“Do you know the way?” she asked with a touch of contempt.

They didn’t.

“Then I guess I’ll guide you.  You pay me wages every day until you’re tired and I’ll use the money to go out to Chicago.”  And seeing them hesitate, she added:  “No one’s going to hurt me.  A woman is safe in Albania.  And if I’m with you, no one will hurt you.  But if you go on by yourselves you’ll very likely get murdered.”

Fantastic as was her intention, they knew that, as far as they themselves were concerned, she spoke common-sense.  So it came to pass that Liosha, having left them for a few moments to take grim farewell of the charred remains of her family lying hidden beneath the smouldering wreckage, returned to them with a calm face, mounted one of the ponies and pointing before her, led the way into the mountains.

Now, if old Jaff would only sit down and write this absurd Odyssey in the vivid manner in which he has related bits of it to me, he would produce the queerest book of travel ever written.  But he never will.  As a matter of fact, although he saw Albania as few Westerners have done and learned useful bits of language and made invaluable friends, and although he appreciated the journey’s adventurous and humorous side, it did not afford him complete satisfaction.  A day or two after their start, Prescott began to shew signs of peculiar interest in their guide.  In spite of her unquestioning readiness to shoulder burdens, Prescott would run to relieve her.  Liosha has assured me that Jaffery did the same—­and indeed I cannot conceive Jaffery allowing a female companion to stagger along under a load which he could swing onto his huge back and carry like a walnut.  To go further—­she maintains that the two quarrelled dreadfully over the alleviation of her labours, so much so, that often before they had ended their quarrel, she had performed the task in dispute.  This of course Jaffery has blusteringly denied.  She was there, paid to do certain things, and she had to do them.  The way Prescott spoiled her and indulged her, as though she were a little dressed-up cat in a London drawing-room, instead of a great hefty woman accustomed to throw steers and balance a sack of potatoes on her head, was simply sickening.  And it became more sickening still as Prescott’s infatuation clouded more and more the poor fellow’s brain.  Jaffery talked (not before Liosha, but to Adrian and myself, that night, after the ladies had gone to bed) as if the girl had woven a Vivien spell around his poor friend.  We smiled, knowing it was Jaffery’s way. . . .

At all events, whether Jaffery was jealous or not, it is certain that Prescott fell wildly, blindly, overwhelmingly in love with Liosha.  Considering the close intimacy of their lives; considering that they were in ceaseless contact with this splendid creature, untrammelled by any convention, daughter of the earth, yet chaste as her own mountain winds; and considering that both of them were hot-blooded men, the only wonder is that they did not fly at each other’s throats, or dash in each other’s heads with stones, after the fashion of prehistoric males.  It is my well-supported conviction, however, that Jaffery, honest old bear, seeing his comrade’s very soul set upon the honey, trotted off and left him to it, and made pretence (to satisfy his ursine conscience) of growling his sarcastic disapproval.