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wells were filled, the springs flowed. Juicy green herbage sprang up between the rocks,

Folk in Scutari began to buy wood and charcoal for the winter. Hil, Drana, and the donkey worked hard. Sometimes they earned as much as ten shillings in a month. They were never, now, without enough maize and salt to live on. Sometimes they had a little coffee too.

Hil threw off the fever. Gjoko picked up strength.

All through the winter evenings folk hobnobbed together round the hearth. And most of all they talked of Korstituzi. It would make a railroad, some said, and schools, and roads. There would be work for everyone-and heaps of food and money. No more toiling over the rocks to earn a few pence.

But the winter passed and the Turks had not yet gone nor shown any signs of going. No foreign King had come, and things went on the same as before.

"I told you it was a trick," said the old bairaktar; "the Postripa Moslems are as bad as ever. They swear Lulash has stolen a goat. He has not. We all know he has sworn his innocence on the altar along with five witnesses. But he cannot go to Scutari now or they will arrest him. And he is innocent. This is Korstituzi! were fools to go to Scutari and feast and fire our rifles. It was a wedding without a bride!"

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But Hil and Drana recked little of Korstituzi. They cherished the donkey. Hil padded the pack-saddle with sheep-wool lest it should rub sores, and the yabandjee woman or the Blessed Virgin be wroth. He made a great stack of dry beech-leaves for winter fodder, and when the snow came the donkey shared the hovel and roasted his sides pleasantly by the hearth.

With a donkey everything seemed possible. Hil borrowed money for

maize to sow his little field and was slowly paying off the debt.

Some day he might even save up enough money to buy an old Martini and feel a man again.

Nor did anyone, indeed, take interest in outside politics that did not affect the tribe.

Then one day came news that rang through the mountains. The Turks were demanding tax.

The bairaktar called a medjliss (parliament) on urgent business. Never, in all time, had the tribe been asked for taxes. The towns and the richer villages of the plains had paid for years. No roads nor public works had ever resulted, but Vali after Vali retired with his pockets well lined. But, hitherto, the mountains, where most folk wrung but a bare living from the rocks, had been free.

Now, one franc a year was asked for each sheep and goat, and a tenth part of each scanty corn crop was to go to the government.

No one in Hil's mountains could grow maize enough to live. Few who had sheep and goats could afford to drink their milk. It was all made into white curd-cheese and sold in Scutari to buy maize and salt. Most of the tribe lived almost entirely on this and the salt whey they squeezed from the cheese.

Rakia they distilled from such vines as they grew, or from wild plums. For life on such low diet is hardly possible without stimulants, and for this reason they bought coffee whenever they had a few spare pence.

"This is Korstituzi!" said the bairaktar. "What have these devils ever done for us? Never a road have they made in all the mountains! Never a school in the land have they made for our children! Now they want our money to buy gold braid for their officers and guns to kill us with. How can we pay them? I am bairaktar, and

I have not tasted meat since St. Nikola. Coffee I have only for guests. They leave us to starve like dogs, and then ask for our money! Till they do something for us, we will do nothing for them!" He took the rosary from his belt and held up the cross that hung from it. "By this cross, I swear that I will never pay money for Pashas to grow fat upon!"

A yell of applause followed. Head after head swore, and all the tribe was united.

Time passed and nothing happened. There were other and richer districts from which money could be raised, and the Government did not think it worth while to send a battalion of soldiers to the mountains in order to collect a few pounds.

Hil and Drana did not trouble themselves. They had no sheep or goats and there was no tax on donkeys. As for their tiny maize crop, they had harvested it and stored it for the winter, and were simple enough to imagine that the tax could only be paid in kind and that the maize was quite safe.

In another week Hil would have paid off the debt on his maize and would begin to save up for a Martini. Drana helped him load the donkey and he went off cheerfully.

As he entered the town a police officer cried to him: "Oy, you! Stop there. What's your name?"

"Hil Marku."

The officer noted it.

"What tribe?"

Hil hesitated.

"He's from Shlaku," said a big zaptieh; "I know him."

"Shlaku," said the officer, "h'mone of the men we want for taxes." He spoke to the zaptieh next him. Then he shouted to another approaching peasant.

Hil drove on his donkey to the charcoal bazaar with a gasp of relief. He had escaped. But he had been badly

frightened. He sold his charcoal in a great hurry, hardly waiting to bargain. Then he paid the last piastres of his debt, bought twopenn'orth of salt, and started at once to return to the mountains.

"Hil, moré!" cried a woman who knew him, "don't go by the karakol (police station)-they are arresting men for this cursed tax. Five Zadrima men have I seen taken."

A cold terror seized Hil. More than ever he felt the loss of his Martini. He was unarmed, helpless. He turned down a side alley and hurried for the stony waste of the dry river-bed. Once across that he would find cover and get away safely.

He walked quickly, and the donkey. burdened by no pack, trotted gaily beside him.

They were already clattering on the stones when a voice of command rang out-"Halt!"

A zaptieh-the one who had recognized Hil at the entrance of the towndescended from the bank and stood in his path.

Hil gazed wildly round. Flight was impossible. It would have been followed at once by a bullet.

"Where are you off to, so fast?" asked the zaptieh.

"Home," said Hil.

"You've got to pay your tax first. It's twenty-three piastres (38. 4d.). You've sold your stuff"-he pointed to the donkey's empty pack-saddle-"and now you can pay up."

"Twenty-three piastres!" gasped Hil -"twenty-three piastres!"

"Twenty-three piastres," shouted the zaptieh; "don't you understand Albanian? Twenty-three! twenty-three!!"

"I tell you I haven't twenty-three plastres in the world," said poor Hil. He fished under his shirt and pulled out the dirty little bag that hung round bis neck together with an amulet against the evil eye.

"Look!" he said, and counted out the few battered metaliks (halfpennies) it contained.

The zaptieh laughed. "Where's the money you sold your stuff for?"

"I owed it already," said poor Hil. "I tell you we can't grow enough maize for ourselves. How can I give any to the Pasha?"

"We've heard that tale too often," said the zaptieh; "none of your tribesmen have enough to eat, if one's to believe you. At any rate you can afford a fine donkey, and that's worth more than the tax any day. If you are quite sure you won't pay, I'll take the donkey."

As he spoke he took hold of the halter of the donkey, which was standing quietly by, and pulled it.

Hil's world crashed to pieces around him. Nothing so terrible as the loss of his donkey had ever presented itself to his mind. It was his life, and Drana's, and Gjoko's, their present, their future, their only hope.

Blank terror seized him and turned him into a cringing suppliant. He prayed, he implored for mercy, pouring out a mixed torrent of entreaty to the zaptieh, and all his Saints. He offered all he had with him-his old knife, the salt, his few halfpence he would bring firewood next week-or charcoal -he would

The zaptieh, a big fair Bosniak, laughed loudly at the unhappy little man. "All right," he said teasingly, "bring a whole bazarful of charcoal next week and pay up. And then you shall have the donkey back. We shall keep it, in case you forget. And the sooner you pay the better for you. For the donkey will be put up at the han and you'll have to pay sixpence a day for its keep. Good-bye—pleasant journey!"

He pulled the donkey, and turned to go. But the donkey planted all its

four feet firmly and wagged its ears questioningly at Hil.

The zaptieh twisted the halter two or three times round his hand and wrist and tugged.

"My donkey," cried Hil in agony"only give me my donkey. I'll pay you next week-Pashé Zotin, I'll pay you."

"Pay now," said the zaptieh, and he laughed again.

The donkey was lost forever. Sixpence a day was more than Hil had ever dreamed of possessing. The madness of despair swept over him. Every fibre in his body contracted with rage; his face went livid; the pupils of his eyes were mere pin-points.

"Pay," he yowled-"pay! Derr e bir derrit (swine and son of a swine)! I'll pay you!"

With the scream of a wild beast, he lowered his head, flung himself forward and butted the zaptieh in the belly with all his force. The man, completely taken by surprise doubled up, gasping, clutched instinctively at his revolver, but his right hand was tangled in the halter, on which the frightened donkey plunged madly. And before he could recover Hil had borne him down in his furious onrush, had torn the revolver from his belt and fired four bullets straight into his breast.

Hil turned and fled. The sound of the shots would bring up the patrol. If he could but get across the river-bed he would find cover and be safe.

The terrified donkey clattered after him, dragging the dying zaptieh whose life-blood spouted scarlet on the stones; but, hampered by the weight, could not keep up with Hil's wild flight, and brayed aloud.

Even at the risk of his own life, Hil could not abandon the donkey. He checked a moment, opened the claspknife that hung at his belt, and cut the halter. The donkey darted forward and made for the well-known track to the mountains.

A shout rang over the plains. Hil swerved and made for the nearest thicket. Three bullets squealed after him.

It was very late that night when the donkey, its pack-saddle all awry, arrived at the little hovel. But Drana and Gjoko waited for Hil in vain. He lay dead in the little thicket, for the The Cornhill Magazine.

patrol did not trouble to follow up the game and see if the bullets had hit or missed: nor was his body found for two weeks. And then it was buried where it lay. For he was excommunicate.

So Hil indubitably lost his soul. And Drana and Gjoko lost Hil.

As for Korstituzi, it was short of three-and-fourpence and a zaptieh.

M. Edith Durham

THE IMPOTENCE OF EUROPE.

Of the situation in the Near East we can only use the old tag and say that we must laugh so as not to be obliged to weep. The condition of affairs is complicated a thousandfold by the active intervention of the Turks. If anybody really was to be found who believed in the Concert of Europe, his credulity will now be put to a severe test, for the Concert is up against such an open defiance of its decisions that it must either hopelessly abdicate or enforce obedience at the sacrifice of all claim to equitable decision. If the second alternative be adopted Great Britain, with her millions of Mohammedan subjects, stands to lose more than anyone.

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So far as the former Allies are concerned, all accurate information seems to be lacking. One thing alone we may safely assume, that horrible barbarities have been practised on all sides, though not to the extent stated. Indeed certain persons of repute alleged to have been massacred are now known to be alive and well. may safely accept the general charges of inhumanity preferred by the different parties against one another, but we should be unwise to credit particular instances. The same remark applies to the military operations. We have no accurate information as to the whereabouts of any of the belligerent forces. At least if we have we cannot

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know it. Of one thing we may be confident. The grandiloquent utterances of the Greeks must not be accepted at their face value, but it is certain that Bulgaria is hemmed in and must yield, though how deeply she may be humiliated or how completely mulcted of what she has won depends on how far certain Great Powers can or are willing to intervene on her behalf. thing alone we may unhesitatingly assume, that, to use Dr. Johnson's phrase, mutual cowardice alone keeps us at peace. We may be thankful that the Great Powers are not cutting one another's throats. It can only be a sincere appreciation of this fact that has turned the Foreign Offices of Europe into a (temporary) mutual admiration society.

We suppose then that we must be thankful if the Concert is steadfastly purposed not to fall out and the trombone and the French horn are not going to break their instruments on one another's heads. But there is another side to this. If we are so desperately nervous about our relations with one another, we are hardly likely to combine effectually to make decisions and force them down the throats of the Balkan peoples. The utmost we have been able or are likely to do in this direction is to coerce Montenegro. But if our Foreign Office is to live up to the

reputation it seems to have acquired,

it must remember that we should at least make certain that any settlement made now should contain some elements of permanence. Among a good deal of nonsense talked in the course of last week the most dangerous absurdity which has emerged appears to be the suggestions of an autonomous Macedonia and Thrace! One perilous experiment of the kind, certain to result in evil consequences, we have already lent ourselves to, the establishment of an independent Albania. If we are going to let Macedonia go the same way, we are simply exposing these wretched peoples to the continuance of horrors from which the TurcoBalkan war was supposed to have freed them. An "autonomous Macedonia" simply means a repetition of the intrigues of the last thirty years, and the recrudescence of "bands" and mutual throat-cutting. This might be avoided if we could hope for anything like "statesmanship" from Greeks or Servians. Unfortunately we have no reason to expect the moderation of common sense, much less generosity, from Greeks or Serbs. But the Concert can hardly stultify itself to the extent of allowing Macedonia to become a more fruitful field of trouble in the future than it has been since the Treaty of Berlin. This nightmare for a time has been got rid of, and at all costs its revival must be prevented.

If an autonomous Macedonia would put the finishing touch to the humiliation of the Great Powers, an autonomous Thrace is unthinkable. It is clearly nothing but a kite flown by Turkey or her friends at a venture. But it is a symbol of a grave situation. The re-entry of Turkey on the scene might have been safely predicted when the quarrel of the Allies was certain and the impotence of Europe demonstrated. We do not know whether anyone in this country cares enough

about the matter to mind whether Turkey reoccupies Adrianople or not. Certainly it is absurd to talk of Turkey as if she had committed any breach of faith worse than that of any other State; and on the ground of atrocities one is no doubt as bad as another. What does Turkey owe to the Powers? Or, if it comes to that, what does any other Balkan State owe? Something less than nothing. All the Powers have done has been to prevent each of the parties from obtaining something it particularly desired. It may be said that Turkey retained Constantinople owing to the intervention of Europe, but she knows well enough that certain Great Powers for their own selfish reasons would never have allowed Bulgaria to appropriate Constantinople even if she could have done it. There cannot therefore be any question of gratitude. All we can justly expect Turkey to remember is that at the beginning of the war Europe warned the Allies that whatever the result they would not be allowed any accession of territory and that at the end the Great Powers actively assisted them to retain what they had won and gave their conquests the sanction of a treaty drawn up under European auspices. But, what was far less equitable, they actually tried to make the Turks surrender Adrianople without waiting to see it taken by force of arms. In these circumstances it is worse than the usual cant, which does duty in such emergencies, to talk about "violating the Treaty of London." In fact the Turks, even less than the other Balkan States, have any reason to consider the feelings of Europe. We may safely assume that they will make themselves just as disagreeable as they dare and will draw just as much profit for themselves out of the Balkan mêlée as they can.

Mr. Asquith's utterance at Birmingham showed indeed once again his su

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