If they found no robbers in Albania, they met soon enough with bloodshed. They came to a village where a friend of a friend of Giorgio's was discovered, and they slept at his house in preference to the unclean and crowded khan. Here for the first time Amanda made the acquaintance of Albanian women and was carried off to the woman's region at the top of the house, permitted to wash, closely examined, shown a baby and confided in as generously as gesture and some fragments of Italian would permit. Benham slept on a rug on the first floor in a corner of honour beside the wood fire. There had been much confused conversation and some singing, he was dog-tired and slept heavily, and when presently he was awakened by piercing screams he sat up in a darkness that seemed to belong neither to time nor place.... Near his feet was an ashen glow that gave no light. His first perplexity gave way to dismay at finding no Amanda by his side. “Amanda!” he cried.... Her voice floated down through a chink in the floor above. “What can it be, Cheetah?” Then: “It's coming nearer.” The screaming continued, heart-rending, eviscerating shrieks. Benham, still confused, lit a match. All the men about him were stirring or sitting up and listening, their faces showing distorted and ugly in the flicker of his light. “CHE E?” he tried. No one answered. Then one by one they stood up and went softly to the ladder that led to the stable-room below. Benham struck a second match and a third. “Giorgio!” he called. The cavasse made an arresting gesture and followed discreetly and noiselessly after the others, leaving Benham alone in the dark. Benham heard their shuffling patter, one after the other, down the ladder, the sounds of a door being unbarred softly, and then no other sound but that incessant shrieking in the darkness. Had they gone out? Were they standing at the door looking out into the night and listening? Amanda had found the chink and her voice sounded nearer. “It's a woman,” she said. The shrieking came nearer and nearer, long, repeated, throat-tearing shrieks. Far off there was a great clamour of dogs. And there was another sound, a whisper--? “RAIN!” The shrieks seemed to turn into a side street and receded. The tension of listening relaxed. Men's voices sounded below in question and answer. Dogs close at hand barked shortly and then stopped enquiringly. Benham seemed to himself to be sitting alone for an interminable time. He lit another match and consulted his watch. It was four o'clock and nearly dawn.... Then slowly and stumbling up the ladder the men began to return to Benham's room. “Ask them what it is,” urged Amanda.