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.