‘Listen, my brothers! You must be ready for the Holy War. When you hear for the second time the voice of public crier Mecho, gather great and small, of all ages between seven and seventy, and range yourselves under the banners. Those who have blood debts have nothing to fear. God and the country pardon them. The Seven Kings[4] are banded together, but we do not fear them, nor would they frighten us if they were seventy, or as many more.’

The clans agreed upon a bessa, or truce, blood feuds were declared off for the time, and the Albanians of Jakova, Ipek, and other districts neighbouring Metrovitza banded together, great and small, of all ages, to combat the reforms imposed upon the Sultan by the Powers.

The feature of the reforms which gave them most offence was the mixed gendarmerie. The British Consul at Uskub had suggested that it would be sheer slaughter to create Christian police among the Albanians. But the arrogant Russian, who at that time played first fiddle in the opÉra comique, opposed this view, probably for no other reason than that it was English; and the Turks, who make game of mad methods, agreed to the Austro-Russian demands with alacrity, and sent six Servian gendarmes to Vutchitrin.

The public crier made his second call. Albanians to the number of several thousand foregathered and visited Vutchitrin. But arriving there they found the Turkish kaimakam had sent the sorry Serbs away to a secret place of safety.

This was not a dire disappointment for the Albanians; they projected bigger sport for the following day and kept the peace during the night. Early next morning they set forth for Metrovitza, a short march, to fulfil a promise, made a year before, to destroy the newly established Russian Consulate. But, over-confident and swaggering with pride, they boasted openly of what they would do, and when they came to the Consular town they found the roads blocked with infantry and covered by cannon. The Albanians halted, and the chiefs went forward to parley with the Turkish commander: they were faithful followers of the Padisha, doing only what he would desire. But the Turk could not be moved, and threatened to fire if the Albanians advanced.

The Albanians did not believe that the Sultan’s soldiers would fire on the faithful, and when the whole force had gathered they marched boldly upon the town by two roads at the same time. They were met by a volley from the troops, and, much cut up, retired. A body of them occupied an old mill across a little stream which bordered the barracks, and fired upon the garrison from there until shelled out. Then the whole number, after collecting their dead—with the tacit permission of the Turks—withdrew to their own towns. But the Russian Consul was not to escape.

The garrison of Metrovitza, which was largely Albanian, sympathised thoroughly with the Albanian effort that had failed, and, indeed, every Mohamedan did. The Government had got more than it bargained for. The garrison was sore and sullen, and when the soldiers gathered at the cafÉs in the evening, it was to deplore the day’s work and to speculate upon the Padisha’s will.

At one cafÉ a fanatic dervish, after working his hearers to frenzied pitch, exclaimed, ‘And is there not a single Mohamedan who will rid us of this giaour?’

‘I will,’ said a piping little voice.

‘You! Oh, no, you will not!’ said the dervish scornfully.

‘I will,’ repeated the other.

He was a soldier who had been in the fight, a slim, sickly fellow with a sad visage. I saw him on trial at Uskub.

The next morning M. Stcherbina, attired in Russian uniform, followed by a Cossack, two heavily armed kavasses, and a troop of soldiers, officers, and officials—the Turks doing honour and service against their convictions—went out to inspect the line of battle, the plan of which, it was alleged, the Russian had directed. As the Consul in great state passed, the sentinels presented arms—which the Russians exact of the Turks. One Mohamedan, required thus to degrade himself, lowered his gun quickly as the Consul passed before him at a distance of three paces, and without waiting to aim, fired a fatal ball into the ‘infidel’s’ body. Then, flinging away his gun, the soldier started at a mad pace down the slope, over the rocks toward the mountains of Albania.

The Consul’s retinue, surprised for a moment, were soon after the fugitive, firing fast; but he travelled a hundred yards before they wounded him. The Cossack claimed, and no doubt fired, the telling shot.

At his first trial the murderer was condemned to prison for a term of fifteen years. Strange to say, Abdul Hamid is averse from capital punishment. But the Russians were not satisfied with this sentence and demanded a new trial; and at the second hearing, at Uskub (a mock affair with the verdict pre-determined) the soldier was condemned to death. Before he was executed the White Czar pardoned the murderer of M. Stcherbina! But a few months later, not only the murderer of M. Roskowsky, Russian Consul at Monastir, but also a soldier who stood by and saw the deed done, and made no attempt to prevent it, were hanged at Russian command.

The ways of the Turk and the ways of the Russian are wonderful and similar.

The display of the Russian dead was truly Russian. The body of M. Stcherbina was placed on a bier in a goods car, lined and completely covered with mourning, on each side and each end an immense white cross. This moving catafalque was dragged from Metrovitza to Salonica, met along the route by Servian and Bulgarian clergy and such Consuls as would participate in the demonstration, and opened for services at the chief stations. At Salonica the body was laid in state in a new Bulgarian church, from which there was a great parade to a Russian man-of-war, Consuls all participating, Turkish soldiers and officials doing honour.

The object of these proceedings seemed to be to impress Turks, Christians, and Jews alike with the power of Russia. Alas! for the power of Russia, the Japanese war soon followed, and its result delighted Turks and Jews and many Christians.

From Constantinople came a commission of holy men with gifts from the Sultan and arguments from the Koran to conciliate the injured Albanians. But they would not be reconciled. Abdul Hamid had kept them armed for generations for his own purposes, had chosen his bodyguard from among them because of their faithfulness, and now no amount of backsheesh, or multiloquence about their transgressing the will of God, would bring them to terms. They were going to fight. So the Albanian soldiers were brought out of the Albanian districts and replaced by purely Turkish regiments. More Anatolians were brought over from Asia Minor in vast numbers, and mobilised at Verisovitch.

Those who knew the Turkish Government doubted that actual hostilities against the Albanians would take place. But Russia was pressing—threatening a naval demonstration with the Black Sea fleet—and the Sultan fought his faithful friends.

Two small encounters took place. Of course the Albanians, badly armed and without organisation, were easily defeated. The chiefs were made prisoners and taken to Constantinople, where they were decorated, probably pensioned for life, and made altogether better off than they had been hitherto.

It is supposed that the Sultan ‘fixed’ his Albanian bodyguard before he sent an army against their brothers, for had not his own safety been secured, it can be taken he would have preferred war with the ‘Seven Kings.’

Metrovitza, being on the railway, was accessible without the permission of Hilmi Pasha, and an Englishman, a Dane, and I went up to see the battle ground. We were invited to visit the Russian Consulate, and found a Russian kavass awaiting us with a bodyguard of soldiers.

It was not a far walk from the station to the Consulate, which we recognised from a distance by the tremendous tricolour that floated from the balcony, drooping to within six feet of the road beneath. The Consulate was situated between the barracks and a camp of Turkish soldiers, and on several sides, immediately about the house, were small detachments of picked troops.

First to greet us as we entered the door was the Cossack, in bushy busby, blue dress with large white spots, brown sleeves, leggings, and many weapons. He was a moth-like creature, hair, beard, and skin the same sickly pallor, and eyes of a dull blue. The kavasses—generally swaggering—looked sheepish; they were Albanians—traitors, in their countrymen’s eyes. But the Consul, M. Mashkov, late of Uskub, was full of fire, actually pugnacious, and, so he told us, ready to die in his country’s service.

A telegram arrived a few minutes after we did, containing a warning that the Sublime Porte had received a letter from the Bulgarian committajis, informing the Turkish Government of their intention to assassinate another Russian consul. The object of this telegram—the origin of which is obvious—I am at a loss to understand, but such warnings to consuls come constantly from the Turkish Government.

‘They have killed M. Stcherbina,’ said M. Mashkov; ‘they may kill me; but they cannot kill the Russian Consul!’

The Dane asked the Consul if he really thought he would be assassinated, and M. Mashkov replied, ‘I expect to leave Turkey as M. Stcherbina did. If the Albanians do not kill me, the Bulgarians will.’

But I am glad to record that our entertaining and generous host—whose ideas and sympathies, I regret, do not agree with mine—was soon transferred to Egypt, and got away from Turkey alive.

We tramped over the battlefield in the same manner that the dead Russian had done, with Russian kavasses and Turkish soldiers for our protection, and a Turkish officer who spoke French as a conductor. We resembled a Russian commission, and the sentinels rose from the ground and saluted. Every time we passed one the sins of my life all came back to my mind.

Albania is the most romantic country in Europe, probably in all the world. It is a lawless land where might makes right, and parts of it are as forbidding to the foreigner as darkest Africa. In the country around Ipek, Jakova, and Prisrend, and even Kalkandele, the homes of men are strongholds built of stone, with no windows on the ground floors, and those above mere loopholes. At the corners of a village or estate are kulers, towers of defence, from which the enemy can be seen far down the road.

The first law of the land is the law of the gun, as it was in the Wild West. But the country is more thickly populated than was the American border in the old days, and men have banded together in clans for offensive and defensive purposes.

There is no education in Albania—the Turks have kept the country illiterate—and promises have come to be bonds. It is because the Albanians keep their word that Abdul Hamid has chosen them as his bodyguard. But the Albanian has no regard for the man he has not sworn to, and, though the petty thief is despised, it is considered brave work to kill a man for his money.

Albanian customs are dangerous to break, and are handed down the generations unwritten as sacredly as are feuds. Some strange customs exist. To compliment an unmarried woman, for instance, is provocation for death. A blood enemy is under amnesty while in the company of a woman. A woman may shoot a fiancÉ who breaks his betrothal or call upon the young man’s father to kill him. If a man commits murder, and, flying for his life, enters the house of another, friend or foe, he is safe. This is the case, even if he takes refuge in the house of a brother of the man he has slain. He may not remain there for ever; but for three days he can live on the best the house provides. When that time is up, he is shown on his way. Twenty-four hours is given him to make his escape; after that the bessa is over and the blood feud begins.