The ascent had occupied two hours and a half; it took us three more to reach our halting-place, Cetigna, Spira's home. A gentle descent led to the village, and in the distance shimmered a white shroud-like mist, which Spira told me covered the lake of Scutari. Somewhere in that direction Laurie must be lying, I knew; and the certainty doubled my impatience to get to him. Old Giuro now raised his voice to the shrillest key imaginable, and, in a way peculiar to these mountaineers, who talk to each other from hill tops half a mile asunder, announced that "our lady" was approaching. Whereupon a great hubbub arose; dogs barked, and feminine voices responded eagerly. Two or three muskets were presently discharged, and the twang of the balls as they passed near gave my nerves rather an unpleasant shock. I did not then know that the Black Mountaineers always receive their friends thus; in this instance female hands had loaded and fired, the men being almost all away fighting. A band of brightly-clad women, not less than forty in number, now came to meet me, their children frolicking round them, and some boys playing, not very discordantly, the one-stringed fiddle of the country. At their head walked a grey-haired matron, whom Spira pointed out as her grandmother, and who carried on her shoulder Nilo, looking lovely in a "strucca" striped olive-green and mulberry-red. The dear little fellow knew me at once, and almost sprang to my arms, whereupon the good housewives of Cetigna uttered a screech of delight, closed round me and kissed my cloak, hands, and even lips with a fervour I could have dispensed with.