two days, and the food I could get for him was insufficient even for a Herzegovinian mountain pony, so that it was hard work to get him to a pace above a slow walk as we approached Rieka; but when we left the place he seemed to realize that he had a work of necessity before him, and that the light would not see him through it, and he showed that he understood the case, for he needed neither spur nor whip to make his best pace over the very rough and difficult road.  In spite of his best efforts, the darkness fell on us half way to Cettinje, with rain and a fog which made it impossible to see the way before me, or even to see the horse’s ears.

There was on that road, on the mountain which frames on that side the plain of Cettinje, a passage of the bridle-path which even the Montenegrins, used to it, passed always on foot; a sharp ridge, almost an arête of rock, which carries a path hardly wide enough for two horses to pass each other on it, and on each side of which the rock falls away in a steep precipice high enough to leave no hope of survival from a fall down it.  If I had dismounted I could not have seen the path before me; to stop and pass the night there, drenched and cold as I was, would have been fatal, for we were in the early cold of autumn in a high country; there was nothing for it but to trust to the horse, and I threw the bridle on his neck and left him to himself.  A false step was certain death for us both, but I had no choice.  He picked his way as if he were walking amongst eggs, slowly but surely, and we descended into the plain of Cettinje at 10 P.M. without a slip or an attempt on my part to interfere with the discretion of my pony.  If I had possessed even an acre of pasture or a settled home where I could have turned out that good beast for the rest of his days, I should never have allowed him to go to another owner, for I knew that I owed him my life.

Of the following campaign, which resulted in the taking of Antivari and Dulcigno, I saw nothing.  The jealousy of Jonine had been so excited by my always forestalling him with the news of the war, that he persuaded the Prince not to advise me of the movement; so, while I was waiting at Cettinje for the promised summons to join the staff, the army moved across the country to Rieka secretly, and the first warning we had of the movement was the firing of guns at Antivari.  As the Prince gave me no further thought, I waited comfortably, “at mine ease in mine inn,” for diplomacy to tie the ends of the well-spun out controversy.  Fighting was practically over and my campaign ended.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE LEVANT AGAIN