A shot rang out, followed by a burst of wild shouting, but finding
myself unharmed, I opened my eyes again. In terror I glanced up, and
saw my fox-faced assailant lying face downward. The cowardly villain
had evidently been shot at the very instant he had covered me with his
Berdan.
Half-a-dozen men sprang forward, and wrenching the revolver from the
scoundrel who had attempted to take my life, seized him in their strong
grasp, while I, breathless and exhausted, struggled up from my knees,
amazed at my sudden and unexpected delivery.
Some twenty men, an ill-dressed, ruffianly crowd, in patched cloaks and
dirty grey caps covering their long hair, surrounded me, talking
excitedly, bestowing opprobrious epithets upon the man who lay wounded
and groaning, and as I turned suddenly in wonder, I was confronted by a
peasant woman in a short skirt of some dark stuff, an ill-fitting
striped bodice, with a handkerchief tied about her head.
She uttered my name. In an instant I recognised her. It was Sonia.
"I arrived only just in time to save you," she explained, half
breathlessly, in English. "The shots attracted us. That villain,
Stepanovitch, whom I sent into Skerstymone to bring you here, no doubt
intended to take your money and decamp, but, fortunately, we caught him
redhanded. He has long been suspected of doing away with people
entrusted to his care for conduct across the frontier, but I never
believed him capable of treating any of our friends as victims."
"He fired at me point-blank," I said, "although I was unarmed."
"What shall we do with him, little mother?" cried the excited crowd of
burly malefactors, dragging the man before the notorious woman, with
pleasant countenance, sonorous voice, and lively manners, whom they
acknowledged as leader.
"Tie him up to yonder tree and let him be shot," answered Sonia,
pointing out a lofty pine. "Pick a marksman from among yourselves, and
do not shout so loudly. Only one shot must be fired, for I believe the
guards are lurking about to-night, and more may attract them."
With yells of execration the crowd hurried away the unfortunate wretch
who had so treacherously treated the friend of their leader, and ere a
couple of minutes had elapsed he had been secured to the tree. Then
they commenced haggling among themselves as to who should fire the fatal
shot. It was a weird scene, this summary justice directed by a woman.
The choice fell at last upon a tall hulking fellow in ragged coat and a
hat of dirty sheepskin, who, addressed by the nickname of "The Goat," on
account of the shape of his beard, lifted his gun with a jeering remark
at the cowering wretch, and stepped back to take more deliberate aim.
"No," I cried, "don't let him be shot on my account, Sonia. Give him
his life."