races, and so have preserved the magnificent physique and extraordinary distinction of bearing which strikes every stranger who visits Tsernagora. Indeed, if it comes to a question as to who should be the dominant race in Servia and Montenegro, it seems more fit that Servia should be taken under the wing of a race which has done deeds all these centuries instead of merely talking.
We found at the hotel that half the newspapers of the Near East and Vienna were sending correspondents, and we therefore felt ourselves lucky in getting a room in the front looking down the main street, where everything in Cetinje happens, and where, towards sundown, when the siesta is over and the air becomes cool and pleasant, you may find anyone you want to see. Half-way down we saw a crowd of people in national costume (for in Cetinje, thanks to the Prince’s influence, it is universally worn) standing outside a house. “They are waiting to try and get a seat in court to-morrow,” I was told, “but only a score or so will succeed, for there are thirty-two prisoners, each one guarded by a soldier, besides all these journalists to be made room for.”
Through the good offices of the Prince’s secretary, to whom His Highness had confided us, we were provided with tickets, which was lucky for us, for when we arrived within sight of the court-house we found a cordon of soldiers guarding it. We were stopped and our passes examined before we were allowed to proceed. When we reached our destination, a long, low, grey stone building with the Montenegrin two-headed eagle over the door, an officer took us in hand and led us with ceremony to our places. I looked round me with great satisfaction from my red velvet arm-chair in the ranks of the Diplomatic Corps. Not only was I the only English person there save one, but I was the only woman in the whole place.