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.