"Zero the Slaver" (continued 2)

Just as a crowd of white men came streaming across the ground, and as Leigh was about to raise his rifle with the view of checking their advance, a voice behind him said, “Give me a turn at that, Alf; I long to get even with yonder blasphemous slaving hound. He tarred and feathered me one day.”

Leigh knew the voice, and turning quickly, confronted his long-lost Cousin Dick. One warm hand-grasp was all, then the tears started to his eyes, as he relinquished his gun and strode away.

Dick Grenville! But alas! how changed—feeble, emaciated, and hollow-eyed, covered with filth, and clad in the skin of a leopard. Leigh had actually taken his own cousin for a very ordinary-looking black man, but the old spirit, unbroken by Mormons or slavers, was still there—the eye as true, and the hand firm as a grip of steel. Springing forward, he shook the weapon over his head, and his voice went ringing across the rock-bound stretch of veldt, as he called to the leader of the advancing crowd, “Crewdson Walworth, I promised you this a year ago, and here it is—a Grenville ever keeps his word.” The rifle vomited its deadly contents, and the man, who was none other than Kenyon’s quondam acquaintance, the “Swell” of Durban, went down, with a bullet through his heart, and pitched head over heels like a shot rabbit.

Kenyon coolly followed up the shot, and the repeaters fairly opened a lane in the approaching crowd, who fired wildly into the bush without doing any serious damage, and in another moment, to the number of about twenty, were busy scrambling up the rock, whilst Leigh, Grenville and Kenyon emptied rifle and revolver into their ranks at point-blank range. Suddenly Leigh heard another well-remembered voice. “Let my father,” it said, “give Amaxosa a little space, that the child of the Undi may revenge himself, and slay these evil-minded men;” and moving to one side, Leigh saw his oft-tried comrade-in-arms, the proud young Zulu chief, walk coolly to the very verge of the platform, with a mighty mass of rock poised in his powerful arms. For one brief instant he stood thus, while his keen eye played over the hated forms of his late masters; then with a wild, earth-shaking shout he plunged the enormous missile right into the midst of the enemy where they were most closely massed together, bearing them backwards to the ground a bleeding, senseless pulp of human flesh and bones.

The revolvers quickly accounted for the few men who were left alive, and a minute later the re-united cousins, led by Kenyon, and followed by their triumphant “Impi,” were descending the rock on its outer side, and making for the friendly cover of the forest, their only loss being one Zulu, who was shot through the body, and whom necessity compelled them to leave behind at the point of dissolution.

A hasty consultation ensued when the whole party had reached the forest, and both Leigh and Kenyon heard, with unmixed satisfaction, that the enemy would be under the necessity of following directly upon their trail, there being absolutely no path by which he could get round or cut off the retreat of the fugitives. Grenville also added that his friends had come in a fortunate hour, for had Zero himself been present, or had Crewdson Walworth not fallen so early in the fray, all would have had their work cut out to get away from the enclosure with whole skins. So weak were the late captives, that travelling was of necessity very slow indeed, or at least it seemed so to men fleeing with the knowledge that re-capture meant prompt and certain death.

Owing to the villainous treatment he had received, poor Grenville was in a pitiable state, but after a twenty minutes’ rest, during which his cousin fed him with biscuits steeped in brandy, he made another effort, and Kenyon having speeded on ahead, and chased down their bearers with a hammock, the party soon had Grenville safely and comfortably housed in their temporary lodging on the mountain side.

Here the rescued one assured them that the whole band might safely lie hidden for a day or two during Zero’s absence, as both white and black slavers held the spot in superstitious veneration on account of the presence of the old hermit—for some such thing Grenville declared their mad friend of the morning to be. Half priest he was, half doctor, and partly recluse. Grenville knew naught of him beyond the fact that he had occupied his present location, and been looked up to by the natives as a species of god, long years before ever Zero and his following of scoundrels overran the country side. For his simple necessities he received weekly supplies at the hands of the surrounding negro chiefs, who held him to be the greatest fetish in the land, and believed that he could kill or cure them, ruin their crops, or give them rain and fruitful seasons at his will; not that he, poor old man, had ever attempted to inoculate them with any such belief, having, on the contrary, always treated them as kindly as if they were his own children. To Grenville he had been extremely good, and had seemed much impressed with him, because our friend hod once again refused to buy his life at the prohibitive price of an introduction into the Mormon brotherhood.

Kenyon had tried to give Grenville in few words the history of his cousin’s bereavement, fearing that a natural, yet abrupt, inquiry after Lady Drelincourt would greatly distress poor Leigh. The detective found, however, to his astonishment, that Grenville was in possession of full particulars of the cowardly double murder, Zero having boasted to him of the commission of the deed as a meritorious action, performed in revenge for the doings of their own party in East Utah. The slaver-chieftain had, it appeared, possessed himself of the persons of Grenville and of Amaxosa and some thirty of his warriors, by a skilfully-executed night attack, in which he was supported by upwards of three hundred armed whites and a horde of natives.

The story of the captives after this date was written in letters of torture and of blood, and when his cousin, to try him, asked Grenville how soon he would be in condition to turn his face homewards, the old spirit blazed out once more, as he vowed by all he held sacred that he would never leave the locality until Zero and his villainous following were completely wiped out and stamped flat, even did he know that his own life would in consequence be forfeited.

Needless to say, both Leigh and Kenyon heard these determined expressions with undisguised satisfaction, for these two had already come secretly to a like unanimous decision, and being now assisted by Grenville, with his perfect local knowledge, and backed by several white men, in addition to the redoubtable Amaxosa and a score of his picked warriors, who only required a few days of rest and good food to fit them for anything at all in the fighting line, both men felt much more sanguine of accomplishing the end they had in view, and of meting out stern retributive justice to the villainous slavers, and the double-dyed murderer who acted as their chief.

Asked to relate how he had executed the hieroglyphic upon the face of the rock within the kloof, Grenville explained that he had been bound at the “tail-end” of a line of half-a-dozen Zulus, and thrown upon the ground at the very edge of the cliff, whilst the slavers were bringing up the rest of their wretched captives by moonlight, and getting a sharp stone in his fettered hands, he had hung, head-downwards, suspended over the gulf in perfect safety, knowing that the weight of the men above would be a sheet-anchor for him. To Grenville’s dismay, however, he found, when his work was done, that he could not regain his position on the rock, and just as he was losing consciousness with the rush of blood to his head, he was rescued by the slavers, who flogged him soundly for what they took to be a deliberate attempt to rob them of his valued person by the committal of cold-blooded suicide.

Cautious as ever, Grenville could not be persuaded to rest or sleep until he had seen Leigh and Amaxosa on guard, and had warned Kenyon to relieve the Zulu chief in two or three hours, as the poor fellow had had, he said, an uncommonly rough time of it lately, and the diabolical and senseless ill-usage to which he had been subjected, must have told its tale upon even his iron constitution.

The rest of the white men and Zulus, all of whom Leigh had been able to arm out of his ample stores of weapons, were already sleeping such a sleep as they had not enjoyed for a full year. To Grenville’s delight, he found that his cousin had got a spare Winchester rifle for him, and with this and a pair of his favourite revolvers, he felt fit and ready for anything once again.

Chapter Eight.

Zero.

Though quietly settled down for the night, our friends had yet, however, to learn that they hod not altogether done with the Mormon-cum-Slaver fraternity, who evidently could not rest satisfied, or allow the day to close, without making a particularly abominable attempt to get even with the fugitives and their new-found friends.

In the very dead of night, as Leigh and Amaxosa stood on guard at the mouth of the cave, conversing in an undertone, they were treated to a new and extremely objectionable sample of the qualities of their detested foes. The fire behind them inside the cavern had completely burnt itself out, and close to its ashes lay Grenville, sleeping heavily, whilst the other members of the party were scattered about the cave on beds of moss or dried grass. Not a sound of any kind betokening the presence of a foe had the anxious watchers heard, when all of a sudden both were startled into action by an angry hiss just behind them, followed by the well-known and universally dreaded “skirr” of a rattlesnake, and quickly lighting a torch of twisted grass, the pair saw the horrid reptile gliding down the cave towards them, evidently making for the entrance. Seizing a native sword, Amaxosa rushed at the snake with a wild shout. Instantly the reptile stopped in its tortuous course, and reared itself to strike, but the active Zulu was altogether too quick for it, and, with one fell sweep of his keen weapon, drove its head clean from its body, when something was heard to roll with a hollow, bell-like sound upon the rocky floor.

As Amaxosa’s voice went ringing up the arches of the cavern, each occupant had sprung to his feet in an instant, with arms in his hands, and Grenville was himself the first to step forward and pick up the article, the fall of which had caused the ringing noise referred to. He gave but a single glance at this hollow, silver ring, for such it was, and then handed it to the Zulu chief, with the one word, “Apollyon!”

“Ay! Inkoos,” was the answer, “I saw the shining circlet ere I struck, and the sight lent strength to my arm, for well I knew that if the blow did not go home I should not live to strike again. Glad am I, my father, that yon evil beast is dead, for I ever feared it more than I feared the evil ones themselves.”

Grenville then explained to Kenyon and the wonder-stricken Leigh that this horrible reptile was a pet snake, kept by the white woman they had that day seen in the enclosure, and who, going by the name of Zero’s wife, was at this time the dominating female spirit of the Mormon Community in Equatoria, as the adjacent slave-town was called. This infernal nineteenth-century harpy had made the snake, “Apollyon,” her peculiar care, and by continual practice upon ailing or dying slaves had trained it to follow a trail, and to fix itself upon any person of whom she gave it the scent, quite as surely, and infinitely more quietly and fatally, than even Zero’s own particular bloodhounds. It was self-evident that the reptile had been commissioned to destroy Grenville, and would most certainly have succeeded in doing so had not an all-merciful Providence willed otherwise. Unfortunately for the snake, it had drawn its loathsome coils right across the spot where the fire had recently been blazing, and, although the wood had quite burnt itself out, the floor of the cave was still absolutely red-hot, and the whole stomach of the snake was in consequence terribly scorched and blistered, and the sudden agony had no doubt caused it to emit the warning hiss which had put Amaxosa on his guard, whilst the severe nature of its injuries had probably contributed, in no small degree, to the success of his attack, by rendering the motions of the reptile unusually slow and extremely painful. Anyhow, it was a miraculous and providential escape, for which all felt uncommonly thankful, and Leigh heard with unconcealed satisfaction that the snake in question was positively the only one so trained which the vindictive Madame Zero had in her possession.

This unpleasant adventure had fairly killed all chance of sleep for that night, so after our trio of friends had lighted their pipes, Kenyon drew Leigh and Grenville on one side out of earshot of the rest of the party. “And now,” said he, “let us seriously consider our position, for it is one of very great danger; but first, give me your attention, Leigh, whilst I fulfil my promise and relate to you the history of Zero so far as it is known to me, after which your cousin will doubtless cap my information with a few interesting and instructive details regarding the life and opinions of the greatest scoundrel on the face of the earth.

“Zero, whose real name by the way is Monckton Bassett, is, I am ashamed to admit, an American by birth, and hails from New York, where his father originally figured as a respectable and a fairly successful foreign merchant. Master Bassett was an only and a precocious child, and having at the early age of twenty-three succeeded in breaking his poor mother’s heart by the wild wickedness of his ways, and ruining his foolishly indulgent father by wheedling him into bearing from time to time the expense of a systematic and unsuccessful gambling career, next threw in his lot with a villainous card-sharper named Weston Harper, through whose instrumentality he first came under the notice of the police, being, as I proved at the time, very nearly concerned in a burglary committed upon the house of a wealthy New Yorker, to whose daughter he had formerly been engaged. This gentleman, however, Mr Harmsworth by name, had abruptly put a stop to the embryo love affair when he accidentally learned the life that his would-be son-in-law was leading. The burglary was not the worst of it; for Mr Harmsworth was deliberately and unnecessarily shot dead in his bed, and there was every reason to believe that young Bassett’s hand had fired the fatal shot, though I could never absolutely bring the murder home to him. However, we fixed the burglary on this precious pair, and both got a ten-years’ sentence, but escaped by bribing the gaolers, and successfully made their way to Salt Lake City, after which, like a fool, I ceased to bother my head about them. This was six years ago you see,” added Kenyon, “and I wasn’t quite so well posted in the ways of criminals as I am now supposed to be. Well, gentlemen, about a couple of years after this I myself became affianced to a sweet young girl named Roxana Kenyon, my own cousin on the father’s side; and, as I was rapidly rising in my new profession, we had every prospect of being united at no distant date; but, to save time, I had better carry my story forward another two years—that is, bringing it to the year 1879, when our wedding-day was fixed for the 15th of April. Our house was taken and furnished throughout, and everything was duly arranged; but, on the night before the wedding, my bride disappeared as completely as if the very earth had opened and swallowed her.” For a moment the stern detective faltered, and, overcome by his conflicting emotions, buried his face in his bands, quickly, however, recovering himself and continuing his story. “There,” he said impatiently, “it was all over, and the rest is soon told. On Roxana’s bed, which had not been slept in, I discovered a scrap of white paper with a dead black circle skilfully drawn upon it—exactly similar, let me remark, to that hieroglyphic found upon the body of the late Lady Drelincourt, only that in my case, upon the reverse side of the paper, there appeared the words: ‘Zero gets even with Stanforth Kenyon over the Harmsworth burglary.’ I knew the writing well, and the hand that wrote it was the hand of Monckton Bassett. Without loss of time, I beat up his career subsequent to the burglary and prior to the abduction, and discovered through trusted agents that he had been absent from the New World for nearly three years, and after having returned to Utah, possessed of considerable property and accompanied by the woman he calls his wife, had again gone abroad, and was then believed to be somewhere in South Africa engaged upon business connected with the community of the Latter Day Saints.

“I at once sent in my resignation to the Chief of Police, who, however, refused to accept it, giving me instead a three years’ holiday to prosecute my search, as well as many kindly offers of assistance both monetary and official. Declining the former, I sailed for Cape Town as soon as ever I could possibly get away, and finally worked round to Durban, where, in a lucky moment for all of us, I tumbled up against Leigh’s advertisement, and, recognising in Driffield an old friend of mine, professional instinct prompted me to call and pump him with regard to Grenville the missing; but it was only after the lawyer had made me a most generous offer with the object of inducing me to lead a search party into the Interior, and had given me the history of the adventures of you two in East Utah, that a sudden inspiration gave me the clue to Monckton Bassett’s whereabouts.

“Zero, I said to myself, means just nothing at all: why then has this man—who, by the way, thinks no small beer of himself—adopted such an extraordinary name?

“Next, is there any place or district in Africa bearing the name of Zero. No! Stop! then like a living ray of light upon my mental darkness was flashed the answer—the Line—the Equatorial Line—Number Nought—that is Zero. I wired New York at once, obtained the latest particulars of his known movements, and then, with complete faith in my good angel, I shut up my notebook, went right off to Driffield and engaged myself in the search both body and soul. And now, my friends, I am here, and you, Grenville, are free, and all I ask is that you will both wait long enough for me to settle my little account with this infernal scoundrel, and then Westward Ho! for all of us.”

“One moment, Kenyon,” interjected Leigh; “I claim this fiend from hell as my personal property. Think, man, you have but lost one who, it is true, was almost your wife; but I, ah! God, he owes me everything—wife, child, my love, my life—my very trust in Heaven, and for this I hold my right to prove upon his vile body to be before the right of any living man;” and, strung to the highest pitch, by the very worst and strongest passions of human nature, these two firm friends fairly glared at one another in the thoughtless anger of this intense moment.

“Peace! gentlemen,” said the attentive Grenville, “peace! Remember I too have a right to act in this matter, if aught of wrong received upon this earth can give the right of revenge upon a fellow-man. Nay, Alf, I am not seeking to enforce my claim. God’s hand rests upon this curse of Central Africa, as I told him to his face, and when his time comes he must go even as we; yet do I fervently pray that one of ourselves may be the fleshly instrument selected to cause his going.

“And now, Kenyon, how called you your affianced wife?—Roxana, was it not?—Roxana—ay, an Asiatic name signifying, if I mistake not, the ‘Goddess of the Morning.’ It must be the same—hear me out, old fellow,” as Kenyon rose, fairly trembling with excitement. “A young white woman, known amongst the natives by a name signifying ‘The Star of the Morning,’ and reputed to be very fair to look upon, was brought over from Madagascar to Zanzibar by Zero and his so-called wife, and was a prisoner in their hands until just before the time that I and my men were taken captives by his band. He was then working his way up here from the coast—but during his absence from camp one day, his zareeba was stormed by a horde of Arabs, who swept out the best half of his property, including the white girl and upwards of one hundred repeating-rifles, the latter having been purchased and carefully smuggled in for the use of his men.

“When Zero returned, he behaved, I heard, like a creature bereft of his senses; he had, of course, expected to make ‘big money’ out of the sale of the girl, and to reduce the Arabs themselves with the Winchesters, whereas the boot was now very much on the other leg. I also heard that he cautiously followed the tracks of the spoilers, but found that the girl had persuaded them to take her to Zanzibar, where she was quickly liberated through the kind agency of the British Consul, and was supposed to have left for America. Zero then made tracks for home, and came upon our hunting party in an evil hour, and the rest you know.”

Kenyon gripped Grenville’s hand in silence, and the tears chased one another rapidly down his cheeks. “God bless you, old fellow,” he blurted out at last: “it was well worth saving your life, if only for this—I was fast becoming a brute, and you’ve given me back love and hope, and with them my faith in Heaven.” Grenville and his cousin rose quietly and left him alone with the cruel memories of the darksome past and the bright hopes of the near future, and nothing in all their lives became them better; but as they walked away Leigh put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder: “Good old Dick,” he said, in a tone of anguish, “you have no hope nor help for me.” Then his voice changing to a positive hiss—“You may talk till you’re black in the face, my boy, but I’ll never leave this spot until I’ve sent back yonder cursed scoundrel to the hell from whence he came.”

Before Grenville could answer, however, Kenyon called to the twain to return, and, sitting down again, Grenville gave his companions a pretty full account of the abominable cruelties of Zero and his “wife,” and of the way they were devastating the country in almost every direction; and Kenyon now learnt, to his surprise, that an enormous slave-trade was done in the very heart of Africa, and that so far from trafficking in “Black Ivory” direct with the Coast, either east or west, the slavers’ market for human flesh and blood was found principally amongst tribes which lay to the west of Equatoria, and as the purchase money—when not provided in ivory—usually consisted of pure rock-gold or gold-dust packed in quills, the slaves were in all probability passed on to Dahomey or Asyanti, whence they no doubt gravitated northwards and ultimately found their way to Morocco, travelling incredible distances and constantly changing hands.

Towards the rising sun Master Zero’s operations were of a restricted, and, to him, an extremely unsatisfactory nature, as his position was everywhere hemmed in by hostile Arabs, who kept with a strong hand the country they had originally secured by artifice, and to whom, as followers of “the one True Prophet,” Zero was doubly hateful, on account of his Mormon connections.

The man was himself absent at the present time, personally conducting an important “slave-drive,” but might be expected back in the course of two or three days, when the whole of his captives would be passed on to the native King, whom the slavers were now busily entertaining, and who was, in fact, simply waiting for Zero’s return to “make his trade” and march westward with his purchases; and until this matter was satisfactorily disposed of, Grenville was inclined to believe that no serious attempt would be made to interfere with themselves, but once let this fiend in human form get clear of the pressing business in hand, and he would promptly turn his attention to their own little account and would give them no rest until the affair was settled, one way or the other.

Chapter Nine.

The War Trail.

As the question had now purely resolved into one of warfare, offensive or defensive, Amaxosa was called into council, in order that a definite and feasible plan of action might be formulated.

Leigh and Kenyon were disposed to stay just where they were, as the place seemed well-adapted for defence, had an ample supply of water, and was, at the same time, sufficiently close to Equatoria to be handy in the event of their party finding it desirable to sally out upon Zero’s position.

Grenville, however, was distrustful with regard to the cave itself, as he half-suspected that Muzi Zimba the hermit had a secret method of entering the Mormon Town without going all round by the forest; and if such a way existed, Zero would be quite certain to know of it, although his followers might be kept, in ignorance for a purpose; and, of course, it would never do for our friends to get themselves fixed between two fires.

The Zulu chief listened intently to all the arguments pro and con, but never opened his mouth until Grenville, addressing him in the Zulu tongue, asked him to express his opinion upon the matter under notice.

“Can my father,” he said, “tell his son Amaxosa, whither the Black One (Zero) has journeyed?”

“Surely, my brother,” answered Grenville, “didst thou not hear when but yesterday we stood yonder tethered like oxen for the slaughter that he had compassed thrice three days’ travel towards the east, and that his bloodhounds could not return in time to gnaw the flesh from our broken bones?”

“Ay, Inkoos,” was the reply, “I heard the words, but yet believed them not. Hearken! my father, when the Black One went forth, he went at dead of night, and with him went the savage dogs and but one hundred men with guns. Think, then, my father, for well thou knowest that did the Black One journey but one day towards the rising sun without a full impi at his back, he would be eaten up by the Arab tribes, who dwell outside this land of witchcraft, and who hate him even as we do. More, my father, I know that the men lied when they spoke, for only yester morn did I see two of the snow-white message birds arrive, and they came from the mountains of the distant southern lands.

“Hearken to my words, oh, chiefs! and if ye follow them, doubt not that all shall yet go well.

“To-morrow night, when the moon rises, will the Black One rest beneath the cool shadow of yon distant peak; let us be there, oh! chiefs, and he shall sleep the sleep that never wakes in life.

“Thus shall the matter go—thou knowest well the place, my father—the evil ones will come in from the southern lands—the Lands of Lakes and Rivers—and will set their kraal beneath the great white mountain, and towards the setting sun, at the spot in the deep hollow where there ever flows a spring of clear, sweet water, where is a mighty wall of rock on this side and on that side, and a hill hard to be climbed towards the further north; and it shall be, my father, that when the evil ones, filled with food and worn with the toil of the day, have entered into the trap, and have lain them down to rest, that we will turn from its course the flowing waters of the great river which runs on the path of the rising sun, and will fill the place with weeping, and with the bodies of dead men.

“With ten of these low black fellows (Zanzibaris) will I turn the river, and with those that remain, and with the spears and guns, shalt thou, my father, safely keep the northern hill, and it shall be that ere the arrows of the dawn glance upon the snows of the great white mountain, the evil ones shall be stamped flat and eaten up, and the foul carcase of the Black Master of Evil himself, shall be but food for the vultures and the wolves. I have spoken.”

The Zulu’s idea was, unquestionably, a very fine one, and promised to rid our friends of their arch-enemy, together with a hundred of the very vilest of his following at one fell swoop, and it was therefore determined that the plan should be adopted in its entirety, their own party thus taking the initiative.

If the scheme failed, the little band would be really no worse off than they were at the present time, whilst if it succeeded—and with the cunning of the Zulu at its back, it certainly had every chance of success—the campaign would be capitally inaugurated by drawing the lion’s teeth at the very first attempt. Zero, it was conceded upon all sides, was the one man to be feared, and could they but dispose of him out of hand, the Mormon-cum-Slaver fraternity would be like a ship without a helm, and would very soon find itself in unpleasantly rough water.

Our friends calculated that the slavers, on discovering the near approach of the water, would first drive their black captives up the hill, and after Grenville’s party had allowed these to pass and save themselves, his men would keep the road against the slavers and fiercely contest the narrow passage hand to hand, with axe and spear, rifle and pistol. It would be a stubborn fight; that was certain, for, granting that the slavers had expended a few men on their distant foray, they would still be in the proportion of two to one; and if they once penetrated the ranks of our friends, it would be all up with the little band, as they would instantly be driven back by sheer weight of numbers, into a ready-made watery grave of their own providing.

At dawn, therefore, the entire party breakfasted hastily, and, after leaving in the outer cave a few articles likely to be of service to the friendly old hermit, made their way quickly down the hill, and striking well into the fog-banks at its foot, steered a straight course for the distant mountains; Grenville and the other rescued white men, who were extremely feeble, being carried by the Zanzibaris in hammocks, so as to husband, as far as possible, what little strength they possessed.

The Zulu knew his ground thoroughly, and ere the mist had been completely sucked up by the sun, had got his followers some miles on their way, and travelling smoothly along the shallow bed of a small stream, whose overhanging banks provided a capital safeguard against prying eyes.

Naught of interest occurred that day, and by keeping the men hard at it, so as to shorten the next day’s journey, a good forty miles was knocked off before the tired wayfarers lay down to snatch a brief spell of rest until the tardy appearance of the moon provided them with sufficient light to proceed by, when the little band again took the road and kept moving until the waning light put a welcome period to their labours, and sleeping a heavy, dreamless sleep until the sun once more awoke them to the weary toil and travel of another burning tropic day.

A glorious sight now met the wondering eyes of our friends, for right before them and distant perhaps a score of miles across the veldt, rose the giant fabric of the wished-for mountain, now sharply defined in every detail of its vast and massive grandeur. Straight up into the very heavens themselves shot one glorious, glittering peak, whose perfect beauty was beyond all earthly praise: around its lofty summit the everlasting snows had grouped themselves like gleaming, flashing jewels in the radiant crown of this mighty cloud-clad monarch of the equator. Wreaths of filmy, fleecy mist drifted slowly here and there across his distorted shoulders, which were seamed in every direction with yawning fissures, whose awful blackness was rendered even more striking by contrast with the unmatched, glittering glory of this solitary inland peak, whilst the green and rolling veldt, sweeping away unbroken to the horizon on every hand, formed a fit setting for this lovely, lonely diadem of God’s own fashioning.

Soon, however, the heat-clouds settled down upon the mountain, veiling from sight all but its lower vast proportions, upon whose rugged sides no vestige of vegetation could as yet be seen.

With but a short rest at mid-day, our adventurers pressed on, in spite of the stifling heat, and reached the spring of which Amaxosa had spoken, about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the fighting brigade instantly threw themselves down to rest and sleep in the grateful shade cast by the giant walls of overhanging rock, which stretched grimly upwards on either hand, their barren wildness relieved only here and there by a few odd patches of trees and bush.

Grenville himself kept guard, and Kenyon at once proceeded down the pass and climbed some way up the mountain side to keep a sharp look-out over the southern veldt, whilst Leigh and Amaxosa turned their faces towards the river, and closely scrutinised its banks for quite half a mile beyond the further exit of the pass ere they discovered a species of creek, or inlet, only two score yards from the edge of the track, and in every way eminently suited to their requirements. Leigh then returned to the spring, and promptly dispatched ten of the Zanzibaris, with their implements, to join the Zulu chief, and to lie hidden until they received his further orders.

The scheme, artfully as it hod been planned, had one weak spot in it, which gave both Grenville and Kenyon much serious thought, and that anxiety was caused by the certain knowledge that Zero had with him his three magnificent bloodhounds, which, token in conjunction with their vile master—who was, perhaps, more of a brute than the noble animals themselves—composed the most formidable quartette in Equatoria. Grenville had already warned his friends not to waste their bullets on the dogs, but to leave the brutes to him, as should the slavers once get within range, he would not raise a hand against them until he had first settled with the canine element His great fear was, however, that the hounds would warn their masters of the presence of the little band the moment they struck the scent. The way through the pass being, however, mostly composed of rock, and a heavy gang of slaves going on in front, it was, of course, more than possible that the scent would be rendered too faint to attract anything but a mere passing whimper from the great dogs.

When the party had had perhaps three hours’ rest, a shrill whistle was suddenly heard from Kenyon, and looking upwards Grenville saw him making the agreed danger signal.

Half-an-hour later the American rejoined his friends, and reported that a vast mob of human beings had come within range of his field-glass during the last hour, and were now a score of miles away and heading direct for their own position in the pass. News was quickly sent round to Amaxosa, who, however, soon appeared and carried off the chief, who, next to himself, stood highest among his own men. Him he carefully inducted into the mysteries of the “Zulu irrigation scheme,” as Kenyon styled it, and then returned to the main body, where he considered “his father would need his arm”—the fact, of course, being, that the splendid fellow was simply spoiling for a good fight with his late tormentors.

Chapter Ten.

“No Quarter.”

Hardly had our friends perfected the details of their scheme for surprising the slavers, than darkness rushed upon them like a tangible thing. All, however, were much too excited to sleep, and, as soon as the rising moon gave sufficient light, the whole party removed itself beyond the steep crest of the northern hill, and impatiently awaited developments, or, as the Zulus have it, “fought the fight of sit down.”

It had been agreed amongst them, that the slavers were to have a clear hour allowed them from the time of entering the pass, to permit of their settling down quietly for the night, and this hour would of course, be employed to advantage by the men in charge of the “water department,” whilst the defenders of the hill had of necessity to take their cue from the movements of the enemy as occasion might arise.

For once in a way, matters fell out even better than the most sanguine had dared to hope. The slavers trooped quietly in, the dogs failing to show the slightest sign of uneasiness, and as soon as the slaves had been watered at the spring, the wretched creatures, to the number of about three hundred, all carefully manacled, were mercilessly driven on towards Equatoria, guarded by half a score of heavily-armed and powerful-looking ruffians, whilst Zero and the rest of his following encamped for the night beside the spring, taking no precautions whatever against surprise, and obviously considering themselves perfectly safe in their own happy hunting-grounds, relying, no doubt, upon the dogs to give them timely notice of any hostile approach. Nothing could have been better than this arrangement; for had the miserable slaves been detained in the hollow of the pass, it would have caused our friends very considerable difficulty to separate the poor unoffending creatures, from their sworn vengeance upon Zero and his host of scoundrels, whereas now, every shot would have a definite and decided aim.

After the dismal procession had filed out of sight, the time hung very heavily on the hands of the anxious watchers on the hill, and none seemed to feel it more keenly than did Leigh. He fidgeted first with his rifle, and then with his revolvers, until Grenville and Kenyon made sure that one or other of the weapons would explode, and prematurely unmask the whole affair, when matters would in all likelihood get uncomfortably warm for their little party.

Leigh was possessed of but one desire, and that was to get sight of Zero, when none who watched his face as Grenville did, could doubt that there would be bloodshed.

Slowly an hour dragged out its weary length. Below all was still as death, the slavers were fast asleep round their fire, and as a gentle zephyr was breezing in from the south, there was no scent to disturb the repose of the great dogs, who seemed to appreciate the warmth of the fire, equally with their tired masters.

All at once the death-like silence was rent by a thundering explosion, which seemed to fairly shake the mighty fabric of the mountain, and to rend the very vault of heaven itself, whilst in the twinkling of an eye, every man amongst the slavers was on his feet, gun in hand, and gazing inquiringly at his nearest comrade.

Hardly had the Titanic echoes ceased to answer one another amongst the mountain fastnesses, than a wild cry went up from the wretched men beside the spring, as they saw the angry river come foaming and dancing towards them—a frothing, bubbling sea of glancing foam—as it flew along down the narrow pass under the weird rays of the ivory moonlight.

But a single look the slavers gave; then, turning as one man, the whole band rushed blindly for the hill, but scarcely had they commenced to climb, when the crown of the ascent seemed to fairly open before their astonished eyes in a glancing sheet of flame, as Grenville gave the word, and two score angry rifles poured their deadly contents into the surging mob of humanity but fifty yards below, whilst a chorus of shrieks and imprecations went up to heaven, and men rolled over in every direction, dead and dying, thus testifying to the fatal results of the discharge.

The slavers paused aghast; but, with a wild, deep-throated bay, the noble hounds sprang forward, undaunted by the presence of the foe—useless bravery, for Grenville kept his word: the moonlight was good enough to shoot by, and three shots from his Winchester accounted for the three great dogs in much less time than it takes to tell.

Meantime the water was rushing forward like a living thing, and the slavers, forced onwards by it, dashed up the hill in a positive frenzy of fear, paying no attention to their leader, who vainly shouted to them to keep their heads, as the water would take some time to rise the height of the steep ascent. On they came in spite of another blinding discharge, which absolutely singed their faces and thinned their ranks by quite one-half, and then, hand to hand, the combatants met with a mighty roar. Hither and thither swung the fight in all its ghastly details, the crash of the axes, and the rapid detonations of the revolver-pistols, almost drowning the war-cries of the Zulus as they wreaked their righteous vengeance upon their late tormentors. Soon, however, friend and foe were so closely blent together that even Grenville—who kept out of a scrimmage in which he was yet too weak to take his accustomed part—found it extremely difficult work to get in a single shot without danger to his own people.

The Slaver-Chief was unquestionably a brave man, and in his fighting cry there was inspiration for his band; but what could he do when three such men as Leigh, Kenyon, and Amaxosa would, if they could help it, fight neither with small nor great but with himself only; whilst Grenville, meantime, watched, lynx-eyed, for a chance of putting a bullet through him?

Four times did this determined trio charge the slavers, axe in hand, and Zero himself at last fell upon a heap of his companions, whose living bodies had lately been his only rampart against these vindictive and invincible foes.

Upon the fall of the Slaver-Chief a mighty shout went up from the little band of friends, and the few remaining slavers immediately threw down their arms and begged for mercy. Mercy! Fools! What could they expect? A Zulu shows no mercy to a beaten foe, and if beaten himself he asks none. Moreover, the foe in this case richly deserved all he got, for he had been guilty of every species of senseless and abominable cruelty under heaven, and merited to the full a far more dreadfully retributive justice than the sudden and almost painless death which he received at the hands of his relentless executioners.

So much for one side, now for the other. Four of the white men rescued from the Mormons by Leigh and Kenyon, were stone dead, as were three Zanzibaris, who had stayed on the spot in an unaccustomed and ill-fated excess of valour or curiosity. The remaining white man, a sturdy young Highlander, named Duncan Ewan, had received a nasty scalp wound, whilst five of the Zulus were lying about very severely cut up, though all would recover with careful treatment. Of the three champions, Amaxosa was the only one who had received any hurt, and that was superficial, a bullet having grazed and laid open one side of his face. Hastily our friends shook hands with one another—and with themselves, so to speak—and then Leigh and Amaxosa, supported by all the available Zulus, started off at speed upon the trail of the departed slave-gang, leaving Grenville and Kenyon (together with the frightened Zanzibaris, who were cautiously returning by twos and threes from the four winds of heaven, whither they had fled when the first shot was fired) to get the wounded into a place of safety; for the water was still rapidly rising, and once over the crest of the hill, it would simply sweep the whole plain towards the north, unless something could be done to stop its wild career. Quickly getting the wounded men out of the pass, and some little way up the mountain side, Grenville and Kenyon next made a careful examination of the old course, of the river beyond the pass, and found that if they could blow up one mighty piece of rock, the river would immediately descend through the medium of a waterfall into its own original bed. The pair, accordingly, returned to the scene of the fight in order to collect all the gunpowder belonging to the deceased slavers; but hardly had they reached the spot than Kenyon, to Grenville’s utter astonishment, let out a bitter curse. “Fooled,” he cried, “as I’m a living sinner—fooled again by that cursed fox!” and turning quickly, as a mocking laugh grated upon their ears, Zero was seen by the pair standing upon a rock at the northern outlet of the pass, perhaps a hundred yards away, and taking aim at them with his rifle. Grenville’s Winchester went up like a flash, and the two reports blended into one. The slaver’s bullet whistled harmlessly past their ears, and at the same instant he was seen to drop his gun, and clap his hand upon his left shoulder, and then, shaking his fist angrily at Grenville, he hurled a vile curse at the two friends, and, springing down from the rock, was at once lost to view amidst the gloomy shadows of the mountain.

Whilst Grenville collected the powder, Kenyon promptly set out in pursuit of the slaver, but could find no trace of his whereabouts. The fellow’s claws were, however, cut for the nonce, as there was blood upon the rock where he had been standing, and his rifle was still lying there, the hammer having been cut clean away by Grenville’s bullet. So that wounded, unarmed, and unsupported, it was a shrewd count that they would easily get him when daylight came, and get him they must, for he clearly was a dangerous, as well as a very slippery, villain.

Our friends soon succeeded in blowing up the rock, and preparing a new outlet for the water, and this was not accomplished any too soon, as by the time they had collected the arms, which were everywhere strewed about the confined field of battle, the water was already lapping gently against the upper edges of the steep ascent, and in another ten minutes it was racing down the track, and shooting clear over the beetling wall of rock, thus returning to its own natural bed in the shape of a magnificent waterfall, whose enormous volume, as it fell, waked a mighty echo, which would henceforward cause a perpetual and thundering murmur amongst the rocky glens of the mountains, as if nature were herself complaining of this irremediable mischief, wrought by the puny hand of careless and unthinking man.

Hardly had Grenville and Kenyon regained the mountain side, than the report of firearms was heard away across the veldt, and the quick flashes of Leigh’s repeating-rifle could be distinctly seen. In a few short minutes all was again as quiet as death, and the twain looked anxiously at one another, yearning to know with whom the victory rested, when all at once, through the still night air, and right across the rolling veldt was wafted the wild war-cry of the children of the Undi, proclaiming the successful accomplishment of another act of retribution, and the absolutely triumphant success of Amaxosa’s daring scheme for the destruction of the foe—a success which was marred only by the single detail of the temporary escape from their vengeance, of the Slaver-Chief himself.

Grenville and Kenyon next lighted a large fire to apprise the detachment out upon the veldt, of the exact position of the party upon the mountain side; and this having been done, Kenyon, who never travelled without a complete surgeon’s “kit,” proceeded to attend to the injuries of the wounded men, and soon had the poor fellows as comfortable as circumstances permitted.

Shortly after this, the Zulu, Umbulanzi, in charge of the “water department,” and to whom belonged no small share of the credit of this successful affair, made his appearance, accompanied by all but two of the Zanzibaris, who, under his direction, had acted in the capacity of sappers.

It seemed that Amaxosa had fortunately foreseen the possibility of this detachment hitting upon a bed of rock, and thus having their work stopped, and the whole scheme completely ruined, and he had, therefore, supplied his confrère with a 56 pound keg of powder out of Leigh’s ample stores, and finding that a great slab of broken ironstone rock was spoiling his little game, this Zulu had coolly slapped the whole keg under the edge of this obstruction, and blown the entire affair sky-high, and along with it two of the Zanzibaris, whose unfortunate curiosity had prevailed over their accustomed discretion.

“Haow Inkoos,” he said, speaking rapidly to Grenville in the Zulu tongue, “it was indeed a very great sight, and never will Umbulanzi see the like again. The rock shot up to the heavens on high, and with it went the low black fellows. The great stone came down again, my father; but, though I waited long for the low fellows, they came not, and as the cowards must have run away for good, Umbulanzi did not stay.”

The moon was waning fast, but the stars still held the curtains of night over the wide-stretched whispering veldt, when the victorious party of Amaxosa, accompanied by the slave-gang, was heard approaching from the north, and upon their arrival it was found that the little band had not suffered further in any way, having satisfactorily “rushed” the remaining slavers, and disposed of them every one.

The anger of Leigh and Amaxosa, however, knew no bounds when the cunning escape of the arch-enemy was made known to them, and both bitterly repented that they had not made sure of the fox by knocking him on the head, and registered a solemn vow to commit no further mistakes of the kind, should Zero fall into their hands again. Clearly, however, nothing could be done until dawn of day, and it was decided, therefore, to let the rescued slaves sleep in their irons, and to wait for daylight, in order that their captors might gain some little insight into the character of their new charges. So, having set a watch of Zanzibaris, overlooked by Grenville himself, the tired army laid itself down, and was soon fast asleep, whilst the rescued slaves, who had been told the good news that they would be liberated in the morning, chattered to one another throughout the livelong night, like a troop of monkeys in the forest. With the first gleam of daylight, Leigh and Amaxosa were afoot, and without even staying to dispatch a mouthful of food, threw themselves upon the bloodstained trail of the Slaver-Chief, and were almost instantly lost to sight amongst the dense fog-banks which overhung the surrounding veldt in every direction.

Chapter Eleven.

“The People of the Stick.”

First thing in the morning the slaves were unshackled, and, after all had breakfasted, they were interviewed through the medium of one of the native “guides,” and our friends found to their horror that Zero and his band of fiends had fallen upon this people, in the night, and after picking out 300 of the finest among the men, had effectually stamped out the remainder of the tribe, both root and branch, by fastening them all, young men and maidens, old men and children, in their huts, and then setting fire to the village, lining the palisades with their rifles meantime, lest any should break out and escape, to bring down upon the murderers swift and unsparing vengeance at the hands of a great and warlike native people, who lived near at hand, and who were closely related to the stricken tribe.

They seemed an intelligent and brave people, and would no doubt have given a good account of themselves if Zero had not taken them utterly unawares in their huts by night; and the men, who were as a rule fine, athletic-looking fellows, declared that they would follow the white men to the death, if they would but lead their party on and entirely eat up these slavers, whom they denounced as monsters of cruelty—one man stating that the great bloodhounds had been deliberately fed by Zero himself with the flesh of several baby boys, who had been roasted alive, and he added that, if the white men would not go with them, his own people would carry on the war, even if they had to fight with empty hands.

This was so far good, but our friends were utterly at their wits’ end regarding arms for their new allies, who clearly did not understand the use of guns, whilst the few spears and axes saved from the slavers deceased in the fight of the previous day, would not equip one-fourth of their number.

On being asked, however, what weapons they would prefer to use, the men replied proudly that they were called “Atagbondo” or “the People of the Stick,” in consequence of their habit of fighting only with long-handled clubs, which they could cut for themselves as soon as forest land, similar to their own, was reached by the party.

These clubs, it appeared, formed their sole weapon of offence, but they also used—as our friends found at a later date—an instrument of a most peculiar nature, and of which their white leaders could not at first comprehend the utility.

The instrument referred to, was a neatly-fashioned piece of extremely hard wood, from a yard to a yard and a half in length, thick in the centre, where it contained a cavity to protect the hand, and tapering to both of its slender-looking extremities. At its widest part it was but some few inches broad, was fitted with a thong in which to slip the hand, and generally gave one the idea of a modified quarter-staff with an elongated bulb in the middle. The instrument was called a “quayre;” and when this people went into battle the warriors tapped the quayre against the shaft of the club and produced a rattling volume of sound, which could be heard a mile away, and was supposed to strike terror into the heart of the foe; whilst the quayre itself, which they handled in a most expert fashion, was used not only to ward off blows struck at the persons of the men with native axes, clubs, or similar weapons, but even in parrying spear-thrusts—a difficult operation, which they performed, however, with no little dexterity, whilst the quayre was at the same time less than one-third of the weight of a very ordinary fighting shield.

On being informed that the white men were about to hold a council of war, and would like them to be represented, the chief of the Atagbondo stepped forward. Probably forty years of age, this man was a magnificent specimen of his race, who are all very much above the average height of Englishmen. He stood, probably, six feet two inches, but whilst he was not quite so tall as Amaxosa he possessed a more heavily built frame, being broader and deeper in the chest, and more massive in his appearance generally. Taken all through, he was, perhaps, the more powerful of the two men, but what the Zulu lacked in point of muscle was more than compensated for by the symmetry of his build, and his consequently superior activity; besides, this was relatively speaking, a man of peace, whilst the fierce Zulu was a man of war from his youth up, trained in every art and artifice, and inured to hardships and dangers by the experiences of many a well-fought field.

The Chieftain of the Stick had an intensely “Negro” face, but without its ordinary stolidity, and, in common with his warriors, had his head shaved with the exception of a sort of central tuft, which somewhat resembled the “scalp lock” of the North American Indians, and through this tuft was thrust, in the case of every man, a miniature quayre, beautifully carved in ivory, standing, in point of fact, for the “totem” of his tribe, and proudly indicating the race from which he sprang.

The chief—whose name, by the way, was “Barad,” or “The Hailstorm”—in a few well-chosen words, thanked the white men for releasing himself and his people, and then declared his intention of putting his party entirely into the hands of our friends, until vengeance had been taken upon the wicked men “who dwelt on the frontier of the far north, and amongst the mountains of Muzi Zimba the Ancient.” Our friends were more than surprised to find that their new allies both knew and reverenced the friendly hermit who overlooked Zero’s location, but found that beyond sending the old man a yearly “hongo,” or tribute, they knew nothing of him, but regarded him as a “very big fetish.”

Amaxosa and Leigh now returning empty-handed and disgusted from their search after Zero, a council was called to receive their report. This was as short as it was unsatisfactory. The slaver had been unquestionably wounded by Grenville’s bullet, but it was, unfortunately, one of those wounds which act upon a flying foe as they do upon a running deer, and simply make him leap the faster.

The pair had followed the track of the fugitive for close upon ten miles, beyond which it was useless to go, as they now knew positively from the “sign” that Zero had unearthed a canoe from its hiding-place amongst some rocks near the river, and had gone off down stream, and was, therefore, completely out of reach for the time being.

Smarting with fury at the crushing defeat he had sustained, and maddened by the loss of both friends and plunder, the party might safely reckon upon the slaver delivering a crushing attack upon their position at no distant date, and it only now became a question as to whether they were sufficiently strong to go out and meet him in the open, or had better choose out a likely place on the mountain side, and make it good, until the loss on the side of the foe provided them with a chance of wiping him out “one time,” as the natives say, with a well-delivered sortie.

True, the little band had now the not-to-be-despised support of three hundred able-bodied men, all thirsting for vengeance upon the common foe; but then, these men were entirely unarmed, whilst Zero, besides mustering close upon a thousand of his own rogues, well supplied with guns, would in all probability be supported by the native King already referred to, backed by several thousands of his followers, all armed with bow and spear, in the use of which they were said to be both bold and skilful.

Ultimately, therefore, our friends decided to stay where they were, or, rather, to select a strong position on the mountain capable of a sustained defence, and in the interval which they might calculate upon prior to an attack, they determined to employ themselves in an endeavour to arm, after their own peculiar fashion, the warlike People of the Stick, and to induct the most intelligent amongst them into the mysteries of the rifle. This last would necessitate some little expenditure in the way of ammunition; but, as the party had abundance of powder taken from the vanquished slavers, they were fortunately in a position to afford this outlay.

Towards evening, the indefatigable Amaxosa, who had gone out on a tour of inspection, returned with an exceptionally favourable report, and the first thing on the morrow the whole band removed to the rocky fastness selected for their occupation by the keen-eyed Zulu chief, and all hands were at once set to work to excavate, to build earthworks, and in many other ways to amplify the already considerable natural defences of the place, whilst the Atagbondo flayed every bush and tree within a scoro of miles, to furnish themselves with offensive clubs and defensive quayres.

Chapter Twelve.

Fighting the Flames.

For fully three days did our friends occupy themselves in the very necessary work of perfecting the defences of their stronghold on the mountain, and in teaching a picked dozen of the Atagbondo the use of the rifle, with which weapon they soon became fair marksmen, in the native acceptance of the term.

On the fourth day, however, a discovery, trifling in itself, convinced the party that, so far from having been forgotten by Zero, they were at present occupying the whole of his earnest attention.

The incident in question was the accidental notice taken by Kenyon of a small bird wheeling round and round their position; closer and closer it came, until all could see perfectly well that it was a white carrier pigeon, bearing a message. Finding, however, that the party did not whistle it in, the bird grew shy, and quickly took to flight Leigh raised his rifle with the intention of bringing it down, but Kenyon stopped him just in time.

“Don’t shoot, old fellow,” he said; “I’ve a fancy to let that bird severely alone. I want to know just where it’s bound for at the present moment.”

Watching very carefully, the pigeon was at last seen to enter a clump of bush about half a mile up the mountain side, and scarcely ten minutes later, either it, or a similar bird, left the same cover, and winged its rapid way due north.

The inference was plain, and our friends looked blankly at one another; but, ere they could speak, the Zulu chief had summoned Umbulanzi and directed him to take two men, thoroughly search the suspected spot, and put to the assegai anyone they might find lurking there.

Grenville and Kenyon would have much preferred taking the spy—if spy there was—alive, but the fear that his presence would cause the injured People of the Stick to overstep all restraint and become guilty of some fearful act of barbaric cruelty, decided them to let the man fight it out to the bitter end for his own life, rather than to permit him to fall into the hands of a raging mob of naked savages, whose tenderest mercies, maddened as they were by their frightful wrongs, would be cruel indeed.

Anxiously our friends watched the progress of the three Zulus up the mountain, and all at once Leigh took a fancy to follow them, and was soon swinging up the slant with rapid steps, accompanied by Amaxosa and Kenyon.

The Zulus reached the spot and plunged into the cover, from which there instantly arose a tremendous hubbub, and a moment later all three reappeared, fairly driven out by half a score of white men, and fighting furiously with their spears against several of the slavers, who were armed with axes, whilst the remainder stood by eagerly seeking an opportunity to use their guns.

Promptly Leigh and Kenyon pitched forward their rifles, and two of the slavers instantly rolled head over heels down the mountain side, whilst at the same moment, uttering a wild shout of encouragement, Amaxosa dashed forward like an arrow from the bow, and in another second was side by side with his warriors, their nervous arms dealing out death and disaster with every sweeping blow. When Leigh and Kenyon reached the platform upon which this tragedy had been enacted, there was but one of the enemy left alive, and he was engaged in a terrific hand-to-hand combat with Amaxosa. All at once the Zulu’s axe broke off short in the haft, and the ruffian slaver rushed at him with a victorious shout. Springing lightly to one side, however, the active chief easily avoided the deadly stroke aimed at him by his opponent, whom he seized the next instant from behind, with his powerful hands pinning the man’s arms to his side, and before anyone could interfere, or even speak, with one mighty effort the fierce Zulu fairly swung his hapless foe from the ground, and then dashed him down full upon the rock, on his bare skull, which was crushed in like an egg-shell, the awful blow, of course, killing him on the spot, and an instant later the mountain side echoed to the triumphant notes of the famous Undi war-chant.

“Oh, my father,” said the great Zulu, contemplating his handiwork with satisfaction, and speaking to Leigh, “it was a great fight; few could have slain the man with empty hands. Sleep softly, ye evildoers; the Lion of the Undi bids you sleep!”

Carefully examining the cover from which the discomfited foe had sprung, our friends found that it consisted of a shallow cave in the face of the rock, the entrance being masked by low bushes, and a thick undergrowth of wild vines. In this hiding-place Kenyon discovered a basket containing three white and two black pigeons, whilst a note, evidently the one just received, lay upon the rocky floor. Eagerly pouncing upon this, the detective quickly mastered its contents, which were simply as follows:—

“The second detachment will arrive at midnight to-night.—

“Zero.”

Clearly it was not, therefore, a mere question of spying upon their position; but the evident intention of the cunning slaver was to send in small drafts of men to conceal themselves upon the mountain; and these, when his own army moved up to the attack, would, at a given signal, doubtless fall upon our friends in the rear, and thus effect a very serious diversion in favour of Zero, at a most critical moment.

The scheme was well thought-out, but the watchfulness of Kenyon had completely ruined it; and if the further suggestions which he now made should prove workable, the little band might be relied upon to read Master Zero another very severe and humiliating lesson, when he made his intended final onset.

Briefly, Kenyon’s idea consisted of an attempt to lure the second detachment of slavers on to their utter destruction, but in view of their prematurely taking the alarm in consequence of our friends possibly failing to understand and correctly to answer their secret signals, a large party was to be slipped into the long grass of the veldt to intercept the slavers in the event of their making a push to escape, and an endeavour was to be made to capture some of the men alive, and force them to give up the secrets of their curious system of aerial correspondence.

Finally it was decided that Amaxosa should set out with ten of his own men and fifty of the warriors of the Atagbondo at moonrise, and lie in ambush about three miles to the north of the mountain, but this party was on no account to make any movement, except in the event of a rocket being fired from the camp, giving them the direction of the escaping slavers. The Zulu was especially cautioned against making fire signals of any kind, as it was calculated that the enemy would, themselves, probably employ these.

Little, however, did our friends know, as yet, of the devilish ingenuity of Master Zero, who had but to suspect the very remotest possibility of the existence of a trap to guard against it in most effectual fashion, and that night our friends received a peculiarly unpleasant proof of his dangerous capabilities in this direction.

The matter fell out thus:—As Kenyon, Leigh, and a party of fifty picked men were lying noiselessly in wait in the cover from which they had that morning driven the enemy, they were suddenly and viciously attacked, without a moment’s warning, by Zero’s forerunner, in the shape of an enormous jaguar, which severely mauled a number of the men ere he was settled by Kenyon, who drove a Zulu assegai through the beast’s spine, whereupon his roarings woke every living echo in the country side, and a moment later a moving mass of dark forms could be seen gliding out from the friendly shadows cast by the mountain, and stringing themselves across the veldt in a vain effort to escape from their active foes.

Quickly Grenville sent up his rocket, and as the glittering thread of fire traced its way across the heavens, Leigh and his eager party dashed down the mountain, and followed the flying foe at speed across the veldt, fearing from their apparent strength that the slavers might prove too heavy for Amaxosa and his little band.

A mile from the rocks, finding their retreat cut off, the slavers formed in square and stood at bay between two fires. Leigh called to them to surrender, and lay down their arms, but the answer was hurled back in the shape of a contemptuous curse and a rattling volley, which stretched several of the Atagbondo upon the ground.

Not one moment after this could Leigh or Amaxosa restrain their men, who simply flung themselves upon the very muzzles of the slavers. Nothing short of a triple line of bayonets could have withstood such a magnificently audacious charge, and in less time than it takes to tell, the “People of the Stick” had literally wiped their hated foes off the face of the earth.

Five minutes covered the whole ghastly affair from beginning to end, and in that short space of time, Zero, in addition to the loss of his pet tiger, had suffered to the extent of fifty-three men, whilst our friends had on their side eleven killed outright and seventeen wounded, two of these last, dying the next day.

“Haow Inkoos,” said the Zulu chief approvingly; “it is indeed a brave people, and fights well, almost as well as the Amazulu, but I would they used the assegai or the axe and made cleaner work of it. Well, what is done is done, my father, and these evil witch-finders will never trouble us again,” and the great Zulu philosophically took a mighty pinch of snuff and offered one to Leigh in token of his entire satisfaction with the result of the night’s work.

As soon as the arms had been collected, and the wounded men properly attended to, a council of war was held by the entire party, and under the circumstances it was considered useless to try and impose deceptive messages upon Zero, the more so as Kenyon himself was strongly of opinion, that not the pigeons, but the jaguar, had in the present instance been intended to carry back to Equatoria, news of the safe arrival of the band. The great cat would, of course, have been started off in the dark, without loss of time, or risk of suspicion even in the event of its being observed, and would certainly have travelled very swiftly to its distant home.

On the following morning the Atagbondo buried their dead, and then threw the deceased slavers into the river to carry a message of woe and weeping to their friends a hundred miles below.

Noticing his cousin looking anxiously at the summit of the mountain several times that day with Kenyon’s field-glass, “What’s the matter with the peak, old chap?” said Leigh.

“I wish I knew, Alf,” was the reply; “I haven’t seen it since the night we got here: ever since then it has been completely hidden by yonder white cloud, which rests upon it, and unless I am mistaken, the heat emanating from that vapour is so intense, that the everlasting snows are being absolutely melted away from the summit of the cone.”

Just then a very wonderful and awful thing happened, for even as Grenville was speaking, the heat-clouds suddenly rolled away like a scroll and curled up out of sight, revealing the glittering peak for one brief instant in all the radiant majesty of its unveiled glory, and then the very next second there shot far, far up into the azure vault, a giant jet of angry, inky-looking smoke, which floated lightly and lazily through the absolutely pulseless air towards the north, and was quickly succeeded by another great puff, and another, until the whole of the northern heavens were densely clouded, and the mountain itself bore the appearance of a gigantic monster mechanically expelling vast volumes of dead black smoke at every labouring respiration of its mighty rock-girt lungs, and shrouding the whole country in a sombre death-like pall of weird and awful shade.

“A volcano, by Jove!” ejaculated Leigh.

“Yes,” replied his cousin, “and an active one, too. I fear that Umbulanzi’s explosion, the first night we came, has awakened the slumbering internal fires, or else the water is somehow penetrating into the crater and interfering with the gases imprisoned in its abysmal depths. We shall be in a nice pickle if the volcano takes a fancy to indulge in an eruption just at present; however, we must hope for the best, old man, and put our trust in Providence.”

That very night, sad to say, our friends were awakened by the objectionable throes of a mighty earthquake; the rocks quaked and groaned, and the very bowels of the mountain were rent and torn by ear-splitting explosions, and in less than ten minutes the whole party was in full flight across the northern veldt, positively chased from the stronghold upon which they had bestowed so much labour by great streams of burning lava which, like vast rivers, flowed unimpeded down the mountain side, and, instantly setting the long grass on fire, caused our friends a most anxious time until they had safely crossed the river and got well away from the spot—their movements being rendered relatively slow by the necessity of carefully transporting the wounded men in hammocks.

After a short consultation it was decided to steer for the Hermit’s Cave again, and to try and discover a place capable of defence somewhere in the immediate vicinity of Equatoria; for, with the exception of the mountain from which they had just been so rudely expelled, our friends were assured by the natives that no natural fastness of any kind existed within a hundred miles to the south of their present location, and southwards all, both black and white, absolutely declined to move until Zero was stamped out, or until they themselves were effectually disposed of in attempting to settle with him.

A very sharp look-out would have to be kept in order to avoid falling into the hands of the slavers, who were sure to notice the eruption of the volcano, and, knowing that the little band would have in consequence to relinquish the shelter afforded by the mountain, would doubtless be outlying with a view to falling upon them unawares; but by confining the travels of the party strictly to the night-time, and lying carefully hid by day, Grenville and Amaxosa hoped to bring all safely into the desired haven.

At all events, our friends were no worse off, in consequence of their journey to the peak, having, on the contrary, inflicted two crushing blows upon the enemy, and exchanged the bare handful of men with which they left Equatoria for a small army thoroughly equipped for war, already well-tried, and thirsting for occupation in the fighting line.

Chapter Thirteen.

In Freedom’s Cause.

Owing to the difficulty of transporting so many wounded men, it took our friends quite four days to accomplish the distance which they had covered on a former occasion in less than one-half that time; but by the fourth night all had safely reached the mountains of the north, and after Amaxosa had carefully reconnoitred the vicinity of the hermit’s cave, the party took undisputed possession thereof, and made arrangements to defend the place in the event of an attack, by throwing up a great earthwork round the outlet of the cavern.

This important matter attended to, Grenville and Kenyon next proceeded to explore, by torchlight, the labyrinth of caves with which the heart of the mountain proved to be honeycombed, and in the furthest of those natural vaulted chambers they finally discovered Muzi Zimba the Ancient. The old man was in a state of very great prostration, and was obviously dying from sheer decay of all his faculties. Kenyon at once administered to him a spoonful of brandy, and afterwards prevailed upon him to swallow some beef-tea. This grateful nourishment soon appeared to revive his sinking form, and, recognising Grenville, he accorded him a hearty welcome, and congratulated him kindly upon his marvellous escape from death, and then, speaking very lucidly, his mental faculties seeming to grow clearer as his bodily vigour gradually died out, he dilated at some length to the attentive pair, upon their present dangerous position, and regarding the cause and the remedy for the horrors of the slave-trade.

It must not, however, be supposed that the conversation given here, is written down precisely as it was spoken; for at times our friends had much ado to keep the poor old man alive, and it was only by continually giving him weak stimulants, that body and soul were kept together until his work was done. Often, too, his halting tongue refused to frame the meanings he desired to convey, and Grenville had thus frequently to come to his assistance, and express his thoughts for him in clear, every-day English.

“My sons,” said the aged man, “I came hither many, many years ago—how many, I know not, for my mind has for a long and weary time been under a very darksome cloud, but it is clearer now, and in the light which streams through heaven’s wide-open gates. I once more see, with the eye of faith, and know that all will yet again be well. Hearken, my sons, for I can tell ye much that may avail ye to escape from the hands of the demon who dwells in yonder city of evil.

“Ye are brave men, and I have heard how that ye have already rescued many precious lives from this fiend in human form, and have thrice brought defeat and disaster upon his hateful arms. Nevertheless, be ye ware, my sons, for he has, indeed, a very great army of bloody-minded and wicked men, and he has, moreover, sworn to entirely eat you up. Know, therefore, that in the third cave from here is a spot where, by moving a great black stone, a narrow passage can be found, but wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and this leads gently downwards, step by step, right through the bowels of the mountain, and so into the town of the evil ones, where there are many white and black slaves, both of men and women. Mark this passage well, my children, for if once yon monster wins the secret of the way, ye, too, will exist only as I do—even midway between the bitter memories of the unforgotten past and the golden shores of the great hereafter.

“And now, my sons, bear with me yet, regarding this shameful trade in human flesh and blood. Long years ere Zero came hither, like a curse, this country was peaceful and all happy, and much did I teach the simple people that tended to the welfare of both soul and body; but since the coming of this man of sin, all has been turned again to evil, and the land everywhere weeps tears of sorrow and of blood.

“What can we do more, my sons, we who, simply placing our lives in the hands of the good God who gave them, penetrate unarmed, and with naught of defence but the Gospel of Peace, to the furthest confines of this dark land? What, I say, can we do, when the misguided rulers of Christian countries at home daily permit—nay, encourage—the unrestricted sale to the wretched natives, of millions of gallons of a very evil drink, which goes by the name of ‘square face,’ but which the traders declare to be but harmless gin. Gin! my sons, the first coat of which is under one shilling a gallon, and which is poured into the land, after it has paid the British governors upon the western sea-girt border of this mighty continent a duty of half-a-crown a gallon, or equal to two-and-a-half times its cost. Look what follows. The already debased African is at once reduced below the level of the very beasts that perish. He must have this fiery spirit, the first fatal draught of which has inflamed his soul, and brought into active being every vicious slumbering detail of his fallen human nature, and in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase the beloved ‘Square Face,’ he falls unawares upon his next-door neighbour, so to speak—perhaps upon his own familiar friend, who trusts him—and carrying him off by night, secretly sells him to the highest bidder, white or black, that he can find within easy distance of his home.

“The trade in gin and rum is at the bottom of one-half of this evil slave-dealing, and so long as this crying sin is not only permitted, but encouraged, amongst a simple people, who have no more judgment to exercise, than have a third of the weak-minded ones sheltered from the cruel world in many a private mad-house, so long will Central Africa remain a country where cruelty and misery, and the shedding of blood, prevail, where men bow down to stocks and stones, where Satan’s kingdom is, and where the missionary, my sons, is little more than a useless martyr, his precious life expended in the lively faith that the mighty power of his God will cause the barren soil he waters with his blood to prove a fruitful field before the great day of reckoning comes for missionary, for slaver, and for the miserable aboriginal African, whose body and soul these opposing forces contend for mightily both night and day.

“Hear me further, my sons, for much good may yet be done, in spite of Zero and of the Arabs, who accomplish a world of evil, if someone of the great white nations of the world will but come forward and use its God-given strength for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade, suppressing entirely the sale of gin and rum in Africa, and supporting the missionaries. Africa! The whole country is being depopulated, and every acre of it watered with the tears of a people torn from their happy homes and sold into slavery in distant lands, or sent across the seas, and soon this vast and fertile region, as yet almost unknown to the white races, will become in all directions an impenetrable and useless jungle, through which even the mammoth elephant must fail to force his way—a dark continent in very deed and truth, an eyesore to both God and man.

“In the earlier days of my sojourn in this place, my sons, I looked to free and happy England to do all that this rich and fruitful land required to make it perfect; and I taught the natives, under God, to reverence and to pray for the Great White Queen, their mother, in whose all-powerful name I came to them in Freedom’s cause. Alas! my sons, the first slaver who entered here and broke up their quiet homes was this shameless scoundrel Zero; and, speaking with the same tongue as my own, naught of difference could this people see between his land and mine; and then worse, far worse, when the horrible slave traffic attracted hither the native dealers from the farther west, these brought with them word that slaves could be freely sold under French and German, and—oh! the shame of it—under British rule, ay, under Freedom’s own flag on the utmost coast of Western Equatorial Africa.

“My sons, I credited it not, and I sent my trusted runner a journey of many, many weary moons, and he brought me back a faithful word—alas! that it should have been a true one.

“‘The thing is even so, my father,’ he said. ‘Almost within the very cities of the Great White Queen, where the moving water beats, ever murmuring, upon the yellow sands, and within hearing of the guns of British forts, I saw very many slaves; and these were sold from house to house, or from land to land, as their owners in the towns desired. Also, day by day I watched great caravans of slaves from the peoples of many, many powerful kingdoms, bringing in native produce and dust of gold, and carrying out very many cases of square face and of rum.’

“‘It is a false report that ye bring,’ I said; ‘how know ye that the men were slaves? the Great White Queen frees all who come beneath the shadow of her glorious flag.’

“‘That may be,’ he said, ‘as I saw not the Great White Queen herself, but the slaves were there, all marked with a brand on the cheek, my father. Also, I had speech of some of these, and they said that they were slaves. More, my father, there are also in the cities many native guards, and most of these men are also slaves, who serve under the Queen’s ruler for money, which they give to the owners of their bodies whenever the Queen pays them; and so, my father, I would even live here under your shadow, where I and my people are free by the strength of our own right hands, than be a pining slave under the flag of the Great White Queen, my mother, who is too far away to help her suffering children when they cry out of wrong and find none to hear them.’

“Then it was, my sons,” said the aged man, “that I lost my reason; I could not eat my food, and my sleep at nights went from me; I could only kneel and humbly pray, both night and day, to the good God on high that lie would wake the ear of our gracious Queen to hear the pitiful cry of these poor defenceless creatures, over whom he has given her an empire, and power, and glory, and who, though they are so far from her, are yet her loyal subjects, and very near to the great God Himself, in whose hand her breath is, and whose are all her ways.

“And now, my sons, my eyes are closing fast, and I leave ye to follow me along the weary road which leads to the great hereafter. Take, then, the last blessing of a very aged and a defenceless man, to whom ye were both kind and good. Fear God, and follow that which is good, so shall we meet again in the land where sorrows are forgotten, and where peace and rest await both you and me. Greeting, then, my sons, to you and yours—greeting and farewell!”

And so he died, this one staunch witness for freedom and his God, in a land where all else was foul and evil. Very peacefully his life slipped from him with the dawn of day, and his loyal spirit soared to the very presence of Him who gave it life.

“God rest him,” said Grenville gently; “God rest His faithful servant. May I too die the death of a brave man, and may my last end be even as the end of Muzi Zimba the Ancient.”

That same day the little band buried the hermit’s body, the natives following him to the grave with many marks of respect and reverence, and the white men firing a farewell salute over the last resting-place of this gallant soldier, who had given up his life for the truth, and died in freedom’s cause, in this far-distant land.

Chapter Fourteen.

Equatoria.

As soon as our friends had paid the final honours to the mortal remains of Muzi Zimba, they carefully warned the “People of the Stick” against spreading the news of his decease in any shape or form, fearing that the ignorant natives in the surrounding country might foolishly impute his somewhat sudden and unexpected end, to the unauthorised presence of the little hand in his cavernous dwelling.

Hardly were the funeral obsequies over than Kenyon drew Grenville aside, and after a few moments of earnest conversation, the pair announced their intention of investigating the secret stair through the mountain, of which the old hermit had spoken to them.

Taking Amaxosa along, and supplying themselves from Muzi Zimba’s ample stores with torches made of fibre, the trio entered the indicated cave, shifted the black, basaltic-looking rock, and duly found themselves in the entrance of the tunnel. The tortuous way was rough and very narrow, but it was, as the old man had said, fairly easy to traverse, and in twenty minutes’ time our friends emerged into semi-daylight in the narrow shaft of a dry and disused well, from whence—by means of a stout but roughly-constructed ladder of rope, which hung from its upper orifice—the old man had evidently obtained access at will into the slavers’ town.

Withdrawing cautiously into the mountain again, in fear lest the smoke of their torches should be seen above the mouth of the well, our friends entered into a somewhat heated argument.

Grenville was for entirely closing the narrow passage by blocking it once for all with mighty rocks, which would effectually prevent Zero from discovering the secret of the way, and perhaps destroying themselves and their cavern by an explosion of gunpowder; but Kenyon declared that, sooner than permit such a capital means of access to Equatoria to be destroyed, he would himself sit and watch it night and day. His specious arguments and professional instinct, at length prevailed over Grenville’s caution, and the trio then resolved that two reliable men should be kept constantly on the watch beneath the well, provided with a cord, the other end of which they would attach to the trigger of a small pistol fixed in the cavern above, and should anyone attempt to descend the well, the sentinels were to jerk the cord, fire the pistol as an anxious call for help, and forthwith retreat noiselessly into the mountain burrow, where they would be met at the narrowest part of the tortuous path by armed support.

During the whole of that day the party on the rock could descry in the far distance large bands of the slaver fraternity patrolling the southern veldt, and carefully searching the borders of the eastern forest, being evidently altogether at a loss to know what had become of the dangerous and hated foe, and yearning, no doubt, for the resuscitation of their slaughtered bloodhounds; whilst when night fell, the furthest limit of vision revealed, a hundred miles away, the fire-girt summit of the fierce volcano, its blazing peak hanging upon the distant line of smoke-beclouded sky like a glittering star of the first magnitude.

The night was very dark and moonless when Kenyon and Amaxosa left the outer cave to relieve Leigh and Grenville, who were keeping watch below the well; but, pausing before he entered the narrow passage, the American sent the Zulu forward, simply saying he would join him by-and-by, as he had yet some work to do, and so it came to pass that the two cousins returned to the cavern without having seen him, and that Amaxosa, keeping his lonely vigil by torchlight, passed through the most fearsome trial his courageous but untutored heart had ever known; for whilst he watched and waited, patient as a statue carved in stone, the great Zulu heard a light footfall behind him, and, turning quickly, beheld, to his utter horror, the well-known figure of the ancient Muzi Zimba approaching through the gloom. The warrior’s heart stood still with fear and his very blood froze in his veins—Muzi Zimba, whose dead body he had that very day helped to consign to its grave, and upon whose breast he had placed giant rocks to scare the beasts of prey; yet here he stood, and there before him in the flesh stood Muzi Zimba. Nay, it could not be flesh and blood, but a spook (spirit) of the mountain, and not even a child of the Undi could fight with spooks. Coming swiftly to him, the vision spoke quietly to him in broken Zulu. “Greeting,” it said, “greeting, Lion of the Undi, what dost thou here by night in Muzi Zimba’s secret way.”

“Greeting, great Father of the Spooks,” boldly answered the Zulu. “I do this here, I watch thy dark and narrow stair, oh, Ancient One, by order of the Great White Chief, my father, and if any enter to disturb thy restful peace, he dies a swift and easy death on this my ready spear.”

“Well done, Amaxosa,” was the cool reply which the astonished chief received from his ancient friend, the “Father of the Spooks,” as the dread thing deftly removed its flowing wealth of beard and whiskers, and revealed the clean-shaved countenance of Stanforth Kenyon, the American detective.

“Wow, Inkoos!” said the astonished Zulu. “Wow! the thing was indeed well done; and I, even I, the son of the witch-doctor, Isanusi, would have let thee pass and leave me for a spook. Yet, did it seem strange to me, my father, thou shouldst speak to thy son with the tongue of his own people, for ever I heard that the Ancient One who has gone from us, knew not to speak as speak the children of the Zulu.”

Briefly explaining his intentions to the chief, Kenyon carefully readjusted his disguise, and, nimbly mounting the ladder of rope, scrambled out of the mouth of the well, and at once found himself in a clump of bushes, and close to the outskirts of the slavers’ town, towards which he fearlessly directed his now seemingly feeble steps.

Well was it for Stanforth Kenyon that years of rigid training in his own peculiar walk of life enabled him to support to perfection the somewhat difficult, because exquisitely simple, character, which his supreme audacity had undertaken. The extreme darkness of the night was, however, favourable to his enterprise, as there were but few people about, and the detective found himself in the very centre of Equatoria without being accosted by anyone. The town, to his surprise, proved to be very compactly built, and consisted of perhaps five hundred houses, mostly composed of wood and roofed with iron, the only exceptions to this rule being what were evidently the public offices of the place, which were built of a mixture of sand and gravel, a composition going amongst the natives by the name of “swish,” and which presented, so far as he could see by the light of the oil-lamps hung round the buildings, an extremely handsome appearance.