During the night a shrill and wild cry echoes through the forest several times and the barking of distant dogs follows it. This proceeds from shepherds who perceive the vicinity of a wolf by some movement of the flock and there-upon alarm their watch-dogs.
With morning comes the reflection that I must go to Tirana tonight, and no farther – perhaps even to that very foulest of pigsties with the circulating Dervish seen through the hole in the wall.
The day begins badly, according to Giorgio’s way of regarding omens; for, firstly, as he has made an admirable basin of coffee, with toast, a perverse hen, either owing to the infirmity of a near sight or a spasmodic presentment that she should one day become broth in a similar piece of earthenware, suddenly came down from the rafters above with a great shriek and flutter into the well-filled breakfast platter, upsetting coffee and toast together into the fire in her efforts at self-extrication.
