Jan climbed down the hill and took snap-shots of Gorazhda; the enemy got a couple of pretty near shots at him.

When the Montenegrins thought this sport was becoming monotonous they remembered the business of the day.  A big house in Gorazhda was said to be full of Hungarian officers, and they wanted to get the range of this with one of the big guns.  This decision had been made a day or two before with much deliberation.  This they thought the State could afford.  The precious shell was brought out, and every one fondled it.

Men were called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and taking aim.  We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun.  There were many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they pulled the string.

“Goodness!  Now we’ve done it,” Jo thought, as the mountains sent back the fearful report in decreasing echoes.  We seemed to wait an eternity, and then “something white” happened far beyond the village.

The officers looked at each other with long faces.  “A bad miss—­the expense.”

We felt the resources of the Montenegrin Empire were tottering.  Awful!  Could they afford another?

Finally, with great courage, they decided that it was better to spend two shells on getting a decent aim than to lose one for nothing.  The terrific bang went off again, and this time the “something white” happened right on the roof of the house.  The Hungarian officers all ran out, and the machine guns below jabbered at them.  Nobody was killed as far as we know, but every one was content and delighted.

Sunset was approaching, and we rode away quickly, only stopping once to drag a reluctant old Turk from the mountain side and make him sing to the accompaniment of a one-stringed goosla.  He hated to do it as all his best songs were about triumphant Mahommedans crushing Serbs, and of course he couldn’t sing those.

He sat grumpily cross-legged on the ground, encircled by our horses, droning a song of two notes, touching the string quickly with the flat lower part of his fingers.

We left him very suddenly because the darkness comes quickly in those hills, so we made for the high-road as hard as we could.

We rode fast to the Colonel’s cottage, sat down to the dinner table, which was decked with pale blue napkins, and a fine-looking old Voukotitch, an ex-M.P. in national costume, acted as butler.  In spite of his seventy odd years he had joined the army as a common soldier.  He refused all invitations to sit with us, for he knew his place.  The young husband was his nephew, and they kissed fondly on leave-taking.

We rode back in the moonlight.  At one spot on the road was a sawmill, and the huge white pine logs lying all about looked like the fallen columns of some ruined Athenian temple.  We tried to enjoy the moment, and to brush aside the awful thought that we must remount Rosinante and Co. next day.