"Into the Unknown" (continued 3)

The author of all this ruin was meantime speeding in the direction of the river, but as he turned the last corner, only a hundred yards from the water, he ran right into a mob of Mormons, to whom a vivid flash of lightning revealed his hated and now well-known personality. With a hoarse cry like the angry roar of wild beasts they went at him, looking for an easy victory, but planting his back against the wall Grenville used his revolver freely, laughing in their faces as they discharged at him gun after gun at point-blank range without penetrating his singular armour. Then, taking advantage of the darkness which succeeded an unusually brilliant flash of lightning, he charged through them, killing two or three with his war-club, and then dived boldly into the stream, which was now boiling down its angry course towards the River of Death. Thither Grenville dared not go; against the stream he found it impossible to swim; so, rather than be drowned like a dog, he sprang out of the water and again faced his enemies, determination in his countenance, strength and activity in every nerve of his body, but without a shadow of hope in his heart. Once more getting to the wall, Grenville fought desperately with his club, killing man after man, and then, when he felt himself getting weak, pitched his revolver into the river and again prepared for a final charge. At this moment, however, a cowardly Mormon who had gained an adjacent roof, dropped a great piece of rock full upon our hero’s defenceless head, and he fell to the earth stunned and unconscious.

When Grenville regained his senses, he found himself pinioned hand and foot, and lying in a great hall, which was thickly packed with Mormons of both sexes.

Anxious to get an idea of his position he did not immediately open his eyes, but he was keenly watched, and detecting him in the act of trying to look through his half-open eyelids, Grenville’s guards brutally jerked him on to his feet, one of them calling out, “The prisoner has come to, your Holiness.” Pulling himself together, though feeling very weak, our friend saw he was gazing down upon a perfect sea of faces, and this multitude, as soon as he stood up, gave vent to one common roar of vengeance and execration.

Coolly turning his back upon them with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Grenville found himself face to face with the Mormon Trinity, and for a few moments the Holy Three gazed wonderingly upon this man who had penetrated their secret kingdom, worsted and defeated them at every turn, held them up to the ridicule of their own people, slaughtered at least one-fourth of the whole nation, and finally had, single-handed, almost entirely destroyed their town, and at one fell swoop wrested from their grasp the precious gunpowder which was to have sustained and defended them for many years to come.

On his part, Grenville was quietly saying to himself that these three men were very much what he had expected them to prove.

There was one venerable old man, with snowy white hair; his age must have been quite eighty years, and his countenance, though stern, had a certain appearance of benevolence upon it. The next man—his son beyond a doubt—was possessed of all his father’s bad features without any of the good; taken all through, he had a cruel face and one which was, moreover, weak and vacillating, as well as sinister and sensual. The third member of this singular triumvirate was an enormous fellow, standing at least six feet three, and broad in proportion, a repulsive countenance, with villainy, murder, and rapine written upon every line of it—a man with the face of a satyr and the manners of a bear. Such was Ishmael Warden, the latter day Saint who clearly dominated the Mormon Trinity in East Utah.

For fully a minute Grenville waited the pleasure of his captors, and then the oldest member of the Trinity addressed him.

“What is your name, prisoner?” he asked.

“Richard Grenville, a subject of her Britannic Majesty,” was the answer, given in clear and contemptuous tones.

“You are accused of the crime of wilful murder, and will be tried in three days. Guards, remove prisoner.”

“And,” bellowed the Satyr, “if he should escape, remember your life goes for his.”

Grenville was then dragged away by his captors, who threw him into a damp underground cell, apparently cut out of the rock. Here, without food, water, or light, they left him, and, fastening the door upon him, placed an armed sentry outside.

As he was led away from the Common Hall, Grenville had noticed that the night had become clear and fine again, and through the grated door he could see the rays of silvery moonlight, and thought regretfully to himself that it was now shimmering down upon the plateau in all its radiant glory, and lighting up the anxious faces of the friends waiting for one who would return to them no more.

He thoroughly realised his awful position. The Mormon prophet’s words meant that in three days’ time Richard Grenville would be but dust and ashes, and that fearless and generous spirit of his would have returned to the God who gave it.

Even so, he had played for a desperate stake and won, but the victory was to be paid for with his life; a light price, it seemed to him, in return for the practical destruction of the Mormon town and the perfect future security of his own friends.

Grenville tried to engage the guard in conversation, but the surly brute began to whistle a tune instead of replying. Our hero then laid himself down on the rocky floor, and worn out with fatigue, and still weak from the effects of the blow he had received, slept soundly, until he was aroused by the entrance of the guard in the morning, with breakfast for him, which, it need hardly be said, was most acceptable.

The door was left open whilst Grenville ate, and the guard, who had been relieved by an officer, supported by two subordinates, seemed to be quite a different class of man from the surly warrior of the previous night. The new sentinel, in fact, commenced to chaff Grenville while he ate, saying that he was surprised that a man of his ability, who had killed so many people, should have allowed himself to be floored with a stone; but our friend laughingly responded that he never was remarkable for being thick-headed.

He then asked the officer when and how he was to depart this life.

“Oh!” said the other, “don’t be in a hurry, we’ve hardly begun to like you yet.”

And in this manner he fenced with all the questions put to him.

“And now,” said the Mormon, when Grenville had finished eating, “I am commissioned to place these irons upon your hands and feet if you choose to be at liberty in the Square here; but you are to have the option of staying in this black hole of a prison if you prefer it.”

Grenville gladly accepted the alternative of being fettered, thinking he might as well see as much of the sun as he could while he had the chance.

The day passed quietly enough; he was well fed and carefully guarded, but the men round him seemed decent people, and not at all of the bullying type.

Just about tea-time, as Grenville was sitting listlessly thinking, the dull boom of a distant explosion broke upon his ear. The guards stood still, gazed inquiringly at one another, and at that moment another smothered report followed.

Seeing Grenville smile, one of the men turned to him quickly, and asked him what the joke was.

“Why,” replied he, “I was just wondering, when I heard the first explosion, how many of the men you sent against my friends this morning would come back alive; but when I heard the second one, I came to the satisfactory conclusion that not one of them would ever see East Utah again.”

The guard looked angry for a moment, but then smiled and said, “You are a bold man; however, we shall see.”

Soon after, Grenville was hurried away to his prison, and that night he heard wailing and lamentations in the city, and knew that he had guessed the truth, that another fearful calamity had befallen the Mormons, and that his friends at the plateau were now practically safe from further molestation.

Chapter Fourteen.

Dark Days.

Leaving poor Grenville in his dismal prison, we must now return for the time being to our friends at the plateau.

Despite the awful storm which followed Grenville’s departure, Leigh and Myzukulwa kept diligent guard, for both were determined that they would never again be caught napping. One of Grenville’s last instructions to Leigh had been to keep a double watch every night, and to at once get an enormous pile of thorn-bushes up to the plateau, “when,” said he, “you can make a chevaux de frise at the top of the path, which will keep the whole Mormon nation fully employed whilst you shoot them.”

In the very height of the storm the watchers, by a flash of lightning, saw a figure approaching their position, and Leigh at once challenged, but received no reply. The next flash, however, showed him that the nocturnal wanderer was Amaxosa. The chief stalked up the path, shook himself like a great dog, and then, without saying a single word, entered the cave, deposited Grenville’s weapons on the floor, and lay down by the fire.

Now, however, this extraordinary and unexplained return penetrated the reserve of even the well-trained Myzukulwa, who, after waiting in a state of suppressed excitement for some moments to give his brother time to speak, at length burst out with a torrent of questions.

“Since when has a child of the Undi learned to desert his chief? Thou didst go out into the dark night but a few short hours ago with my father, the great and mighty warrior; where is my father now? Myzukulwa asks thee. Is he perchance dead? Then will I, Myzukulwa, the son of Isanusi, follow on after the spirit of my father, and cry, ‘Behold, my father, thy faithful war-dog of the race of Undi. Turn thine eyes, my father, towards Zululand, and wait for thy son Myzukulwa, who follows after thee, and is thy man to the death, ay, and ever after.’”

And the splendid fellow sprang to his feet, took his spears in hand as if ready to set out, and fixed his eyes, glowing with inquiry and fierce determination, full upon his brother.

For a short space Amaxosa answered not, then his words came low and sadly:—

“The great white chief my father has chased away from his side his faithful dog, and the heart of Amaxosa is sad, my brother, and his breast heavy with fear that the evil men, the witch-finders, being so many, will overcome my father and prevail against him.”

Then he broke out into a sort of funereal wail which made Leigh’s blood run cold, it sounded so like ill-omened prophecy.

“Ow, my father, why hast thou left me? The stormy night is wet and cold, but the hand of death is colder—colder, and the mists of the grave are still more wet and deadly. Let my father call his sons to him, and they will follow along the dark and fearsome path that leads to the hereafter. Inkoos, the heart of Amaxosa is split in twain, and he fears the unknown evil which will befall the mighty chief he loves.”

Leigh was about to answer the Zulu, when all of a sudden the heavens and earth seemed to meet in one vivid blinding sheet of flame, and as the astonished watchers held their breath, the very, mountains were shaken to their pro-Adamite foundations, by the explosion of the magazines in East Utah.

For a moment the countenance of Amaxosa brightened, and turning to Myzukulwa, as the flames in the Mormon town shot up towards the sky, “See, my brother,” he cried, “the great chief our father has destroyed the wicked witch-finders, and set fire to their kraals. Oh that we, his sons, might be at his side to slay the evil ones who yet are left alive! Great is the chief, our father; let us also die the deaths of mighty warriors, and let our last end be even as his.”

The girls now rushed in, affrighted by the explosion, and asked if the thunder had torn the mountain in two.

Leigh briefly explained the position, when his betrothed, who saw his anxious face, looked very grave, and poor Rose burst into tears and threw herself into Dora’s arms, crying, to Leigh’s astonishment, “Oh! my darling, my darling, I have indeed lost you for ever!”

The grim Zulu Amaxosa turned to Leigh as Rose was led away by Dora, saying, “It is even so, Inkoos; the Flower of East Utah is laid low, for she loved my father, even as his sons loved him, and my heart is very sad for her.” And then changing his manner to the old warlike tones, “And now let the Inkoos, my master, say what he wishes the sons of Undi to do. The storm is breaking, and if perchance my father has escaped from the evil men he will be here by daybreak; but whether he be here or no, the remnant of yon witch-finders will attempt to take our kraal before the sun is again at rest. Let my master open his ears that he may hear my words. With these bushes we will build a wall of thorns, which no living man can force—it must be placed below the rock, not upon it—and it shall be that when the whole army of devils are gathered in one place to uproot the bushes, then will the Inkoos my master command the sons of Undi, who will cast upon these low people the lightning-boxes—surely they are bewitched—which will tear them in pieces, even as they would have destroyed ourselves when last they came; and if any shall yet be left alive after the lightning of the thunder, then the spears in the right hands of my master’s servants shall slay them; so will the faithful sons of my father, the great and mighty lion-hearted chief, revenge his death and make smooth his path to the shades as he views the bleeding, senseless bodies of his evil-minded foes.”

After some little discussion Leigh accepted this cunning scheme in its entirety, subject, of course, to the approval of his cousin should he return.

The night wore on, and the grey dawn broke upon East Utah smiling and lovely as ever, but the poor watchers upon the rock sat haggard and anxious, for he whom they loved and waited for came not.

Almost broken-hearted, Leigh at last laid himself down and slept an uneasy and troubled sleep, from which he was awakened by the welcome news that the enemy was close at hand and advancing in considerable force. Welcome the news indeed was, for every man and woman upon that rocky shelf felt that at that moment they had but one object in life—vengeance of the most awful character for the death of him they loved beyond all earthly considerations.

Disregarding the deadly fire of the Winchesters, which thinned their numbers in every direction, the Mormons marched on, a solemn silent mass. At one hundred yards they began to fire their guns, but did no execution of any kind; and now the party above fairly hailed bullets upon them from rifles, revolvers, and from the Mormons’ own captured guns, and the ground was thickly strewn with dead and dying men.

Volley after volley the attacking party fired, till at last their salvoes dwindled down to a few sputtering shots, and then ceased entirely. The Mormons had exhausted their last kernel of powder, and now prepared to storm the plateau, sword in hand.

The matter fell out exactly as Amaxosa had foreseen, and when a full hundred of the enemy were busy with their swords trying to cut into the zareba, the Zulus plunged the two shells into the mass of living men, which was promptly transformed into an awful heap of bleeding, groaning, human pulp. A few wounded men tried to limp away, but the Zulus were down the rock almost as soon as the shells, and of one hundred and fifty men who had left the Mormon town that morning, not one returned to tell the awful tale of shame and woe.

The wounded were soon put out of pain by the unconcerned Zulus, who then brought up to the plateau a perfect mountain of weapons in the shape of guns, spears, swords, and knives, all the time chanting victorious notes over their fallen enemies, and adjuring their father, the mighty chief, to smile upon his children.

As Leigh had supposed, the Mormons had entirely exhausted their powder before they made the final charge which proved so fatal to themselves—not a single grain of powder could be found in any of their flasks. Thus ended another attempt of the Mormons upon the plateau; they had, as Grenville had foreseen, no more stomach for such desperate work as this, at present.

As soon as night fell, Amaxosa set out for East Utah, armed with Grenville’s revolvers, and determined if possible to discover what had happened to his beloved chief.

Obtaining access to the town, as before, by the river, which was now reduced to its normal state, he prowled about in the shade, running awful risks, but hearing and seeing nothing, and was just about to leave the place in despair, when observing a number of Mormons approaching, he shrank back into a dark alley between two houses.

The band he sought to avoid was met at this point—in fact, directly opposite to his hiding-place—by a detachment travelling in the opposite direction, both parties stopping and entering into conversation.

The Zulu watched them like a lynx, but what was his astonishment and even delight to behold the master whom he had believed to be dead, standing amongst his enemies; with great chains upon his hands and feet, it is true, yet still alive and well, and preserving upon his face the impress of that habitual coolness and determined bravery which had so won upon the heart of this untutored savage.

With longing eyes Amaxosa gazed upon his friend, but he was a shrewd man as well as a courageous one, and he foresaw that any attempt at a rescue could at this moment have no good result, but rather the reverse.

Just as the two bands parted, Grenville was forced up against the wall, and quick as lightning the Zulu shot out his hand and dropped a small pistol into his friend’s coat-pocket. So neatly was the action performed that our hero, who had been roused out of his sleep, and led away to be interviewed, he was told, by the Holy Three, did not know what had happened, thinking he had only knocked his side against a corner; but on moving his hand directly after, his forearm struck something heavy, and carefully feeling in his pocket, his fingers closed like a vice on his own favourite Derringer, and in an instant he realised that he had stood within a foot or two of his devoted Zulu friend without knowing it. Cautiously hiding the pistol in his breast, where his chained hands could more easily reach it, he found himself once more ushered into the presence of the Mormon Trinity.

As soon as the guards had retired, which they did at a sign from the Mormon prophet, the triumvirate commenced to question Grenville upon the number of his friends, the quantity of their ammunition, the range of their weapons, and so forth.

To all these reiterated inquiries he made no answer save an amused smile.

Then Brother Ishmael Warden, as usual, lost his temper.

“Dog of an Englishman!” he thundered, “answer or you die.”

“Death,” was the cutting reply, “is the home which welcomes brave men, the shadow which frightens cowards. Our rifles are more than sufficient to sweep from the face of the earth the few men your nation has left.”

The Prophet now interposed, and, to Grenville’s amused disgust, offered him life and magnificent terms if he would throw in his lot with them and conform to their laws, bringing his party and his weapons with them.

To all these offers he had but one answer:—

“I am the conqueror, you the conquered—it is for me to offer terms, not for you; and if I must die, why the sooner the better; but merely to save my life I will never consent to herd with murderers, thieves, and vagabonds. Listen, you three misguided men. Here are the terms Richard Grenville dictates, and think well ere you refuse them:—This country is now the property of her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India. You, the so-called Holy Three, will at once abdicate and give up your power to the young girl known as the Rose of Sharon, Queen of the Mormon people by hereditary right, returning to her all her moneys, lands, and property feloniously retained by you. To me, and to my party, as your conquerors, you will pay twenty thousand ounces of gold, and provide us with bearers for same, and guides out of the country forthwith. I have spoken.”

Suddenly Warden sprang to his feet, fairly foaming at the mouth—

“Here!” he yelled, “is your passport out of the country and direct to hell!” and levelling a pistol at Grenville’s head, he fired. The bullet missed our hero by a hair’s breadth—indeed, it grazed the side of his face—but the very next second Brother Ishmael Warden, the most universally-hated member of the Mormon Trinity, fell to the ground with a bullet through his heart, and Grenville coolly threw his pistol down, saying as he did so—

“The fellow was a dog, and like a dog he died;” then he quietly looked his remaining judges in the face, and waited their action.

Father and son had sprung to their feet in fear upon seeing Grenville in possession of a weapon, but they now quietly sat down again, and his keen eye noted that upon the face of the old man there sat an expression of indifference, whilst the younger man obviously eyed the corpse of his late colleague with unconcealed relief, and looked at our hero with absolute approbation. Another circumstance, however, was significant to Grenville, and he had not failed to notice it; this was the fact that the guards could be heard pacing up and down outside the room, never seeming the least disturbed by the pistol-shots. It was, therefore, clear that murder in the presence of the Holy Three was far from being uncommon; indeed, when some minutes later the men entered, by order, to take him away, even before they observed the body of their late tyrant, Grenville saw looks of astonishment cast upon him.

And now an honour as unexpected as it was unsought was offered to the young Englishman, for father and son, having held a private conference, the elder man turned to Grenville, and in brief but distinct language offered him the seat of the man he had just killed, together with all its emoluments.

“Nay, my son,” said he, as our friend was about to speak, “take time to think before you give your answer. I much wish to save you alive, but our laws are as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and by them the Holy Three, who have power of life and death, are obliged to condemn you, and you are too young to die. In the one way indicated we can save you. Live, then, and become the prop of our Holy State.”

“Sir,” replied Grenville, moved by the kindly manner of the patriarch as no threats would ever have moved him, “I appreciate your kind wishes, and God forbid I should insult the beard of a man old enough to be my grandsire, but I regard your faith and your own exalted office here with utter abhorrence and loathing. I have a most healthy contempt for your laws and your nation, and having the courage of my opinions I prefer to die for them.”

The old prophet eyed him sadly for a moment; then his face grew stem, and drawing himself up proudly, “’Tis well,” he said, “ere long, foolish headstrong youth, thou wilt regret thine impetuosity. At sundown, three days hence, you die by the rifle—farewell.” Then touching a small gong, “Guards, remove the prisoner;” and as he noted the looks of the officer directed at Warden’s corpse lying in a pool of blood, “Brother Harper, remove this body, and see that the Saints are notified of the decease of a member of the Holy Trinity, and the necessity of choosing out one of the elect to supply his place.”

The officer merely bowed, and the guard then removed Grenville; but as soon as they got outside the officer turned to his prisoner, asking eagerly, “Did you kill yonder fiend?”

“I did,” replied our hero coolly, “and I’m sure I never killed a greater scoundrel in all my life.”

In reply the officer seized Grenville’s hand and shook it heartily. “You are a plucky fellow,” he said; “if you have killed about half our people, you’ve prevented that scoundrel from making away with the other half. Tell me, did you shoot Radford Custance?”

“I did,” was the stern reply; “the coward struck a man who had his hands tied.”

“Well,” rejoined the other, “taken all through we owe you a debt of gratitude. It’s a shame to shoot you; but what must be—must be, you know.”

“Quite so,” responded Grenville, cheerfully, “don’t let us fall out over that; I see the necessity, I have done my work, and I am ready to go. But look here, my friend; your prophet—very nice old chap he is, too—told me I was to die by the rifle. Now as you’ve no powder, how will you work it? Shall I give you a line to my people asking them to let you have a flask of your own powder for the occasion?”

“See here,” replied the officer, “I owe you some information, and as you are to die I don’t mind telling you we have just twelve charges of powder left in the whole community, and as you’ve used up all the rest we’ve decided to give you the benefit of what little we have left—it’s a great compliment, let me tell you.”

Thus laughing and talking they drew near the prison; but though Grenville had engaged in conversation with the Mormon, he had nevertheless been straining every faculty to try and discover the whereabouts of his Zulu friend. Nowhere, however, could he see him or detect any sign of his presence.

On seeing the prisoner into his cell, the officer again shook hands, and Grenville, with the intention of giving information to his friend if he were lying hidden close by, called out, “You’ll come and see me to-morrow, won’t you? I’m to be shot at sundown on Friday, you know; so you’ll have to entertain me until then.”

“With pleasure,” was the laughing rejoinder. “Good-night!”

Grenville’s precaution was well taken, for it so happened that Amaxosa had at that instant arrived within earshot of his friend’s words, which he heard with a grunt of satisfaction, as he had feared that after causing the death of Warden—of which act he had been an unseen and exultant witness—his chief would have been executed at daybreak.

The audacity and self-abandonment of the Zulu on this night had been simply magnificent. He had fearlessly climbed to the window of the room in which he believed Grenville to be, and had watched every movement of friend and enemy with eyes like coals of fire; and ill would it have fared with the two remaining members of the Mormon Trinity had they attempted any further violence against their prisoner.

As it was, Amaxosa had watched the movements of the patriarch, and having seen him, after the departure of his colleague, open a strong box and take out a lot of papers similar to that which his friend, the Rose of Sharon, had recognised as her own, he had quietly slipped in, brained the venerable “witch-finder,” and walked off with his possessions, coolly setting the house on fire before he departed, as silently as he had come. And now his fingers itched to slay the man who held the key to his friend’s prison, but knowing that in a few minutes the whole place would be agog with the fire, and the death of the prophet, he decided to postpone his operations until the following night. “His father” knew he had been at his side, and Amaxosa was content.

Hardly had Grenville laid himself down to sleep than his prison door was torn open, and he found himself the centre of a raging mob of human beings, all clamouring for his life; and had his friend the officer not been at his side, our hero would have been lynched forthwith. Finding out at last that he was in some way accused of causing the death of the Mormon Patriarch, Grenville asked to be permitted to speak; and when silence had been obtained he briefly and succinctly related the night’s events to the crowd—omitting of course the presence of the Zulu—and added meaningly, “You say your prophet has been murdered and the treasures of the Holy Three stolen. Believe me, I would never lift my hand against an old man who could not defend himself—I murder not, nor do I rob. With whomsoever you find the treasure, let him die; but do not attempt to sully my good name, which is all that is left to me now.”

Finally, after the officer had harangued the crowd, he succeeded in getting rid of them; and congratulating Grenville on his escape, he again took his leave, when our friend once more laid himself down—not, however, to sleep at once, but to reflect on the events of the night.

Truth to tell, he was inclined to ascribe the murder and robbery of the Patriarch to one of the Mormon’s own people, for though he knew Amaxosa hated the triumvirate with a bitter hatred, yet he, strange to say, was not given to “looting” in any shape or form; and Grenville was wholly at a loss to understand, moreover, how the Zulu could possibly have obtained access to the treasure chamber of the Mormon leader. In any case, he felt that whether Amaxosa was or was not responsible for the affair, he personally had lost a friend at Court, but that the Mormon community had at the same time been deprived of their best and wisest head.

Clearly there was nothing for the prisoner to do but to watch and wait. He had made up his mind to die, but with sublime confidence in his friends he felt certain that some effort would be made to save him, and he was fully determined that when the attempt came off, it should at least not fail from lack of readiness on his part.

Chapter Fifteen.

In Durance Vile.

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.

Chapter Sixteen.

Faithful unto Death.

And now night once more descended upon East Utah, and the prisoner knew that he had one day less to live. Still, he kept up heart and remained on the qui vive for any opportunity of escape; and this at last presented itself, as he had feared and yet hoped, through the medium of his friend the officer.

The Mormons had again withdrawn the night guard, taking only the precaution of leaving Grenville’s irons on him even while in prison, and the officer, having said good-night and locked him in, quietly took his way home; but he never reached it, for in another ten seconds his brains were strewn about the roadway, his corpse thrown into the river, and Amaxosa, possessed of the key, had opened the prison and was shaking hands with his chief. He was, however, much taken aback at finding his friend in chains; still, neither hesitated to plunge into the water, which of course drowned the clanking of the irons, and both were soon outside the walls, receiving the suppressed congratulations of Myzukulwa.

Progress now proved very slow indeed, owing to our hero’s fettered state, and after a mile had been compassed in the water, unavailing efforts were made to break or loosen the chains; then, seeing that much valuable time was being lost, Amaxosa went ahead at a run to fetch the quagga, whilst his brother assisted Grenville in his slow progress towards liberty.

Never before had restraint appeared so irksome to our friend. It was certainly probable that he was considered safe in his prison for the night; but, on the other hand, should the prophet wish to talk with him—a not unusual occurrence, as we have seen—at night, or should the officer be missed by his friends, a search would of course be instituted, the hue and cry raised, and knowing that he would strike out for the plateau, the Mormons would immediately pursue him at speed. Grenville fairly groaned at the thought of being again recaught in consequence of their miserable and cowardly cunning in keeping him so heavily ironed.

In East Utah it fell out precisely as the fugitive had feared; the officer was wanted, searched for, and, as he could not be found, his prisoner was next looked up; then finding the bird flown, the community at once determined that treachery had been at work, and an hour after Grenville’s escape fifty men were on his trail, vowing deadly vengeance upon their recreant officer, whilst he, poor soul!—or, rather, all that remained of him—was bobbing up and down in the River of Death as it glided sullenly along its course, carrying to the vast and wandering ocean the message of the peaceful sky. When not quite half-way to the plateau, and just as the fugitive pair reached a narrow forest track where bush and timber was piled up like an enormous tangled wall on either side, the Mormons overtook them, and Myzukulwa faced round as a noble stag turns at bay, and determined to “die in silence, biting hard amidst the dying hounds.”

The moon streamed in at the entrance to the forest path and shone full on his magnificent warlike figure, his stern forbidding face, and his glittering spear, and for a moment the Mormons, being without fire-arms, hung in the wind. Seeing this, the Zulu shook hands with Grenville. “Let my father escape,” he said; “he cannot fight with his hands tied, and his faithful son, the child of the Undi, will stop this path—ay, and pile it up with the dead bodies of these evil dogs, even as my father slew them in hundreds by the dark River of Death; and when the whole nation of these cunning witch-finders is dead, and my father is free to come and go as he will, then let him think of his son Myzukulwa, the son of Isanusi, and take away his body from these low people, and bury him with his face towards the land of the people of the Undi. I have spoken;” and giving Grenville a long and yearning look, which made the tears start to his eyes, the Zulu turned to face the foe, and, uttering his awful war-cry, struck down two of the Mormons who had approached within reach of his spear.

Man after man went down, but coming at the splendid fellow so many at the time with their long spears, the cowards continually wounded him, and Grenville, who stood by, grinding his teeth in impotent rage, at last had the pain of seeing his faithful friend borne to the ground, fairly overpowered by numbers. Again springing to his feet, however, the Zulu dashed up to the leader of the party, who was none other than the last remaining member of the Holy Trinity, stabbed him to the heart, and with a cry of victory fell dead across the corpse of the foe, his life-blood welling out through a hundred gaping wounds, and the dead bodies of upwards of a dozen Mormons bearing ghastly testimony to the fact that Myzukulwa, the son of Undi, had died even as he had lived, as a warrior, magnificently brave and fearless, as a friend faithful unto death. Peace be with him!

The Mormons, having disposed of Myzukulwa, ordered Grenville to follow them back to East Utah, which he did, first kneeling down and taking from round the dead chief’s neck a curious amulet which he always wore, and which Grenville transferred to his own.

One of the guards, more inquisitive than the rest, asked why he did this, and our friend boldly answered, “I’m not dead yet, you know; and if I do get away, I swear to you I will kill a man of you for every drop of blood that it has taken fifty of you cowards to draw from yonder brave and true-hearted man.”

For a time his captors preserved impassive silence, only hurrying him along as fast as he could move whilst hampered by his fetters, and then at length he was asked “what had become of the traitor.”

“What traitor?” asked Grenville.

“What traitor? why, your late guard of course.”

“Mormon,” was the stern answer, “I might by admitting the truth of your suspicion strengthen the position of my friends in your eyes, but I cannot dishonour the memory of the brave and upright dead. Your officer’s corpse will be found in the River of Death, whither the hand of the Zulu sent him. He was far and away the best man you had, and his loss is an infinitely greater one to your community than that of the wretched Prophet, as you call him, whose corpse you are at so much trouble to carry now.”

When at length the party reached East Utah, Grenville was at once re-introduced to his prison, which was guarded by a patrol of ten men, who were kept on duty for the remainder of the time of his imprisonment, with drawn swords in their hands—such terror had the warlike address of the little party at the plateau struck into the craven souls of the Mormons; indeed, so much afraid were they of losing their prisoner that a grave consultation was held as to whether he should not be killed at once, to prevent any further risk arising from his escape. This, however, they dared not do without the consent of the whole nation, the Trinity having ceased to exist; and for the sake of saving one day it was of course foolish to think of convoking a general assembly of the Saints.

Chapter Seventeen.

Vae Victis!

For the rest of the night Grenville lay racked with mental agony. Before another dawn came stealing over the Eastern Mountains he was to die a violent death; still, the thought of that did not trouble him nearly so much as the loss of his faithful Zulu friend. The fact that he himself had been unable to lift one finger to assist Myzukulwa against the common foe was gall and wormwood to Grenville. Again and again he pictured to himself the anguish of those at the plateau when they learned not only of the entire failure of the plot for his own release, and the consequent necessity of abandoning him to his fate, but also of the death of one of their trusty defenders. Had the Mormons been now aware that Winfield was dead, Grenville felt sure they would have delivered an immediate and probably overwhelming attack upon the spot occupied by the little band of invaders; and he could find it in his heart to wish that a few more explosive shells had fallen into the hands of his party, whose position would then have been impregnable.

Soon after dawn the prisoner fell into a troubled sleep, from which he soon awoke to find himself crying and moaning bitterly. Directly after this, however, nature re-asserted her claims, and he slept long and peacefully, dreaming that all had ended quite satisfactorily, and that he, poor fellow, was at liberty. When aroused to eat his breakfast, this impression was strong upon him, and he astounded the guards by asking if the order for his release had come down.

They first smiled, and then said significantly that he must not expect that before sundown.

Grenville then asked where he was to be executed, and was told about a dozen miles from East Utah, near to the western bridge.

“Why there?” he inquired.

“Oh! only because our graveyard is there, and we first bury the Holy Three,” was the answer, which certainly appeared the reverse of reassuring.

“Will you bury me when dead?” asked the prisoner, who seemed to take a gruesome interest in all the details of his own fate.

“Of course we shall,” replied a guard; “what did you think we’d do?”

“I was afraid you’d crucify me like those poor devils near the great stairway; and I didn’t enjoy the idea,” was the reply.

The men looked wonderingly at one another, and, as Grenville thought, with awed faces, as if asking what new and unknown horror this was; but not one of them had a word to say.

The prisoner now inquiring who in East Utah was at the head of affairs, was soon apprised of the fact that it was Ishmael Warden’s own brother, a man as much feared and hated for his cruel villainies as that worthy himself had been. Clearly there was no mercy to be looked for from him, and one of the guards, who appeared well disposed to Grenville, told him as much.

“I see,” replied he. “Well, if he is such a scoundrel as it’s easy to see you think him, I hope my friends will wipe him out for you at an early opportunity. I’d make another attack on the plateau if I were you, and get Brother Warden to take a front place and try the quality of those excellent bomb-shells of ours. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, my friend; I should never have tried on such an unsportsmanlike game, unless you had first treated me to it, and the result just serves you right.”

In the afternoon Grenville was led out; his fetters, much to his delight, were taken off; and, escorted by a guard of a hundred men, he was marched away to the place of execution.

Arrived there, the prisoner found it to be a perfectly level forest glade about half a mile across—open sward in the centre, with the forest fringing it on all sides but one. The one remaining side was, however, guarded by the dreadful River of Death, which at this point flowed with a slow hoarse murmur between rugged cliffs which, nearly three hundred feet above, seemed to brood over the stream as it glided beneath. If it be an accepted fact that still waters run deep, then the depth of the River (the chasm being some thirty feet across) must at this point have been considerable; whilst, to add to the dreary solemnity of the place, the dark shadows of the trees in the background seemed to keep friendly and untiring watch over the graves of the Mormon dead.

On looking round him, Grenville came to the conclusion that positively the entire community of both sexes had assembled in this forest glade, partly to swell the funeral cortege of the Holy Three, and partly, no doubt, drawn by curiosity, or by vengeful feelings, to see the very last of himself personally.

Of the burial rites our friend saw but little, as his guards kept the unbelieving Gentile at a respectful distance from the remains of the holy dead; but the moment the funeral was over, there arose from the whole of that vast crowd one mighty earth-shaking yell for vengeance on the common foe. Men, women, and children alike lent their voices to this fearful cry; and well, in sooth, they might, for there were few families in the comparatively small community of the latter day Saints which had not recently been rendered houses of mourning by one action or another of the prisoner or his friends.

On hearing the cry of the people thirsting for his blood, Grenville started; then, drawing himself up proudly, he took a long farewell glance at the setting sun, the distant mountains, the dense dark forest, and the green and rolling veldt, and then, walking to the spot indicated by his guards, the prisoner folded his arms across his breast and faced his executioners with haughty contempt in every line of his expressive and handsome countenance.

Just as the last few rifles which alone remained loaded in East Utah were about to be discharged at him, at one dozen paces, he suddenly held up his hand, and his clear voice went ringing across the veldt and into the silent forest glades.

“I, a subject of her Britannic Majesty, Queen Victoria, hereby protest against this murderous outrage committed against the English flag, under which I and my friends have fought since our entry into this country.”

Again there was a death-like silence, almost instantly broken by the incisive words of command—

“Ready! Present!”

Grenville now gazed unflinchingly right into the muzzles of the rifles; an unearthly calm had come over him, and briefly, yet earnestly, commending his soul to God, he waited the fatal word, blind and deaf to all else but the rifles, which seemed to exercise a curious fascination upon him.

Then, just as he heard the final word of command, “Fire!” he was conscious of a shriek, and someone seized him round the neck, threw their person upon his breast, and endeavoured to drag him down.

Too late! Ah, God, too late! The fatal tubes vomited a sheet of angry flame; the deadly messengers sped forth upon their cruel errand; and a body, lately instinct with life and health, lay writhing on the greensward, gasping in the death agony.

But whose body? Bewildered and confused, called back to life when he believed himself already dead, Grenville bent over the person who had so nobly and uselessly given a precious life for him, and uttered a wild and bitter cry of anguish as he recognised the lovely Rose of Sharon. Dropping on his knees, he raised the apparently inanimate corpse in his arms, crying—

“Rose! Rose! speak to me, my darling.”

And instantly her eyes opened, and a sweet and radiantly lovely smile seemed to break up the stony countenance before him—to chase away the very shadows of death and leave her face even as that of an angel.

“Dick, dear Dick,” she panted, “I have saved you. Kiss me, my own dear love, and—good-bye.”

And even as poor Grenville bent over her the sweet young girl’s face stiffened; there was one brief spasm, and all was over.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and the spirit to God who gave it. Weep on, brave heart, thou shalt go to her, but she shall not come back to thee. Yet, even so it is well, and hereafter thou shalt know that for thee and for her all roads lead alike to peace and rest.

Reverently Grenville kissed the marble forehead of this loveliest flower of East Utah, and then drew himself up, facing his judge and executioners; and dashing the scalding tears from his eyes, he threw back his head, and his face became as the face of an angry lion, whilst his voice rang over the darkening plain and echoed amongst the forest’s secret aisles.

“Cowards and traitors,” he cried, “villains who shoot and crucify their womenkind, Richard Grenville is not dead yet—nor will he die until every craven soul in East Utah has died miserably. Ay! for every drop of blood shed by yonder innocent girl ye shall die a thousand horrid and fearful deaths. I swear it, by the Eternal God above us.”

Then, dashing from the spot, he threw himself upon the quagga, which Rose had left close by, and, riding up to Brother Warden, struck him a heavy blow across the face with his open hand, and next, as the whole Mormon nation went at him, sent his strange mount flying down the veldt, and headed directly for the yawning chasm.

A wild astonished cry broke from the crowd behind the escaped prisoner as they saw him urge the quagga to speed, and put it fairly at the awful leap before it. The gallant little brute seemed to know what was expected of it, and went at the chasm with the most unflinching pluck. In the rays of the setting sun man and horse could for one moment be seen outlined against the sky, and for a brief instant there was a dead silence, broken by one tremendous shout, “Over—he’s over!”

No! one more struggle, gallant brute—one more effort, brave Grenville! Alas! it was not to be.

The quagga reached the further bank with its fore hoofs, sank gradually back, and, in spite of all its rider could do, was sliding down, down into the yawning gulf, when Grenville flung himself from its back, grasping at a bush which overhung the edge of the precipice, and in another second the sure-footed, nimble little animal was trotting away over the veldt, unharmed.

But Grenville? Alas! it was hopeless; he felt the bush tearing out by its roots, and realised in one bitter instant that Rose’s sublime sacrifice had been all in vain. At this moment he swung face outwards, and in the gathering gloom confronted his enemies on the opposite side of the chasm. Unrelenting to the last, he shook his fist at them in grim defiance, and the next instant the Mormons saw his body cutting the air feet downwards as it passed with the speed of lightning the three hundred feet which lay between it and the awful horror of destruction below. Just then the sun went out, and plunged everything into utter tangible darkness.

Chapter Eighteen.

More Dark Days.

We must now return perforce to the little party at the plateau, and observe the actions of its members which led up to the awful dénouement portrayed in the preceding chapter. After the departure of the Zulus, Leigh had spent a dreadful night of it, the suspense and anxiety of these long silent hours almost driving him mad.

It was the last cast of the dice, and he well knew that if his beloved cousin was not rescued now, he never would be, for the failure of one such audacious attempt as this would put the Mormons strictly on their guard, and any further trials would simply lead to battle and murder and sudden death for all his party.

His state, therefore, may be better imagined than described, when Amaxosa returned alone in the grey dawn with lagging steps and dejected mien, and without even raising his head to look Leigh in the face, quietly said, “All is lost, Inkoos.” Then with an exceeding bitter cry, “Alas! my father, why did I leave thee? Alas! my brother, the people of the Undi has lost its leader, the oak-tree has lost its strongest branch, and I, Amaxosa, am the last surviving chief of the ancient race. Ow, my brother, why didst thou leave me? Thou, Myzukulwa, the chief of the Undi, wast a man after my own heart; thou wast swifter than an eagle, and stronger than a lion. Pride of the Undi, why hast thou left us? Thou art gone, my brother, though thy glory has been even as the sun in his noonday brightness; who that saw thee yesternight would have believed that thou couldst thus have died? Yet hast thou fallen like a warrior, and thrice one hundred foes of the evil men, the witch-finders, have gone before to do thee service and to clear thy path to the shades. The face of the sun is hidden by storm clouds, and the heart of Amaxosa is very heavy. Pride of the Undi, how art thou fallen!”

The Zulu then sat himself down, with his face between his knees, and never moved until the girls, who had been awakened by his arrival, put in their hurried appearance and tearfully begged him to tell them all.

Pulling himself together, the Zulu related the events of the night, adding his own account of his arrival at the glade with the quagga, only to find Myzukulwa lying in a great lake of gore, surrounded by the Mormons he had killed.

Leaving the animal tied to a tree, he had hurried after the party, but could not overtake it; he had, however, seen Grenville’s returning footprints on the grass, and knew he had been retaken and carried off to the Mormon stronghold, whence it would be hopeless to again try and rescue him.

Amaxosa had then returned and buried his brother, taking good care to leave the Mormons lying where they had fallen; and having performed the last kind offices to his dead, he had at once returned to the plateau with the news.

“Did my cousin not foresee the possibility of his recapture?” asked Leigh.

“Ay, Inkoos, that did he, and I now see that he even feared it; he told me to say to you that, if need be, you would do well to try and make more lightning-boxes (bomb-shells), as he thought another attempt would be made on this strong place when he was dead. Much more, therefore, will it be made now that the cunning men, the witch-finders, know of the death of the chief, my brother. Let the Inkoos, then, follow my father’s advice, for it is very good.”

“But what of him?” asked Leigh angrily; “are we to desert him and leave him to die like a dog?”

“Inkoos,” was the ominous answer, “do thou but say the word, and Amaxosa goes willingly to die with his father; but if he leaves the rock, then will the Rose and the Lily fall into the hands of these evil men, and thou Inkoos wilt be but as we are, even amongst the dark and misty shadows of the long-forgotten past.”

Rose listened to all this, and more, with flashing eyes, and heard the Zulu say that at sundown that night the man she loved would die, and die without knowing that she loved him; and she stole away to her little cave again, and sat down to cudgel her poor little brains for a way to save him.

That day had been indeed a day of utter prostration and misery to those at the plateau, but early in the afternoon Leigh had resolved at all hazards to go into ambush near the Mormon town, taking Amaxosa with him, in the hope that they might cause confusion amongst the executioners by a well-directed and unexpected attack, and thus give his cousin one more chance for life and liberty.

Of course this plan necessitated leaving the plateau to the females; but Dora Winfield, armed with a Winchester repeater rifle, was considerably more formidable than she looked, and it was the reverse of likely that any attack would be made until Grenville had been finally disposed of.

Leigh and his faithful friend had accordingly lain in wait all evening, a quarter of a mile from the town, at the unusual quiet of which they wondered, and had of course seen nothing, and returned to the plateau broken-hearted, late at night, only to find Miss Winfield nearly distracted, and to receive the dreadful news that Rose was missing.

The girl had stolen quietly away, leaving behind her the package of valuables, on which was written in pencil, in a school-girl’s hand, “For dear Dick, with Rose’s last and dearest wishes.”

The poor girl’s infatuation for his cousin was already known to Leigh, through the medium of his betrothed, and he now quite broke down; his sorrow, however, was nothing to the lamentations of the warlike Zulu at this fresh and overpowering calamity. “Ow! my little sister,” he cried, “why host thou left thy brother? Thou wast to me the chiefest among ten thousand friends? Alas, alas, for the lovely flower of Utah!”

Slipping down the rock, Amaxosa quickly followed the young girl’s tracks, and soon ran out of sight, only to return shortly after with the news that she had evidently taken the quagga, and ridden off at speed towards the far west.

The perceptions of this sweet little woman had been keener than the affectionate cousin’s, keener than the crafty Zulu warrior’s; all her faculties had been sharpened by intense and self-denying love, and instinctively guessing that the Mormon burial-ground would also form the place of execution, thither she had driven her strange mount as fast as she could ride him, arriving, as we have seen, just in the nick of time to save Grenville’s life for the moment, at the cost of her own.

Quite at a loss to understand what object Rose could have had in taking the direction she had done, the party prepared to spend a wretched night, and just before midnight Amaxosa pointed out to Grenville that the Mormon city, which had lain in utter darkness all evening, was brilliantly lighted up, and very shortly a merry peal of bells came floating like music across the veldt, carrying woe and weeping to our friends, for they realised that this was a paean of triumph over their own departed comrade, and probably also over the capture of poor little Rose.

Early in the morning—in fact, by grey dawn—the Zulu was down the rock, building an enormously thick zareba of thorn-bushes, to be fixed on top of the plateau to constitute an additional, and by no means despicable, defence.

The day passed in anxious watching, and in attempts to make shells as suggested by Grenville, and that night Amaxosa actually again entered the Mormon town, and, keeping practically under water all the time, learned the whole crushing story of the disaster to both the friends he loved.

There was now nothing left, he said, but to revenge them, and on regaining the plateau, he was, along with Leigh and Dora Winfield, discussing what best to do next, when suddenly casting his eyes into the darkness by his side, the courageous Zulu, to Leigh’s utter astonishment and consternation, uttered a frightful yell and rushed away to hide in the sleeping cave, whilst at that instant his beloved and lamented cousin Grenville calmly strode into the firelight, with the body of Rose in his arms, and, placing his precious burden tenderly on the rock, turned and offered Leigh his hand; but the other, with a stifled exclamation of joy, threw himself on Grenville’s neck, whilst Miss Winfield sobbed on his shoulder, and Amaxosa, who had recovered his equanimity, timidly grasped the outstretched hand of “his father,” and finding, as he said, that it was indeed the great white chief himself, and no spook—for he had a great objection to spooks (ghosts)—he fairly danced a war-dance, only moderating his exuberance to utter further laments over the body of poor Rose.

Chapter Nineteen.

Retribution.

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 débris 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.

Chapter Twenty.

The Last of the Mormons.

On the following morning Grenville was admitted to an Indaba (council) with the chiefs of the Undi, and learned that Amaxosa had induced them to come through the “great black hole” by promising them endless plunder; and they now waited, they said, for their “great white father” to lead them to the Mormon town.

At this juncture our friend had fearful evidence of the difficulty of controlling the savage instincts of these wild natives. Their one desire was to put all that remained alive of the Mormons—man, woman, and child—to a cruel death; but this Grenville would not hear of, and the discussion waxed so hot that it was only with infinite difficulty he restrained their lust for slaughter, and obtained a promise from the chiefs that if a wholesale and unconditional surrender and capitulation was made they would spare every soul now left alive in East Utah; but the Mormons must leave the country within two days, and should receive safe conduct through the Undi territory. Of their goods and chattels they might take whatever Grenville saw fit to let them have, but the country should be the property of the Zulus, under “their Mother, the Great White Queen; and in it their father, the great and wise white chief, the renowned and invincible warrior, would ever find a home in the hearts of his faithful children, and hands ready and willing to help him in his battles with the cunning witch-finders, or other low people against whom he might wish to make war.”

The end of all this was that Grenville and Amaxosa, accompanied by a score of active Zulus, went down to the Mormon town next day—the intervening time being occupied in burying the dead, to prevent the place from becoming plague-stricken, an idea abhorrent to the Europeans when they remembered that in a peaceful corner close by their dear ones—Winfield and Rose—slept their eternal sleep under the protecting shadow of the great trees, where the little brook, which yesterday ran red with rivers of human blood, now sang its peaceful lullaby, and threaded its sinuous course through the forest and out into the rolling veldt, looking like a tiny riband of moving glistening silver.

On arriving within eye-shot of the town, Grenville was surprised to notice an unusual quiet about the place; and on hailing the place to surrender, received no reply.

Apprehensive of a surprise, the band gradually approached and cautiously entered the town, only to find it untenanted by a living soul.

The Mormons had evidently taken flight hurriedly, fearing the vengeance of Grenville and his Zulu allies, for the streets were strewed with their household goods in every direction; and on further examination it proved that the whole community had crossed the river by the central bridge, which they had closed against pursuers, and had betaken themselves to the great stairway with multitudinous ladders.

On discovering this voluntary capitulation, Grenville gave a sigh of relief, for he had feared lest some overt act of imprudence on the part of the Mormons should draw down upon them prompt and unsparing vengeance on the part of his bloodthirsty allies, when he well knew that man, woman, and child would have gone down “in one red slaughter blent.”

The main body was soon called up, and that night, for the first time for many months, our friends slept with a genuine roof over their heads.

The Zulus, under the direction of Amaxosa, sacked the town, taking all they wanted, but bringing to Grenville all the gold they came across, which was to be the share of his party—and a very fair quantity they found, too—and as there was still some little time before the setting in of the rains, Grenville and his cousin visited the river near their old Table Rock, and going higher up the stream found it, as poor Winfield had predicted, a veritable El Dorado.

“You see, Alf,” said Grenville, “you’re going back to England, and you mean to be married; and take my word for it, old chap, you’ll get a dusting from your governor for getting spliced without his consent. Not that I would advise you otherwise; you’ve got a sweet little woman for a wife, and may God bless you both; but remember that every thousand pounds you can take home with you will lessen the old man’s wrath, so take my advice and carry in a decent ‘pile.’”

For ten days the cousins toiled, whilst Dora Winfield resided with them in their old quarters at the rock; and when the time came for them to say farewell to East Utah, they had amassed an enormous quantity of the precious metal, for which their friend Amaxosa gladly provided bearers.

Grenville said a last farewell to the grave of the girl who had loved him so well, and turned away with an aching void in his breast. The grand self-sacrifice of this poor young creature had stirred his noble nature to its very depths, and had he a hundred lives he would willingly have relinquished them all to bring her back again to her place, which, alas! would henceforth know her no more. As he moved dejectedly on towards the western bridge, a hand was laid upon his arm, and the voice of Amaxosa softly said, “Will my father turn aside and do the final honours to him who loved him, and who died for him?”

Without a word Grenville turned and followed the chief, only to find, in the very centre of the Mormon town, the body of Myzukulwa—or, rather, what was left of it—placed upon a funeral pyre, surrounded by a hundred of the chiefs and headmen of his tribe.

Seeing he was expected to say something, Grenville stepped forward, and laying his hand upon the cold brow of the dead warrior, he said—

“Amaxosa, my brother, children of the ancient race of Undi, my faithful sons, here you behold all that remains of him who was the bravest man in a nation where all are warriors and mighty men of renown. As he lived, so he died, with his face to the foe, and his victorious foot upon their stricken necks. My brothers, let us live as he lived, so that when our time comes we may die even as he died—ever faithful to the death—Myzukulwa, the son of Isanusi, the son of Undi.”

Not another word was spoken; the warriors filed slowly past the corpse, and the last man lighted the funeral pyre as all left the town, leaving it in lonesome possession of the ashes of the mighty and unforgotten dead; but looking back some time later, Grenville saw that Zulu artifice had evidently set fire to the town in several quarters at once, for East Utah lay behind him one mass of smoke and flame, forming a glorious monument to the memory of the departed chief whom such a fiery couch for his final sleep befitted to a degree.

The descent into the bed of the river was accomplished with difficulty, but once down, the party—Dora mounted on the quagga—pushed steadily forward and reached the outer world just before the sun set, all heaving a sincere sigh of relief on finding East Utah at lost shut out from view, and belonging only to the memories of the bitter past and the shadows of the hereafter.

Grenville that night asked Amaxosa how he accounted for the herds of game going through the water and all along the dark tunnel. For reply the chief signed to our friend to follow him. Gliding to the river-brink, they sought cover, and soon Grenville by the light of the moon saw several head of game enter the water and apparently commence to browse there, and he at once realised what was going on as the animals, feeding on the mosslike weeds which floated on the surface, gradually entered the tunnel and disappeared from view.