Half an hour later we met our visitors. Dressed very similarly to my companions, they wore white tassel-less fezes instead of the little white skullcap, and the black stripes down their trousers were somewhat different. The two chieftains touched foreheads, and I was afterwards introduced. Dêd Presci, a round-faced, pleasant man, rather stout and burly, his hair cut in mediæval style, gripped me warmly by the hand, saying—
“I heard that you were in Skodra during the festà. Some of my men told me there was an Englishman. But I never expected to meet you. Perhaps you are coming across to see me—eh? If so, you are quite welcome.”
“I may come next year to shoot, with a couple of English friends. May I visit you then?”
“Most certainly. You have only to warn me of your coming through one of our men down in Skodra, and I will give you safe escort,” was his reply. “If you are fond of sport, you will find plenty with us. Only bring a tent, and perhaps some provisions; for our food is not what you foreigners are used to.”
“Then I shall return one day before long,” I promised.
“Do. You need fear nothing, you know. We never betray a friend.”
“Or forgive an enemy,” added Vatt, laughing.
“Especially if he be a Turk,” I remarked; whereat both chiefs laughed in chorus.
That evening I ate with the pair in a small lonely house on the mountainside, and the moon had long risen before Palok and I returned to Lûk’s.
My photographic camera was, from the first, regarded with a good deal of suspicion, and it was with very great difficulty I persuaded anybody to have his picture taken. Many surreptitious snap-shots I took with a small “Brownie” camera, for unfortunately I had run out of films for my own larger Kodak. But I was able to secure some photographs, which now appear in this volume.