The Lady in the Car

“By Jove!” I ejaculated, “Who’s the girl, Prince?”

“That’s Zorka. Pretty, isn’t she, Diprose?”

“Pretty!” I echoed. “Why, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in the whole of Servia!”

We were driving slowly together in the big “sixty” up the main street of the city of Belgrade, and were at that moment passing the iron railings of the palace of his Majesty King Peter. It was a bright dry afternoon, and the boulevard was thronged by a smart crowd, ladies in Paris-made gowns, and officers in brilliant uniforms and white crosses with red and white ribbons on their breasts.

Belgrade, though constantly in a ferment of political storm and stress, and where rumours of plots against the throne are whispered nightly in the corners of drawing-rooms, is, nevertheless, a quiet and pleasant place. Its picturesque situation, high up upon its rocks at the confluence of the Save with the Danube, its pretty Kalemegdan gardens, its wide boulevard and its pleasant suburbs, combine to offer considerable attraction to the foreigner. It is the gateway to eastern Europe. At quiet old Semlin – or Zimony – on the opposite bank of the Danube is Hungary, the fringe of western Europe: in Belgrade the Orient commences.

I happened to be at the Grand at Belgrade, and had there found the Prince, or Reggie Martin, as he always called himself in the Balkans. He was idling, with no apparent object. Only the faithful Garrett was with him. Both Charles and the Parson he had left behind in London. Therefore, I concluded that the reason of his presence in Servia was to learn some diplomatic secret or other, for he only went to the Balkans with that one object.

Of his business, the Prince seldom, if ever, spoke. Even from his most intimate associate, the Rev. Thomas Clayton, he usually concealed his ulterior object until it was attained. The Parson, Garrett, and Charles acted in blind obedience. They were paid to obey, not to reason, he often told them.

And so it was that although we had been together a week in King Peter’s capital, I was in entire ignorance of the reason of his presence there.

As we had brought the big car slowly along the boulevard, a dark-eyed peasant-girl, with a face full of wondrous beauty, had nodded saucily to him, and this had caused me to notice and admire her. Belgrade is full of pretty women, but not one was half so handsome. She was about twenty, I judged, and the manner in which her hair was dressed with the gay-coloured handkerchief upon it was in the style of unmarried women.

“I want to speak to her, to ask her a question,” the Prince said suddenly, after we had gone some distance. And driving the car down into the square we turned back in order to overtake her.

“An old friend of yours?” I inquired.

“Yes, my dear Diprose,” he laughed as he touched the button of the electric horn. “And a girl with a very remarkable past. Her story would make a good novel – by Jove it would.”

Five minutes later we had overtaken her, and pulled up at the kerb. The girl blushed and appeared confused as my companion, stopping the car, got down and stood at her side with his motor-cap raised. He spoke to her in his best Servian, for he knew a smattering of that difficult language, and appeared to be inviting her to enter the car and come for a run.

At first she was disinclined to accept the invitation, because of the crowd of smart promenaders. She was probably shy at being seen in the company of two foreigners. At last her curiosity as to what conveyance by automobile might be got the better of her, and she reluctantly entered the door held open for her.

Then Reggie introduced us, and got back to his seat at the wheel, I mounting again to my place beside him.

In a few minutes we were out on the broad Semendria road, a fine well-kept military highway, and on getting clear of the town, put on a “move” until the speedometer before me registered fifty miles an hour.

Zorka, now alone with us, clapped her hands with childish delight. She was an Eastern beauty of rare type, with full red lips, magnificent luminous eyes, and a pink and white complexion that any woman of Mayfair would envy.

Ten miles from Belgrade, we stopped at a small wine-shop and had some refreshment. She sat at the little table before us laughing at me because we could not understand each other. In lieu of paying the rustic beauty compliments, I raised my glass and bowed. She accepted my homage with queenly grace. Indeed, in her peasant costume of scarlet and black, with golden sequins on the bodice, she reminded me of a heroine of opera.

We sat in the little garden above the broad blue Danube until the sun grew golden with departing day, the Prince chatting with her and laughing merrily. He seemed to be asking many questions, while I, in my curiosity, kept pestering him to tell the story of our beautiful companion – the story which he had declared to be so remarkable and romantic.

He had offered her one of his “Petroffs” from his gold cigarette-case, and she was smoking with the air of one accustomed to the use of tobacco. Our eyes met suddenly, and blowing a cloud of smoke from her pretty lips she suddenly burst out laughing. Apparently she was enjoying that unconventional meeting to its full bent. She had never before ridden in a motor-car – indeed, there are but few in Servia – and the rush through the air had exhilarated her. I noted her well-formed hands, her splendid bust, and her slim, graceful figure, and I longed to hear her story. The Prince possessed, indeed, a wide circle of friends ranging from princes of the blood down to peasants.

At last he made some remarks, whereupon our delightful little companion grew suddenly silent, her great dark eyes fixed upon me.

“Zorka is not Servian, Diprose,” the Prince began. “She’s Turkish. And this meeting to-day has recalled to me memories, of a strange and very remarkable incident which occurred to me not so very long ago.” And then he went on to relate the following chapter of his amazing life-story. I will here record it in his own words:

That silent night was glorious. I shall preserve its memory for ever.

High up to that mountain fastness I was the first stranger to ascend, for I was the guest of a wild tribe of Albanian brigands, those men of the Skreli who from time to time hold up travellers to ransom, and against whom the Turkish Government are powerless.

It was a weird, never-to-be-forgotten experience, living with those tall, handsome fellows in white skin-tight woollen trousers with big snake-like bands running up the legs, black furry boleros, and white fezes. Every man was armed to the teeth with great silver-hilted pistols and long knives in their belts, and nobody went a dozen yards without his rifle ready loaded.

Ever since the days before we were together at Cheltenham, Diprose, I had read stories of brigands, but here was the real thing – the free-booters of the mountains, who would never let me go about without a dozen men as guard, lest I should be mistaken for a stranger and “picked off” by one of the tribe lurking behind a rock. Life is, indeed, cheap in the Skreli country, that great range of inaccessible mountains east of gallant little Montenegro.

On that night in the early autumn I was seated upon a rock with a tall, thin, wiry, but handsome, young man, named Lûk, known in his tribe as “The Open Eye,” whom the great chieftain, Vatt Marashi, had given me as head of my body-guard, while beside was the dark-faced Albanian who, speaking Italian, acted as my guide and interpreter. Zorka was spinning her flax close by.

In the domain of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan, the moon seems to shine with far greater brilliancy than it does anywhere else in the world, and surely the panorama of high mountain and deep dark valley there spread before us was a veritable stage-picture, while the men at my side were as romantic looking a pair as could be found anywhere in real life.

Many times, as at night I lay down upon my humble bed of leaves, had I reflected how insecure was my position, and how easily my hosts could break their word, hold me to ransom, and worry the Foreign Office. Yet, let me here assert that all, from the chieftain, down to the humblest tribesman, treated me with a kindness, courtesy, and forethought, that, from the first, caused me to admire them. They might be brigands, and the blood-curdling stories of their cruelty might possibly be true, but they were, without doubt, a most gentlemanly gang of ruffians.

We had eaten our evening meal, and were sitting in the calm night smoking cigarettes, prior to turning in. The two men beside me had placed their rifles upon the ground, where the moonbeams glinted along the bright barrels, and our conversation had become exhausted.

Below, in that dark valley, ran the mule-track to Ipek, therefore day and night it was watched for passing travellers, as indeed were all the paths at the confines of the territory over which my friend Vatt Marashi, defiant of the Turks, ruled so firmly and yet so justly.

Lûk, rolling a fresh cigarette, was making some remark to Palok, my guide, in his peculiar soft-sounding but unwritten language, when it suddenly occurred to me to ask him to give me some little reminiscence of his own adventurous life.

He was silent for a few moments, his keen gaze upon the shining rifle-barrel before him, then, with Palok translating into Italian, he told me the story of how he earned his nickname of “The Open Eye.”

About two years before, when his tribe were at feud with their neighbours, the powerful Kastrati, who live in the opposite range of mountains, he was one dark night with a party of his fellow tribesmen in ambush, expecting a raid from their enemies. The false alarms were several when, of a sudden, Lûk discerned a dark figure moving slowly in the gloom. Raising his rifle he was on the point of firing when some impulse seized him to stay his hand and shout a challenge.

The reply was a frightened one – and in Turkish.

Lûk came forth from his hiding-place, and a few seconds later, to his great surprise, encountered the stranger, who proved to be a woman wearing her veil, and enshrouded by an ugly black shawl wrapped about her. He knew sufficient Turkish to demand her name, and whence she had come, but she refused to satisfy him. She had already recognised by his dress, that he was of the tribe of the Skreli, therefore she knew that she had fallen into the hands of enemies.

“Speak!” he cried, believing her to be a spy from the Kastrati. “Tell me who sent you here to us? Whither are you going?”

“I know not,” was her reply in a sweet voice which told him at once that she was quite young, and he, being unmarried, became instantly interested.

“Where are you from?” he asked, expecting that she had come from Skodra, the nearest Turkish town.

“From Constantinople,” was her reply.

“Constantinople!” gasped Lûk, to whom the capital was so far off as to be only a mere city of legend. It was, indeed, many hundred leagues away. In the darkness he could not see her eyes. He could only distinguish that the lower part of her face was veiled like that of all Mahommedan women.

“And you have come here alone?” he asked.

“Yes, alone. I – I could not remain in Constantinople longer. Am I still in Turkey?”

“Nominally, yes. But the Sultan does not rule us here. We, of the Skreli, are Christians, and our country is a free one – to ourselves, but not to our captives.”

“Ah!” she said with failing heart. “I see! I am your captive – eh? I have heard in Constantinople how you treat the Turks whom you capture.”

“You may have heard many stories, but I assure you that the Skreli never maltreat a woman,” was the brigand’s proud answer. “This path is unsafe for you, and besides it is my duty to take you to our chief Vatt Marashi that he may decide whether we give you safe conduct.”

“No, no!” she implored. “I have heard of him. Take pity upon me – a defenceless woman! I – I thought to escape from Turkey. I have no passport, so I left the train and hoped to get across the mountains into Montenegro, where I should be free.”

“Then you have escaped from your harem – eh?” asked Lûk, his curiosity now thoroughly aroused.

“Yes. But I have money here with me – and my jewels. I will pay you – pay you well, if you will help me. Ah! you do not know!”

Lûk was silent for a moment.