As soon as our friends had paid the final honours to the mortal remains
of Muzi Zimba, they carefully warned the "People of the Stick" against
spreading the news of his decease in any shape or form, fearing that the
ignorant natives in the surrounding country might foolishly impute his
somewhat sudden and unexpected end, to the unauthorised presence of the
little hand in his cavernous dwelling.
Hardly were the funeral obsequies over than Kenyon drew Grenville aside,
and after a few moments of earnest conversation, the pair announced
their intention of investigating the secret stair through the mountain,
of which the old hermit had spoken to them.
Taking Amaxosa along, and supplying themselves from Muzi Zimba's ample
stores with torches made of fibre, the trio entered the indicated cave,
shifted the black, basaltic-looking rock, and duly found themselves in
the entrance of the tunnel. The tortuous way was rough and very narrow,
but it was, as the old man had said, fairly easy to traverse, and in
twenty minutes' time our friends emerged into semi-daylight in the
narrow shaft of a dry and disused well, from whence--by means of a stout
but roughly-constructed ladder of rope, which hung from its upper
orifice--the old man had evidently obtained access at will into the
slavers' town.
Withdrawing cautiously into the mountain again, in fear lest the smoke
of their torches should be seen above the mouth of the well, our friends
entered into a somewhat heated argument.
Grenville was for entirely closing the narrow passage by blocking it
once for all with mighty rocks, which would effectually prevent Zero
from discovering the secret of the way, and perhaps destroying
themselves and their cavern by an explosion of gunpowder; but Kenyon
declared that, sooner than permit such a capital means of access to
Equatoria to be destroyed, he would himself sit and watch it night and
day. His specious arguments and professional instinct, at length
prevailed over Grenville's caution, and the trio then resolved that two
reliable men should be kept constantly on the watch beneath the well,
provided with a cord, the other end of which they would attach to the
trigger of a small pistol fixed in the cavern above, and should anyone
attempt to descend the well, the sentinels were to jerk the cord, fire
the pistol as an anxious call for help, and forthwith retreat
noiselessly into the mountain burrow, where they would be met at the
narrowest part of the tortuous path by armed support.
During the whole of that day the party on the rock could descry in the
far distance large bands of the slaver fraternity patrolling the
southern veldt, and carefully searching the borders of the eastern
forest, being evidently altogether at a loss to know what had become of
the dangerous and hated foe, and yearning, no doubt, for the
resuscitation of their slaughtered bloodhounds; whilst when night fell,
the furthest limit of vision revealed, a hundred miles away, the
fire-girt summit of the fierce volcano, its blazing peak hanging upon
the distant line of smoke-beclouded sky like a glittering star of the
first magnitude.
The night was very dark and moonless when Kenyon and Amaxosa left the
outer cave to relieve Leigh and Grenville, who were keeping watch below
the well; but, pausing before he entered the narrow passage, the
American sent the Zulu forward, simply saying he would join him
by-and-by, as he had yet some work to do, and so it came to pass that
the two cousins returned to the cavern without having seen him, and that
Amaxosa, keeping his lonely vigil by torchlight, passed through the most
fearsome trial his courageous but untutored heart had ever known; for
whilst he watched and waited, patient as a statue carved in stone, the
great Zulu heard a light footfall behind him, and, turning quickly,
beheld, to his utter horror, the well-known figure of the ancient Muzi
Zimba approaching through the gloom. The warrior's heart stood still
with fear and his very blood froze in his veins--Muzi Zimba, whose dead
body he had that very day helped to consign to its grave, and upon whose
breast he had placed giant rocks to scare the beasts of prey; yet here
he stood, and there before him in the flesh stood Muzi Zimba. Nay, it
could not be flesh and blood, but a spook (spirit) of the mountain, and
not even a child of the Undi could fight with spooks. Coming swiftly to
him, the vision spoke quietly to him in broken Zulu. "Greeting," it
said, "greeting, Lion of the Undi, what dost thou here by night in Muzi
Zimba's secret way."
"Greeting, great Father of the Spooks," boldly answered the Zulu. "I do
this here, I watch thy dark and narrow stair, oh, Ancient One, by order
of the Great White Chief, my father, and if any enter to disturb thy
restful peace, he dies a swift and easy death on this my ready spear."
"Well done, Amaxosa," was the cool reply which the astonished chief
received from his ancient friend, the "Father of the Spooks," as the
dread thing deftly removed its flowing wealth of beard and whiskers, and
revealed the clean-shaved countenance of Stanforth Kenyon, the American
detective.
"Wow, Inkoos!" said the astonished Zulu. "Wow! the thing was indeed
well done; and I, even I, the son of the witch-doctor, Isanusi, would
have let thee pass and leave me for a spook. Yet, did it seem strange
to me, my father, thou shouldst speak to thy son with the tongue of his
own people, for ever I heard that the Ancient One who has gone from us,
knew not to speak as speak the children of the Zulu."
Briefly explaining his intentions to the chief, Kenyon carefully
readjusted his disguise, and, nimbly mounting the ladder of rope,
scrambled out of the mouth of the well, and at once found himself in a
clump of bushes, and close to the outskirts of the slavers' town,
towards which he fearlessly directed his now seemingly feeble steps.
Well was it for Stanforth Kenyon that years of rigid training in his own
peculiar walk of life enabled him to support to perfection the somewhat
difficult, because exquisitely simple, character, which his supreme
audacity had undertaken. The extreme darkness of the night was,
however, favourable to his enterprise, as there were but few people
about, and the detective found himself in the very centre of Equatoria
without being accosted by anyone. The town, to his surprise, proved to
be very compactly built, and consisted of perhaps five hundred houses,
mostly composed of wood and roofed with iron, the only exceptions to
this rule being what were evidently the public offices of the place,
which were built of a mixture of sand and gravel, a composition going
amongst the natives by the name of "swish," and which presented, so far
as he could see by the light of the oil-lamps hung round the buildings,
an extremely handsome appearance.
Just as Kenyon was about to move forward after carefully taking stock of
the place, a young girl started out from a side street, and laid a
gently detaining hand upon his arm.
"Father," she said, "I have looked and longed for thee every night, and
feared that thou wert ill. Come and see my boy, I beseech thee, good
father, for he dies--he dies before my face, and here is none to help
but thee."
With a sign of brief assent, the detective turned and halted slowly
along, despite the manifest impatience of the young and anxious mother.
Turning into a small house some little way along the street, she led him
through a comfortably but roughly furnished parlour, into a bed-room at
the rear, where lay a baby boy not more than eighteen months old, and
whom his medical experience soon assured him was suffering from a slight
attack of that most malignant disease, diphtheria.
Knowing, through Grenville, that the old hermit had acted in the
capacity of physician and surgeon to both slavers and natives, Kenyon,
before he left the cavern, had provided himself with several articles,
including a small case of phials, likely to be of use in supporting his
assumption of the character of a medical practitioner; and, briefly
directing the young mother to keep the child quiet and supply him with
cooling drinks, he carefully painted the tonsils with perchloride of
iron, and left her instructions to continue this treatment.
As Kenyon, however, was moving away, the grateful mother again stopped
him. "Father," she said, "I call thee such by permission; canst thou do
naught for yon poor woman whom these cruel, heartless Mormons have
condemned to death by fire, because she will not change her faith and
`marry' one of their own creatures. Thou knowest my history, my father;
how I was stolen away when but a girl, and wedded to a man I used to
hate, and that my happiest hour was when he died in battle. Yet do I
love my little son, and could I but give freedom to this woman I would
fly the country with her, and take refuge with the brave men of my own
race who have escaped hence, and who now hold Zero at defiance."
"Where lies this woman, my daughter?" said the false hermit, after
making a show of thinking carefully for some little time.
"Still in the same strong place, my father--the great hall of the common
prison-house; and at noon, next day but one, she suffers at the stake.
Save her, if thou canst, my father; and if it be indeed beyond thy
power, then give her, in mercy, a draught of swift and deadly poison, if
thou hast such, and earn a double blessing from her ere she dies."
With a promise that he would endeavour on the following night to see the
condemned one referred to, our adventurer at length got away from the
importunate woman, and effected, undiscovered, his retreat to the well,
and thence into the depths of the mountain, where he, of course, found
the Zulu on guard, the pair being soon after this relieved by Umbulanzi
and the young Scotsman, Ewan, of whom all had formed a high opinion,
both as to shrewdness and bravery.
Arrived in the cave above, Kenyon communicated to his astonished and
admiring friends his experiment and the result of it, and all then fell
to eagerly discussing ways and means for the rescue of the poor
condemned woman from her villainous judges and would-be executioners;
and, ere the party lay down to sleep, it was decided that Kenyon should
make an attempt to see her the following night in his character of a
priest, and learn what suggestions the captive could herself make, with
regard to a plan to save her life and give her back her liberty.