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We took position along the heights of Koumani, on the verge of the great table-land which intervenes between Rieka and Danilograd, and from which we could see the Turkish camps spread out on the plain below us; and if the Turks had but known where we were, they might have thrown their shells from the blockhouses in the plain into our camp.

The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too, were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.

In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman without a voice sang a popular song one thought of the women on the Rieka River a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed of halfpence we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari.

Jan and Jo simultaneously began to wish they had not eaten sardines at Riéka. The attack was very violent, and next day Jo stayed in bed, refusing the page boy's efforts to tempt her with lunch. "See," he said, bearing in a third dish, "English, your i risshkew." Jo pretended to be pleased, and made Jan eat the Irish stew after his lunch, so that the page boy's feelings should not be hurt.

He answered that it was two days, or rather one and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan, having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and found dare we mention it a louse, souvenir de Liéva Riéka.

We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction.

One of our passengers, a little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky. Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and another for the Frenchman.

Our steamer had come, however, not to carry me to Scutari, but, and perhaps fortunately, to take me back to Rieka, whence I had to go to Cettinje to get a refit, for I was ragged, bootless as my errand to Scutari, and draggled with mud from head to foot; notwithstanding which, as soon as the Prince had learned of my arrival, though in the midst of a diplomatic dinner, he sent for me to come to the palace, and made me sit down with the company as I was and tell my story.

A motor car would have been sent, he added, but almost all the bridges were washed away and they could get no nearer than Liéva Riéka. A problem met us in the morning. Willett was quite ill and only fit for bed. But bed was impossible. We had just escaped from the sound of the guns, and did not know which way the Austrians were coming.

Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by ten. We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef.