As Leigh and his betrothed sat talking by the fire that night, and
keeping watch until Amaxosa's return, they were surprised to see the sky
suddenly lighten in the distance, and finally to observe great sheets of
flame springing up in the direction of East Utah. These, however, soon
died out, for, as it happened, the Mormon prophet's house stood entirely
apart from the other buildings in the town, and so burnt itself out
harmlessly in a very short space of time.
In due course the Zulu arrived, and gave them in detail the events of
the night, cheering the heavy hearts of Grenville's friends by a full
account of his every word and action, and delighting poor little Rose,
who had joined the party, by his recital of the scene in the Trinitarian
room, where the man she secretly adored, had so courageously insisted
upon her own hereditary rights, and then, though heavily ironed, had
slain her pet abomination in the shape of Ishmael Warden.
A greater surprise was, however, in store for the young girl when
Amaxosa coolly handed over to her the bundle of papers, telling how he
had disposed of "the ancient and cunning man of the witch-finders," and
brought away the property which he knew belonged to his "little sister,
the Flower of East Utah."
The papers in question, which Rose perfectly recollected as having been
her father's, consisted of a memorandum of contents, in which was folded
what proved to be an immense bundle of paper money of almost all
nations, the bulk, however, being Bank of England notes; and if the
statement of account which enveloped these was correct, the entire value
amounted to something like 150,000 pounds sterling.
The young girl received the congratulations of her friends very
indifferently, being of course wholly ignorant of the value of money,
only saying that if she thought the Mormons would give Grenville up in
exchange for the papers, she would send them back at once, but that she
knew that with the exception of the Holy Three, no one in East Utah ever
appeared to attach the slightest importance to the valuable documents.
After Leigh had consigned Rose's fortune to a safe place all retired to
rest, with the exception of Myzukulwa, who kept guard until daybreak.
When breakfast had been disposed of, a council was called, into which
the girls were, for once, admitted, and Amaxosa submitted a plan which
he had formed, and which had for its object the release of Grenville
that very night.
Dangerous it certainly was, and superbly audacious, but, nevertheless,
extremely simple. All the Zulu proposed to do was to obtain access to
the town in the usual way--by the river-bed, that is--and leaving
Myzukulwa to watch outside the walls, he himself would steal in and kill
the guard, unlock his friend's prison, and spirit him away, and so by a
forced march to the plateau. With regard to arms, he declined to take
any except his own and his brother's; the risk of their falling into
Mormon hands was too great; but it was agreed that the pair should carry
half a dozen of the Mormons' guns ready loaded, and hide these in the
bush on their way down, so as to be handy at about half distance if
required. It was, of course, very desirable that Grenville should be
provided with his own weapons; but still, should these fall into the
hands of the enemy, the destruction of the little band on the rock would
become a mere question of time, and Leigh well knew that his cousin
would be the very last to counsel him to run such a fearful risk on his
account.
The plan, which seemed feasible enough, was discussed in every detail,
and all, with apparently one exception, felt sanguine of its success.
That exception was the Zulu Myzukulwa. Not that he had anything to urge
against the scheme, but he seemed dull, distrait, and cautious, and
would only express his _hope_ that it might succeed, and that "the sight
of the great chief, his father, might make his heart glad before he
died."
In the afternoon the brothers lay down to sleep, and as Leigh sat and
watched them, and smoked his pipe, he could not help thinking that any
of the miserable Mormons who got in their way that night would have a
rough time of it. At sunset he awoke the pair, and after they had
indulged in a hearty meal, hands were shaken all round, and the Zulus,
slipping down from the plateau, were instantly swallowed up in the eerie
shadows of the veldt and mountain, and proceeded on their way to East
Utah, followed by the prayers and good wishes of their friends upon the
rock.
We must now return to poor Grenville, who had spent the day, as usual,
surrounded by his guards, and occupied with the all-absorbing topic
provided by the death of two members of their Trinity. Our friend
learned that the Mormons would have been very awkwardly placed had the
prophet before he died not given instructions to issue the necessary
proclamation of the death of his colleague Warden, and the consequent
need for the appointment of some member of the community in his place.
Had this not happened, it was more than probable that the last surviving
representative of the Trinity would have arrogated supreme power to
himself, and declined to co-operate with anyone else, and he being as
universally despised, as his father had been respected and as Ishmael
Warden had been hated, a revolution would in all probability have
resulted, by which the remnant of the latter day Saints would have
suffered more severely than ever. To his friend the officer Grenville
could not help remarking that he was surprised to find a people so
intelligent as the Saints allowing themselves to be guided and led by
the nose by their false prophets through the medium of their
superstitious fancies.
The officer, however, grew quite stern, and ordered him not to
blaspheme; then unbending again, "Come," said he, "you are to die, so I
don't mind convincing you before you go of the genuineness of the power
conferred upon our Holy Three;" and leading Grenville along, still in
chains, he brought him to the top of the hill overlooking the city, and
upon which stood the signal of the Fiery Cross, fixed above a curious
pepper-box-shaped wooden house.
Entering the door, the Mormon signed to Grenville to follow him, which
our hero did, wondering to find himself in a darkened room containing a
tables surrounded by wooden seats, upon one of which last his guide,
whispering in awe-struck tones, instructed him to place himself.
This done, the Mormon gave muttered utterance to a doggerel rhyme of
some kind, the words of which Grenville could not catch, but which was
evidently supposed to act the part of a spell or incantation; he then
pressed a knob in the woodwork, which admitted a dim religious sort of
light through some aperture apparently in the roof, and reverently
withdrawing a cloth from the table, motioned to Grenville to look
thereon. This he did, and had much ado to restrain his laughter at the
utter simplicity of the fraud thus foisted--as a holy revelation--upon
grown and intelligent men.
The place our friend sat in was _neither more nor less than a very
poorly contrived "camera obscura_," such as can be seen in so many
seaside and other places of holiday resort any day of the week.
Here it was that the Mormon rulers sat, carefully watching and noting
all that went on in East Utah during the day, returning to the town at
night-time and oracularly relating to their superstitious subjects all
that had taken place in their absence. This, however, was not quite
sufficient to satisfy some of the more inquiring spirits among the
saints, and the Mormons found themselves obliged to resort to _prophecy_
concerning men and things in general; and however awful these
predictions were--and awful they certainly became when Ishmael Warden
was elected a member of the triumvirate--_they never failed to prove
correct_, the prophets took good care of that.
The guard soon withdrew his "holy wonders" from the unhallowed gaze of
the Gentile before him, and when outside again heaved a breath of
relief, asking our friend in solemn yet triumphant tones what he thought
of that. This was really too much for Grenville, and he burst out
laughing in his companion's face.
The Mormon eyed him with evident doubt as to his sanity, but Grenville
noticed that he was careful to drink in every word of the explanation of
the "mystery" subsequently given to him by this strange and
well-informed prisoner.
Our friend really began to like the man, and could not refrain from
looking sadly at him, knowing but too well that the Mormon was so
closely involved in his own fate that he would be the first to fall when
the attempt, which he felt certain his own friends would make to release
him, came off.
The officer, noticing these looks of his prisoner, asked him if he were
thinking of the near approach of his death.
"No," replied he in a melancholy tone, "I was but regretting the
certainty that you yourself would die before I should."
"What," said the other mockingly, "are you too a false prophet?"
"Would to God I might be in this case," said Grenville, holding out his
hand to his jailer; "but I fear it is truth I speak. Never mind; you
are a brave man--and what is written, is written for you and for me; so
don't let us trouble our heads about it till the time comes."
The pair soon gained the town, and Grenville heard his friend the guard
call a number of his companions together and detail all the prisoner had
said with respect to their "holy wonder;" and after that first one and
then another would ask him, himself, leading questions on the government
of his own country, England, and so forth; and it struck our hero
forcibly that had he but a week or two before him he might, in spite of
the old prophet's precaution, get up a very pretty little insurrection
against the mystic Holy Three.
He did go so far as to say that if the Mormons were men they had only
one course open to them, and that was to dethrone the wretched impostor
who was now at their head, and re-instate their beautiful queen, the
"Rose of Sharon," the Flower of East Utah, in her hereditary rights; and
he noticed that these words seemed to find favour among the guards,
though no reply was made to the remark.
Grenville next endeavoured to find out if the community had some
concealed way out of their secret territory. This end he attained by
chaffing them about knocking down with their own hands their only ladder
of communication with the outside world. The men, however, were
perfectly frank, and at once admitted that they had done so, giving him
likewise details of the work of reconstructing the stairway, which was
to be commenced as soon as the invaders were satisfactorily disposed of.
Asked how they accounted for the continued supply of game, the Mormons
said they could not account for it at all; but their prophets had told
them that the good gifts of Heaven should be thankfully accepted, and
not refused simply because the eyes of blinded mortals could not detect
the precise manner of their arrival. A very strict inquiry had
nevertheless been made into the matter, and a body of men appointed to
scour the country in every direction, with the view of ascertaining if
there were any other way of ingress into the territory; but after two
months of careful searching the band had returned with the news that
they were absolutely walled in on every side by impenetrable and
inaccessible rocks and mountains.
Grenville was, however, by no means satisfied with this statement, as,
all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, his common-sense told him
that the herds of game must have some way of getting in at certain
seasons of the year or the animals would long ago have been
exterminated. Still, cudgel his brains as he would, no solution of the
difficulty presented itself to him.