Last came the days when we daily expected to hear that the Queen of Italy had given birth to a son and heir. A gun was made ready to fire twenty-one shots. Candles were prepared to light in every window. The flags waited to be unfurled. We all sat at lunch in the hotel. The door flew open and a perianik (royal guard) entered. He spoke a few words to Monsieur Piguet, the Prince's tutor. Piguet excused himself and left the room. After some interval he returned, heaved a heavy sigh, and in a voice of deep depression, said to the Diplomatic table: Eh bien Messieurs --nous avons une fille! It was appalling. No one in Montenegro, it would appear, had thought such a catastrophe even possible. To the Montenegrin the birth of a daughter was a misfortune. "You feed your son for yourself. You feed your daughter for another man." Faced with this mediaeval point of view the Diplomatic circle was struck dumb. Till the British Consul said bravely: "I don't care what the etiquette is! I won't condole with him." And the tension was relieved. No guns were fired, no candles lighted. Cetinje tried to look as though nothing at all had happened. One member of the Round Table at this time needs mention. Count Louis Voynovitch from Ragusa was staying in Cetinje to draw up a new code of laws. This clever adventurer was looked on with some jealousy by the Montenegrins and much favoured by the Royal Family whom he amused with anecdotes and jokes. It was said he was to be permanently Minister of Justice, but he left Montenegro rather suddenly over, it was said, a cherchez la femme affair. He then went to Bulgaria as tutor, I believe, to the young Princes, and afterwards held a post in Serbia. And he returned again to Montenegro and represented Montenegro at the Ambassadors Conference in London during the Balkan War of 1912-13. He was reputed to be deep dipped in every intrigue of the Balkans and in Jugoslavia we may some day hear of him again. Nothing else now worth recording occurred in my 1901 holiday. Next year was a full one. CHAPTER FOUR. SERBIA AND THE WAY THERE "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is bold as a lion." Twice had I visited Montenegro and had heard much of Great Serbia. Of the past as seen by Serb eyes I read in any number of cheap pink and blue ballad books. As for the present, big Montenegrins in the most decorative national dress in Europe, swaggered up and down the main street of Cetinje, consumed unlimited black coffee and rakia and discussed the glorious days when all Serbs should again be united under Gospodar Nikita. But that they were taking any active steps to create this earthly paradise I had then no idea.