The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms.  We then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik’s (or mayor’s) office.

Outside the mayor’s office we found an old friend.  He had been a patient in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his legs that both were amputated.  He had been discharged the day before, and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.  The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped him on a wooden bench outside the mayor’s office, where he had remained all night, and where we found him.  He was a charming fellow, though very silent.  Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered, “When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be silent.”

He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the mountains.  The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.  Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to be unashamed of emotion.  The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which our friend was hoisted.  He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook his head.  A pack-saddle was substituted.

“It is hard,” he said, “young enough, and yet like a useless bale of goods.”

Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twelve to go—­thirty-two hours for a man without legs.  This will show of what some Serbs are made.

Within the office we found a professor whom we had met before, and who was acting as assistant mayor.  We took him to the station and estimated that thirty-two waggons would deal with our stuff.

[Illustration:  Serb Convalescents at Uzhitze.]

Jo and Jan went for a stroll, Uzhitze, especially in the back streets, is like a Duerer etching—­that one of the Prodigal Son, for instance, all tiny, peaky-roofed houses.  We took a siesta in the afternoon, but Jan was dragged out to talk to our professor, who explained that it was impossible for the Serbian Government to find thirty-two ox-carts at once, so the convoy must make two journeys.  He also said that horses would be provided for us, and that we would take two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, and all that.

We went down to the station, unloaded the truck and checked the numbers.  A few were missing, but not so many as we had expected.

A regiment of soldiers were called up; at a word of command they pounced upon our packing-cases and hurried them off to a storehouse.  The smaller cases were left to go on donkeys, two on either side.