My neat Smith-Wesson hammerless revolver was constantly admired, as being a much more handy and serviceable weapon than their own big pistols—Austrian-made revolvers fitted to antique silver butts that had once done service to flintlocks. My Browning repeating revolver, with its magazine holding eight cartridges, was declared a marvel of ingenuity, and on many occasions Vatt and his men amused themselves by firing with it at targets.
Once he remarked, with a grim smile, that it would be a handy weapon against the Turks. Where could he get one? Was it costly?
And when I promised to send him one through our mutual friend in the bazaar down in Skodra, as souvenir of my visit, his joy knew no bounds.
A month later I fulfilled my promise, sending it across from Sofia, and have since received an acknowledgment of its safe receipt.
I wonder whether he has yet used it against the hated Turk? Whether or not, he no doubt struts about with it in his belt, a greater chief than all the others, because he possesses the very latest and deadliest of weapons.
When one evening I told my host that I had still a long way to go—through Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Macedonia—and that I must bid him farewell, his face fell. He seemed to genuinely regret.
“But you will return soon,” he urged. “You will redeem your promise, and bring your friends to shoot. Bring that friend you told me about who shoots tigers in India. I want to see what sort of shot he is. And the friend who shoots partridges and pheasants.”
I promised that I would go back to him before long.
“Remember, there will be no danger—none. Tell your friends that Vatt invites them, and that they are free to go anywhere—anywhere,” he said, waving his hand over the wild panorama of mountain and valley that is his indisputable domain.
Next day I rose, packed my small belongings, and with a little present to Lûk and to his pretty wife prepared to leave, when, judge my amazement to find Vatt and his bodyguard outside, and to hear that the chief had decided to accompany me right down to Skodra!