eously seized, and the
Prince was to be killed, or--and many preferred this--terrorized
into abdication. Nikola was represented by the propagandists as the
tyrant that stood in Great Serbia's path. Any one who has passed
hours and days in Near Eastern eating-houses and cafes knows the
ceaseless political altercations which go on and the violence of the
sentiments habitually expressed, heightened ever by one glass more
of rakia, "josh jedan!" The South Slav is a born orator, and sweeps
away himself and his listeners on a flood of eloquence. I have seen
livid wrath over mere trivialities. Had our Foreign Office but
graduated in a Balkan pot-house its outlook on things Near Eastern
would have been greatly extended.

The plot against Prince Nikola failed, for one of the said students
had doubts about it and wrote to his brother, who held an official
position in Montenegro, hinting at sinister events. The recipient
told me that he feared at first that his brother was mixed in the
affair, and wrote a very strong remonstrance. In return the boy
supplied the Montenegrin Government with full details as to the
routes by which the conspirators would enter the country with their
bombs.

They were all arrested on arrival. Some came via Cattaro, others
overland to Andrijevitza, for the Vassojevitch tribe, together with
the Bratonitchitch and the Drobnjaci, were deeply dipped in the
plot, and in touch with the propaganda worked by Serb komitadjis in
the district between Serbia and Montenegro. Vassojevitch paid
heavily. Three of her finest youths were condemned to be publicly
shot. The whole population, including even the mothers of the
condemned, were ordered to witness the execution, and to the further
anguish of the relatives the bodies were buried "like dogs" by the
wayside.

Such was the plot. The question was: Who was behind the Montenegrin
students in Belgrade, and who supplied the bombs? These came from
the Royal Serbian arsenal at Kraguyevatz, where, in 1902, I had
heard so much of Karageorgism. It was asserted at the trial that
Prince George of Serbia had been concerned in obtaining them. That
they were brought from Serbia by Montenegrins was proven. It was
then clearly the duty of the Serbian Government to investigate into
a conspiracy planned on its own soil against a neighbour state and
punish the supplier of Government bombs. It not only, however,
refused to extradite certain Montenegrin students, who were suspect,