Complete Works of Bram Stoker (362 page)

As he spoke thus there was a blaze in his eyes that betokened no good to aught that might stand in his way.  I ran by his side as we moved to the right.

It was as he surmised about the cliff.  When we got a little on our way we saw how the rocky formation trended to our right, till, finally, with a wide curve, it came round to the other side.

It was a fearful valley that, with its narrow girth and its towering walls that seemed to topple over.  On the farther side from us the great trees that clothed the slope of the mountain over it grew down to the very edge of the rock, so that their spreading branches hung far over the chasm.  And, so far as we could understand, the same condition existed on our own side.  Below us the valley was dark even in the daylight.  We could best tell the movement of the flying marauders by the flashes of the white shroud of their captive in the midst of them.

From where we were grouped, amid the great tree-trunks on the very brow of the cliff, we could, when our eyes were accustomed to the shadow, see them quite well.  In great haste, and half dragging, half carrying the Voivodin, they crossed the open space and took refuge in a little grassy alcove surrounded, save for its tortuous entrance, by undergrowth.  From the valley level it was manifestly impossible to see them, though we from our altitude could see over the stunted undergrowth.  When within the glade, they took their hands from her.  She, shuddering instinctively, withdrew to a remote corner of the dell.

And then, oh, shame on their manhood!  —  Turks and heathens though they were  —  we could see that they had submitted her to the indignity of gagging her and binding her hands!

Our Voivodin Teuta bound!  To one and all of us it was like lashing us across the face.  I heard the Gospodar’s teeth grind again.  But once more he schooled himself to calmness ere he said:

“It is, perhaps, as well, great though the indignity be.  They are seeking their own doom, which is coming quickly . . . Moreover, they are thwarting their own base plans.  Now that she is bound they will trust to their binding, so that they will delay their murderous alternative to the very last moment.  Such is our chance of rescuing her alive!”

For a few moments he stood as still as a stone, as though revolving something in his mind whilst he watched.  I could see that some grim resolution was forming in his mind, for his eyes ranged to the top of the trees above cliff, and down again, very slowly this time, as though measuring and studying the detail of what was in front of him.  Then he spoke:

“They are in hopes that the other pursuing party may not come across them.  To know that, they are waiting.  If those others do not come up the valley, they will proceed on their way.  They will return up the path the way they came.  There we can wait them, charge into the middle of them when she is opposite, and cut down those around her.  Then the others will open fire, and we shall be rid of them!

Whilst he was speaking, two of the men of our party, who I knew to be good sharpshooters, and who had just before lain on their faces and had steadied their rifles to shoot, rose to their feet.

“Command us, Gospodar!” they said simply, as they stood to attention.  “Shall we go to the head of the ravine road and there take hiding?”  He thought for perhaps a minute, whilst we all stood as silent as images.  I could hear our hearts beating.  Then he said:

“No, not yet.  There is time for that yet.  They will not  —  cannot stir or make plans in any way till they know whether the other party is coming towards them or not.  From our height here we can see what course the others are taking long before those villains do.  Then we can make our plans and be ready in time.”

We waited many minutes, but could see no further signs the other pursuing party.  These had evidently adopted greater caution in their movements as they came closer to where they expected to find the enemy.  The marauders began to grow anxious.  Even at our distance we could gather as much from their attitude and movements.

Presently, when the suspense of their ignorance grew too much for them, they drew to the entrance of the glade, which was the farthest place to which, without exposing themselves to anyone who might come to the valley, they could withdraw from their captive.  Here they consulted together.  We could follow from their gestures what they were saying, for as they did not wish their prisoner to hear, their gesticulation was enlightening to us as to each other.  Our people, like all mountaineers, have good eyes, and the Gospodar is himself an eagle in this as in other ways.  Three men stood back from the rest.  They stacked their rifles so that they could seize them easily.  Then they drew their scimitars, and stood ready, as though on guard.

These were evidently the appointed murderers.  Well they knew their work; for though they stood in a desert place with none within long distance except the pursuing party, of whose approach they would have good notice, they stood so close to their prisoner that no marksman in the world  —  now or that ever had been; not William Tell himself  —  could have harmed any of them without at least endangering her.  Two of them turned the Voivodin round so that her face was towards the precipice  —  in which position she could not see what was going on  —  whilst he who was evidently leader of the gang explained, in gesture, that the others were going to spy upon the pursuing party.  When they had located them he, or one of his men, would come out of the opening of the wood wherein they had had evidence of them, and hold up his hand.

That was to be the signal for the cutting of the victim’s throat  —  such being the chosen method (villainous even for heathen murderers) of her death.  There was not one of our men who did not grind his teeth when we witnessed the grim action, only too expressive, of the Turk as he drew his right hand, clenched as though he held a yataghan in it, across his throat.

At the opening of the glade all the spying party halted whilst the leader appointed to each his place of entry of the wood, the front of which extended in an almost straight across the valley from cliff to cliff.

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 recognised 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.

Even during the last drop from the rocky foliage the Gospodar kept his head.  As he fell he pulled his handjar free, and almost as he was falling its sweep took off the head of one of the assassins.  As he touched ground he stumbled for an instant, but it was towards his enemies.  Twice with lightning rapidity the handjar swept the air, and at each sweep a head rolled on the sward.

The Voivodin held up her tied hands.  Again the handjar flashed, this time downwards, and the lady was free.  Without an instant’s pause the Gospodar tore off the gag, and with his left arm round her and handjar in right hand, stood face toward his living foes.  The Voivodin stooped suddenly, and then, raising the yataghan which had fallen from the hand of one of the dead marauders, stood armed beside him.

The rifles were now cracking fast, as the marauders  —  those that were left of them  —  came rushing out into the open.  But well the marksmen knew their work.  Well they bore in mind the Gospodar’s command regarding calmness.  They kept picking off the foremost men only, so that the onward rush never seemed to get more forward.

As we rushed down the ravine we could see clearly all before us.  But now, just as we were beginning to fear lest some mischance might allow some of them to reach the glade, there was another cause of surprise  —  of rejoicing.

From the face of the wood seemed to burst all at once a body of men, all wearing the national cap, so we knew them as our own.  They were all armed with the handjar only, and they came like tigers.  They swept on the rushing Turks as though, for all their swiftness, they were standing still  —  literally wiping them out as a child wipes a lesson from its slate.