It was plain enough that this subtle and ferocious fellow, half an Oriental, in the first moments of supposing himself supplanted by Cecil--already so successful in the field and camp--had resorted to the deep scheme of cutting him off and obtaining his despatches; spurred on by the intensity of the twin passions, love and hate--love for Margarita, and hate for a supposed rival, in more ways than one; and if successful, there was no knowing what foul stories he might circulate to blacken the honour of the dead, with Tchernaieff--stories that might ultimately find their way into every print in Britain! To Cecil there was a bitterness worse than death in the thought of this; but he could little conceive that it was not for Tchernaieff, or any other officer in Servia, the fatal despatches and plan of the future campaign were wanted! Cecil looked from an eminence; his pursuers were still in sight, but looking faint and distant, amid the gathering gloom. 'If it comes to the worst, I would rather be shot down than captured--could I be assured of being shot dead,' thought Cecil, as he rode steadily on, he knew not in what direction; he could make out that his pursuers were five in number, and one was evidently Guebhard. 'Had I a good Enfield rifle, I could pick every man of them off at leisure from this, and then there would be a few less Montenegrins to trouble the world.' These fellows had belonged, of course, to that Montenegrin contingent, five hundred strong, which had come into the camp of General Tchernaieff; but he being an officer as humane as he was brave, had been compelled to expel the whole force for their barbarous mutilation of the Turkish wounded, and many of them were now prowling about as idle freebooters. These Montenegrins--men of the race which make such a stir in European politics at present--were literally savages of the _Zerna-gora_, as it is named, from the mountains clothed with darkest pine, which cover the greatest part of its surface--men inured to arms, hardship and cruelty from their boyhood--without religion or scruple, save in implicit obedience to their chiefs or leaders; and in camp and out of it they committed many an awful outrage, the report of which never found its way into the columns of the _Glas Czentagora_ or official journal of Montenegro. Cecil knew that when leaving Palenka, he had, at the utmost, only some forty miles to travel, with a horse that was fresh and active; but its shoes had been tampered with, he had been driven from his proper path, and the difficulties of that he traversed were now enhanced, as a storm came on.