It was settled that we
were to start at seven o'clock in the morning, but a dense white fog
obliterated the outer world--we might have been on the verge of Nowhere.
It was more than two hours before the fog lifted sufficiently to enable
us to proceed. We went on our way some three miles when a drenching
shower came on, and we took shelter in the cavernous interior of an
enormous, half-ruined oak-tree. Natural decay and the pickaxes of the
woodman seeking fuel for his camp-fire had hollowed out a comfortable
retreat from the storm. Surrounding the tree was a bed of wild
strawberries, which helped to beguile the time. When at length the
clouds cleared away, we resumed our saddles with dry jackets. But, as it
turned out, the half-hour we spent under the tree lost us the chance of
some fun.
I must remark that our road lay the whole way through a majestic forest.
We were actually on the highroad to Belgrade, yet in many places it was
nothing more than a grass-drive with trees on either side. Looking some
way ahead when we found ourselves on a track of this kind, we observed
in the distance two men on horseback standing their horses in the middle
of the road, apparently waiting for some one to pass. One of the
fellows, armed with the usual long Turkish gun, seeing our approach,
came forward as if to meet us. We instinctively looked to our revolvers,
but as he came up we saw that the stranger on the black horse (he must
have been _once_ a splendid roadster) had no sinister intentions upon
us.
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