“It is all right,” laughed the adjutant, who throughout preserved the same air of utter indifference.  “They daren’t shoot, the cowards, and we shall take him to Velika with us, and then decide what to do with him.”

“You don’t seem to mind this sort of thing much,” I said, “but for a beginner like myself it appears rather nervous work.”

“Oh no,” he answered.  “I live here, and have been in many border fights.  They always make a noise like that, and they very seldom shoot at big people.”

“But if they do?” I queried.

“Oh, well, we must all die once,” he laughed.

In another half-hour we passed the second landmark, and were informed we were again in Montenegrin territory.  Our friendly Albanians left us, and rifles were more carelessly carried.

“What hast thou done?” I asked the fugitive at my stirrup.  “Tell me thy story.”

“I am a doomed man; my days are numbered,” he said, smiling, and rolling a cigarette.  “But life is sweet, and I wish to live a little longer.”

Strange, this man who was at death’s door barely an hour ago, was smiling and smoking happily as he walked by my side.  He had a most fascinating smile and laughing eyes, and now that the immediate danger was over he had forgotten it.

“Some months ago in my village, many hours from here, a woman fell in love with me,” he said.  “She was beautiful and I loved her too, but not so much as she loved me, for I feared her.  She hated her husband, who beat her.  One evening she came to me when her husband was away and told me that she loved me and that we would fly together.  ’I love thee as I hate my husband, and see, if thou wilt not do this, I will break my spinning-wheel before thee.’  And I trembled, for now I knew that my life was doomed.  For should I not take her, she must kill me as sure as there is a God in heaven, and if I fled with her, her husband and his relations would surely track me down.  And she was very beautiful, and we must all die.  So we fled here that same night.  What could I do?” he asked, smiling again.

[Illustration:  VELIKA]

“But why stay here?” I asked.

“Because,” he answered, “my brothers live here and I must stay here till I die.  If I am not to be found, then my brothers must die for me.  It will not last long, for there are many bags of money on my head.  My enemy is a rich man.”

“But,” he went on, “wilt thou ask the Voivoda, who is a good man, to give me a magazine rifle and some cartridges?  See my rifle, it is old, and I have but five cartridges left.  For thee he will do it, and so I can die fighting a good fight, and perhaps can kill two or three of my enemies first.  To-day I have wounded one.”

“I will ask the Voivoda,” I replied, “though I doubt if I have any influence with him.  Ask him thyself.”

I did ask the Voivoda, but he said the thing was impossible.  He had no rifles to give away.  But our fugitive continued his request at intervals for the rest of the time that he was with us.