There was little danger that they would bring the soldiers down upon us, knowing the habit of the Turk to visit vengeance upon the town that harbours committajis. But we learned that there were three families of Turkish peasants living in the village, and this, indeed, alarmed us. It was quite on the cards that they would trot over to Kratovo, half an hour away, and come back with a cheery gang of Anatolians or Albanians, whose habit in dealing with insurgents is to fire the house in which they are and shoot them as they emerge from the flames. So we sent our compliments to the Turks (Mohamedans must be treated with deference) and requested them to call; which they did, and were convinced that we were not Bulgarians. Nevertheless, we spent a most uncomfortable night. We lay on the rough gallery rolled in rugs, watching the fireflies and listening for the ‘fire brigade,’ falling asleep from dead weariness and starting out of it at every sound. We got away from the Servian village early the following morning, taking a guide for the direction in which we were bound, but not divulging our destination. We shook him off when we got the lay of the country and were certain of our maps again. About noon we dropped, as intended, into the monastery of Lesnova. We sat down by a fountain in the courtyard, the brown-timbered structure enclosing three sides, and over the mud wall on the fourth stretched the valley into the blue distance. A palsied beggar in a filthy state devoured food like a ravenous wolf, washing it down unchewed with great gulps of water. The old abbot who came out to greet us said they could do nothing for the man’s ailments; there are no doctors in the country, and folk who become ill die. Here we got the first news of events which had driven the Christian peasants to Bulgaria. The story was the same we had heard so often before; nothing new except the details of tortures. Of these there are sufficient in later chapters; for this, the adventure of our long trail. The monks gave us a good meal, and we slept for an hour on a comfortable divan, for we were footsore already. The soles of my boots and those of Alexander’s--whom we had now come to call ‘Sandy’--had gone, and we were driven to native _charruks_--which, from their absence of heels, caused me to walk as on eggs for many miles, and made my insteps very sore. The Englishman’s clumsy foot-gear outlasted mine by many hours; still, I do not believe in British boots.