The goatherd, reclining under the shadow of a rock, awaited Benham’s embarrassment with an indolent malice.

“You uncivilized Beasts!” cried Benham, and before Amanda could realize what he was up to, she heard the crack of his revolver and saw a puff of blue smoke drift away above his right shoulder.  The foremost beast rolled over and the goatherd had sprung to his feet.  He shouted with something between anger and dismay as Benham, regardless of the fact that the other dogs had turned and were running back, let fly a second time.  Then the goatherd had clutched at the gun that lay on the grass near at hand, Giorgio was bawling in noisy remonstrance and also getting ready to shoot, and the horse-owner and his boy were clattering back to a position of neutrality up the stony road.  “Bang!” came a flight of lead within a yard of Benham, and then the goatherd was in retreat behind a rock and Giorgio was shouting “Avanti, Avanti!” to Amanda.

She grasped his intention and in another moment she had Benham’s horse by the bridle and was leading the retreat.  Giorgio followed close, driving the two baggage mules before him.

“I am tired of dogs,” Benham said.  “Tired to death of dogs.  All savage dogs must be shot.  All through the world.  I am tired—­”

Their road carried them down through the rocky pass and then up a long slope in the open.  Far away on the left they saw the goatherd running and shouting and other armed goatherds appearing among the rocks.  Behind them the horse-owner and his boy came riding headlong across the zone of danger.

“Dogs must be shot,” said Benham, exalted.  “Dogs must be shot.”

“Unless they are good dogs,” said Amanda, keeping beside him with an eye on his revolver.

“Unless they are good dogs to every one,” said Benham.

They rushed along the road in a turbulent dusty huddle of horses and mules and riders.  The horse-owner, voluble in Albanian, was trying to get past them.  His boy pressed behind him.  Giorgio in the rear had unslung his rifle and got it across the front of his saddle.  Far away they heard the sound of a shot, and a kind of shudder in the air overhead witnessed to the flight of the bullet.  They crested a rise and suddenly between the tree boughs Monastir was in view, a wide stretch of white town, with many cypress and plane trees, a winding river with many wooden bridges, clustering minarets of pink and white, a hilly cemetery, and scattered patches of soldiers’ tents like some queer white crop to supplement its extensive barracks.