The Luck of Thirteen Part 14

"Have you soup?"

"Yes, bogami."

"And cheese?"

"Ima, ima, bogami."

"That will do for us."

He thereupon brought macaroni soup, boiled meat, roast meat, fried potatoes, cheese, grapes, and coffee.

We never found out why in Montenegro they should make it a point of honour to say they have nothing. It resembles the Chinese habit of alluding to a "loathsome" wife and a "disgusting" daughter.

After lunch we visited our own hotel and found mine hostess waiting for us with her short arms akimbo. She wanted the "beautiful large bedroom"

to which we had moved in the morning, finding it the same size as the one below, but rather lighter. Its former occupant had arrived, and we were to go back to the dungeon.

"That is not good," said Jo, and we flatly refused to go downstairs.

"If we leave this room we go altogether."

She again patted us and begged us to consider the matter closed. We could stick to the room.

Certainly that dog fancier was right.

There was a very old monastery which we had pa.s.sed as we rode into Ipek.

Although we are more interested in the people of the present than in ruins of the past, these old Serbian monuments leave so strange a memory of a civilization suddenly cut off at its zenith that they have an emotional appeal far apart from that of archaeology. These little oases of culture preserved amongst a wilderness of Turk tempt the traveller with a romance which is now vanis.h.i.+ng from Roman and Greek ruins.

The Ipek monastery is a beautiful old place with the walls half buried on one side. The old church, orange outside, is very dark within, but contains many beautiful paintings. Surely here is the home of Post Impressionism and of Futurism. The decorations of the bases of the pillars are quite futuristic even orpeistic.

The pictures are Byzantine. But the Turks have picked out the eyes, as they always do. One enormous painting of a head which filled a semicircle over a door is particularly fine. Most halos are round, but the painter had deemed the ears and beard worthy of extra bulges in this saint's halo, which added to the decorative effect.

Beautiful apple trees were dotted about the big garden through which the wriggly river ran. Ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around, so fat that they were indifferent to the meal that was being served out to them. A boy woke up the mother of a family of young turkeys and pushed her towards the dinner with his foot. She hurried there involuntarily and sat down for a nap with her back to the plate, the picture of outraged dignity.

We got into conversation with a priest, who insisted we should call upon the archbishop. The Metropolitan was a cheery soul, wearing a Montenegrin pork-pie hat very much on one side, and black riding breeches which showed as his long robes fluttered during his many gesticulations.

While with him we lost the impression that we were living in the unreal times of the Rose and the Ring. He was intensely civilized, spoke French excellently, and had many a good story of his life in Constantinople and other places. For the English he had great affection. The last Englishman in Ipek, a king's messenger, had flown to the monastery to escape from the Hotel Europe and its bugs. The next morning he would not get up. The archbishop went to his room to remonstrate.

"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it."

Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to.

He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and were distilled by the monks. The great difficulty was to prevent him from giving us too much.

We talked of the war, and he related many atrocities, winding up with "Of course, England must win; but what will become of us in the meanwhile?"

That evening we had a visitor. A very large Montenegrin in French fireman's uniform knocked at the door. He said his name was Nikola Pavlovitch. He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the "trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier.

"'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."

Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered for our trip to Dechani.

We didn't like cicerones and demurred.

"I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.

"I know all de country, kin tell you things: bin 'ere twenty years ago."

We saw he wanted to come, and noticed that he had a very likable face, strong features, straight kindly eyes. We realized that he would be a very pleasant companion and arranged to meet at the stable the next day.

And so, at last, we drove in one of the queer little Serb carts we had avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs--such was our chariot.

Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one s.h.i.+lling note, and off we drove.

Nikola Pavlovitch started yarning almost at once, and we never had a dull moment. He was a comitaj once, in the old days when Turkey owned Macedonia and the Sanjak. He said that nearly all comitaj were men of education and intelligence. When Turkish rule became oppressive, when too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems, the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.

Pavlovitch waved a hand towards the sullen mountains of Albania, which were on our right.

"Dose Swabs don' tink o' nuttin' but killin'. Jess ornary slaughter, Mister Jim. Now dat Jakovitza [a town to the south] dat don't mean nuttin but 'blood' in their talk, 'lots o' blood' dat's what it means.

Sure. Dese peoples don' respect nuttin but killin'; an' when you've done in 'bout fifty other fellers you'r reckoned a almighty tough. If you wanted to voyage dere, f'r instance, you'd 'ave ter get a promise o'

peace, a 'Besa' they calls it, from one of dese tough fellers, and he makes 'imself responsible to end any feller wat disturbs you; 'e can post a babby along o' you and so long as the kiddie's wid yer n.o.body'll touch you. Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended right away."

Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.

"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief 'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."

Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.

Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.

"I was ravin' mad dat journey," he said. "I don' want ter go ter 'ell if it's like dat."

They put him in hospital and treated him kindly; but once better they threw him into a Turkish gaol. He described how the prison was dark as night, because the poorer prisoners blocked up the windows, stretching their arms through for doles from the pa.s.sers-by.

"We was all eaten wi' lice," he went on, "an' if de folks 'adn't sent me money an' food I'd a starved to def, sure. 'N den dey bribes de governor 'n a soldier, 'n dey lets me 'scape."

He lay a cripple in Montenegro six months, but in the summer crawled down to the Bocche de Cattaro and on the sweltering sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic built himself a primitive sweat bath. In a few weeks he was better, and in a few months cured. He then went to the mines in America, for he dared not return to Macedonia. He saved 800 and returned with it to his sister's in Serbia, but was so oppressed by the misery about him that he gave away all his money and went back.

"Dere's lots a mineral in dese mountains, you feller. I show you one lump feller got a' Ipek, an' I guess it's silver, sure. Wen de war over you come back an' we'll go over dem places tergedder. Dere's coal too.

Lots."

He told us that the wretched skeleton who was driving us had power in Turkish days to commandeer the services of Christian labourers, and to pay them nothing.

We pa.s.sed by placid fields containing cows, horses, donkeys. The country seemed untouched by war. Those cows could never have drawn heavy carts and lain exhausted and foodless after a heavy day's work. The horses reminded one of the sleek mares owned by old ladies who lived in awe of their coachmen.

For this all belonged to Dechani, and it was beyond the power of the state to touch their riches; nor had they been molested even in the days of Turkish rule.

"You see, monastery 'e pay money to the toughest Albanians--Albanian they give besa--and n.o.body never do no 'arm to the monasteries. Russia she send much money, she send always her priest to Dechani and the Turks they keep sorter respectful."

Our first sight of Dechani disappointed us a little, the proportions lacked the beauty of the Ipek church; but the big old door marked by the fire the Turks had built against it, decades before, cheered us up a bit.