Dats so, Mister Jim, you bleeve me. But all de same, dey've
fixed it up so's dis killing business ain't perlite wen deres women
about, so every feller taks 'is wife along 'o 'im so's not to be ended
right away."
Every house by the roadside was a fortress, loopholes only in the ground
floor, windows peering from beneath the eaves and turrets with gunslits
at the second story; here and there were old Turkish blockhouses, solid
and square, showing how the conquerors had feared the conquered.
"One o' dese tough fellers 'e kill more'n hundred fellers. Great chief
'e is. Wen 'e was sixteen 'is fader get condemned ter prison way in
Mitrovitza. Dis young tough 'e walk inter court nex' day, in 'e kill de
judge and two of de officers and 'scape inter de mountains."
Nick himself when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks.
Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some
Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat
him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him
dying put him on an ox cart and sent him to the interior of Turkey.
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