MEMOIR OF A BETRAYAL

Zachary Stoyanov and three friends, accompanied by as many mounted gendarmes, go to arrest the traitor Grandfather Valyu. At the tomb of the voevoda Benkovski, ten years later, Grandfather Valyu denies his treason. Even those present do not know who exactly Benkovski is. In their region they call him „Hadji Georgi". So Zachary describes the voevoda and his characteristic manifestations. Gradually, his memoir enters Benkovski's last days: the first meeting with Grandfather Valyu, the impulse in the latter to become a free man, and the gradual change in the former to arrive at the treacherous trap in which the four fugitives encounter a Turkish ambush. Benkowski is killed. Only Zachary is saved.
At the gravesite, the gendarmes are about to arrest the old man, but Zachary pities the traitor because the memory of his slave existence is fresh in him too. Grandfather Velyu also bows before his new masters.