To judge from the fervid descriptions given us by Jaffery and Liosha, Albania must be a pestilentially uncomfortable place to live in.  It is divided into three religious sects, then re-divided into heaven knows how many tribes.  What it will be when it gets autonomy and a government and a parliament and picture-palaces no one yet knows.  But at the time when my two friends met it was in about as chaotic a condition as a jungle.  Some tribes acknowledged the rule of the Turk.  Others did not.  Every mountainside had a pretty little anarchical system of its own.  Every family had a pretty little blood feud with some other family.  Accordingly every man was handy with knife and gun and it was every maiden’s dream to be sold as a wife to the most bloodthirsty scoundrel in the neighbourhood.  At least that was the impression given me by Liosha.

When the tragedy occurred she herself was about to be sold to a prosperous young cutthroat of whom she had seen but little, as he lived, I gathered, a couple of mountains off.  They had been betrothed years before.  The price her father demanded was high.  Not only did he hold a notable position on his mountain, but he had travelled to the fabulous land of America and could read and write and could speak English and could handle a knife with peculiar dexterity.  Again, Liosha was no ordinary Albanian maiden.  She too had seen the world and could read and write and speak English.  She had a will of her own and had imbibed during her Chicago childhood curiously un-Albanian notions of feminine independence.  Being beautiful as well, she ranked as a sort of prize bride worth (in her father’s eyes) her weight in gold.

It was to try to reduce this excessive valuation that the young cutthroat visited his father’s house.  During the night two families, one of whom had a feud with the host and another with the guest, each attended by an army of merry brigands, fell upon the sleeping homestead, murdered everybody except Liosha, who managed to escape, plundered everything plunderable, money, valuables, household goods and live stock, and then set fire to the house and everything within sight that could burn.  After which they marched away singing patriotic hymns.  When they had gone Liosha crept out of the cave wherein she had hidden, and surveyed the scene of desolation.

“I tell you, I felt just mad,” said Liosha at this stage of the story.

* * * * *

I remember Barbara and Doria staring at her open-mouthed.  Instead of fainting or going into hysterics or losing her wits at the sight of the annihilation of her entire kith and kin—­including her bridegroom to be—­and of her whole worldly possessions, Liosha “felt just mad,” which as all the world knows is the American vernacular for feeling very angry.

“It was enough to turn any woman into a raving lunatic,” gasped Barbara.

“Guess it didn’t turn me,” replied Liosha contemptuously.