ed
a great exercise of forbearance not to do so, and in the good old times
many a castle has been attacked and many a town besieged and pillaged
for much slighter causes of offence than those which I had to complain
of.

CHAPTER XXI.

Return Journey--Narrow Escape--Consequences of Singing--Arrival at
the Khan of Malacash--Agreeable Anecdote--Parting from the Robbers
at Mezzovo--A Pilau--Wet Ride to Paramathia--Accident to the
Baggage-Mule--Its wonderful Escape--Novel Costume--A
Deputation--Return to Corfu.

We made our way from the plain and rocks of Meteora by a different path
from the one by which we had arrived, and travelled along the north side
of the valley of the Peneus; we kept along the side of the hills, which
were covered sometimes with forest and sometimes with a kind of jungle
or underwood.

During the afternoon of this day, as I was singing away as usual in
advance of my party, some one shouted to me from the thicket, but I took
no notice of it. However, before I had ridden on many steps a man jumped
out of the bush, seized hold of my horse's bridle, and proceeded to draw
his pistol from his belt, but luckily the lock had got entangled in the
shawl which he wore round his waist. I pushed my horse against him, and
in a moment one of us would have been shot; when the appearance of three
or four bright gun-barrels in the bushes close by stopped our
proceedings. My men now came running up.

"Hallo!" said one of them. "Is that you? You must not attack this
gentleman. He is our friend; he is one of us."

"What!" said the man who had stopped me; "Is that you, Mahommed? Is that
you, Hassan? What are you doing here? How is this? Is this your friend?
I thought he was a Frank."

In short, they explained what kind of brotherhood we had entered into,
where we had been, and where we were going, and all about it. I did not
understand much of their conversation, and in the midst of it the
Albanian came up to me with a reproachful air and told me that they said
my being stopped was owing to my singing, and making such a noise. "Why,
Sir," he added, "can't you ride quietly, without letting people know
where you are? Why can't you do as others do, and be still, like a--"

"Thief," said I.

"Yes, Sir; or like a quiet traveller. In such troublesome times as
these, however honest a man may be, he need not try to excite
attention."

I felt that the advice was good, and practised i