"Then you do not wish to live?" exclaimed the man who had so cunningly entrapped me. "I will give you nothing," I said resolutely. "Then take that!" he cried, wildly, and at the same time his revolver flashed close to my face. The shot echoed far away among the myriad tree trunks, but the bullet passed harmlessly by my ear. Ere he could fire a second time I sprang upon him, and clutching him by the throat with one hand, with the other grasped the wrist of the sinewy hand that held the revolver. It was a struggle for life. Again my antagonist drew the trigger, but the weapon was exploded in mid-air. Then his companion flung himself upon me in an endeavour to drag me off. This he was unable to do, and, apparently, fearing lest I should succeed in wresting the weapon from his accomplice's grasp and use it against him, he sought to stun me by raining blows with his clenched fist upon my head. A third time the ruffianly assassin's revolver went off with loud report, but doing no harm. At that moment, however, I was conscious that my strength was failing me. I was muscular, but against this pair of hulking brutes I had no chance in a contest of mere physical power. The repeated blows upon my skull dazed me, but hearing shouts resounding in the darkness, I held on with grim, dogged courage, with the faint hope that they might be Cossacks. In the dim light I could distinguish figures moving rapidly beneath the trees. The forest seemed suddenly alive with men, but at that instant the fox-faced ruffian, finding his efforts unavailing, stepped back a pace or two, and lowering his rifle, took deliberate aim at my breast. I closed my eyes tightly and held my breath. 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.