"We soon slipped past the sleepy guards and out into the night, but naught had we in our hands, my father, and so we left behind the ruined kraals, and hid us in the bushes by the well.
"Long did we wait, but yet we had no doubt, and, so when half the night was gone, there came to us the ghost of him, the ancient one, who dwells in yon lonely grave upon the northern hills--alas! my father, that I let him pass me by, but empty hands are evil things wherewith to face a well-armed spook, and in his grasp he swung a mighty axe, dripping with human blood.
"And so we waited, and when the Father of the Spooks had left us half-an-hour, then my thought changed, and I knew it was no spook that passed us by, but the black one, Zero himself, escaped in Muzi Zimba's dress, and so I beckoned to Barad, my father, and down the well we went to follow on his trail; but when we reached the narrow mountain pass, we found it all blocked up with mighty rocks rolled from above, so that we could not move them. Then climbed we forth again, and, skirting round the mountain, we filled our ready hands with arms from the dead who lie out yonder; and so sped we onwards through the night running our utmost speed, but naught did we see, my father, until at dawn we struck the Black One's footsteps crossing the western veldt, and these we followed till the sun grew hot at noon, and so we tracked him to the thorn-girt kraal of a mighty host of low black fellows; those men, they were, my father, whose king was here when first we hither came.
"Lying hid, O chief, we watched, as well we might, and when the sun went down, the host set out, led forward by the Black One, and the track they took, my father, was the track of the women and the children who have gone towards the sea.
"And then, my father, did I leave the Chieftain of the Stick to mark the trail, and follow on their rear, whilst I returned at speed to tell thee all.
"And now, O chiefs, think wisely and think quickly what ye do. There is no time to waste--your army, split in twain by thrice a thousand men, must travel like the wind if ye would happen on the spot, ere Zero eats your friends and stamps them flat."
Briefly and succinctly, Grenville gave the Mormons the substance of the Zulu's thrilling news, adding that, from his own knowledge, he could tell them that this king was a very great warrior and the most notorious slave-dealer in all the country side, with a fighting band of quite three thousand men, who were experts in the use of both bow and spear.
Replying, the old Prophet said that he and his colleagues freely pardoned the Zulu and his sable friend, and also thanked them for their zeal, and would now ask further what course Grenville, who knew the country so well, would advise them all to follow. Knowing, however, that Amaxosa must have fully thought out his plan of action, Grenville informed him that the ancient ones had pardoned his escape, and that of Barad, and would wish to hear his plan for eating up the foe.
The great Zulu had quietly sat him down, and taken snuff to his heart's content, but now he rose to his feet, and drawing himself up to his full height, addressed himself to Grenville.
"O my father," said he, "think ye these people here can fight, think ye that they can travel on a long, weary road? For thus shall the matter go:--Seest thou, my father, that yonder comes the dawn. At dawn, next day but one, will the evil Black One, backed by all his wicked host, fall on the white men as they sleep close by the burning mountain; and it shall be, my father, that while the Black One sets a snare for the white men, we ourselves will set a snare for him. Thus, when he rises to fire upon our friends, will we fire on him and his, and take him by surprise. Then will our friends upon the mountain wake and shoot their shots. So shall the Black One find himself between two heavy fires.
But think upon the weary way, my father, for much I doubt that few will win it, and therein lies my fear; for, spread out wide upon the veldt and weakened, Zero will eat us up, and stamp us flat for ever. Well, even so, my father, we can but try, and if we die 'twill be a brave man's death, facing a savage foe."
Grenville detailed the whole scheme to the Mormons, urging its adoption without a moment's delay, in view of the tremendous journey--quite a hundred English miles--which must be accomplished at high pressure if they would save the first detachment, and, indeed, themselves; for, if Zero once disposed of half their army, with the enormous force at his back, he would very soon render an account of the remainder.
Our friend recommended that the entire band should start at once, and push on at top speed until the sun was too hot to allow of further progress; then, after resting in the heat of the day--the moon being, fortunately, at the full--they must go for their lives throughout the summer night, until the advent of the sun again drove them from the road, resuming their journey with the cool of evening, and so go ever forward, and hope to be in time. Clearly, there was nothing else for it, and the Mormons rapidly assented to the plan, and all filed out of the room, leaving the Zulu where he sat, for exhausted nature had asserted her rights, and the man was fast asleep.
The Mormon force could not leave the place under an hour, and from long experience of the ways of these active children of the veldt, Grenville well knew that that precious hour would give back to the great Zulu all his magnificent powers, and enable him to lead the party until noon, faster than most of them would care to go.
The sun was already high in the heavens by the time that Grenville and Kenyon had succeeded in getting the Mormons under weigh, and their own breakfast being then ready, Grenville waked Amaxosa, and all three partook of a hearty meal, feeling quite sure that they would soon overtake the main body.
Leigh, with his wife and child, all the wounded, and a guard, which consisted of the few remaining "People of the Stick," were left behind in Equatoria, there being no other course open to our friends, as it was obviously impossible to carry the sick and wounded with them on a forced march, and probably into the very teeth of a desperate and extremely doubtful battle.
Grenville, however, took two carrier pigeons with him, telling Dora that if the fight was going against their party he would send her word by one of these, when she must depart at once from Equatoria with her party, cross the chasm by means of the traversing cage, must cut the rope behind her, and by causing her men to again turn the course of the mountain stream into the northern marsh, lay bare the rocky pathway down the kloof.
When her party reached the veldt it would at once strike out due east and travel night and day until some of the wandering Arab slavers were met with, when Grenville considered it likely that the promise of large rewards would induce these men to afford her safe escort to some seaport town. The plan did not, of course, promise particularly well; but, on the other hand, it was infinitely better than sitting still and waiting for Zero to return and torture everyone to death, and Grenville well knew that the gallant "warriors of the Stick" would fight for "their sister," if need arose, as long as they had a leg left to stand on.
And so the trio bade farewell to the tearful Dora, begging her to be of good comfort, as if they could but arrive in time there would be little fear of the result; and so they passed away and left her once again, alone in this hated Mormon town--yet not alone, for she had now her husband and her child, and these two needed all her loving care.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
THE HAND OF GOD.
As our friends had anticipated, they found little difficulty in overtaking the Mormon crowd, and, at once going to the front, they set the rescue-party a very different pace to that hitherto travelled by them, and keeping them at the work, despite their murmurs and protests, had knocked off fully twenty miles by noon, and at four o'clock insisted upon a fresh start being made, keeping the pace easier, however, until evening came on.
The three aged Mormons were carried by the Zanzibaris in hammocks, so that these formed no obstacle whatever to their forced marching.
Soon the moon came up in all her radiant loveliness, casting a weird and silvery glamour over the wide expanse of veldt on every side, and on the distant horizon there ever hung the blazing, star-like cone of the distant mountain-peak, for which the leaders steered. And so forward through the livelong night they pressed, faint yet pursuing, and when at dawn of day all crept into cover, and threw their wearied bodies on the ground, Amaxosa, who had been acting as whipper-in, brought up to the front the glad news that only twenty men had so far fallen by the way.
The mountain was distant now but twenty miles, and all felt relatively happy, for it was a shrewd count that three thousand naked savages, even though led by Zero, would not make very much of a figure when they found themselves between two bands, each of five hundred desperate whites, armed for the most part, with quick-firing rifles.
Grenville, Kenyon, and Amaxosa had watched and slept by turns, the last watch before night being the Zulu's, and when his friends woke up they found the chief excessively uneasy in his mind regarding the weather, which looked to him like storm.
However, the party set out as soon as the moon began to rise, and had arrived within a mile of the mountain, and had despatched the great Zulu on ahead to scout, before the storm broke upon them.
The heavens by this time were transformed into an enormous mass of dense, black, lowering clouds, which had sunk until they almost shrouded the waning moon herself, which as yet, however, sailed along in a narrow glorious belt of glittering azure, looking far more lovely from contrast with the frowning bank of clouds which hung above her, and which stretched away in every direction ominous in their sullen death-like quietude.
The Zulu had not left the main body above five minutes when the inky-looking vault right over head was suddenly rent in twain as if some giant hand had ripped the veil of clouds, and heaven and earth seemed fairly to meet for one brief instant in a dazzling, blazing glare of lurid light, which flooded veldt and mountain, rock and river, for miles around the spot, and was instantly succeeded by an unremitting roll of thunder, which seemed to shake all nature to her utmost depths, and threaten earth with chaos worse confounded.
Hardly had the mighty echoes died away than the report of firearms could be heard, in scattered shots, away under the mountain side. The reason was evident: the Mormons had been on the alert, and the terrific blaze of lightning had, no doubt, revealed to their watchful sentinels, the ambush of the hidden savage foe. Sure enough, next minute there came the steady rolling echoes as the Winchesters opened fire in ringing volleys, upon the mass of men before them.
Speeding across the veldt, Grenville and his band endeavoured to take up a flank position where they would run no danger from the bullets of their friends, and, aided by another blazing flash, were almost within range of Zero's troops, which were represented by a dark moving mass upon the veldt, when suddenly and without an instant's warning, a most awful thing happened.
The moon was waning fast and the light was growing dim, when the countryside for miles and miles was all at once illuminated with a brightness vivid as the glory of the noonday sun himself. This was no passing flash of lightning; but there, right above the blazing peak itself, hung a mighty zone of dazzling, blinding fire; for one brief instant thus it stayed, then, with a mighty roar, which rent the earth and quaked the giant rocks, and dwarfed out of recognition the thunders of the sky, the volcano all at once blew up, driving its shattered fragments to the winds of heaven.
Almost at Grenville's feet the earth yawned wildly, and where one moment before had been lovely veldt and sparkling river, there appeared only a mighty chasm, from whose abysmal depths rose fearsome sounds and pungent scalding vapours.
For an instant, all was inky blackness and the quietude of death; then, the storm-clouds driven wildly in every direction by the might of the explosion, the moon shone out once more, and revealed an awful sight.
The mountain-peak was gone--gone, for ever, its fragments scattered wide across the veldt, whilst between the foot of the mountain and the position of our friends lay a gulf two hundred feet across, unbroken, save by a tiny island of rock--measuring, perhaps, twenty square yards-- which still stood in its very centre. All round the rock--and, perhaps, a hundred feet from its upper edge--there washed a sea of boiling, bubbling water, lashed to frenzy, and heated red-hot, by the streams of burning lava which, all the time poured themselves into the chasm. In every direction this yawning abyss spread itself out, far as the eye could see, and the effect of its presence was to practically divide the land in two.
Of the Mormons who had held the mountain, and of their savage native foes, not a vestige could be seen. The earth had simply opened her mouth upon them, and down alive into the pit had gone thousands of men, women, and children, both white and black, young and old, friend and foe, consigned, in one dread prayerless instant, to an eternal stygian grave.
But stop! The moonlight grows, the light increases as the clouds clear off. And what moves on yonder pinnacle of rock? Two human forms, they seem--they are. And now, 'fore God, see how they fight--fight wildly, furiously, for life! Life! Life on such an awful place as this!
Better, far better, certain sudden death!
One moment Grenville watched, then springing to his feet, he sent a wild cry of encouragement across the chasm; and in proud and instant answer, pealing across the vast abyss, and waking every sleeping echo in the mighty rocks, came the defiant Zulu war-song, and in one moment more, every child of the Undi within that band was on his feet, ranging up and down the chasm's edge, shouting the war-cry of his famous chief, and seeking means to aid him.
Little help did the Lion of the Zulu require from mortal hands; unarmed he was, but, dashing upon his single foe, he dexterously avoided a swinging blow from the ready axe, and seized him by the throat. Down went the pair, and over and over they rolled, fighting the while like cats, whilst our friends watched, with parted lips and straining, eager gaze, expecting each instant that both combatants would shoot into the abyss of fire beneath. All at once the struggle ceased, for the Zulu had dashed his opponent's head upon the rocks and stunned him.
Springing to his feet he sent a cry of victory pealing across the chasm; there was an upward whirl of the foeman's shining axe, and next instant, with a mighty effort, he cast a bleeding human head across the space between.
The ghastly trophy fell at Grenville's feet, _and the head was the head of Zero, the slaver-fiend_. Then lifting in his powerful arms the headless trunk, the Zulu cast it into the wild abyss beneath his feet, and thus revenged himself for all the wrongs suffered by his proud spirit, and all the tears and blood of countless slaves, both black and white, shed by this curse of Equatorial Africa.
The victory was complete, and their object was accomplished, yet all forgot it in the awful gloom of the moment, cast heavily upon them by the recollection that they stood upon the graves of thousands, who but a few moments ago had walked the world in health and life--thousands brought to a swift and awful end in one brief instant of time; and each man felt that _the hand which slew them was the hand of God_.
Clearly, however, something must be done to relieve Amaxosa; for he shouted to them that the rock was fast becoming red-hot, and would shortly scorch his feet beyond endurance.
Fortunately the party had brought Leigh's rocket apparatus with them, and soon succeeded in firing a line across the rock, and hauling upon this, the Zulu quickly received a one-inch rope, which he fastened to the rock by driving Zero's axe firmly into a crevice, and attaching the rope to its haft, and then, the line being drawn taut, hung fearlessly by his hands over the literally boiling flood, and coolly commenced to work his way across. When about twenty feet from the edge, where his friends stood ready to welcome him, a shriek of horror went up as the axe gave way, the line slipped, and his giant form was heard to strike with a sickening blow against the face of the cliff.
The anxious watchers held their breath, expecting to hear the final splash as his senseless body plunged into the awful seething horror far below; but Amaxosa had fortunately kept his head, and in spite of the wrench received, and of the fearful blow, he hung on like a leech, and was soon drawn into safety and tended anxiously by friendly hands, and none too soon, for but one pace away from the abyss his senses left him, and he fell prone upon the earth, but was soon brought back again to life and health.
Silently the dawn of another lovely day came gliding over the earth, but our friends saw it not, for all slept a troubled and unhappy sleep until wakened by the fiery sun himself, when they hasted to put some miles between themselves and the site of the abysmal grave below the mountain; Grenville first despatching a pigeon to Equatoria, carrying glad tidings, as follows: "Victory! all well--Zero dead.--
"Dick."
Slowly the party took their journey back, for all were more or less knocked up with the heavy outward march, and it was the evening of the fifth day when, carrying the head of Zero, they reached Equatoria. No amount of persuasion would induce the old Mormon to part with this ghastly trophy, which he declared he would carry back to Salt Lake City to the Holy Three, in order that no doubt might arise as to the successful accomplishment of his mission.