I rubbed my eyes—on account of the smoke—wondering if it were really only a very few weeks ago that I had driven a motor from London down to Windsor, that I had seen The Catch of the Season, and trod the red carpet of the Savoy afterwards.
And to-night I was actually having supper with real live brigands of the mountains!
Lûk produced a bottle of rakhi, and Vatt Marashi lifted his tin mug to me. I took a little of the potent spirit in the bottom of my own drinking-cup, and tossed it off. It was not half as bad as I expected.
Then the chief took me outside the house, and in the clear moonlight we sat down with Palok upon a big rock to chat.
He rolled me a cigarette of most excellent Turkish tobacco—of his own growing, he told me—lit one himself, and we sipped the coffee brought to us by Lûk’s wife.
The scene spread before us was superb—a magnificent panorama of mountains, some tipped with snow, white and brilliant under the moonbeams. Below us, the valley was a great chasm of unfathomable blackness.
With my strange host I chatted upon many subjects, and found him far more intelligent than I had believed. Keen-witted, quick of perception, just in his judgment, and yet filled with an intense hatred of both Turk and Montenegrin alike, he explained to me many things of great interest.
He told me of the glorious traditions of his sturdy race and of the prince of the Skender Beg family, who, they hoped, would one day come back to rule them.
“We, the chieftains, hold authority from him,” he declared. “Oh yes, he will come some day. Of that we are quite certain.”
“Englishmen have never dared to come here, have they?” I asked, with some curiosity.