and, as he knew me well, and that I was trustworthy in my reports,—­for he knew how A’ali Pasha had regarded me,—­he was in a curious state of mental distress.  On his report to Constantinople, the consul-general at Ragusa, an Italian Levantine called Danish Effendi, whom I had also known at Syra in the old days, was ordered to make an investigation into the Popovo atrocities, and, being under the eyes of a large body of correspondents and a Christian public, he reported confirming my report.

Our return to Ragusa was not entirely free from excitement, for the indigenous Mussulman had less avidity for prey he saw going into the trap, Mostar, than for that which he saw escaping, and we had to face small predatory detachments of bashi-bazouks raiding in the country we passed through, who looked at us with eyes of fire, and muttered in no doubtful language, interpreted by my colleague of “Le Temps,” who knew Turkish, what they would be glad to do with us.  As we sat eating our lunch in the shelter of a hovel by the roadside, while the horses were baiting, a party of the fanatics watched us with growing malignity and a truculent interchange of sentiments of an evidently unfriendly nature.  To puzzle them as to our status, I took the pains to repeat in conversation with my colleague the formula of adherence to the faith as it is in Islam, a scrap of Arabic I had learned in Crete, the repetition of which, according to the rite, is equivalent to the recognition of Mahomet and his teachings.  The effect on them was curious, and, though they evidently did not consent to regard us as of the true faith, they as evidently were puzzled, and we went our way unmolested; but I felt more at my ease, I am willing to admit, when we passed the last Turkish post on the road.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A JOURNEY IN MONTENEGRO AND ALBANIA

Utovu was followed by a lull in military operations; but in the latter part of November, as the insurgents had beleaguered all the forts in the upper Herzegovina and the town of Niksich in the debated territory between Montenegro and Herzegovina, Shefket gathered a force of 3000 regulars, with artillery and bashi-bazouks to escort a train of supplies to them.  He was met by Lazar Soeica, the chief of that part of the mountain country, and disastrously defeated at Muratovizza, leaving behind him 760 dead, and carrying away about 900 wounded, most of whom died of their wounds, as I learned from one of the European surgeons in the Turkish service who deserted a little later, dismayed by the constant menaces of death to all Christian employees in the camp, uttered by the troops, suffering, angry, and continually worsted in the little fights.  Shefket saved himself and his artillery by sending the latter to the rear as soon as the battle was at its height, and then, having posted a strong rear guard,—­the insurgents having neglected to close the road behind them,—­retreating