In one corner of this vaulted room--for such it certainly looked--was
piled a stack of firewood, whilst several strips of dried flesh hung
invitingly against the wall, and three or four large stones lying handy
had evidently been used as seats by the former occupants of the cavern.
Amaxosa now proceeded to light a fire; but Grenville stopped him, just
as he was about to thrust his torch into a mass of dry wood and leaves,
urging the unwisdom of the proceeding.
"Let not the Inkoosis fear," replied the Zulu; "the smoke travels
through a hole in the roof of the cave and comes out through a heap of
reeds in an evil-smelling fever swamp on the high lands above, and which
no man will willingly approach; and if the smoke be seen, it will but be
taken for the evening mists rising from the marsh. Besides all this,
the night is now dark outside; let the Inkoosis look--the words of
Amaxosa are true."
Grenville went down the passage and looked out, only to find that their
guide was perfectly right, and that night had indeed cast an unusually
black mantle of protection round them.
This being so, they enjoyed to the full a good warm feed, accompanied by
hot coffee from their own little store; and then placing Myzukulwa on
guard, a precaution which no fancied security would induce Grenville to
forego, the party lighted their pipes, and disposed themselves
comfortably round the fire to listen to Winfield's narrative.
This was short, but to the point. He had been gold-prospecting near the
foot of the Pass with his party of seven men, his daughter also being
with him, and had been surprised one night by about threescore Mormons,
who at once murdered his men, but saved Winfield's life and his
daughter's because he offered a heavy ransom.
"You see, gentlemen," he said, "my little girl had been with me for five
years, and I had forgotten, God forgive me! that she was growing up into
a fine young woman. I had been at my work for ten years, and between
gold and diamonds I had done so well that I'm afraid I thought of little
else. I imagined I could buy these rascals off. My daughter, I now
see, they kept for their own vile ends, and, unfortunately for me, they
soon found out that I was the very man they were short of in their
community, for, let me tell you, this secret territory of theirs is
literally bursting with mineral wealth of all kinds, which they have no
idea how to work. Over and over again they have pressed me to join
their abominable brotherhood and become one of them, offering me instant
death as an alternative; but I knew I was much too useful to be killed
out of hand, and I laughed in their faces. That blackguard Levert was
positively the first man who ever really tried to injure me, and he took
me by surprise when we were out on a prospecting trip--he had been
importuning me to give him my daughter in `marriage'! and I had
determined to shoot her dead before I would accede either to his or any
Mormon's wishes in that respect.
"Fortunately every woman is safe here for a full year, unless she
chooses to marry of her own accord, and after that time the consent of
her nearest relative is sufficient, whether the poor creature wills or
no. Now we have been here just ten months, so have still some little
time before us--that is, if you gentlemen are, as I understand, willing
to assist me in liberating my little girl from the Novices' Convent in
the Mormon town which lies about a dozen miles from here." And the poor
fellow looked at Grenville and Leigh with a half-inquiring and wholly
imploring expression on his face.
The cousins were deeply touched by Winfield's evident anxiety about his
daughter; neither, however, spoke--but both reached forward and warmly
shook hands with him, and as they did so Grenville saw the tears spring
to his eyes. Rightly interpreting their silent sympathy, he went on--
"And now, gentlemen--"
"One moment, old fellow!" interjected Leigh; "this is Dick Grenville,
who `bosses our show,' as, I suppose, our unwelcome neighbours would
call it, and I am his lazy cousin Alfred Leigh; so do, for goodness'
sake, call us Leigh and Grenville, and drop that `gentlemen' palaver--it
sounds a bit off in a cavern, don't you know."
Winfield bowed to the cousins over this unceremonious and characteristic
introduction, and then again took up the thread of his story.
"I was going to say that I feel certain you are quite safe in trusting
yonder Zulu; he hated his brutal masters even more than I did, and I
suspect he only interfered to-day because he knew that if he did not do
so his own skin would pay the forfeit. He once escaped, and was at
large for upwards of three months, and I suppose he must then have
unearthed this hiding-place. He killed one of the guards who stood in
his way, and was to have been shot when retaken; but the Holy Three
relented at the last moment, on the score of his being such an excellent
hunter with native weapons--a great consideration with these people, as
the stock of ammunition which has sufficed them for fifty years is
getting rather low. They got a dozen barrels of powder out of my little
camp, and thought they had found a treasure, but, unfortunately for
them, it was fine blasting powder, which blew half a dozen of their
rotten old shooting-irons to pieces, and opportunely hurried two of
their biggest ruffians into the nether world."
A discussion then ensued, in which Grenville closely questioned their
new ally, and received answers which gave him a very fair idea of their
present position and prospects, and confirmed him in the knowledge that
their party would never be permitted to leave the Mormon territory alive
if those gentry had their own way. "Only one man," said Winfield, "ever
got away alive, and he, curiously enough, must have escaped two or three
days before you got in. He was a very decent man, and a great agitator
for reform, and was consequently popular with many of the people, but
particularly obnoxious to the Holy Three and their immediate satellites,
the Avenging Angels."
Grenville obtained an accurate description of this fortunate (?)
individual, and had little difficulty in convincing Winfield that the
man in question--or, rather, all that remained of him--now hung rotting
ignominiously upon a cross near the great stone stairway.
"That explains their coolness over it all," said Winfield. "I told the
guards that he would be back in two months' time with an army to reduce
them, but they only laughed, and said `they guessed their little country
was just about impregnable,' and they were glad to see the last of him,
for he was only a nuisance."
"Well," said Grenville at last, "the best thing you can do now you've
had a smoke and relieved your mind, Winfield, is to go to sleep, for you
stand much in need of rest after your long exposure and involuntary
fast. I'll have a chat with the Zulus now, and, if they consent, I
propose to lie hidden here for a couple of days, so that you can get
your strength up. So pray turn in at once--you too, Alf." And leaving
the pair to make their rough beds of dried leaves, he joined the Zulus,
who were talking earnestly together in the doorway of the cavern.
Amaxosa was quite confident that their place of shelter was altogether
unknown to the Mormons, as they had never been able to find him until
one evil day when they had stumbled across him a score of miles from the
spot they now occupied. Asked whether there was any way out of the
country, he said "No"; he had most thoroughly searched for a means of
exit, and had concluded that the white people were witch-finders, who
got in and out by flying over the mountains.
On being asked how he was brought in, he said he did not know, as he was
knocked senseless with a blow from the butt-end of a rifle before he was
captured, and had been expected to die for a week thereafter. Myzukulwa
had told him the story of their entry into this wonderful country, and
he (Amaxosa) was "very willing to follow and to fight for such great and
wise white chiefs, and would be their man to the death." Grenville then
bestowed some tobacco upon his new ally, and, after a hearty handshake,
sent both the brothers to lie down, whilst he himself took the first
watch, and cudgelled his brains as to the further movements of the whole
party. Three hours later, when he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and
lay down to rest, after having seen Amaxosa on guard, and given him
strict orders that no fire was on any consideration to be alight during
the daytime, Grenville's mind was quite made up.
They must carry off Miss Winfield by a _coup de main_ in the course of
the next few days, occupying the interim in choosing out and victualling
one or two exceptionally strong positions between their present refuge
and the great stairway. They must hold each of these as long as was
possible, falling back by degrees, and, after fighting their ultimate
position to the last gasp, endeavour to take the foe by surprise, and
circumvent--or, if needful, cut their way through--the guard, which, he
had no doubt, was already rigidly posted in the subterranean roadway,
and so regain the Pass and the outside world.
The plan was dangerous to a degree, but was in fact the only one which
offered the slightest chance of success; their own act had brought them
into this mysterious country, and nothing short of supreme audacity and
the most determined bravery could carry them out again. Moreover,
Grenville was quite resolved not to go away empty-handed. Granted that
the place really was, as Winfield had said, simply alive with gold, he
meant both Leigh and himself to have a lion's share--not that either was
greedy of fortune, but both, as younger sons of old families, had keenly
felt the snubs of wealth, and it would truly be a grand thing if they
could fill their pockets out of nature's inexhaustible stores.
Their present position, except by trenching advisedly upon their
supplies, was untenable for any length of time; this had come out in the
course of Grenville's questions to Amaxosa.
"Why," he had asked, "have we seen no game, not a living creature of any
kind, with the exception of a few birds, and yet you and the Inkoos
Winfield talk of hunting?"
"Because of the great black gulf and the dark River of Death," was the
answer; and Grenville had been given to understand that this wonderful
country was absolutely cut in two, from side to side, by a yawning
abyss, forty to fifty feet across, through which, some three hundred
feet below, flowed a sluggish and inky-looking stream of incalculable
depth, thoroughly meriting the Stygian name bestowed upon it.
This awful chasm, which intersected the country for over eighty miles,
was cleverly spanned in three places, equidistant about twenty miles, by
stout but narrow wooden bridges; and these were jealously-guarded night
and day, the nearest one to the present hiding-place of the party being
also the bridge most adjacent to the Mormon stronghold, which went by
the name of East Utah. It was one of these bridge guards that Amaxosa
had slain in order to cross the gulf and, as he--poor fellow!--thought,
regain his freedom.
On further consideration, and after an early breakfast, the party
decided to change their quarters that very night, for, much to their
surprise, it proved that Amaxosa had stowed away, in a cave close by,
sufficient dried flesh to keep a small army going for months; this led
to inquiry, and it came out that an enterprising Mormon had obtained the
sanction of the Holy Three to conveying himself and his belongings
across the bridge and into the veldt, where he expected to find
excellent pasturage for his cattle, there being no animals of any kind
on the outer side of the chasm. This herd the Zulu had looted most
successfully, without the Mormon having an idea where a round dozen of
his finest beasts had gone; and so disgusted was he thereat, that after
a trial of one month he again betook himself to the inner lands, _minus_
the pick of his herd. The meat thus feloniously obtained, Amaxosa had
carefully dried and laid up--with most unusual forethought for one of
his colour--against a rainy day.
Just before sunset, therefore, the whole party, bearing as much dried
flesh as they could conveniently carry, took leave of their comfortable
shelter, and cautiously retraced their steps to the glade where Levert
had met his death, and where they found his body still lying, just as
they had left it.
It being no part of Grenville's new programme that the corpse should be
discovered as yet, it was hastily concealed; and then, rapidly passing
on, the party reached the open veldt just before sunset, rested there
until the moon rose, and two hours later were safely entrenched in a
spot which had previously impressed itself upon Grenville's retentive
memory as being singularly adapted for a sustained defence in the event
of a protracted siege.
Their new shelter consisted of a curious-looking table-topped rock,
quite fifty feet high and some thirty yards in length by about as many
in breadth. From inside this rock flowed a small stream, which, as in
the case of the cave they had just deserted, obtained exit through a
rent about four feet wide in the massive wall of stone. In the interior
of this rock, which was hollowed out into two separate caves of
singularly angular and distorted appearance, the water welled up cool,
fresh, and clear as crystal. The floor was of sandy gravel, and the
rock, which was apparently of ironstone formation, had evidently been at
one time struck by lightning, and was rent in every direction, in such a
way as to leave most convenient loopholes for shooting through.
Altogether, it was a very strong place indeed, stood alone in a forest
glade with six hundred yards of clear ground on every side of it, the
only cover being low scrub; yet it was only one mile from the edge of
the veldt, and perhaps twenty from the great stairway. Well
provisioned, and with such weapons as theirs to defend it, and having
regard to the fact that the place could only be entered by one man at a
time, it might well be considered absolutely impregnable.
Here the party rested for the night, keeping guard by turns, and
spending the whole of the next day in piling up firewood and timber
joists, by which they could ascend twenty feet above the level of the
outside ground, so as to scour the scrub, if needful, for any lurking
foes; and also in putting up a sort of earthwork inside the rock,
wherever the loopholes were too numerous to be required.
Night again put a welcome period to the labours of the party, and after
breakfast on the following morning Grenville called all together, told
them that the time for decided action had arrived, and unfolded his plan
of operations, as follows.
At sunset the two Zulus were to set out and travel all night, and by
dawn he calculated that they would--though taking a wide detour, to
avoid the risk of premature discovery--have had time to reach the
furthermost bridge across the great canon, and hide themselves amongst
the trees which at that point bordered the veldt. Both men were to lie
carefully concealed there until shortly after sunset; but the moment it
was fairly dark they were to approach the bridge, and contrive to let
themselves be seen hanging about, as if desirous of crossing. This
method of procedure would, Grenville felt sure, cause the guard great
uneasiness, and result in his firing the signal rockets, and calling up
the main body to effect the capture or destruction of the audacious foe.
Unless they were regularly set upon, the Zulus were not to indulge their
inclinations for fighting, but, once having seen the fiery signals
ascend, were to use the utmost despatch in regaining, by the most direct
route, the neighbourhood of the central bridge. Here they were to await
the return of Grenville and his party, accompanied, if successful in
their attempt, by Miss Winfield, when the united body would make a
desperate effort to reach the Table Rock, or, if too hard pressed to
gain that desired haven, would find sanctuary in Amaxosa's cave. If the
stratagem, however, took the Mormons in as completely as Grenville
expected, his own party would have a start of at least two hours, and
this would probably enable them to get right through to the rock.
The plan was undoubtedly clever, and one, moreover, which gave promise
of success; and having been discussed in all its details, it was
unanimously adopted. The Zulus were recommended to rest and sleep all
day, and at sunset were despatched as arranged, the white men in the
meantime occupying themselves in completing, and if possible amplifying
still further, the natural defences of their rocky fortress.
The Zulus were armed, as usual, with their spears Myzukulwa willingly
relinquishing his revolver to Winfield, who had also possessed himself
of the rifle and ammunition of which the party had despoiled Abiram
Levert.
Grenville accompanied Myzukulwa and Amaxosa as far as the edge of the
veldt, and impressed upon them the desirability of deceiving the bridge
guard, if possible, as to the number of their persons; for, he
explained, "if the main body of Mormons see but two signal rockets, they
will suppose them to refer to Amaxosa and the Inkoos Winfield unarmed,
and will only send on a few men to capture them; whilst if three rockets
are fired, they will conclude at headquarters that it is our own party--
it being clearly their habit to send up a rocket for each foe sighted on
the outer veldt--and will send on all the men they have on the spot."
Then, wishing the brothers good luck, Grenville returned to the rock.
The night was passed quietly by the party, which was now again reduced
to its original, and, as Grenville said, fortunate number, Leigh adding
jocularly that he would back their "dauntless three" at long odds
against any Mormon trio in East Utah, the Holy Three preferred.
The next day was spent by the white men in examining their weapons with
anxious care, after which they rested and smoked, waiting with feverish
anxiety for the declining sun to set them on their way. At last the
time came, and, after feeding well, the trio shook hands all round, and
started out upon their desperate enterprise, for such it most certainly
was. Three men against the whole Mormon community, which numbered,
according to Winfield, probably a thousand able-bodied men, besides
women, children, and youths, and was by no means deficient in subtlety
of intellect.
The little party pushed forward in ominous silence, keeping carefully
under cover, and about three and a half hours later saw all securely
hidden in a patch of scrub which impinged upon the veldt a short mile
from the central bridge, whereupon, before the darkness fell, as it did
almost directly after their arrival, they could perceive _two_ sentinels
standing smoking and chatting together; and it was a saddening
reflection to the trio that these men, at present in the full enjoyment
of life, must of necessity die before the bridge would be free for their
own purposes.
The minutes dragged on their weary way with leaden feet, and Grenville's
watch marked half an hour after sundown, when a shout from the bridge
brought the whole party to its feet as one man, just in time to see a
rocket dissolve in mid air into myriads of lovely shooting stars. A
score of seconds later this was followed by a second rocket, whilst
immediately afterwards, to Grenville's infinite delight, a third of
these shining messengers winged its fiery way across the heavens.
Over the silent veldt the Englishmen could hear the Mormon guards
talking in excited tones, but suddenly both parties gave vent to one
common cry of astonishment as a fourth rocket swiftly sailed up into the
azure vault, and was instantly succeeded by a fifth, after which perfect
stillness reigned for a full minute; then, all at once, a vivid streak
of fire shot up like a flaming arrow from the Mormon city, now
comparatively close at hand, and a moment later its many-hued stars were
vieing with the glittering constellations of the sky. The answering
rocket had been fired, and the Avenging Angels were on their way.