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Updated: June 18, 2025
King Nikola had returned from Russia, but had not fixed the date of war as we had expected. I thought perhaps Italy was shoving, in order to assist her war in Tripoli, which still dragged on. But in a few weeks' visit to Rome I had a long talk with San Giuliano, and perceived clearly that Italy was not urging Montenegro.
Prince Nikola, better equipped by a western education than any of his forerunners, rapidly gained a strong hold over his ignorant subjects and in the great game of Near Eastern politics was second only to Abdul Hamid at ruse and intrigue. From the very first he had but one ambition the reconstruction of the Great Serbian Empire with the Petrovitches as the reigning dynasty.
The scandalous discord which exists between Belgrade and Cetinje must be cleared off the carpet. We have most urgently pressed this on Prince Nikola when he was in Petersburg." The Prince, we may surmise, went to ask Russian support, received no sympathy, began to realize he was no longer Russia's "only friend," and was filled with sick anxiety.
Nikola Pavlovitch was, though not an officer, the commandant of a contingent of miners from America. The governor had told him also to offer himself as cicerone for the morrow, the cart having been ordered for our trip to Dechani. We didn't like cicerones and demurred. "I kin talk for you," he said. But we owned to speaking Serb.
The Lugareño stammered, "Nikola... Nikola el Escoces, Señor Don Patricio." "You hear?" O'Brien asked the judge. "This villager identifies the man." "Undoubtedly undoubtedly," the Juez said. "We need no more evidence.... You, Señor, have seen this villain in Rio Medio, this villager identifies him by name." I said, "This is absurd. A hundred witnesses can say that I am John Kemp...."
It was a tragic error with tragic consequences. Nikola came to the throne as a mediaeval chieftain in a yet mediaeval land. To succeed in his ambitions, and he was then amply justified in believing that he would succeed, it was needful to train up a successor fit to rule in the twentieth century. The gates of time were of a sudden flung open.
The records of Danilo and Petar are such that they are not likely to succeed their father. Prince Danilo in vain refused the spiritual headship of the land. No Petrovitch seems destined to be followed by his son, though their dynasty is the older, and their hands are not so stained with murder as those of the rival dynasty. Nikola is not wholly blameworthy.
So fine was the Court dress of Montenegro that oddly enough Prince Nikola was about the only ruling Sovereign in Europe who really looked like one. The inroads of Cook's tourists had stopped his former custom of hobnobbing with visitors, and he dodged with dignity and skill the attempts of American snapshotters to corner him and say: "How do, Prince!"
Answered for him more than for me. Where was Seraphina? Where? How should I come to her? O'Brien was dead. And I.... Could I walk out of this place and go to her? O'Brien was dead. But I... I suddenly realized that now I was the pirate Nikola el Escoces that now he was no more there, nothing could save me from being handed over to the admiral. Nothing.
As for him, he dared not kill me and he dared not give me up to the admiral. In his suspense, since, for him, I was the only person in the world who knew Seraphina's fate, he dared not let me out of his grip. And all the while he had me he must keep the admiral there, waiting for the surrender either of myself or of some other poor devil whom he might palm off as Nikola el Escoces.
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