"JUST IN TIME."
For quite a quarter of a mile our friends found that the road provided
very rough travelling indeed. This was the more annoying, as the moon
was fast going down, and it was a matter of vital importance that the
little band should progress quickly and secure a strong position before
daylight revealed their movements to the enemy.
Their only difficulty would be with regard to water, as the party had an
abundant supply of stores and ammunition; for, having, of course, no
idea as to how long the expedition might be detained in the Interior,
Leigh had provisioned it most lavishly, and as game had hitherto been
plentiful, the stores had been very lightly dealt with.
In an hour's time all had, as they thought, reached level ground, for
the road, after the first half-mile had been negotiated, proved fairly
good, and finding a lofty cavern in the rock, Kenyon drew his whole
party into it, cast anchor, and wished for the day.
The darkness had now become positively opaque, for the moon had entirely
disappeared behind the mountains, and a film of mist seemed everywhere
to hang over the lower lands, and had their enemies been absolutely
within arm's length, our friends would have been utterly unable to
distinguish them.
Soon, however, the "darkest hour" was over, and the eastern mountains
became dimly outlined through the gauze-like curtain of mist, as the
glad light of another brilliant day came speeding in upon the wings of
the morning, heralding the advent of the sun himself with all the
attendant splendour of an equatorial African day.
Our friends at once perceived that, so far from having reached the level
of the country, they were at present posted on a ridgy platform upon the
mountain side, whilst far below them, the land which lay considerably
lower than that on the other side of the kloof, was stretched out before
them in wonderfully beautiful panorama.
On one hand a limpid stream glided peacefully along its course, making
dreamland music in the sunshine, and watering mile after mile of verdant
pasture land, which was dotted hero and there with moving herds of game,
whilst on the other was a mighty belt of giant forest trees, backed to
the eastward by the everlasting mountains, which appeared absolutely to
ring-in the country in that direction, though towards the west, as far
as the eye could reach, only grass land could be seen, the rolling veldt
sweeping clear away to the skyline unrelieved by even a single clump of
trees or bush, and broken only here and there by the silvery tracery of
tiny streamlets; whilst to the south, blue in the far distance and
faintly relieved against the azure setting of the sky, could be traced
the dim outline of a giant mountain-peak, probably fifteen thousand feet
in height, its snow-capped crest flashing back in many-coloured radiance
each glorious spear of light cast by the rising sun.
Kenyon and Leigh were about to give the word to their men (all of whom
were busily gazing at the inviting prospect before them) to get under
weigh, when both were fairly electrified by hearing a voice raised in
the cavern just behind them.
"Greeting!" it said; "greeting to ye strangers." Then as our friends
turned quickly round, and their white personality became evident to the
speaker, "Greeting, white strangers, who come from the northern lands
beyond the distant seas. What seek ye here in this foul place, where
all things that are good live but to die, and where only evil prospers,
and the arch-fiend himself bears rule? What seek ye here with Muzi
Zimba the old? and ye black ones, are ye tired of life, and of that
freedom which alone makes life worth living, that ye venture your heads
inside the lion's mouth? Go I go, all of ye, white and black. Go! in
God's name, while the life is yet whole in ye. Why tarry ye here?
Escape for your lives, my sons, and peace go with ye."
Our friends had been closely watching the individual who delivered this
strange yet forcible appeal, and looks of commiseration passed from one
to the other. The man was as white-skinned as themselves, and judging
from the purity of his English must have been at one time a British
subject. He was, however, extremely old, probably eighty-five or
ninety, and his face, which was benign and gentle, was shrouded by his
long, silvery locks, and muffled, as it were, in an immense snow-white
beard, which reached down to his very waist, and gave him an altogether
venerable and striking appearance; his voice was strong and resonant,
his manner quiet and peaceful, _but the man was obviously mad_. He had
evidently become so accustomed to the native metaphor that he had
unconsciously adopted it as his own language, and his diction at best
halted somewhat, as if he were unused, indeed, to exercising his tongue
in framing speech of any kind.
Whilst Kenyon hesitated what to do, Leigh went frankly forward and held
but his hand to the old fellow, who shook it heartily; then, humouring
him, Leigh spoke, and as the full, rich voice struck upon his ear, the
old man bent his head and seemed as if the familiar accents had brought
back to him some signs or memories of the long-forgotten past.
"Greeting, my father, greeting," answered Leigh. "Thy sons have
wandered hither on a long and very weary path, seeking for a lost one
who left them many moons ago. In face he was even as I am, and in form
was somewhat less, and spoke to his people with an English tongue. Tell
me, hast thou seen such an one, my father?"
The old man gazed steadily at Leigh for some moments, then, changing his
wrapt manner, he spoke sadly, "My son, I have, indeed, met with him, and
thy living image he was; but never, alas! wilt thou see him in the
flesh, for to-day he dies--ay! dies a dog's death, and does it for his
faith, like a gallant Christian man."
"Dies?" thundered Leigh; "he shall not die, he must not die--oh! Dick,
Dick, have I come right across the world to arrive one day too late?"
Eagerly the pair tried to question the old man, but he at once grew
confused and his weak mind evidently failed to realise their anxiety or
to grasp the drift of their questions, and at last he turned upon them
with quiet dignity. "Leave me now, my sons," he said, "for I go to
offer prayers for him who dies when yonder sun reaches the zenith.
Return whence ye came, so shall ye live and not die--go, and God go with
ye--farewell!" and this strange individual moved slowly away down the
cavern and disappeared in the inner gloom.
Hastily directing their men to lie hidden in the cave until their
return, Leigh and Kenyon armed themselves to the teeth, and quickly
slipping down the rocky path, were soon speeding across the open, and
directing their hurried steps towards the forest.
Each was equipped with a repeating-rifle, four Smith and Wesson's
revolver-pistols, and as much ammunition as he could well carry, so that
the pace, in spite of the best endeavours of the pair, was somewhat
slow, and when, after two hours of continued effort, they entered the
belt of wood, both judged it expedient to sit down and eat some food
whilst enjoying a short rest. Soon, however, getting on their legs
again, our friends struck into a forest path, which they followed as
fast as they could travel, instinct, or else the promptings of despair
leading them in the right direction.
For another hour the pair ascended gradually through the forest, the
path leading steadily upwards, and ultimately terminating in a sharp
climb; but, just as they were about to negotiate this piece of wooded
rock, they heard a burst of music [_sic_] evidently proceeding from
tom-toms, horns, and other instruments of abomination, dear to the heart
of the aboriginal African.
Cautiously ascending the rock, our friends concealed themselves in a
bush, and then a curious sight met their eyes. Some thirty feet below
them lay a sort of hollow in the mountains, which looked as if it had at
one time formed the base of a vast quarry, being perhaps a thousand
yards across its widest part, and shaped somewhat in the form of a
horseshoe, but now carpeted everywhere with short, smooth turf. At the
farther side of this mighty enclosure was a narrow gap or pass in the
mountains, which clearly gave access to the spot, and through this
striking natural gateway some thousands of ebony-skinned Africans were
now pouring, accompanying their march with all sorts of horrible and
ear-splitting native music.
Quickly the black fellows filed in, to the number of, probably, three
thousand, and squatted themselves down on the rocks, which, as on the
side occupied by Leigh and his comrade, formed a solid barrier some
thirty feet high round the ring of level turf.
Following upon the heels of this riff-raff appeared a mixed mob of some
three to four hundred white men and women, escorting a native who was
evidently a King, or, at least, a "Big Chief," judging from the
attentions they lavished upon him, and from his striking "get up." This
last consisted of a stove-pipe hat, a scarlet coat adorned with gold
braid, and a pair of bright yellow stockings of unusual length, reaching
well up the thigh; round his waist was buckled an enormously long
cavalry sword, which trailed upon the ground as he walked, and in his
hand he carried a "gun" considerably taller than himself; it was, in
fact, one of those fearfully and wonderfully made specimens of the genus
gas-pipe with which England and Germany delight to arm the whole of
Africa at about eight shillings per head.
"Solomon in all his glory, by Jove," whispered Leigh to the observant
and attentive Kenyon. All disposition to laugh was, however, quickly
stifled by the appearance of a man carrying a flag, which was promptly
planted in the very centre of the open space, and welcomed by the
assembled thousands with a positive frenzy of enthusiasm, but was
greeted by Leigh with a groan of horror and dismay, for upon a dead
black ground it bore a white circle, and in the centre of this ring were
three horrible basilisk-looking eyes.
Kenyon on his part whistled quietly. "So!" he said, "Zero and the
Mormon Trinity--birds of a feather, by all that's holy! Well, we must
watch and wait, and somehow I don't think our patience will be tried for
very much longer."
Just then a hammock was borne in, and from this there alighted a white
woman, a Spaniard or an Italian by her looks; this female being
instantly accommodated with a seat, and approached with much deference
by the white men in the crowd.
Leigh thought he had never seen a more wicked, yet withal a more
handsome, face. Her complexion was beautifully clear, her hair black
and glossy as the raven's wing, and her figure simply superb; but the
eyes looked like coals of living fire, and the mouth, as Kenyon--who was
busy sketching her in his notebook--remarked, was more like a spring
rat-trap than anything else.
A wait of half an hour next ensued, during which the native band
discoursed sweet (?) music, and then there went up a mighty shout from
the motley throng which thickly lined the farther side of the great
enclosure, as a small crowd of men, white and black, were driven in at
the spear's point; all had their hands tied behind them, but had their
legs left perfectly free to enable them to run at will, the slavers
knowing well, that deprived as the captives were of the use of their
hands and arms, they could not escape by climbing up the rocks.
A moment later the friends, to their utter horror, beheld a barrier
lifted, and through the opening thus made there immediately charged a
colossal-looking bull-elephant. For a full minute the great brute gazed
wickedly about him, as if debating the possibility of getting at the
block fellows who were rapidly angering him with their infernal
tom-toms; next he trumpeted until the welkin rang again, and then all of
a sudden threw up his trunk, and hurled his vast bulk blindly at the
wretched band of captives, who fled incontinently in every direction,
whilst the air resounded with yells of laughter from the spectators,
black and white, across the wide enclosure. These wretches were
evidently enjoying to the full this intensely Roman spectacle, and Leigh
felt his blood boil at the thought that the lives of human beings--white
men, moreover--were to be deliberately sacrificed in this truly
diabolical manner to provide an hour's amusement for an ignorant savage
and his greasy, yelping retinue of semi-monkeyfied followers. By and
by, however, a great black man fleeted--with the speed of light--past
the rock where our friends lay hid, the enraged elephant following close
upon his heels; and brief though the glimpse was, in an instant Leigh
knew his man, and blew a peculiar little reed whistle which Kenyon had
often noticed attached to his friend's watch-chain.
Once! twice! thrice! he sounded the signal, and then, lo! and behold,
every captive on the ground, both white and black, was seen to turn
short in his tracks and speed madly across the wide stretch of open, in
a wild endeavour to reach the distant rock; close behind the crowd
thundered the giant mammal, screaming with rage, and gaining upon the
luckless wights at every step, the tip of his snake-like trunk almost
seeming to touch the hindmost runner. It was an altogether
extraordinary, yet at the same time a very dreadful, sight; and as
Leigh's rifle leaped to his shoulder, he seemed, by one of those curious
tricks which fancy sometimes plays us, to see the Colosseum spread out
before him, its benches packed to suffocation with the pleasure-seekers
of an ancient Roman holiday, and its arena peopled by the noble martyrs
falling beneath the claws of Nero's ravening beasts.
History ever repeats itself, and at this very instant, whilst the
easy-going people of the nineteenth Christian century were sitting
quietly in their peaceful homes, thanking God that such acts and deeds
were for ever at an end, here was the horrid self-same spectacle being
re-enacted in darkest Africa, without any of the added refinements of
modern cruelty, upon the living bodies of their own fellow-men, both
white and black.
Thought, however, is swift, and Leigh's thought delayed him never an
instant, and even as he pressed the trigger and saw the deadly bullet go
homo, and the mighty elephant pitch forward upon his knees, he sprang
upright upon the ledge of rock, to show the captives where their friends
lay hid; then, as his rifle thundered out again, backed up by the echo
of Kenyon's heavy piece, and the discomfited elephant wallowed on the
ground with three shell bullets in his ugly carcass, Leigh was conscious
that Kenyon was slipping down the rock, and quickly following his
friend, both were in an instant busy with their hunting-knives upon the
thongs which held the prisoners, who, twenty-five in number, six white
and the rest black, were all at liberty and eagerly scrambling up the
rock before the mixed assemblage beyond the great enclosure had
thoroughly realised what was going on, less than a thousand yards away,
under cover of the smoke and the rapid discharges of strange rifles.
Just as a crowd of white men came streaming across the ground, and as
Leigh was about to raise his rifle with the view of checking their
advance, a voice behind him said, "Give me a turn at that, Alf; I long
to get even with yonder blasphemous slaving hound. He tarred and
feathered me one day."
Leigh knew the voice, and turning quickly, confronted his long-lost
Cousin Dick. One warm hand-grasp was all, then the tears started to his
eyes, as he relinquished his gun and strode away.
Dick Grenville! But alas! how changed--feeble, emaciated, and
hollow-eyed, covered with filth, and clad in the skin of a leopard.
Leigh had actually taken his own cousin for a very ordinary-looking
black man, but the old spirit, unbroken by Mormons or slavers, was still
there--the eye as true, and the hand firm as a grip of steel. Springing
forward, he shook the weapon over his head, and his voice went ringing
across the rock-bound stretch of veldt, as he called to the leader of
the advancing crowd, "Crewdson Walworth, I promised you this a year ago,
and here it is--a Grenville ever keeps his word." The rifle vomited its
deadly contents, and the man, who was none other than Kenyon's quondam
acquaintance, the "Swell" of Durban, went down, with a bullet through
his heart, and pitched head over heels like a shot rabbit.
Kenyon coolly followed up the shot, and the repeaters fairly opened a
lane in the approaching crowd, who fired wildly into the bush without
doing any serious damage, and in another moment, to the number of about
twenty, were busy scrambling up the rock, whilst Leigh, Grenville and
Kenyon emptied rifle and revolver into their ranks at point-blank range.
Suddenly Leigh heard another well-remembered voice. "Let my father,"
it said, "give Amaxosa a little space, that the child of the Undi may
revenge himself, and slay these evil-minded men;" and moving to one
side, Leigh saw his oft-tried comrade-in-arms, the proud young Zulu
chief, walk coolly to the very verge of the platform, with a mighty mass
of rock poised in his powerful arms. For one brief instant he stood
thus, while his keen eye played over the hated forms of his late
masters; then with a wild, earth-shaking shout he plunged the enormous
missile right into the midst of the enemy where they were most closely
massed together, bearing them backwards to the ground a bleeding,
senseless pulp of human flesh and bones.
The revolvers quickly accounted for the few men who were left alive, and
a minute later the re-united cousins, led by Kenyon, and followed by
their triumphant "Impi," were descending the rock on its outer side, and
making for the friendly cover of the forest, their only loss being one
Zulu, who was shot through the body, and whom necessity compelled them
to leave behind at the point of dissolution.
A hasty consultation ensued when the whole party had reached the forest,
and both Leigh and Kenyon heard, with unmixed satisfaction, that the
enemy would be under the necessity of following directly upon their
trail, there being absolutely no path by which he could get round or cut
off the retreat of the fugitives. Grenville also added that his friends
had come in a fortunate hour, for had Zero himself been present, or had
Crewdson Walworth not fallen so early in the fray, all would have had
their work cut out to get away from the enclosure with whole skins. So
weak were the late captives, that travelling was of necessity very slow
indeed, or at least it seemed so to men fleeing with the knowledge that
re-capture meant prompt and certain death.
Owing to the villainous treatment he had received, poor Grenville was in
a pitiable state, but after a twenty minutes' rest, during which his
cousin fed him with biscuits steeped in brandy, he made another effort,
and Kenyon having speeded on ahead, and chased down their bearers with a
hammock, the party soon had Grenville safely and comfortably housed in
their temporary lodging on the mountain side.
Here the rescued one assured them that the whole band might safely lie
hidden for a day or two during Zero's absence, as both white and black
slavers held the spot in superstitious veneration on account of the
presence of the old hermit--for some such thing Grenville declared their
mad friend of the morning to be. Half priest he was, half doctor, and
partly recluse. Grenville knew naught of him beyond the fact that he
had occupied his present location, and been looked up to by the natives
as a species of god, long years before ever Zero and his following of
scoundrels overran the country side. For his simple necessities he
received weekly supplies at the hands of the surrounding negro chiefs,
who held him to be the greatest fetish in the land, and believed that he
could kill or cure them, ruin their crops, or give them rain and
fruitful seasons at his will; not that he, poor old man, had ever
attempted to inoculate them with any such belief, having, on the
contrary, always treated them as kindly as if they were his own
children. To Grenville he had been extremely good, and had seemed much
impressed with him, because our friend hod once again refused to buy his
life at the prohibitive price of an introduction into the Mormon
brotherhood.
Kenyon had tried to give Grenville in few words the history of his
cousin's bereavement, fearing that a natural, yet abrupt, inquiry after
Lady Drelincourt would greatly distress poor Leigh. The detective
found, however, to his astonishment, that Grenville was in possession of
full particulars of the cowardly double murder, Zero having boasted to
him of the commission of the deed as a meritorious action, performed in
revenge for the doings of their own party in East Utah. The
slaver-chieftain had, it appeared, possessed himself of the persons of
Grenville and of Amaxosa and some thirty of his warriors, by a
skilfully-executed night attack, in which he was supported by upwards of
three hundred armed whites and a horde of natives.
The story of the captives after this date was written in letters of
torture and of blood, and when his cousin, to try him, asked Grenville
how soon he would be in condition to turn his face homewards, the old
spirit blazed out once more, as he vowed by all he held sacred that he
would never leave the locality until Zero and his villainous following
were completely wiped out and stamped flat, even did he know that his
own life would in consequence be forfeited.
Needless to say, both Leigh and Kenyon heard these determined
expressions with undisguised satisfaction, for these two had already
come secretly to a like unanimous decision, and being now assisted by
Grenville, with his perfect local knowledge, and backed by several white
men, in addition to the redoubtable Amaxosa and a score of his picked
warriors, who only required a few days of rest and good food to fit them
for anything at all in the fighting line, both men felt much more
sanguine of accomplishing the end they had in view, and of meting out
stern retributive justice to the villainous slavers, and the double-dyed
murderer who acted as their chief.
Asked to relate how he had executed the hieroglyphic upon the face of
the rock within the kloof, Grenville explained that he had been bound at
the "tail-end" of a line of half-a-dozen Zulus, and thrown upon the
ground at the very edge of the cliff, whilst the slavers were bringing
up the rest of their wretched captives by moonlight, and getting a sharp
stone in his fettered hands, he had hung, head-downwards, suspended over
the gulf in perfect safety, knowing that the weight of the men above
would be a sheet-anchor for him. To Grenville's dismay, however, he
found, when his work was done, that he could not regain his position on
the rock, and just as he was losing consciousness with the rush of blood
to his head, he was rescued by the slavers, who flogged him soundly for
what they took to be a deliberate attempt to rob them of his valued
person by the committal of cold-blooded suicide.
Cautious as ever, Grenville could not be persuaded to rest or sleep
until he had seen Leigh and Amaxosa on guard, and had warned Kenyon to
relieve the Zulu chief in two or three hours, as the poor fellow had
had, he said, an uncommonly rough time of it lately, and the diabolical
and senseless ill-usage to which he had been subjected, must have told
its tale upon even his iron constitution.
The rest of the white men and Zulus, all of whom Leigh had been able to
arm out of his ample stores of weapons, were already sleeping such a
sleep as they had not enjoyed for a full year. To Grenville's delight,
he found that his cousin had got a spare Winchester rifle for him, and
with this and a pair of his favourite revolvers, he felt fit and ready
for anything once again.