In the morning, after a meal of dried flesh and water--an appetising
repast at which Leigh grumbled considerably--the trio lighted their
pipes and went into council.
"Now then, Dick," said Alf Leigh, "as I, at all events, see no more of
those objectionable rifle-barrels round here, I'll repeat my question of
yesterday--What do we do next?"
"Ah! that's the point," responded Grenville. "Now doesn't it strike you
as very odd, not to say significant, that we should be so murderously
assaulted precisely on the spot where our mission is supposed to
commence? I am convinced that there is more in that attack than you
fancy. However, here is the inscription which, as you know, we found
scratched with a pin-point on a slaty rock down the Pass yesterday--`_An
Englishman and his daughter imprisoned in the Hell at the top of this
Pass. Help us, for the love of Heaven_.' Well, as you also know, we
resolved to carry help to the unfortunates who make this pitiful appeal
to our honour as countrymen, or die in the attempt; and, by Jove, if you
ask me anything, we came perilously near doing the latter yesterday. To
proceed, Myzukulwa here declares that there has been handed down for
generations in his tribe, legends of a strange and mighty people, who
frequent this pass by night only, who, on being followed, vanish into
thin air, and whose description answers accurately to the gentleman I
settled yesterday, with the one exception, easily accounted for, that
these people were said to have black faces."
"And a nice beginning we've made if, according to your idea, our friend
of yesterday was one of them," grumbled Leigh.
"Don't make any mistake, Alf," rejoined Grenville; "we shall gain
nothing by palaver; whoever sees the inside of their territory will
never again, with their consent, re-enter the outside world to give them
away. This kingdom is an inscrutable mystery, enveloped in something
like a hundred miles of inaccessible rock and impassable mountain, and
upon the very threshold of it I feel convinced that we have now
arrived."
"Inkoos," said the great Zulu, "your words are wise, even as the wisdom
of my father's father. For a thousand moons--ay, and for a thousand
before that--has this place been haunted, and the traditions of my
people ever warn us to beware of sleeping nigh to this falling water.
Many have done so, and have never again visited their kraals; I,
Myzukulwa, have alone done so and lived. More, Inkoos; as I watched
yesternight I heard strange sounds, as though the spooks (ghosts) were
mourning over the dead one who lies below us."
"Hah!" said Grenville, starting suddenly to his feet, "we'll have
another look at that body," and, followed by his companions, he strode
away down the Pass, but, when the party reached the scene of the
previous day's rencontre, the lifeless remains were nowhere to be seen;
there was the hole, the rock crusted with coagulated blood, but not the
faintest trace of the body they had left behind them a dozen hours
before. Clearly no beast of prey had been responsible for its
disappearance, for the man's gun and ammunition had also been removed.
A lengthy and careful examination of the surroundings revealed nothing;
all was barren rock, without a single sign of its having ever been
pressed by the foot of man, and, with most uncomfortable feelings, the
trio retraced their steps up the Pass, and reached the cave again, weary
and disheartened, as the sun went out with the rapidity peculiar to the
latitudes of Equatorial Africa, at once plunging everything into
darkness that might be felt.
Grenville's active mind was, however, at work upon the incidents of the
day, and he never rested until his party was safely housed in a cave
some hundred yards from the previous location. This night all kept
watch; and well was it for them that they were on the alert, for, just
before the moon got up, the darkness of the Pass was suddenly cut, as if
by magic, with the flash of at least a score of rifles, fired so as to
fairly sweep their old resting-place. Grenville and his companions
crouched down amongst the rocks, straining eyes and ears for sight or
sound of their murderously-inclined foes; but all was as still as death,
and at daybreak the Pass was again, to all appearance, utterly deserted,
only their old cave was strewn with flattened bullets, which had been
fired with murderous precision.
Grenville tried to get Myzukulwa's views upon the events of the night as
they smoked their pipes after breakfast, but the chief was unusually
reticent. "Spooks," he said, "who shot as well as these did were
dangerous; nothing but a spook could shoot like that in the dark."
Leigh was for clearing out altogether; he was as plucky a fellow as ever
stepped, but this sort of thing was enough to shake any man's nerves.
That day was spent in a rigid search which literally left no stone
unturned; but the keenest scrutiny revealed no place of concealment and
no way into the mountain--over it none could go, for that towering wall
of rock would have defied anything short of an eagle's wings--and a
couple of hours before sunset the party set off again down the Pass.