Chapter Ten.
Love and the Outlaw.
“By Jove!” I ejaculated, “Who’s the girl, Prince?”
“That’s Zorka. Pretty, isn’t she, Diprose?”
“Pretty!” I echoed. “Why, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in the whole of Servia!”
We were driving slowly together in the big “sixty” up the main street of the city of Belgrade, and were at that moment passing the iron railings of the palace of his Majesty King Peter. It was a bright dry afternoon, and the boulevard was thronged by a smart crowd, ladies in Paris-made gowns, and officers in brilliant uniforms and white crosses with red and white ribbons on their breasts.
Belgrade, though constantly in a ferment of political storm and stress, and where rumours of plots against the throne are whispered nightly in the corners of drawing-rooms, is, nevertheless, a quiet and pleasant place. Its picturesque situation, high up upon its rocks at the confluence of the Save with the Danube, its pretty Kalemegdan gardens, its wide boulevard and its pleasant suburbs, combine to offer considerable attraction to the foreigner. It is the gateway to eastern Europe. At quiet old Semlin—or Zimony—on the opposite bank of the Danube is Hungary, the fringe of western Europe: in Belgrade the Orient commences.
I happened to be at the Grand at Belgrade, and had there found the Prince, or Reggie Martin, as he always called himself in the Balkans. He was idling, with no apparent object. Only the faithful Garrett was with him. Both Charles and the Parson he had left behind in London. Therefore, I concluded that the reason of his presence in Servia was to learn some diplomatic secret or other, for he only went to the Balkans with that one object.