“I walked out again, and no one dared to stop me,” he added, with pride. “It would have been worse for them if they had.” “But the Montenegrins are no cowards,” I ventured to remark. “Certainly not. They are very brave, but they dare not follow us here. They always get lost in the mountains, and once they lose their way they lose their lives,” he added, with a grin. “Our men killed four over yonder mountain a few days ago.” “The blood-feud?” “Of course. It arose out of that.” From the half-dozen other poor mountain homes came forth men, women, and children, who grouped around us, watching in curiosity. According to Palok, rumour had at first gone round that I was a prisoner, therefore they had refrained from coming forth to see me. Now, however, they knew the truth, they welcomed me as their guest. Just before it grew dark the _Baryaktar_ returned, followed by the bodyguard, without whom he never seemed to move. They did his bidding, executed his orders, and were ever at his beck and call—the picked men of the tribe. While Vatt squatted on the floor I sat upon my suit-case, and together we ate a kind of mutton stew, rather rich, but not unpalatable. There was an absence of table cutlery, therefore we ate with the aid of our pocket-knives and fingers. Now and then the old woman would pick a tit-bit out of the pot and hand it to me with her fingers. I was compelled to accept the well-meant hospitality, even though her hands were not particularly clean. The hot dish was tasty, but I could not manage the sour black bread, for it was mouldy, and gritty into the bargain. It was a weird picture, the interior of that lowly hut, lit by the dim oil lamp of almost the same type as used by the early Greeks. The uncertain firelight glinted upon the gold of the dresses of the chieftain and of Lûk’s pretty wife, and threw, now and then, into relief those strangely unfamiliar faces, the barbarians of an age bygone and forgotten. The very language they were speaking was, as an unwritten one, utterly incomprehensible and unintelligible to any but the born Albanian. 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.