Pran of Albania/Chapter 6

Now she would look about for Nush. It was too late, perhaps. She walked once through the crowd around the central square, and then, seeing so few mountain people, she made up her mind that if Nush had come he had gone long since. It would be dark soon. Even now she noticed that the shopmen were setting up the wooden planks that shut their shops at night. The crowd was thinning rapidly.

Pran took the road out of the “old town,” as the bazaar was called. She must be thinking of her night’s lodging now. She heard hurrying steps behind her, drew aside that whoever was in such haste might pass her easily. But no one passed. She walked on,then she slowed. The steps slowed too. Someone was following her!

She thought of Nush, half turned, and then, glimpsing the red fez of a Mussulman, she changed her mind and went more quickly. The steps quickened behind her. Pran’s heart beat fast a moment. ​Why was she followed? Ndrek was not in blood; no enemy could be tracing him through her. Uneasiness grew upon her. She had reached the square where in the daytime all the coachmen sat on their high carriage seats waiting for fares. It was deserted now. She thought, “At the Great Street I’ll turn and ask him what he wants.”

At the corner she turned. Six feet behind her was the boy—for he was just a boy. He was dressed in the Mussulman fashion: thin blouse with jacket over, and the loose trousers like bags, and on his head the red fez of Mohammed. Why did he stand there looking at her so? She knew no Mussulman youth. The boy took one step nearer. Pran stood still. He took another step, and now in the dim light Pran saw his face clearly; the firm mouth smiling, and the gray-blue eyes. “Why, Nush!” She nearly dropped her distaff in surprise.

“Yes, Nush,” he said, “and Nush so well disguised you did not know him. Long life. How have you made the trail?”

“Long life,” she answered. “I have made the trail slowly, slowly, little by little.”

“Good, mir,” he answered. “Are you tired out?”

“Yo,” said Pran, meaning “no.” “I rested well last night in Gjoanni and went not so far to-day.”

​Nush stood by her now, and Pran looked at him somewhat askance, in disapproval. “Such clothing does not fit a Christian boy,” she said. “Why do you change your faith for Skodra streets?”

“I change my looks,” said Nush, “for safety’s sake, but not my faith. Look closely, and you’ll see that my red fez is not so high as those Mohammed chose. It is the red fez of Skodra’s Christian men, having the long blue tassel. I cut the tassel off. And so it fits my costume; but I avoid the sin of wearing heathen headgear. You see!” He took it off and showed her.

But Pran was not pleased. “He who has done no evil should not hide,” she insisted.

“Only the spoon knows what’s in the dish,” said Nush, “and a man is tied by his word as a cow by her horns. I have given my bessa that I would not let myself be recognized. Other hearts than mine beat fast when danger threatens me.”

Pran turned away a bit impatiently and walked out the Great Street. But Nush kept pace beside her.

“You too wear a disguise,” he said accusingly.

“I?” Pran’s voice denied.

“Surely,” said Nush, “a baby’s cradle on your back—that is disguise enough. And then besides you ​make a puzzle of it, for you still wear the dress of an unmarried girl. When I first saw you I was all confused, thinking the child was yours, not knowing you.”

Pran laughed. “The baby is my cousin. I have been to Skodra’s doctor with him. There is no mystery in what I do.”

“I have a question, Pran,” said Nush more seriously.

“And I have answer for it.” She looked at him striding along beside her. “On the Feast Day I discharged the trust you gave me, Nush. I found Gjyl—and I gave her the gold coin, just as you asked, without a word of you. Nor have I told a living soul that I saw you in Thethi. There, my friend—for you are that, in spite of wearing clothes no Christian should.”

“A thousand, thousand thanks, Pran,” answered Nush. “You are a friend, and some day I will speak frankly as friends should speak; but now—trust me as I did you.”

“I will,” said Pran, “I do. And it is true that, being a man, you live more dangerously than I, a woman, do. So—peace, and a bessa between you and me.” She smiled, and he smiled back.

“I have a pledge of friendship for you, Pran,” said he, fumbling at the folds of his wrapped wide ​belt. “I did not think to see you, but I have carried it about me hoping I would.”

“What do you mean, Nush?” Pran asked curiously.

He drew out of his belt a long cord tied like a necklace. From the center hung three silver coins, and on each side were bear’s teeth hanging like long beads of ivory. “It is for you,” he said, handing it to her.

Pran took it, smiling with pleasure. “Thank you with all my heart, Nush. It is beautiful. But you make too great payment for a small service, and a service I owed you, too, after Nik’s accident.” She fingered the coins and felt the sharp tip of each white tusk. “It’s lovely,” and she hung it round her neck. Then she laughed softly, saying teasingly, “Now you have added more to my disguise. For so the brides go, all decked with beads and coins.”

“It becomes you,” said Nush admiringly.

They came to the convent corner. “I must turn here,” said Pran. “I have a paper for the Friar’s sister, a novice there. It is there I sleep.”

“Don’t go there yet,” begged Nush. “I want to show you something first—something important.” His face was grave now in the half darkness.

“What?” said Pran, half curious, half in dread at Nush’s tone.

​“Walk out with me—out to the city’s edge. No one is on the street, and anyway, we will be but mountaineers that go back from Skodra Bazaar. No one will notice.”

“After dark everyone notices who goes,” said Pran, but she wavered, agreeing. “Very well, I’ll go.”

“We will go quickly,” said Nush. “And what I have to show can be seen best in darkness. Then when you come back—alone—I go to Drishti for the night—you, being a woman carrying a child, will arouse no questions. Come.”

Together they went on along Rruga Madhe, the Great Street, that led out to the city’s edge. Nush was silent now, and Pran was busy with her thoughts, wondering what Nush had in his mind, bringing her so far out when night had fallen and all good folk should be housed safely from danger of darkness. She knew that between the city and the plain the mountains edged it was bad for night going. Here horse thieves and other breakers of the law had refuge, and an innocent wanderer, taking the level pathway to the hills, would hear a rifle shot and then the singing of a bullet past his ear.

“This is a crazy thing you do,” she told Nush warningly.

​They had reached a crossroad at the limit of the town. “This road leads north. We turn here,” answered Nush. “The way is not dangerous. Hurry—only a little farther.”

They went perhaps a hundred paces on the road, Nush pulling at Pran’s arm, for she had slowed her steps, growing unwilling at the distance now. She was silent, half afraid beside him. Her eyes watched the rough way with difficulty through the dark.

Suddenly Nush stopped, holding her back. “Stand where you are, Pran, and—look!” he said in a tense whisper, raising an arm and sweeping it toward the north.

Pran started at his tone and raised her eyes, looking up toward the north hills beyond the level plain that stretched dimly before them.

The hills lay dark—dark walls of rock that shut out Montenegro and the Slavs; but as her eyes fixed them suddenly she saw they were not all in darkness, for a light glowed from the top of one, and as she looked it was as if the summit of the next took fire from that first lame and kindled into a torch. Two torches shone.

“Fires,” whispered Nush hoarsely, “fires. You know for what?”

Pran’s heart gave a great leap and stopped and ​beat again wildly. Her breath came fast, She gazed motionless, fascinated. Now a far hill across a distant valley took up the light and itself burned a torch against the night. As the three fires flared there flared in Pran’s brain the meaning of them all. “Signals,” she said, breathless a little, and dread swept over her. “The signal fires!”

Nush dropped her arm and stood looking as she did at the strong points of light blazing so far away.

Then he said, still speaking softly as though he could be overheard in this solitude of stars and darkness and rustling dry grass, “I heard it all to-day in the bazaar. The fires are lit; the tribes are gathering. War comes from there,” he pointed to the north, “over the boundaries of Castrati and the northern villages. We see to-night the lightning of the storm that threatens us. I wanted you to see. Eyes bear better witness to the truth than ears can do.”

Pran spoke then, drawing in a long breath: “I have seen the lightning, and I understand.”

“You know the song, Pran?” asked Nush, and he hummed a tune; then, reaching the words he wanted, sang them so Pran could hear:

​The song Pran knew, though the music was unlike mountain music.

Nush said, “To-night the lightning strikes one hill after another. And so war starts; a small fire, spreading, spreading—spreading.”

Pran shuddered; then, steadying her heart, she answered, “Yes, but you did not finish the song, Nush. It is the song of Albania, and these words follow the ones you sang for me,” and she took up the tune where he had left it:

Her heart rose as she sang, repeating the refrain as the song repeats it, “Brave men hand in hand.”

Like water flowing through the mill race she could feel now courage that flooded her. The high spirit of a thousand generations of mountain hearts was hers. Her dread was gone. As she finished she smiled at Nush in the darkness.

“It is a good song,” he said quietly. “How does it go?”

Pran sang it all in the same deep voice she had used for Kola’s song.

It was pitch dark now save where the light of the rising moon showed white in the east.

“I must go back, Nush,” said Pran hurriedly. “I must go back.”

“Well, you have seen,” said Nush. “Now warn them in Thethi. Other warnings will come, but time is short now. Tell them the signal fires burn in the north and that the Slav strikes through Montenegro, not through Kossova, this time.”

He took her hand. “I go now to Drishti over the plain to the south. I shall go carefully. Do not think of me. Good luck, Pran. Heaven send blessing on you and on your house. You have my necklace. It will protect you. Each bear’s tooth is a spear to guard you, and the three coins are the three times we’ve seen each other, sealing our trust and friendship. Long life to you, Pran; go on a smooth trail.”

​“Peace go with you, Nush,” she answered, and wanted to say more, but he had turned swiftly. Darkness swallowed him. She was alone.

From the cradle came the faint crying of Baby Kola.

“Poor little acorn,” whispered Pran, “I will go quickly to the nuns’ house and care for you.”

In a moment her tenderness for the baby had driven these new thoughts out of her head. She had done wrong to stay out so long. What would the nuns think of such a late arrival at their gates? “Sh! Sh!” she crooned softly to Kola as her feet went fast on the dark road back to the town and safety.

She had to knock loud and long at the great gate of the convent. But Friar Gjiergj’s letter smoothed her way, and without question she was given room to sleep near the big iron stove in the “fire room.”

The nun, at her asking, got a bowl and spoon, and Pran warmed and mixed some of the new milk she had got from the nurse that day. She was glad to see that Baby Kol took it with eagerness. Hunger was a good sign after his starving so. Unused to such duties, Pran made clumsy work of feeding him at first, but soon it went smoothly, and no drop was spilled. The nun had gone, and they two were alone. ​Pran rocked the cradle, singing softly a wordless tune until Kol slept. Then she lay down beside him on the floor and curled herself under the blanket that the nun had given. She felt all at once come over her a desperate weariness. But just before she slept she saw again clearly, as if she dreamed, the three hills with the torch of flame on each. Then sleep fell on her heavily. Only once she wakened in the night, roused by the sharp crack of a rifle in the street. But silence followed, and she slept again.

Dawn found her started on the long way toward home. She thought, “There will be welcome indeed for me and Baby Kol, but there will be no welcome for the tidings that I bring—only a sorrow and foreboding.” She spun, for thread was needed; but she did not sing.