Grenville was so obviously suffering from hunger, fatigue, and exposure,
that his friends, eager as they were to question him, forebore, for his
appearance was such--especially the corpse-like hue of his face--that
Amaxosa might well be excused from being startled into believing him a
ghost. Finishing the welcome food placed before him, Grenville went to
sleep with the last morsel between his teeth, and would have fallen
forward into the fire had the watchful Zulu not interposed his ready
arm.
And now, with their hero amongst them, it was astonishing what a change
had come over the little party. All were once again positively
cheerful, in spite of the depressing effect produced by the sight of
poor little Rose's body, which had been laid by itself in one of the
caves.
The mere fact that Grenville's active and energetic personality was
again present with them was such a relief that all slept peacefully, and
at breakfast next morning the re-united ones were, Leigh said, even
hopeful of their ultimate success.
Grenville smiled peculiarly, but merely told them that he had been in
the water for the whole of one night, and had almost died of exposure;
but, though weak and ill, had managed to scramble up the cliffs by a
rocky path, and had eventually regained the glade, where he had found
poor Rose's body lying among the tombs. How he had ever reached the
plateau in his half-dying condition, still carrying his ghastly burden,
was a miracle; but it was one of the finest traits in his character,
which went to prove what a combination of pluck and determination the
man was.
Leigh noted, too, that his countenance was harder now, and looked older;
and knowing his cousin as he did, he felt certain that he had even now
conceived a fearful vengeance, which nothing short of the cold hand of
death would prevent him wreaking upon the wretched Mormons.
Stern though Grenville was, he fairly broke down and sobbed when Dora
brought him Rose's packet, addressed to himself. "Ay," he said at last,
"I will accept it, for her sake; and woe to every Mormon I come across,
in any part of the world, now or hereafter. Dearly shall the whole
accursed brood pay me for the loss of her who loved me so devotedly and
gave her life to save me."
That day Grenville kept all employed in baking huge clay balls, which he
filled with powder, balls, stones, and _debris_ of all sorts--these
being the best obtainable substitutes for hand-grenades.
"They will," he said to Leigh, "not meddle with us just yet; the attack
will, I expect, come off in three or four days' time, the interim being
employed in the manufacture of more infernal machines--but without
gunpowder this time, for they haven't a grain of it left, thanks to the
success of my gunpowder plot."
The result proved that he was right, and on the second night Grenville
led Amaxosa on one side, and held a long and private conference with
him--interrupted now and then, as Leigh and his betrothed could hear, by
genuine bursts of astonishment from the Zulu. "Ow!" they heard him say,
"ow, my father, thou art indeed a wise and cunning man, and I, Amaxosa,
am thy faithful son." But when the conference terminated, and Grenville
quietly opened the breast of his shirt, and withdrew the charm he had
taken from Myzukulwa's neck, handing it to the Zulu, the chief's delight
knew no bounds, and he poured forth in fluent and sonorous Zulu the
thanks of the whole people of the Undi for the preservation of this
mighty token, which belonged only to the chiefs of his own most ancient
house, and which established his own precedence and seniority in the
nation beyond the possibility of a doubt, and had indeed "made his heart
very glad."
What, however, was the surprise of Leigh and Dora when Amaxosa, after
shaking hands cordially with Grenville, gravely saluted them both, took
his weapons, and disappeared down the face of the rock. Nor would our
friend answer any of their eager questions, merely telling them that the
Zulu had gone upon an errand which, though fraught with some little
danger, should, he thought, be easily and speedily executed; and if it
were so, would, he believed, result, not only in the speedy release from
East Utah of the whole party, but in the most fearful vengeance upon the
Mormons for the death of poor Rose, whom they had reverently buried that
very day.
"Our only difficulty," said he, in conclusion, "will be to hold the
plateau long enough to let Amaxosa execute his part of my scheme
perfectly; but I could not spare him before, and he will make all the
haste he can--so we must do our best."
The men kept watch by turns until dawn, and then both slept whilst Dora
kept guard for a couple of hours; and after all had breakfasted, the
Mormons were seen approaching in a compact mass, which, as Grenville
estimated, must contain the whole nation; and at this he, to his
cousin's surprise, expressed his satisfaction.
Our friend now descended to artifice, blackening his face and hands with
burnt wood, in order to pass at a distance for one of the Zulus, as he
had no wish at present to reveal his own dreaded identity to the enemy.
As soon as the masses got within a thousand yards, the repeaters opened
fire, killing the Mormons at a longer range than they had ever before
been treated to; still, however, the advance was steadily persevered in,
and Grenville soon saw at least five hundred Mormons established within
three hundred yards of his position, and almost entirely protected from
his fire by immense rubber half-houses on wheels, which gradually,
though continually, approached nearer and nearer to the rock. Watching
these carefully, it soon appeared that the game was to get the shelter
close up to the plateau and then charge up the path in an irresistible
stream. The plan was well devised, but the thorn-bushes of Amaxosa
ruined it, and the twenty picked Mormons who tried the first rush
perished miserably to a man.
The shooting of the besieged was beautifully accurate, for, in no fear
of their fire being returned, they were able to expose their persons at
will, and aim with murderous precision.
Now, however, two houses were planted at one time, and as two men, even
with Winchesters and posted behind a zareba, are rather short odds to
cope with forty, Grenville washed his face, got ready a shell, and, as
the Mormons charged, coolly stepped up to the very verge of the rock,
and threw the lighted bomb amongst them. None who heard the awful yell
of terror which went up from these miserable and superstitious men could
ever forget it, and the whole Mormon army echoed the name of Grenville
in a shout which almost drowned the thundering and deadly explosion of
the first shell. For such decidedly amateur handiwork, the missile
acted very well indeed and between its results and the Winchesters,
which Dora and Leigh plied unceasingly, not half a dozen men survived
the second charge.
A lull followed, but at three o'clock in the afternoon the foe again
moved up, and fought with increased vigour and renewed cunning. A
dashing charge carried three men out of ten up to the first line of
thorn-bushes, into which they each slipped a lighted torch; and though
all were instantly picked off by the rifles, their work was done, for in
less than ten minutes the bushes were destroyed by fire, and an attempt
to destroy the second line in the same way followed, but failed
ignominiously, owing to the magnificent shooting of the beleaguered
party.
Cunning, nevertheless, matched science, and by putting on rushes of
thirty, forty, and even fifty men, the three lines of bushes were
destroyed, the last charge alone costing the foe forty men, of whom more
than a half were destroyed by one of Grenville's bombs. Now, however,
there was but the last line of bush which fringed the plateau, and with
a terrific shout a full hundred Mormons rushed up the path and made for
this, whilst the defenders rained shot and shell upon them. Still, what
could two men and one woman do? Nearly forty men fell, but the bushes
blazed; and now the whole Mormon army drew together at the foot of the
slope, prepared to charge the moment the fire died out.
The cousins shook hands, and Grenville once again casting a longing
glance down the valley, and at the now sinking sun, set his teeth, and
prepared to die hard.
See, they come! Now to it, good rifles. Handsomely done, Leigh; shell
after shell, brave Grenville. Ha! there goes Warden with a bullet
through his brain. Well aimed, Dora Winfield! That shot has settled
many an old score of thy dear father's.
Alas! alas! all is lost. They are up--they touch the very plateau, when
Grenville again drives them back with a terrific charge, crying
out--"Hurrah, old man; bear up another moment--look yonder." Leigh
looks, and so do the Mormons, and with one accord they turn and fly down
the rock--and why? Out yonder, under the setting sun, what do they
see?--what do they hear?
Woe! woe! woe! to the Mormon host, for up the valley, at a long slinging
trot, comes the crack regiment of the famous warriors of the Undi, led
on to the charge by Amaxosa, the chief of their ancient house. The
Saints form up in square against the rocks, heedless of their white foes
above, as they try to meet the resistless charge of the Zulu impi, and
stem the awful torrent which rolls up in a dark compact tide and flings
itself upon them, even as the surf dashes itself against, against, up,
up--ay, and right over the rocky shore. Then the awful battle-shout of
the Undi is raised, and before the sun sets red in the western sky the
entire Mormon army has been annihilated, and the victorious Zulu chief
is grasping the hand of his "great white father," whom he introduces to
his brother-officers as the man who originated this mighty scheme of
stern retribution and wholesale slaughter.
The Zulus respectfully take Grenville's hand in turn, and gathering
round our hero--whose magnificent exploits their chief has related to
them, and whom they worship in consideration of the hundreds of bodies
piled up on the slopes of the plateau--they give a tremendous shout, and
announce that he has been elected their brother and a perpetual chief of
the Sons of the Undi, and that his name henceforth amongst them will be
"T'chaka, the great white father of his faithful people."
As the little party of friends sat over their fire at the plateau that
night, whilst their sable allies kept watch below, Grenville told the
whole thrilling story of his plunge into the River of Death.
Being a practised diver and swimmer, he had gone into the gulf feet
foremost; but dropping from such a fearful height, and knowing that the
water was low, owing to its being the very end of the dry season, he had
expected to be killed by being dashed against the rocks below the
surface; fortunately for him, however, that portion of the chasm which
he had selected for his awful leap, chanced to overhang a deep still
pool, into which Grenville had dropped, and from which he had emerged
almost unharmed; but, being immediately carried away by the river, he
had, in the darkness, received several nasty knocks which almost
deprived him of his senses. When he had been in the water for upwards
of an hour, silently floating along with the stream, as he could nowhere
find foothold upon the slippery sides of the cliff, our hero detected
the current quickening; soon the stream grew faster and noisier, and all
at once he noticed that he was no longer able to see the sky above, but
_was drifting along underground_. In the awful horror of that moment
Grenville almost went mad. He commenced a mighty and useless struggle
against the resistless current, but found himself borne along like a
feather.
Just, however, as he was losing hope, he struck first his foot, and then
his knee, against something hard, and dropping into an upright posture
found that he had been, all the time, attempting to swim in less than
three feet of water, which just here ran like a mill-race.
Groping about, our friend at last succeeded in getting on a rock half
out of the water, and hung there for hours, with his person benumbed
from head to foot, and his senses paralysed. "He had," he said, "come
to the conclusion that nothing could be worse than his present position,
and that he might as well drift wherever the stream chose to take him,"
when all at once he noticed the dark, swift waters changing colour, and
with a cry of joy recognised the fact that instead of being absolutely
underground, he was only shut in by immense cliffs, thickly wooded to
their very summits, and which all but entirely excluded the glad light
of day; and day it was, the sun was up, and soon sent his welcome shafts
of light streaming through the interlaced branches overhead, lighting
the gloomy chasm in dim and ghostly fashion.
Pulling himself together, Grenville slipped back into the water, and,
plucky fellow that he was, waded down the stream for about two hours,
"having," he said, "a hazy notion that he was doing the right thing by
instinct."
At the end of this time he entered a tunnel, and having groped his way
along it for about a mile, had almost decided to turn back, when he
suddenly passed an angle, and again saw daylight glimmering in the
distance. All this time the water kept a uniform depth of about twelve
inches only, and was thick with a curious kind of subaqueous weed, which
gave him the impression that he was walking on soft damp moss.
Finally he reached the end of the tunnel, and was about to emergo into
open daylight, when his hurried footsteps were arrested by the sound of
a human voice speaking in the Zulu tongue.
Creeping cautiously nearer to the entrance, Grenville found that the
sound proceeded from two men, whom he at once recognised by their
general "get-up" as warriors of the Undi; and listening to the
conversation which ensued, he learned that a large portion of the tribe
was outlying in that district, and had decided to camp for some days in
their present position and prosecute hunting operations before the wet
season set in.
For another hour Grenville waited, not daring to introduce himself to
the Zulus, and, as soon as the pair moved away, stole out and found
himself in a lovely valley, which, as he had anticipated, sprang almost
directly from the mountain-range, and along which the River of Death,
now glimmering bright and lovely in the sunshine, flowed on towards the
sea. He had escaped from East Utah, _and was on the outer side of the
mountains_.
Picking some wild gourds, he filled his empty stomach with these, and
then quickly retraced his steps through the tunnel, feeling certain now
that in some way he could ascend the cliffs and regain East Utah, as it
was clear the herds of game were able to do so. The event proved that
he was right, for less than a mile up the glen he discovered a steep,
narrow, but well-trodden pathway to the higher inside lands, and finally
reached the plateau as we have seen, bringing with him the body of poor
little Rose.