Suddenly word came from the Transport Minister that a carriage was coming for us.  We were to go to Pod, and pick up the others.  So Jo stopped tying herself into knots and had to get up and go.  We arrived at Pod to find everybody ill.  Two days’ sedentary life and Turkish delight were responsible for this.  We suggested castor oil.  One had just missed pleurisy—­Whatmough had acted as nurse.

The professor had been trying to pump Stajitch as to our future plans, as he was again alone and rudderless.  Stajitch said—­

“Mr. and Mrs. Gordon alone know, and they are in Cettinje.”

“Now that’s not kind to keep a fellow countryman in the dark,” said the professor.

Stajitch assured him he knew nothing; but the professor walked away, murmuring that the English were undermining a good Serb boy’s character.

And that was the last of the professor.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIII

INTO ALBANIA

We caught the mayor in the morning.  He was in his shirt-sleeves and he said that the auto had been arranged for.  It came and we packed in.  On the back perched a boy who outsmelt any Serb we had ever found.  It seemed impossible that a human could so smell and yet live.  Suddenly the boy drew a packet from his pocket and the smell became intolerable.  He unwrapped a piece of cheese and, gasping for breath, we watched it disappear.  When it had gone we breathed more freely, but the odour still clung to the youth, and we were not sorry when the auto pulled up at the village of Plavnitza on the edge of the lake.  A man, who said that he had been sent to help us, dragged us to the telephone office.  He worried the instrument for a while and announced that the boat would be here in two hours.  It would have come earlier, but somehow they couldn’t make steam get up.  We expected it to come in four, and so went off to get something to eat.

The lake was very high, coming right up to the road.  All the low fields were covered with water as far as one could see.  The girl at the inn was shuddering and shivering with malaria, and we gave her some quinine.  At last the steamer came.

We had to pack into one of those cockhat boats, as the quay was separated from the village by half a mile of water.  When we got to the steamer, the captain leaned over the side and shouted—­

“Where are the mattresses?”

“What mattresses?” said the harbour-master.

“When are you going to start?” demanded we, clambering on board.

“When I get the mattresses,” said the captain.

“But what mattresses?” replied the harbour-master.

“I was sent to get mattresses,” said the captain, “and here I wait till they come.”

This was a nuisance, nobody had said anything about the mattresses.

“I shan’t go till to-morrow anyhow,” said the skipper.