Behind it the rocks, slashed to and fro with the road to
Cettinje, continued to ascend into blue haze, upward and upward
until they became a purple curtain that filled half the heavens.
The paved still town was squalid by day, but in the evening it
became theatrically incredible, with an outdoor cafe amidst flowers
and creepers, a Hungarian military band, a rabble of promenaders
like a stage chorus in gorgeous costumes and a great gibbous yellow
moon.
And there was Kroia, which Benham and Amanda saw first through the
branches of the great trees that bordered the broad green track they
were following. The town and its castle were poised at a tremendous
height, sunlit and brilliant against a sombre mass of storm cloud,
over vast cliffs and ravines. Kroia continued to be beautiful
through a steep laborious approach up to the very place itself, a
clustering group of houses and bazaars crowned with a tower and a
minaret, and from a painted corridor upon this crest they had a
wonderful view of the great seaward levels, and even far away the
blue sea itself stretching between Scutari and Durazzo.
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