RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

June 3, 1907.

Another week has elapsed—a week full of movement of many kinds and in many ways—but as yet I have had no tale or tidings of my Lady of the Shroud.  I have not had an opportunity of going again in daylight to St. Sava’s as I should have liked to have done.  I felt that I must not go at night.  The night is her time of freedom, and it must be kept for her—or else I may miss her, or perhaps never see her again.

The days have been full of national movement.  The mountaineers have evidently been organizing themselves, for some reason which I cannot quite understand, and which they have hesitated to make known to me.  I have taken care not to manifest any curiosity, whatever I may have felt.  This would certainly arouse suspicion, and might ultimately cause disaster to my hopes of aiding the nation in their struggle to preserve their freedom.

These fierce mountaineers are strangely—almost unduly—suspicious, and the only way to win their confidence is to begin the trusting.  A young American attaché of the Embassy at Vienna, who had made a journey through the Land of the Blue Mountains, once put it to me in this form:

“Keep your head shut, and they’ll open theirs.  If you don’t, they’ll open it for you—down to the chine!”

It was quite apparent to me that they were completing some fresh arrangements for signalling with a code of their own.  This was natural enough, and in no way inconsistent with the measure of friendliness already shown to me.  Where there are neither telegraphs, railways, nor roads, any effective form of communication must—can only be purely personal.  And so, if they wish to keep any secret amongst themselves, they must preserve the secret of their code.  I should have dearly liked to learn their new code and their manner of using it, but as I want to be a helpful friend to them—and as this implies not only trust, but the appearance of it—I had to school myself to patience.

This attitude so far won their confidence that before we parted at our last meeting, after most solemn vows of faith and secrecy, they took me into the secret.  This was, however, only to the extent of teaching me the code and method; they still withheld from me rigidly the fact or political secret, or whatever it was that was the mainspring of their united action.

When I got home I wrote down, whilst it was fresh in my memory, all they told me.  This script I studied until I had it so thoroughly by heart that I could not forget it.  Then I burned the paper.  However, there is now one gain at least: with my semaphore I can send through the Blue Mountains from side to side, with expedition, secrecy, and exactness, a message comprehensible to all.