“You have, no doubt, heard down in Skodra terrible things about me,” he said, laughing, as, later on, we walked together. He had rolled me a cigarette and given it to me unstuck. “I expect you feared to come and see me—eh?”
I admitted that I had heard things of him not altogether satisfactory.
“Ah!” he laughed, “that is because the Turks do not like us. Whenever a Turkish soldier puts his foot a kilometre outside Skodra, we either take away his Mauser and send him back, or else—well, we shoot him first.”
“But they say that your men capture travellers.”
“And why not?” he asked. “We are Christians. Is it not permissible for us to do everything to annoy those devils of Turks? But,” he added, “if they say that I treat my prisoners badly, they lie. Why, they get plenty of food and are well treated. I give them some shooting if they like—and they generally enjoy themselves. But I know. I too have been told that the Turks say I once cut off a man’s ears. Bah! all Turks are liars.”
“Then it is only to annoy the Turks that your men commit acts of brigandage?”
“Of course. The ransom is useful to us, I admit, but we live by our flocks, and our wants are few. We are not like the people down in Skodra. We are better, I hope.”
“And do you always watch the roads on the other side of the mountains yonder?”
“Always. Our men are there now, all along the route between Ipek and Prisrend. Who knows who may not pass along—a rich Pasha perhaps.” And his face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of such a prize.
And then I marched along, my rifle over my shoulder—a brigand for the nonce like my host.