The men, stooping low when in the open, and taking instant advantage
    of every little obstacle on the ground, seemed to fade like spectres
    with incredible swiftness across the level mead, and were swallowed
    up in the wood. When they had disappeared the Gospodar Rupert revealed to us the
    details of the plan of action which he had revolving in his mind. He
    motioned us to follow him: we threaded a way between the tree-trunks,
    keeping all the while on the very edge of the cliff, so that the
    space below was all visible to us. When we had got round the curve
    sufficiently to see the whole of the wood on the valley level,
    without losing sight of the Voivodin and her appointed assassins, we
    halted under his direction. There was an added advantage of this
    point over the other, for we could see directly the rising of the
    hill-road, up which farther side ran the continuation of the mountain
    path which the marauders had followed. It was somewhere on that path
    that the other pursuing party had hoped to intercept the fugitives. The Gospodar spoke quickly, though in a voice of command which true
    soldiers love to hear:

    "Brothers, the time has come when we can strike a blow for Teuta and
    the Land. Do you two, marksmen, take position here facing the wood." The two men here lay down and got their rifles ready. "Divide the
    frontage of the wood between you; arrange between yourselves the
    limits of your positions. The very instant one of the marauders
    appears, cover him; drop him before he emerges from the wood. Even
    then still watch and treat similarly whoever else may take his place. Do this if they come singly till not a man is left. Remember,
    brothers, that brave hearts alone will not suffice at this grim
    crisis. In this hour the best safety of the Voivodin is in the calm
    spirit and the steady eye!" Then he turned to the rest of us, and
    spoke to me:

    "Archimandrite of Plazac, you who are interpreter to God of the
    prayers of so many souls, my own hour has come. If I do not return,
    convey my love to my Aunt Janet--Miss MacKelpie, at Vissarion. There
    is but one thing left to us if we wish to save the Voivodin. Do you,
    when the time comes, take these men and join the watcher at the top
    of the ravine road. When the shots are fired, do you out handjar,
    and rush the ravine and across the valley. Brothers, you may be in
    time to avenge the Voivodin, if you cannot save her. For me there
    must be a quicker way, and to it I go. As there is not, and will not
    be, time to traverse the path, I must take a quicker way. Nature
    finds me a path that man has made it necessary for me to travel. See
    that giant beech-tree that towers above the glade where the Voivodin
    is held? There is my path! When you from here have marked the
    return of the spies, give me a signal with your hat--do not use a
    handkerchief, as others might see its white, and take warning. Then
    rush that ravine. I shall take that as the signal for my descent by
    the leafy road. If I can do naught else, I can crush the murderers
    with my falling weight, even if I have to kill her too. At least we
    shall die together--and free. Lay us together in the tomb at St.
    Sava's. Farewell, if it be the last!" He threw down the scabbard in which he carried his handjar, adjusted
    the naked weapon in his belt behind his back, and was gone! We who were not watching the wood kept our eyes fixed on the great
    beech-tree, and with new interest noticed the long trailing branches
    which hung low, and swayed even in the gentle breeze. For a few
    minutes, which seemed amazingly long, we saw no sign of him. Then,
    high up on one of the great branches which stood clear of obscuring
    leaves, we saw something crawling flat against the bark. He was well
    out on the branch, hanging far over the precipice. He was looking
    over at us, and I waved my hand so that he should know we saw him. He was clad in green--his usual forest dress--so that there was not
    any likelihood of any other eyes noticing him. I took off my hat,
    and held it ready to signal with when the time should come. I
    glanced down at the glade and saw the Voivodin standing, still safe,
    with her guards so close to her as to touch. Then I, too, fixed my
    eyes on the wood. Suddenly the man standing beside me seized my arm and pointed. I
    could just see through the trees, which were lower than elsewhere in
    the front of the wood, a Turk moving stealthily; so I waved my hat. At the same time a rifle underneath me cracked. A second or two
    later the spy pitched forward on his face and lay still. At the same
    instant my eyes sought the beech-tree, and I saw the close-lying
    figure raise itself and slide forward to a joint of the branch. Then
    the Gospodar, as he rose, hurled himself forward amid the mass of the
    trailing branches. He dropped like a stone, and my heart sank. But an instant later he seemed in poise. He had clutched the thin,
    trailing branches as he fell; and as he sank a number of leaves which
    his motion had torn off floated out round him. Again the rifle below me cracked, and then again, and again, and
    again. The marauders had taken warning, and were coming out in mass. But my own eyes were fixed on the tree. Almost as a thunderbolt
    falls fell the giant body of the Gospodar, his size lost in the
    immensity of his surroundings. He fell in a series of jerks, as he
    kept clutching the trailing beech-branches whilst they lasted, and
    then other lesser verdure growing out from the fissures in the rock
    after the lengthening branches had with all their elasticity reached
    their last point. At length--for though this all took place in a very few seconds the
    gravity of the crisis prolonged them immeasurably--there came a large
    space of rock some three times his own length. He did not pause, but
    swung himself to one side, so that he should fall close to the
    Voivodin and her guards. These men did not seem to notice, for their
    attention was fixed on the wood whence they expected their messenger
    to signal. But they raised their yataghans in readiness. The shots
    had alarmed them; and they meant to do the murder now--messenger or
    no messenger

    But though the men did not see the danger from above, the Voivodin
    did. She raised her eyes quickly at the first sound, and even from
    where we were, before we began to run towards the ravine path, I
    could see the triumphant look in her glorious eyes when she
    recognized the identity of the man who was seemingly coming straight
    down from Heaven itself to help her--as, indeed, she, and we too, can
    very well imagine that he did; for if ever heaven had a hand in a
    rescue on earth, it was now.