For two hours, with Captain Gworsditch, we beat the town in search of a conveyance, and at last luck befriended us. We found some motor vans that were going to Prishtina with a heavy load of petrol, and the officer who was arranging the consignment happened to be a cousin of Captain Gworsditch. It was arranged that we should travel in one of the vans, and so we were hurriedly packed in with some half-dozen other refugees, and by midnight we were off. It was by no means comfortable, and sleep was impossible because of the jolting of the car on the rough road, but we comforted ourselves with the reflection that we should not have another night of it. We were traveling at a fair rate--not till the following day did we realize that that was because we had started late and the great mass of traffic was in front of us. IV--STORY OF JOURNEY TO KOSHUMLJA--AND THE KING We reached Koshumlja at about eight in the morning and remained there for a couple of hours. We had fondly imagined we should find an inn of sorts where we could obtain some breakfast, but there was nothing of the kind, nor could we purchase any food or wine, as we had relied upon being able to do. We were, however, most hospitably entertained by the family of the local chemist, whose shop we had merely entered to make some small purchase. They gave us bread, cheese, sausage, and coffee, had our muddy boots cleaned for us, and generally provided for our comfort before we started off again. They were genial, kindly folk, true Serbs, and later on we had frequent occasion to contrast their hospitality with the rough and money-grabbing methods of the Montenegrins. They told us a lot of interesting things, among others that a few days earlier they had been asked by the local authorities to prepare a meal for a couple of distinguished travellers. No names were mentioned. They had done as they were bid, and were now quite sure that it was the King himself whom they had entertained. On leaving Koshumlja that morning we ourselves saw the King. He was riding with a small retinue, hardly an assumption of state, and to one of us particularly the little cavalcade had something about it that was infinitely pathetic. A brief quotation from one of our diaries will explain why:-- "At Koshumlja to-day we saw the King. Curiously enough this is the first time that I have come across him since I have been in Serbia, though Alice saw him at Tarpola. He is a fine old man, and trouble, sickness, and age have not bowed him. And meeting him thus my mind goes back--how many years it may be I should be afraid to guess. I was a small boy spending my holidays with my people at Vevey, on the Lake of Geneva, and at the hotel we struck up an acquaintance with Prince Peter Kara Georgevitch. He was then in the prime of life, tall, dark, handsome--not yet married. He used to talk to us quite unaffectedly of his hopes and ambitions. King Milan was, of course, the prime enemy.