"Zero the Slaver"

Chapter One.

Missing.

1,000 Pound Reward.

The above-named Sum will be paid to any person giving information which will lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of a young Englishman named Richard Grenville, who was last seen at Durban on 15th December, 1877.

Apply to Masterton and Driffield, Advocates, Port Natal.

Facing this striking announcement, and with his back to the Standard Bank of South Africa, in Durban, stood, one morning in July, 1880, a wiry-looking, clean-shaved man of about five- or six-and-thirty, dressed in a rough grey homespun suit.

Man after man paused, read, marked, learned, and, no doubt, inwardly digested, the contents of the advertisement, then passed on his way without giving the matter a second thought—beyond, perhaps, half wishing, in a lazy sort of way, that he knew something about this man who seemingly was so much wanted by his own people. But our grey-coated friend still stood there, and appeared to be literally devouring the announcement.

At length he turned sharply away with a muttered “Hum! It’s a big pile. Five thousand dollars—now, I wonder if—” But here his keen eye noted the stoppage of another person—a fashionably-dressed man—before the advertisement, which seemed of considerable personal interest to him, judging from the way he stared at it, and from the fact that his cigar dropped from his lips, which mechanically opened with an involuntary exclamation the moment the wording caught his eye. Quickly recovering himself, the man glanced keenly at grey-coat, who was, however, diligently charging his pipe, and then he, too, like his predecessors, passed on his way.

“Snakes!” muttered our friend. “Now, I wonder who that swell is, and why this lay startled him so infernally. Reckon I’ll have to get you weighed up before I clear, old chap;” and, lighting his pipe, he moved briskly away in the direction of Masterton and Driffield’s office.

Arrived there, he in due course expressed to a young clerk his desire to interview one of the principals on the subject of a considerable interest which he proposed to acquire in certain land at Durban, and very shortly found himself closeted with Mr Driffield.

“I have called, sir,” he said, “to see you regarding this advertisement of yours for one Richard Grenville, and to learn what further details you can afford me beyond the information given in the announcement.”

Our friend, be it observed, was something of a curiosity. A thorough-bred Yankee, he seldom or never indulged in “Americanisms” of any kind except when soliloquising, which he had a singular habit of doing whilst deducing his own peculiar theories.

“Oh!” said the lawyer, in a somewhat aggrieved tone. “My clerk stated that you wished to consult me with regard to the purchase of some land. That advertisement was only printed off last night, and if we have had one call concerning it, we have already had at least two hundred.”

“I didn’t choose to let your clerk know my business, or anything about me, Mr Driffield,” replied grey-coat curtly; “but here’s my card, sir, and now let me hear all you’ve got to say, without further loss of time.”

Mr Driffield took the pasteboard, read it, and stared blankly at the other, who laughed quietly, and then reached out his hand, which the lawyer grasped in most unmistakably hearty fashion.

“Why, God bless me, Kenyon,” said he, “I should never have known you in this get-up; but look here, come and dine with me to-night, and we’ll go right into this business. You are the one man I would have chosen for it out of all the world, and I shall be very much mistaken if I haven’t a good twelve months’ work for you. To-night, at seven, at the Athenaeum, then. And now ‘good morning,’ for I’m up to the eyes in work. Oh! by the way, Kenyon, if you haven’t read this book, do so at once, there’s a good fellow, for it contains a full account of Grenville’s South African adventures, and your perusal of it will prepare my way, and save me going over most of the old ground again to-night.” So saying, the lawyer dismissed his visitor, who was none other than Stanforth Kenyon, the keenest and wiliest detective New York could boast of—a man born to his profession, and consequently an ornament to it.

At five-and-twenty Kenyon was an unknown, but—having regard to his literary merit—an overpaid scribbler on one of the big New York dailies; but now, only ten years later, he was universally admitted to be the most unerring sleuth-hound of the whole shrewd band of secret police owning allegiance to Uncle Sam, and whose business in South Africa at the present time, needless to say, was known only to himself.

At once retaking his way to the hotel he had left that morning, the detective settled down to read the book in question, (“Into the Unknown”) and in a few hours’ time had mastered its contents, and lay quietly back in his chair, smoking, and thinking deeply.

After a further hour had been expended in this comforting and, no doubt, edifying fashion, he took out a well-worn notebook, and wrote several lines therein in shorthand; then, returning the book to his pocket, he started out for a stroll, and seven o’clock saw him seated opposite to the lawyer, and enjoying most thoroughly the excellent dinner provided for him by that worthy gentleman.

“And now,” said Mr Driffield, when the cloth was removed and both men had lighted their cigars, “let me have your opinion of ‘Into the Unknown,’ or, rather, as to what extent the events narrated therein may or may not bear upon the present disappearance of our friend Grenville.”

“First,” said the detective, calmly begging the question, and taking out his notebook, “who are you working for, Mr Driffield? I mean,” he added, quickly, “is it some relation of Grenville’s who is anxious about the missing man, or have you yourself any personal interest in the search?”

“None at all,” was the reply. “Let me be quite frank with you, Kenyon. I am employed by his cousin, Lord Drelincourt, who shared his adventures amongst the Mormons, and my lord is in no end of a taking about him. You see, the two men were like twin brothers all their lives, and now that Lord Drelincourt has lost his wife and child, he feels alone in life, poor fellow, and would give his whole fortune to have his cousin by his side.”

“How very sad,” commented the detective. “So he took poor Dora Winfield homo only to bury her. How did it all happen?”

“No one knows,” said the little lawyer, dropping his voice. “Poor Lady Drelincourt and her one-year-old boy were found dead in bed one morning, without even the suspicion of a mark of violence upon them.

“My lord was away from home when it happened, and the shock almost unseated his reason, and for weeks after the sad event he was down with brain fever. Though quite a young man, his hair turned snowy-white when he realised the awful extent of his cruel loss, and awoke from his long illness only to find that his dead had long been buried out of his sight. Doctors and detectives were called in at the time, but everything was in vain. The detectives were hopelessly at fault, and the only theory the doctors could advance was that mother and child had been chloroformed to death.

“The servants were old family retainers, and were entirely beyond suspicion, being all of them passionately devoted to their sweet young mistress, and bound to their loved master as much by his personal worth and goodness as by the unbroken ties of voluntary servitude during three generations.

“And now, Kenyon, will you undertake the case? The reward is already well worth working for, great though the risks may be; but I can undertake to double it if you bring our man in alive. You will get a fine sporting holiday up country, with all expenses liberally provided for, and in point of fact it is the opportunity of a lifetime—or perhaps I ought to say that to anyone but yourself it would be such.”

The detective sat thinking for awhile, and then said, “See here, Mr Driffield; this is a large order—a very large order—and I must just reason the matter out in my own way; but I’ll let you have my answer by or before this time to-morrow. Your man may be only shooting in the far interior, or camping out in this infernal secret territory of the Mormons, or he may be—well, elsewhere.”

The two then separated for the night, the lawyer going straight to the telegraph station, and in a few minutes more the submarine cable had the following message flashing over it:—

“To Drelincourt, London.

“Splendid man probably available; terms, two thousand and expenses. Shall I secure him?

“Driffield.”

Arrived at his hotel, the detective sought his own room, lighted his pipe, and puzzled over his notebook for upwards of an hour, idly drumming on the table with his fingers, and listlessly turning over the leaves pregnant with flotsam and jetsam of criminal interest, and glancing from time to time in a half-attentive, half-indifferent fashion at a number of pencilled faces which adorned its earlier pages. Suddenly, however, his attention became riveted, the man’s face seemed as if turned to stone and his whole expression transformed whilst he gazed fixedly at one portrait as if unable to believe his eyes.

“Gods!” he cried at last, springing excitedly to his feet; “I have it! Aha! Master Zero, we shall meet at last, and then look out for yourself, my friend, for if ever I entertained hatred and malice and all uncharitableness, it is towards you, and with good cause; and, Heaven helping me, before next year is out, I’ll pay you back a little of the debt, the fearful debt, I owe you.”

Quickly he also proceeded to the cable offices, and a few minutes later another message—this time in cypher—traversed the ocean depths, as follows:—

“To Heliostat, New York.

“Kingdom rage offing.”

Which being interpreted meant—

“To the Chief of Police, New York.

“Wire latest information Zero’s movements.”

Early next morning the cable company handed out two messages, first to—

“Driffield. Port Natal.

“Secure at any cost. Wire result.”

Second to—

“Wilkinson, Alexandra Hotel, Durban.

“Noughts and crosses hades horrify handfast holy ostrich.”

Meaning—

“Sailed for England 15th April, 1879; left France for Madagascar about September same year.”

Eagerly seizing his message, the detective hurriedly mastered its contents, and with an emphatic grunt of satisfaction started off instantly for the lawyer’s office, and an hour later yet another message was flashed across the seas—

“To Drelincourt, London.

“Secured; starts immediately.”

To which Mr Driffield was considerably astonished to receive the prompt reply—

“To Driffield, Port Natal.

“Let him wait my arrival. Sail Tartar to-morrow, bringing all needful equipment.—Drelincourt.”

His lordship arrived in due course, and the lawyer was inexpressibly shocked at the change which had taken place in the appearance of his client. The man looked twenty years older, but was nevertheless strong, vigorous, and stern, and the detective noted with secret joy the hard-set lines in his patron’s face, and felt that here at least there would be no faltering or shrinking, no quarter given and none required, when the bitter end came; for bitter did this astute man-hunter already feel certain that the end would prove to be.

The two men were fast friends in a very short time, and one of his lordship’s earliest instructions to Kenyon and the lawyer was to conceal his identity as far as possible by addressing him simply under his family name of Leigh, by which he had been known when a younger son, and, in all human probability, the reverse of likely to become a peer of the realm.

Months later, Leigh and Kenyon, with their full complement of native bearers, bade a long farewell to the shores of the mighty lake of Victoria Nyanza, and struck out boldly into central Africa, steering hard and fast by the equatorial line.

Leigh, as we shall continue to call Lord Drelincourt, was naturally curious to know why the detective, who held the compass and took all the observations, should be so extremely particular about his latitude, but that worthy either could or would give no explanation, and Leigh had already acquired such implicit confidence in every action of his self-constituted guide, that he let himself be led blindly whithersoever the American chose to take him, feeling that the man was either working confidently upon “information received,” or that his faculty of instinct was so finely developed that he was unlikely to make any very serious mistakes.

As a matter of fact Leigh was right to a certain extent, for starting with a theory of his own, which had the rooted belief of Zero’s complicity in the disappearance of Grenville for its point of departure, the American, whilst waiting the arrival of his patron from England, had worked up several slender clues, and had afterwards elaborated them in a manner calculated to have made his yet far-distant foe feel the reverse of comfortable, had he been conscious of the very tender interest taken by an outsider in the most trifling actions performed by him during the past, both distant and relatively near.

By careful watching, and by shadowing in a variety of inimitable disguises, Kenyon, who was an infinitely better actor than many a man who makes his living “on the boards,” had soon unearthed, become intimate with, and pretty well “weighed up”—to use his own expression—the gentleman who had exhibited such unequivocal signs of dismay when unexpectedly confronted with the advertisement concerning Grenville, and the detective had satisfied himself that this fellow, Crewdson Walworth by name, was a man with a history, could he but find it out—a history, moreover, which instinct assured him would prove to be of the greatest service to the Grenville search party at the present juncture. More, he also knew for a fact that his friend Crewdson corresponded in cypher with someone at Zanzibar, but even the cunning of Stanforth Kenyon had totally failed to ascertain who that someone was, or by what name he or she was designated, or, indeed, to get out of Master Crewdson Walworth anything else at all worth knowing.

The detective, however, had put two and two together, and had built up a theory in his usual cautious fashion, and every step of the ladder, though most rigidly and thoroughly tested, had thus far proved to be absolutely correct, and his deductions to be altogether justified by the course of events.

Chapter Two.

A Night of Horror.

No serious mishap befell our pair of adventurers until they neared the Katonga River, but just here they dropped in for a streak of ill-luck, which was like to have brought the expedition to a premature and utterly disastrous termination.

Leaving their men in camp one morning, Leigh and Kenyon had set out to thoroughly and carefully explore a mighty kloof, or gorge, in the adjacent hills, expecting to complete their investigations easily in a couple of hours or thereabouts.

As the pair entered this natural mountain fastness, however, it rapidly developed into a deep gorge, along which trickled a stream of water so tiny that it frequently lost itself altogether amongst the stones which served it for a bed.

On either hand great grey barren walls shot up like precipices, whilst mighty scarped-out rocks seemed to hang over the very heads of the explorers, the giant walls elsewhere being thickly fringed towards the skyline with trees and bushes, many of the former absolutely hanging head-downwards, and appearing to maintain their precarious tenure of existence solely by the aid of magnificent festoons of creepers, which hung from tree to rock, and from rock to tree, these gigantic parasites absolutely sustaining the decayed trunks of many a long-dead monarch of the woods, which they had enfolded in their tenacious and eventually fatal embrace; higher still the foliage upon the very summit of the cliffs looked like narrow gleaming threads of green and gold against the dull background of soft sandstone rock. Within the kloof it was unquestionably more or less dark at the best of times, but just now darker than usual, for a vast white cloud, which the pair had noticed in the distance when they entered the pass some hours before, had gradually and ominously settled down, until it seemed to hang like a veritable curtain of rich, fleecy wool directly over the chasm; and as our friends were in the act of discussing the advisability of taking the back track to camp, and returning to complete their investigations on the morrow, this cloud suddenly burst over their very heads, and in one short moment transformed their rocky road into an angry, swelling torrent of leaden-coloured water, alive with branches, trees, and stones, and this now rushed foaming and roaring down the awful pass, sweeping everything before it, and threatening each instant to engulf the two wretched men, who had saved themselves for the nonce by hanging on to a tree trunk which was jammed cross-wise in the narrow gully of rock.

Suddenly Leigh gave a gasp, turned white as death, and relaxed his hold, but ere the water could sweep him away he was in the iron grasp of the American; many an enemy had known to his bitter cost what it was to feel the clutch of the detective, but never had that grip of steel stood a friend in so good a stead as now.

A floating log had struck Leigh violently on the side, dislocating a rib and causing him to swoon away. For several anxious moments it seemed to Kenyon that one or both of them must go, but to his intense relief he suddenly noticed that the rush of the water was becoming less swift, and Leigh at the same time pulling round again to some extent, the twain were soon in comparative safety from the water, which vanished almost as rapidly as it had appeared.

By this time, however, evening was coming on, and this, in the depths tenanted by our friends, quickly meant the darkness of Erebus, and unpleasant though it was, they had no alternative but to sit patiently on their friendly log and wish for daylight. The unfortunates had not even the consolation of a smoke, for both tobacco and matches had been reduced to a mere pulp by the water, nor had they aught in the shape of food or drink save a handful of unpleasantly damp peppermints owned by the American, and a pint of good brown brandy in Leigh’s flask.

Now most people will concede that under such circumstances the consumption of the brandy was not only permissible but distinctly advisable, though very few, perhaps, would care to tackle the peppermints.

Not so, however, our friends, for not once nor twice had they been indebted at a pinch entirely to these simple “sweets” for keeping body and soul together during long days and anxious nights, when, with savage foes following keen-eyed and red-handed on their tracks, any stoppage for food or fire would have meant certain sudden death.

All that Kingsley has said regarding the use of the “divine weed” may be re-written, and with much more truth, in favour of the harmless and not more odorously objectionable peppermint. “A lone man’s companion, a hungry man’s food, a sad man’s cordial, a chilly man’s fire;” all this, and more, did the despised peppermint prove to our friends that awful night, and needless to say they appreciated their oft-tried food at its honest value. Under the coldest conditions it was acceptable to a degree, and almost equally so under a blazing sun, with the thermometer registering 80 degrees in the shade, for whilst it comforted the inside of the body, it cooled the fevered palate by causing every breath of burning tropic air to rush into the mouth like draughts of nectar, laden with a welcome icy message from the far unlovely north.

Slowly the hours passed away, so slowly that the American thought his companion would die of exposure, for he was still suffering keenly from the blow his side had received, and never was dawn more welcome to man than when those two miserable mortals at last saw it blushing golden upon the trees far above them, followed by the glorious sun glinting upon the damp metallic-looking rocks, till the whole angry chasm was bathed in a tremulous reddening glow of lovely light and shade.

A weary way it seemed back to camp; indeed, it is doubtful in the extreme if Leigh would ever have reached it, had the pair not been met half-way by their anxious sable retainers, who did not in the least degree appreciate the honour of being left in unsupported possession of this great lone land; these men very soon had their masters under canvas, and after a steaming cup of coffee, stowed them away inside their blankets and left them to the undisturbed enjoyment of their well-earned repose.

For several days Leigh was in a high fever, consequent upon the dislocated rib, but this having been carefully put to rights by the skilful Kenyon, he rapidly mended, and their camp being fortunately placed in a healthy position, he was completely recovered at the end of a few weeks, and again ready and eager to betake himself to the search for his cousin.

With returning health, Leigh had betrayed an increased desire to extract precise information from Kenyon as to the why and wherefore of their present position, but all the satisfaction he could obtain from that worthy was a laconic assurance that so far they had made no mistakes, and that at that moment they were either very near their destination, or else were on the tail-end of a trail which had been blinded with consummate skill Kenyon had, he himself said, been very far from idle during Leigh’s illness, and had thoroughly exploited the district, and taken a number of photographs in the immediate vicinity; but he had come to the conclusion that nothing of practical utility could be accomplished until Leigh was fit to return with him to the pass and again take up the thread of search where they had dropped it, and he added that if naught of Richard Grenville was written on its silent walls, he would then be completely nonplussed.

Kenyon, as Leigh had long since learned, was no ordinary police detective; he was a shrewd and skilful tracker, a man born and brought up on the frontier of the Far West, and his experience had been dearly bought in many an Indian fight and foray before he gravitated to New York to try his hand at journalism as favoured by the New World.

A crack shot with the revolver, and no mean exponent of the beauties of the Winchester repeater, he was at all times a man to be feared by his foes, and to be looked up to by his friends, as a veritable tower of strength.

Of Leigh we need say little, beyond remarking that he was in the prime of manhood, was as strong as a bull, and had lost none of his skill with the rifle, whilst he had derived a new, and to his enemies a doubly dangerous energy, begotten of his loves and of his hates; to him it seemed that, could they but find his cousin Dick, nothing would be impossible with such heads and hearts as Grenville and Kenyon possessed, especially if he were himself there to take a third hand at the game.

Chapter Three.

“Black Ivory.”

Having arranged to recommence their search at dawn of day, our friends turned in to rest that night, leaving one of their Zanzibaris on guard. This man had thus far shown himself fairly reliable, and being a very great coward, had proved a most excellent watchman, seldom failing to alarm the camp, at least once every night, with the fearsome news that bloodthirsty foes, in some shape or form, were close upon them, the attacking force, nine times out of ten, existing only in his fertile imagination, and turning out to be either hungry and inquisitive beasts of prey, or the grey mists of early dawn rising to greet the sun.

These constant scares had naturally had the effect of inclining everyone in the camp to cry “Wolf!” turn over in his blanket, and, after roundly anathematising the alarmist, to go comfortably to sleep again; but when Kenyon was roused by this man on the night in question, a single glance convinced him that the fellow was, at all events, in desperate earnest, for his knees knocked together, and his face was fairly grey with the horror of some new and unexplained phenomenon, as he stammered out his statement to the effect that several hundred men were silently creeping upon their position, under cover of the mist, and asserting that he could see them sufficiently clearly to count their numbers by the moonlight.

“Let my master,” he said, “open his white eyes as clear as crystal, and see my tongue, for there is no lie upon it.” Picking up his rifle, Kenyon roused Leigh, the pair quickly following the watchman outside the tent, and this was what they saw.

Slightly to their right, and entering ghost-like the suspected mountain gorge, was a long train of human beings moving silently, yet swiftly, westwards.

The camp was completely shrouded in mist, and altogether invisible to these people passing it within stone’s-throw, but its occupants by lying down could see tolerably well beneath the thick grey curtain, which overhung them in every direction, and it did not require a second glance to satisfy the Europeans that the spectacle they were watching was simply an African slave caravan, of unusually large dimensions, on the march. For some minutes the pair gazed in silence, and then with a fierce but subdued ejaculation, Leigh endeavoured to spring to his feet, but was held still by the iron hand of the detective.

“Down! man, down! for your life!” he whispered. “The game is only just beginning.”

“But curse it all,” growled Leigh, “don’t you see that most of the slaves are white, and that many of them are women?”

“I see it all,” was the answer, in a stern incisive whisper, “but I see little beyond what I expected to see when we arrived here a month ago. Just wait a while, and if I know anything of my work, these people will lead us to your cousin. If we follow them to their destination, there I am convinced shall we find Richard Grenville, if he be still in the land of the living.”

For fully half an hour did the wretched troop continue to file past, and then captives, white and black, male and female, together with their countless guards, were engulfed in the eerie shadows of the rocky gorge, and entirely lost to human ken. Not a sound had the anxious watchers heard from first to last, and when the hindmost figure vanished from sight, Leigh could not refrain from rubbing his eyes to see if he were really awake and not dreaming; then, becoming satisfied that the former was the case, he seized his rifle, turned eagerly to Kenyon, and begged him to get on the trail of these nocturnal wanderers without another moment’s delay.

Here, again, however, Leigh’s fiery impetuosity was confronted by the stubborn coolness of the American, that worthy absolutely refusing to make any movement for at least another hour.

“No, thank you, Leigh,” he said; “if yonder poor creatures are captives to the man who I firmly believe has them in his grip, all I say is just look out for squalls. You may take my word for it that before you got your foot inside the pass you would be simply riddled with bullets. I dare stake my reputation that there are not less than a score of scouts outlying all around us, and we have to thank this very substantial veil of mist for saving our lives, for the moment, at all events. In another hour the entire crowd will have got some way through the gorge, and then the scouts will draw in, and give us a chance of moving, but it would be sheer madness on our part to stir from our present position before dawn.”

“Wherever can those blackguards possibly have laid hands on the dozens of white men and women we saw in the caravan?” asked Leigh.

“Ah! now you are making a great mistake,” replied Kenyon. “There were at most only half-a-dozen white men amongst the captives, and I saw but one white woman; the rest were unfortunate creatures from one of the native tribes south of the Great Lakes, and whose habit it is to plaster their bodies with grey ashes. The first glance under this misty-looking moon deceived me, too, but I can reassure you on that score. There were, quite half-a-dozen white men amongst them, though, and as for the white woman, the less said about her the better, for she was one of the slave-drivers. I think, however, Leigh, that you are missing the main point offered to us in this affair. Don’t you see that by all the laws of reason and common-sense this caravan should be steering due east for the seaboard, and here we find slaves obviously imported from a distance (for I never heard of the grey ash colouring being practised anywhere in this latitude) being driven due west. Now, if you will take your map for what it is worth, or will question any of these frauds of ours called ‘Guides,’ you will find that there is no town of any kind in this vicinity, nothing, indeed, of any note at all within hundreds of miles, so far as is known, let alone any such thing as a slave market. Whither, then, can this immense caravan possibly be going?

“Another point that impressed itself upon my notice was the fact that the slave-drive was composed entirely of full-grown men and women (it positively did not contain one single youth or child), all of which looks as if the strongest slaves had been purposely selected for severe labour of some kind in the interior, far or near, their ultimate destination and precise occupation being what we have to find out.”

“Give me to understand your whole theory, Kenyon, and why you connect these people with my cousin,” said Leigh.

“No!” was the curt reply. “I have no theory; at least, I have as yet only the very faintest suspicion of one, and the possibilities before us are far too vast for me at present to hazard even the remotest guess at either the final result of all this, or whither our investigations will ultimately lead us; only I believe, nay, I am morally certain, that in following yonder caravan—if follow it we can—we shall be treading in the steps taken voluntarily by the remnant of the Mormons who escaped from Grenville’s vengeance in East Utah, and who were, I am equally sure, succeeded at a later date by your cousin, and probably by many of his Zulu friends, as part and parcel of just such a slave caravan as we have seen to-night. And now let us stop talking and get to work at some food, for the light is beginning to grow, and in half-an-hour’s time we ought to be ready to move. I have slipped two of our fellows into the long grass with orders to keep their wits about them, but I expect the cowards will lie so close for the sake of their own precious skins that they will see nothing, however much there may be for them to observe.”

“Ay!” said Leigh, bitterly, “I wish we had a handful of our old Zulu allies here and we would make it very warm for the slavers; but as for these wretched curs, they are not worth their salt, except to carry loads, which they will throw to the deuce at the veriest shadow of approaching danger.”

As soon as the sun had fairly risen and sucked up the mist, the camp was struck, and the entire party entered the rocky defile and proceeded to thread its dark avenues with the utmost caution, all of which, however, seemed totally unnecessary, as they nowhere saw the slightest sign of life, or the remotest indication that the stony way had ever before been trodden by the foot of man.

One thing, nevertheless, struck the Europeans as being most singular, and this was the fact that when they had penetrated a very considerable way through the gorge, and arrived at the spot where Leigh’s unfortunate accident had occurred, they discovered the roadway to be absolutely closed by the fallen tree which had so staunchly stood their friend on the occasion of their previous visit, and which was still firmly jammed endwise across the narrow rugged path.

This obstruction was very carefully examined, but it bore no traces of having been tampered with in any shape or form, nor was there the slightest mark upon it which would lead even the most suspicious to believe that the obstacle had been climbed over by either man or beast.

Kenyon at last decided that it would be best for them to mount the log and proceed on their way, arguing that if the people they sought were really concealed anywhere in the kloof—which certainly did not appear to offer even sufficient cover for a fox—they must be on the watch, and any attempt to return and investigate would be the signal for instant destruction, whilst if their party, on the other hand, passed quietly onwards, the slavers would probably conclude that it was composed of explorers and was best left alone, knowing what an awkward habit England has, during her spasms of activity, of beating up the world at large for her missing scientific men.

This course was accordingly adopted, on the principle of choosing the least of two evils, and before night fell, the party had left the dismal gorge behind them, and were sitting comfortably round their camp fire, after having taken the precaution to post two scouts near the exit of the kloof, with instructions that, should anything suspicious occur, one of them was instantly to come into camp with the news. All, however, remained perfectly quiet, and the night passed without an alarm of any kind, even the ultra-particular night-watchman failing for once to discover so much as the shadow of one of his customary nocturnal horrors.

Thus did Leigh and his astute comrade for the second time miss the secret of the place, or, as it is known amongst the scattered native tribes, the “Black Pass of the Dark Spirit of Evil.”

For hours that evening did Leigh and Kenyon discuss the question of the mysterious disappearance of the slave caravan, for that those who composed it had not penetrated as far as their own present position they had quite satisfied themselves before pitching their tent for the night.

The outer, or western end of the rocky defile debouched upon highlands of soft spongy turf, and this nowhere bore the slightest impress of a human foot, which it would most certainly have done had anyone crossed it recently; indeed, had the “slave-drive” passed that way, the whole place would have been paddled like a sheep pen.

“You may well cudgel your brains, Leigh,” said Kenyon, after hours of profitless arguing on the following night, “for those fellows never left the kloof either by this end or the other after they once entered it. Tell me, Leigh,” he continued, venturing a question, which, hardened man-hunter that he was, had scores of times trembled upon the tip of his tongue in the past few months, and had yet remained unasked—“tell me, have you no clue, no idea, and absolutely no theory as to who was responsible for the murder of your wife and child? for foully murdered I am quite convinced they were.”

Vitally important as the query was, Kenyon would have given all he possessed could he have withdrawn the words ere they were well spoken, for the fearful anguish depicted in the countenance of his friend gave him, for but one second as it were, a fleeting glimpse of the agony of soul in which this strong man lived from day-to-day, and from hour to hour. The misery of expression was awful, but a glance infinitely less keen than that of the skilled detective would have noted, with a wealth of pity, that it was a misery which had never learned to say “Thy will be done.”

For full five minutes did Leigh hide his face in his hands and give no answering sign, and it was the detective who had once again to break the dread silence.

“Forgive me,” he said, “old friend, if I have torn the quivering wound anew, and believe me when I say that not idle curiosity, but dire necessity, as I conceived it, on behalf of the living, could have made me touch upon the hallowed subject of the loved but unavenged dead.” And he rose to walk away.

Quickly Leigh raised his face, lined, as it seemed to his friend, in one short five minutes with a whole lifetime of keenest suffering.

“Stop, Kenyon,” he said hoarsely, “and excuse my want of self-control. You are right, the loved and unforgotten dead are passed from us for a season, peace be with them! Now let us see what we can do to pay our debts—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, ay, and blood for blood! See here,” and he laughed a discordant laugh, which wrung Kenyon’s very soul by the pitiful wail with which it closed, as the strong man broke down and sobbed in a bitter agony of keen remembrance. “See here,” he said, as he again pulled himself together, and opened the back of his watch, from which he extracted a small scrap of paper, “they found this pinned to the coverlid of my darling’s bed.”

The detective reached over and took the paper, but before looking at it he poured out, and insisted upon Leigh drinking, a stiff glass of brandy, for he saw that his friend was completely unhinged.

This done, he turned his whole attention to the morsel of paper lying in his hand, and this was what he saw. Simply a small white sheet with a circular, dead black line drawn thus upon it:—

Pinned on a dead woman’s breast, what did this senseless hieroglyphic mean?

To doctors and detectives, nothing!

To the bereaved and desperate husband, nothing!!

To Stanforth Kenyon, the wily American detective, nothing!!!

“Nothing!” gentle reader, just that, and no more.

One glance he gave—but one; then, springing to his feet, fairly palpitating with excitement, he almost screamed, “I knew it, I knew it. Zero! Zero! by the Living God!” and as if it were a sombre echo of his words, a rifle spirted its vivid jet of flame from the outer gloom beyond the camp fire, and one of the native guides sitting just behind Kenyon sprang into the air with a bullet through his brain, and fell to the ground a corpse.

Instantly the whole party sought cover, but no further attempt of any kind was made to molest them, and when morning dawned they could nowhere find a trace of the dastard who had fired the fatal shot, and all that remained for them to do was to bury the body of their poor, unoffending servant, and choose out a safer camping ground where they might, perhaps, obtain immunity from such unpleasant nocturnal visitors.

Through the livelong night the thoughts of both Leigh and Kenyon had, as may well be imagined, been very busy; but whilst Leigh was entirely absorbed in the one idea of avenging his murdered wife and child, the purposes of the American went deeper. He, too, had a righteous act of retribution to perform, but he had also first, in the execution of his duty, to find Grenville alive, and release him, if it could be done; and then, again, vengeance, according to his idea, would not be consummated by a bullet wound or a spear-thrust: he simply yearned to get his hated enemy in his clutches, and to make him ignominiously expiate the countless crimes of his villainous life under the hands of the public executioner, but feared that such a triumph would be utterly unobtainable, for, setting aside all other considerations, and glancing at Leigh’s stern, set countenance, Kenyon felt that the common enemy would receive but short shrift so far as the Englishman was concerned if once he fell into the power of the little band.

Clearly, however, it was little use as yet planning the cooking of a hare which appeared much more likely to catch them than to allow the reverse to happen, and until they knew how and where the enemy was posted it was absolutely necessary to exercise the greatest discretion, which, in vulgar parlance, meant “making themselves scarce,” which they accordingly did without further loss of time, giving the place leg-bail, and putting five-and-twenty miles between themselves and the kloof ere they again halted for the night.

Chapter Four.

The Mouth of Hell.

Leigh had naturally asked Kenyon for an explanation of his wild excitement consequent upon the production of the treasured scrap of paper, and for information concerning the murderer whom he designated as “Zero,” and these details the American had promised to give him the moment he was absolutely sure that the man whom he now knew to be, without a doubt, responsible for the deaths of Lady Drelincourt and her infant son, was identical with the slaver for whom their party was searching. Of this last he felt morally certain, for his deductions had, all through, proved much too correct to turn out utterly wrong in their final act: still it was a methodical and praiseworthy habit of his, born of his wide experience amongst criminals of every class, to impute nothing and to infer nothing which he could not prove up to the very hilt, and there were, moreover, personal facts arising from the explanation, facts of which his whole soul abhorred the revelation, and of which nothing short of the iron hand of stern necessity would persuade him to speak, even to Leigh.

By the camp fire that night the white men consulted long and earnestly, whilst their sable followers crouched near them in the gloom, in abject fear of the arrival of another unwelcome messenger from the mysterious rifles of their unseen foes.

Not one single instant would these black fellows have remained beside our two friends had they possessed even the ghost of a notion of where to run to, but to their terror-stricken minds the whole vast unknown of Central Africa, backed by their white masters, was preferable to facing the certainty of having to retrace their undefended steps through the Black Pass of the Dark Spirit of Evil, whose weird natural horrors were so ably seconded by unseen, but none the less unerring, marksmen.

The conclusion that Leigh and Kenyon ultimately came to was, that they had better coast round the slaver’s supposed position in an easterly direction, making themselves thoroughly acquainted with the general run of the country, and keeping, meantime, their present distance from the pass, gradually work in a semicircle until they again reached the eastern exit of the kloof, when they would once more make a determined and final effort to fathom the secret of the place; and in accordance with this resolution the little band struck their tents at daybreak, and to the delight of the natives once more turned their faces towards the rising sun.

For a full hour the little party marched cheerfully eastwards, and then their journeying in that direction was brought to a sudden and unpleasant end by the two leading natives disappearing into the ground without a moment’s warning. No power on earth could save the wretched men, who vanished into the morass—for such it was—ere any of the party had even time to stretch out a hand to help them.

The rest of the black fellows drew cautiously away, with their teeth chattering, and uttered cries indicative of intense fear, and no possible argument would induce any of them to again take the lead, so that Kenyon and Leigh had to get in front of the party and run the entire risk, whilst these cowards leisurely and safely followed them at a respectful distance.

The pair exercised very great caution, and soon grew to understand the signs of this immense swamp, which they now endeavoured to skirt in a northerly direction, and upon the dismal edge of which they camped again that night.

The days that followed were days of anxiety, not to say despair, for the very ground on which they trod would often shake and quiver beneath their tired feet, and the whole party scarce knew whether each step that was taken might not prove to be their last; and it was only after they had manfully struggled northwards for close upon a hundred miles that they were once more able to plant their feet on firm ground, and to breathe freely, with the knowledge that the treacherous swamp lay, at last, behind them.

After expending a couple of days in a much-needed rest, an experimental trip was made in a south-easterly direction, with the object of ascertaining if it were possible to force the slaver’s supposed position by an advance in that quarter, but something less than three miles again brought the party into the dreaded swamp, from which they beat a hasty and undignified retreat.

For a whole weary day our friends marched due east, and then had the luck to fall in with a hunting party of friendly-disposed natives, from whom Kenyon learned that they must compass another two days’ journey towards the rising sun, ere the swamp would permit them once more to travel southwards.

This quivering, quaking morass was known to the natives by an awful name, the nearest English equivalent for which appeared to be “the Mouth of Hell itself;” and a truly awful tract of country it was, and of a certainty merited most thoroughly this infernal denomination.

These people knew nothing of any way through the marsh, and ridiculed the very notion of such a path existing, so that it was quite clear to our friends that many days of weary travel must elapse ere they could regain the eastern end of the kloof which they so eagerly sought to reach.

To add to the troubles of the little band, first Leigh and then the whole of their bearers, one after another, succumbed to swamp fever, and Kenyon, who entirely escaped its influence, had—as may well be imagined—his hands full for the next ten days. The American ascribed his own immunity from fever, to his having choked off the malarial microbes by almost incessant smoking, but if this view of the case were correct, Leigh should also have been let down very lightly, whereas the reverse obtained.

As soon as the men were sufficiently recovered to move, the whole party dragged their fevered forms a day’s journey from the edge of the marsh, and again camping on high, firm ground, did simply nothing until they had in some measure regained both health and vigour, after which they more cheerfully resumed the road, and in another ten days were once again posted in their old location near the entrance to the pass, exercising the additional precaution, however, of walling in the camp with a particularly spiky and impenetrable zareba of thorn-bushes, and of placing a couple of men on guard at night.

The day following their arrival our friends decided to spend lazily in camp enjoying a thorough rest; and it was whilst Leigh was dozing and smoking by turns in the afternoon, that the ever active Kenyon stumbled, by the merest chance, upon an important discovery—no less, in fact, than the earnestly-desired key to the secret of the Black Pass. The matter fell out thus: Kenyon having nothing else to do, had, on the previous night developed several photographic negatives, and was now taking advantage of the sun to print off a number of pictures.

As each view came out of the printing frame, it was in turn examined and passed quickly into the fixing bath; but as he was, however, about to slip into the bath a view of the pass, he suddenly paused spell-bound, and forgetting his unfixed picture, held it in his hands, his eyes keenly noting every detail of the place. The strong light, of course, quickly turned the picture black, and with an exclamation of impatience he resumed his cool manner, printed and fixed another positive, then stowed away all his paraphernalia, and lighting his pipe, sat quietly down and gave his whole attention to the photograph.

After carefully studying the picture for close upon an hour, throwing now and again a keen glance at the gloomy-looking entrance to the kloof, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and put the view into Leigh’s ready hand, saying as he did so, “Well, old fellow, I have often heard the remark that photography cannot lie, but never until now have I realised the full force of the axiom. To-morrow, at daybreak, thanks to my camera, we shall enter Master Zero’s mysterious territory, and then it will be diamond cut diamond with a vengeance.”

Leigh was instantly alive with excitement, and this Kenyon quickly relieved by his explanation, which, aided as it was by the little picture, was as simple as it was lucid.

Chapter Five.

The Secret of the Pass.

The secret of the place, as revealed by the tell-tale photograph, existed simply in the perfect natural “blind” provided by the presence of the road through the pass, whilst the slaver’s secret way was defined on the picture by a narrow wavy line, which absolutely wormed its way along the apparently unbroken face of the precipitous cliff itself, this way being primarily gained by climbing over the large, loose boulders which were freely strewed about just inside the entrance to the kloof. Gradually rising, and painfully zig-zagging up the giant wall of the rock, the narrow pathway could be clearly traced until it pierced the dark patch of brushwood which thickly crowned the summits of the towering cliffs, and was thenceforth lost to view. Deferring to Leigh’s anxiety regarding his cousin, the pair left the camp as soon as the moon rose that night, and found, to their surprise, that they could easily climb the slaver’s rocky road, and that what looked like a mere pathway for a goat, was in reality a well-worn track of a uniform width of from two and a half to three feet, and this being positively hollowed out to the depth of nearly a yard, made travelling perfectly safe, if not very fast. Human hands, at least in Central Africa, could never have accomplished such a stupendous task as this, and it was quickly evident to our friends that a small stream, running and zig-zagging down the cliff through the ages of bygone years, had gradually worn for itself a deep channel in the soft sandstone rock, and the lynx-eyed slaver had doubtless seen the value of the position, and on winning his way to the summit, in an abnormally dry season, had turned the stream into some other, and possibly more useful channel.

Proceeding with the utmost caution, and expecting every instant to receive the contents of a rifle through his ribs, Kenyon led the way up this strange ascent and in about forty minutes’ time the pair had entered the dark and heavy patch of trees and brushwood which thickly crowned the cliffs, and which served, in some degree, to mask their true and enormous proportions. Arrived there, progress became of necessity slow, for it was only in places that the moonlight penetrated the interlaced tropic foliage, and threw ghostly patches of light and shade across the path of the adventurers, who drew nearer together as the painfully mysterious silence of the place impressed itself upon them.

It is not an altogether pleasant experience to find yourself alone at night in an ordinary English coppice or plantation, a mile or two from anywhere; but transplant that plantation into equatorial Africa, and stand there with the knowledge that you are hundreds of miles from even the nearest native village, people the wood with bloodthirsty foes, lurking, keen-eyed, in every brake and covert, armed with the treacherous spear or the ready rifle, and you will understand why Leigh and Kenyon, ordinarily bold enough in the open, could only creep forward with their hearts in their mouths, and felt an access of fear when a great owl, disturbed by their cautious passage through the wood, rose from the trees above them, waking the hush of night with a weird, spirit-shaking hoot, and winged his way far off into the moonlight, which was everywhere flooding the outside world with its mellow glory.

Soon, however, our friends again escaped from the lonely wooded path, and emerged into the brilliantly-lighted open, with a magnificent range of vision in every direction, except where the cliffs on the other side of the kloof shot upwards quite a hundred feet beyond the height of those now tenanted by themselves. This peculiarity, which the pair had not previously observed, of course effectually prevented them from seeing anything at all in the southern board, but in front and on each side of them the veldt could be seen sweeping clear away to the skyline, dotted here and there by clumps of bush and by moving herds of game. Behind them the mighty rocks frowned sternly down upon the adventurers, as if rebuking these weak creatures of an hour for disturbing with their puny presence the mist-beshrouded slumber of these mighty monarchs of all time.

After a short conference our friends withdrew again into the shadow of the wood, and sat themselves down to wait patiently for the dawn, talking all the time in a busy undertone, Leigh urging one plan of action, whilst Kenyon was seemingly quite determined upon taking a diametrically opposite course. Leigh wished, in fact, to move on at once towards the north, so as to remove their persons from the tell-tale heights before daybreak, whilst Kenyon was obstinately and aggressively desirous to know what lay behind the frowning wall of rock in their immediate rear, and as this meant re-descending the pass, and apparently crawling up the other side on their hands and knees, without any really definite object in view, Leigh’s arguments certainly seemed the better.

“Why, Kenyon,” he concluded, “do you want to change your mind? Formerly you were anxious to penetrate the swamp from an altogether impossible quarter in order to arrive at our present location, and now that you have a good open down-hill road before you, you are keen to turn your back upon it. At least, let me have your reason for this change of front.”

“Simply this, Leigh,” was the reply. “The pass itself, I now find, lies somewhat to the north of the equator, and I am positively certain that the man we seek will be found in some place which lies absolutely on the equatorial line, consequently behind us, and therefore away on the other side of the kloof.”

“But why, in the name of common-sense,” persisted Leigh, “should your man live on the equator, or near it at all? That’s what I can’t understand.”

“See here, Leigh,” was the cool answer; “that was my very first clue to this affair. He lives on latitude Number 0, otherwise Zero. Basing my whole theory and reasoning upon that, I have traced him to this spot, so I may fairly assume that my deductions are correct. However, sooner or later we shall have to investigate this side of the pass, so if you like we’ll toss up when daylight comes, and let the coin decide for us.”

Still unconvinced, though admiring the shrewdness of his comrade in following up a mere piece of guess-work, and elaborating it into such a strikingly correct theory, Leigh continued to urge his view of the matter, and soon the dawn came gliding over the earth, waking all nature with a kiss of peace, and preparing her for the advent of the glorious orb of day.

Chapter Six.

Richard Grenville, his Mark.

The daylight, however, told our friends nothing very new, only Kenyon hinted to Leigh that where the rocks below them levelled down to, and impinged upon, the veldt, everything was most suspiciously green and verdant, from which he inferred the presence of their old enemy, the marsh, in the immediate vicinity; then, turning round to examine the opposite cliff, his eye was caught by what seemed to be a curious kind of diagram engraved upon the face of the rock, perhaps two or three yards from the upper edge of one of its platforms, and scarce fifty feet away from them across the intervening chasm. The appearance it presented was as undernoted, the characters being some eighteen to twenty inches in length, and cut deeply into the soft sandstone with some apparently blunt instrument.

“Now,” said Kenyon, calling his companion’s attention to this, “what the deuce does yonder curious hieroglyphic signify? I’ve no knowledge of Arabic, but I think I’m right in saying that those signs belong to the calligraphy of no known language. To my professional eye they rather resemble a rough gibbet with three bodies hanging from it.”

It so happened that, as soon as daylight had satisfied the pair that their foes were not hanging about in the immediate vicinity, Leigh had quietly laid himself down to enjoy a comfortable smoke, and was at the moment in question lying on the broad of his back, gazing at the wide vista of country below him, and puffing away in perfect tranquillity, with the apex of his skull pointing towards the chasm. To save himself the trouble of rising, he lazily elevated his chin, and performed the interesting occupation of looking, so to speak, over the top of his own head, and then electrified Kenyon by bounding to his feet with a wild hurrah, and shaking hands with him enthusiastically. “Found!” he fairly yelled. “Found, as sure as there is a heaven above us!”

“Why, confound it, old fellow,” said Kenyon, ruefully nursing his bruised fingers, “whatever is the matter with you?”

“Matter!” was the reply. “Why, your hieroglyphic is as good as my cousin looking me in the face from yonder splendid rock. The solution of your mystery is a simple matter to me—a man, hanging head-downwards from yonder cliff, laboriously graved those curious characters, upside down, as we see them, upon the face of the rock, and the hand that wrote them was the hand of Grenville.”

“And the meaning?” queried the attentive Kenyon, without showing any of his customary signs of incredulity or dissent.

“The hieroglyphic which is such a stumbling-block to you, Kenyon, simplified, stands thus:—

“I. v. LIII,

“and the meaning is merely ‘Richard Grenville.’ It was a secret sign between my cousin and myself when we were mere schoolboys, and the simile was drawn from the memorable sea-fight in the reign of good Queen Bess, when Sir Richard Grenvil—God rest him for a gallant gentleman!—‘with one small ship and his English few,’ fought for a day and a night with fifty-three Spanish galleons. As a boy, my cousin—though no descendant of the hero—was passionately devoted to this page of history, and used to sign himself ‘1 versus 53,’ and so, by yonder sign, I know he lives, and lives looking for me to find him, and to read the hand he wrote, which to all others would, of course, be utterly unintelligible.” And Leigh again set to and fairly danced with joy and excitement at this truly singular and fortunate discovery.

Whilst being thoroughly surprised, Kenyon could but congratulate himself at seeing the hall-mark of absolute accuracy thus unexpectedly stamped upon every link in the chain of his pet theory, and both men were now equally eager to descend the rocky pathway—the reason for the existence of this last being, under the circumstances, a positive enigma to them—and recommence their search for the lost one on the other side of the kloof.

After a hasty breakfast, however, the pair decided that, as they were already on the spot, it would be best to thoroughly satisfy themselves regarding their own side of the chasm, more especially as, by the time they had descended the rocky pathway and called at the camp, it would have been too late to attempt the ascent of the cliffs, which were now believed by them to provide a rampart for the enemy, and a prison for their friend.

The twain, therefore, scrambled down the rocks facing towards the north, and quickly found, as Kenyon had predicted, that the position on that side was rendered altogether inaccessible by the presence of the swamp, which just here was very much in evidence. In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, it spread itself out brightly verdant and inviting in the sunshine, but utterly treacherous and unstable, and the nearer it approached to the rocks the more palpable did the fraud appear, as, at the point where the stony ground impinged upon the veldt, the swamp was little better than stagnant pools of slimy, evil-smelling water, overgrown with reeds and rushes.

Re-ascending the rocks, Leigh and Kenyon sheltered themselves in the woods from the rays of the vertical sun, utilising their time by making themselves, as they believed, thoroughly conversant with the place, and when the day began to grow towards evening, they left the bush-clothed heights, and again turned their faces towards the camp.

Just as the pair commenced the descent of the narrow rocky path Kenyon suddenly paused, and drew in his breath with an angry hiss, and following the direction of his eager gaze, Leigh looked towards their tent, which was plainly in view, about a mile away as the crow flies.

From the height at which our friends stood, they had, of course, an unrestricted view of the plain stretched out before them, and everything upon it, and there, some two hundred yards from the camp, and clearly outlined against the veldt upon which he lay stretched, was the unwelcome figure of an unmistakable spy, who, so far as he could be made out at that distance, wore the garments of a white man.

When he had spent quite half-an-hour in this position, and no doubt thoroughly taken stock of his surroundings, the fellow was seen to turn and worm his way back, until he obtained the cover of a low clump of bush about a quarter of a mile from the camp, and was thenceforward hidden from sight.

After some little time had elapsed, and as our friends were debating what steps they had best take, a fresh surprise was provided for them, as the pair distinctly saw a snow-white pigeon leave the bush in question, describe one or two airy circles round it, and then wing its way directly towards the cliffs across the kloof, beyond which it quickly disappeared.

“A carrier pigeon, by Jove!” said Kenyon, “doubtless bearing a request to Master Zero to come down and cut all our throats to-night. All right, my friend, forewarned is forearmed, and you’ll find it so this evening, unless I am very much mistaken.”

Carefully getting down to the exit of the pass, the twain commenced a cautious stalk, and came in upon their quarry just at dusk, and great was the astonishment and consternation of the wretched spy when the two men quietly rose from the long grass, and, covering him with their revolvers, peremptorily ordered him to lay down his arms; this he promptly did in most abject fashion, and was in two minutes bound hard and fast with his own lasso, of which most objectionable instrument his armament consisted, backed up by a long American muzzle-loading rifle and a light axe or tomahawk.

The captive was apparently a Spaniard, as he protested volubly in that language—of which Kenyon had a smattering—against the gratuitous outrage committed upon his unoffending person.

Suddenly, taking advantage of an instant when neither of his captors had their eyes on him, the fellow darted to one side, and gave a kick at some small object which our friends had passed unnoticed in the long grass; this object, however, proved to be a little wicker basket, and from this receptacle—its prison doors thrown open by the intentional violence of its owner—there fluttered a large, black pigeon, which circled round the heads of the party and prepared to take its flight, just as its white predecessor had previously done. Fortunately, the bird was dazed and confused by the blow it had received, and hovered round the spot an instant too long. Like a flash Leigh’s rifle went to his shoulder, and the next second the bird lay in a lifeless heap upon the ground, whilst the spy ground out a bitter Spanish curse.

The shot was a very fine one, and but few men could have accomplished it with a repeating-rifle and a single bullet, but its success had, without a doubt, prevented the spy from giving to his friends or followers inopportune notice of his capture and detention.

Quickly proceeding into camp, where the rifle-shot had set their men buzzing about like bees, a hasty meal was partaken of, and then, leaving the tent still standing, the whole party, upwards of twenty-five in number, at once set out for the pass, as our friends believed that if they could once get their men up to the top of the rocky path, they would easily be able to hold the wood and the steep and narrow way against all comers. Finding it a matter of impossibility to get any information out of the captive, they gagged him and walked him off with them, Kenyon sternly telling him that if he tried to make any noise or attempted to escape, he would run a hunting-knife through his ribs without further notice.

By the time the moon rose the party had stumbled out their way to the mouth of the kloof, and soon had sufficient light to commence the ascent. Having to go in front and lead the way, Kenyon put Leigh in the rear to see that none of the bearers lost heart and turned back, giving the captive into the charge of a gigantic Zanzibari, and warning him that did he let the man go he should himself be shot like a dog. All went well until the party was quite two-thirds of the way up the zig-zag in the rock, when suddenly a commotion arose, and a cry went up that the prisoner was escaping. Turning angrily round, with his revolver half raised, Kenyon saw the spy standing on the very edge of the parapet of rock, with his hands at liberty, and in the act of drawing the gag from his mouth. On seeing Kenyon turn, the Zanzibari doubtless thought he was himself about to be shot, and impelled by rage and fear, he sprang wildly upon the ledge of rock and seized the Spaniard by the throat. Forgetting the extreme danger of his position, the white man swayed backwards to strike an effective blow at his sable assailant, overbalanced, and down they both went, with a horrid scream that rang out far into the stilly night, and awakened long-drawn, fearsome echoes in the dark and silent kloof.

One second more, and the horror-stricken band of listeners heard the united bodies of the ill-fated pair strike with a sickening scrunch on the rocks five hundred feet below. The whole affair was over in an instant of time, and even the stem detective was deeply impressed by this awful dual fatality, and could only beckon with his hand for the others to follow him upwards quickly and in silence.

In a few moments more the adventurers emerged from the rocky path and gained the shelter of the bushes, where Leigh and Kenyon quickly bestowed the men in safe covers, and then posted themselves at a point from which they could command the other side of the kloof, and so possibly form an opinion as to how their enemies scaled its heights; for at a glance the ascent gave promise of providing them with an extremely difficult, if not impossible, task, and if, in addition to negotiating this, they had to cope en route with an armed and intrenched foe, the prospect of success would be extremely problematical.

Leigh had a theory that the slavers were provided with long rope-ladders, but arguing from the rapid disappearance of the slave caravan, Kenyon declared that this suggestion would not hold water for a moment.

Scarcely had Leigh and Kenyon gained their covers than, to their utter astonishment, steps were heard approaching through the wood in their rear, and whilst they were making themselves as small as possible, and breathing a devout prayer that the black fellows might not lose their heads and try to run away, a band of armed men passed swiftly by their position and emerged into the moonlight.

The new-comers were about thirty in number, all armed with axe, rifle, and lasso, and were, with but two or three exceptions, white men. As they reached the zig-zag pass, the party extended into single file and promptly disappeared from view down the face of the rock. Until all had vanished Kenyon scarcely breathed, then Leigh and he turned eagerly to one another, and hurriedly and anxiously discussed the situation.

Their examination that very day of the side of the kloof upon which they now stood had been much too complete to admit of their believing that the men who had just passed them had been all the time lying hid, and the inference naturally was that these strange people had some peculiar method of crossing the gorge at its upper edge. Such an apparently preposterous idea had, of course, not occurred to the pair when searching the wood, but had the path been at all easy to find they would most certainly have stumbled across it.

Moving quietly along the back track, the pair cautiously examined every likely spot, and were about to enter a particularly black-looking clump of bush, when they were suddenly brought to a standstill by the gruff challenge of a colossal-looking sentry, who started out from the dark background of wood and threateningly raised his rifle.

“Halt! halt! and give the password!”

Leigh’s hand stole towards his revolver; but men think rapidly in emergencies like this, and in a moment of inspiration, Kenyon coolly answered, “Zero!”

“Pass, Zero, and all’s well,” grunted the gigantic sentinel, grounding his arms with a clash, and then, in a theatrical whisper as the pair approached him, “Mates, you haven’t got a drink on you, have you? It’s main cold up here.”

Quickly Leigh held out his flask, and as the other was in the very act of drinking, Kenyon flew at his throat like a cat, and choked him down, whilst Leigh knelt on his chest, and tried to bind him. Our friends were both exceptionally powerful men, but this fellow was a regular bull of Bashan, and it was only after a low whistle had summoned one of their native guides that the trio got the sentry bound and gagged to their satisfaction. Next, sending the black fellow to keep watch at the top of the zig-zag, the pair set to to thoroughly explore the tangled path which had been guarded by the sentry. A most unpleasant task this was, too, feeling their way about on the very verge of an immense precipice, thickly clothed with trees and bush, through which the rays of the moon cast at intervals a sickly glamour of feeble light and heavy shade.

At last a brief exclamation from Leigh announced a discovery, and standing by his side, and looking directly across the chasm, Kenyon saw a curious, and in its way, a striking spectacle. From one side of the kloof to the other stretched the taut strands of a mighty double rope or hawser, and from this rope was suspended a small cage, capable of containing two or three men, the occupants drawing themselves across by small guide-ropes, whilst the cage moved easily along the hawser upon wheeled blocks, the whole arrangement being entirely concealed from the view of anyone, either above or below, by the trees on either side of the chasm, which at this point blended and interlaced both their foliage and their branches.

So far good, but as the cage now swung in mid-air over the very centre of the chasm itself, and had, moreover, an occupant, it was difficult to see what the next move was to be. It was, however, our friends reflected, at all events consoling to know that a slash or two with a sharp knife would effectually dispose of all possibility of their savage foes attacking them in the rear.

Just at this moment a cautious whistle told Kenyon that danger was to be apprehended from the direction of the veldt, but at that very instant the man in the cage, evidently thinking that the signal had been given for his benefit, commenced to haul upon the rope, and quickly gaining their side of the chasm, leaped out right into the ready arms of the pair, who very soon had him securely gagged and tied to a tree, at a little distance from his fellow. Hurrying back as another low but earnest whistle reached their ears, our friends found that the slavers had been seen to surround the tent, and thoroughly explore it; then, evidently disliking the look of things, they had set out at speed towards the pass, which they must now be in the very act of climbing.

Carrying off the whole frightened crowd, with the exception of one man who had shown himself a tolerable marksman and something removed from an abject coward, Kenyon showed them how to cross the chasm safely and quietly, and bade them get over at once with all the ammunition. Persuasion and explanation was, however, of no use at all, and he had to drive the first batch into the strange vehicle at the muzzle of his revolver. Then, finding they were quite safe, the negroes promptly commenced to chatter like so many monkeys, whereupon Kenyon threatened to shoot them, if he heard another sound, and then returned with all expedition to Leigh, who had posted himself so as to command the zig-zag, and had cleverly rolled a big rock into the very mouth of the channel by which the foe was approaching.

All was now in readiness, and a dead silence reigned. The hush of a tranquil tropical midnight was upon everything, and all nature was looking her loveliest under the glamour of the shimmering moonlight. All at once the stillness was marred by a footfall, and then rent, as it were, by a furious curse, as the leading slaver reached the top of the pass, and found the way blocked up. Climbing carefully over the stone, however, he safely reached terra firma, and was stooping down to remove the obstruction, when he was angrily hailed in nervous English by Kenyon—“Here, you dog, leave that stone alone, and go back by the way you came. Quickly now, and drop that rifle—drop it, I say, or your blood be on your own head!”

For answer, the fellow fired point-blank in the direction of the voice (for he could not see Kenyon, who was standing in the shadows of the wood), and then made for cover, but he never reached it; indeed, he had hardly moved in his tracks, when down he went, as dead as a door-nail, being followed a moment later, along the same dark and fearsome road, by a comrade who persisted in obtruding over the rock rather more of his person than Leigh was disposed to permit, and ere the thundering echoes of the rifles had ceased to answer and to mock one another amongst the surrounding rocks, the remainder of the slavers, having no more stomach for such work, were in full retreat down the rock, and half an hour later were seen steering wide out into the south-western veldt, thus putting entirely to rest any doubts which Kenyon still entertained of the feasibility of an attempt to scale the opposite cliffs.

Had there been any way of ascending on the other side of the kloof, it was quite certain the slavers would have known about it, whereas they had clearly found it necessary to make a very wide circuit in order to get round the rocks, and thus make their way back to head-quarters.

Sending forward their sable supporters with instructions to get the prisoners across the chasm, Kenyon led his wondering comrade up the cliffs to the right, where they suddenly came upon a small lake, obviously fed by a neighbouring mountain stream.

“Now, old fellow,” said he, “just lay down your rifle, and help me to break up this wall, and assist outraged nature to regain her ancient rights.”

Leigh quickly saw that the water, which came sweeping rhythmically down from the further heights beyond the hill, had at this point been artfully turned by a well-made wall, built of rock and broken stone, and apparently strengthened with mortar or cement, so that the stream, instead of exercising its own sweet will by zig-zagging down the rock, as it had done of yore, was wasted on the north-western veldt, where its advent had probably been largely responsible for the origination of the marsh, which had already given our friends such a world of trouble. The wall of the dam, however, proved considerably stronger than Kenyon had bargained for, so they finally bored a hole in it, and blew the whole affair up with a couple of flasks of powder taken from the fallen slavers.

When the smoke of the explosion cleared away, the released water could be seen bounding over the rocks, and shooting down the narrow channel with a wild, sweeping rush, effectually closing this method of ascending the cliffs unless in abnormally dry seasons. A moment later and our friends could see the stream filtering along its old course across the veldt, looking like a mighty silver snake as it gleamed and twisted on its tortuous way, reflecting at every turn the brilliancy of the lovely crescent moon.

Regaining the edge of the kloof, our friends stepped into the cage, and were soon hauled across the chasm by one of their men, who was already quite expert in this singular method of semi-aerial procedure.

On examining the prisoners Kenyon was disgusted to find that they were both stone dead, the cowardly blacks having killed them, bound as they were, lest the slavers should get loose and do them an injury. This was the more aggravating, as Kenyon had fairly counted upon forcing information of some kind out of the men, and he was, besides, disposed to think well of the big sentry who had hailed them in English. However, the men were dead, and it was, therefore, useless regretting them, but Kenyon inwardly registered a vow to get even with the rascal who had committed such a brace of infernally cold-blooded murders should he ever find him out. Then sternly ordering the men to shoulder their loads, the party set out under the waning moon, directing their steps downwards and towards the south-east.

Chapter Seven.

“Just in Time.”

For quite a quarter of a mile our friends found that the road provided very rough travelling indeed. This was the more annoying, as the moon was fast going down, and it was a matter of vital importance that the little band should progress quickly and secure a strong position before daylight revealed their movements to the enemy.

Their only difficulty would be with regard to water, as the party had an abundant supply of stores and ammunition; for, having, of course, no idea as to how long the expedition might be detained in the Interior, Leigh had provisioned it most lavishly, and as game had hitherto been plentiful, the stores had been very lightly dealt with.

In an hour’s time all had, as they thought, reached level ground, for the road, after the first half-mile had been negotiated, proved fairly good, and finding a lofty cavern in the rock, Kenyon drew his whole party into it, cast anchor, and wished for the day.

The darkness had now become positively opaque, for the moon had entirely disappeared behind the mountains, and a film of mist seemed everywhere to hang over the lower lands, and had their enemies been absolutely within arm’s length, our friends would have been utterly unable to distinguish them.

Soon, however, the “darkest hour” was over, and the eastern mountains became dimly outlined through the gauze-like curtain of mist, as the glad light of another brilliant day came speeding in upon the wings of the morning, heralding the advent of the sun himself with all the attendant splendour of an equatorial African day.

Our friends at once perceived that, so far from having reached the level of the country, they were at present posted on a ridgy platform upon the mountain side, whilst far below them, the land which lay considerably lower than that on the other side of the kloof, was stretched out before them in wonderfully beautiful panorama.

On one hand a limpid stream glided peacefully along its course, making dreamland music in the sunshine, and watering mile after mile of verdant pasture land, which was dotted hero and there with moving herds of game, whilst on the other was a mighty belt of giant forest trees, backed to the eastward by the everlasting mountains, which appeared absolutely to ring-in the country in that direction, though towards the west, as far as the eye could reach, only grass land could be seen, the rolling veldt sweeping clear away to the skyline unrelieved by even a single clump of trees or bush, and broken only here and there by the silvery tracery of tiny streamlets; whilst to the south, blue in the far distance and faintly relieved against the azure setting of the sky, could be traced the dim outline of a giant mountain-peak, probably fifteen thousand feet in height, its snow-capped crest flashing back in many-coloured radiance each glorious spear of light cast by the rising sun.

Kenyon and Leigh were about to give the word to their men (all of whom were busily gazing at the inviting prospect before them) to get under weigh, when both were fairly electrified by hearing a voice raised in the cavern just behind them.

“Greeting!” it said; “greeting to ye strangers.” Then as our friends turned quickly round, and their white personality became evident to the speaker, “Greeting, white strangers, who come from the northern lands beyond the distant seas. What seek ye here in this foul place, where all things that are good live but to die, and where only evil prospers, and the arch-fiend himself bears rule? What seek ye here with Muzi Zimba the old? and ye black ones, are ye tired of life, and of that freedom which alone makes life worth living, that ye venture your heads inside the lion’s mouth? Go I go, all of ye, white and black. Go! in God’s name, while the life is yet whole in ye. Why tarry ye here? Escape for your lives, my sons, and peace go with ye.”

Our friends had been closely watching the individual who delivered this strange yet forcible appeal, and looks of commiseration passed from one to the other. The man was as white-skinned as themselves, and judging from the purity of his English must have been at one time a British subject. He was, however, extremely old, probably eighty-five or ninety, and his face, which was benign and gentle, was shrouded by his long, silvery locks, and muffled, as it were, in an immense snow-white beard, which reached down to his very waist, and gave him an altogether venerable and striking appearance; his voice was strong and resonant, his manner quiet and peaceful, but the man was obviously mad. He had evidently become so accustomed to the native metaphor that he had unconsciously adopted it as his own language, and his diction at best halted somewhat, as if he were unused, indeed, to exercising his tongue in framing speech of any kind.

Whilst Kenyon hesitated what to do, Leigh went frankly forward and held but his hand to the old fellow, who shook it heartily; then, humouring him, Leigh spoke, and as the full, rich voice struck upon his ear, the old man bent his head and seemed as if the familiar accents had brought back to him some signs or memories of the long-forgotten past.

“Greeting, my father, greeting,” answered Leigh. “Thy sons have wandered hither on a long and very weary path, seeking for a lost one who left them many moons ago. In face he was even as I am, and in form was somewhat less, and spoke to his people with an English tongue. Tell me, hast thou seen such an one, my father?”

The old man gazed steadily at Leigh for some moments, then, changing his wrapt manner, he spoke sadly, “My son, I have, indeed, met with him, and thy living image he was; but never, alas! wilt thou see him in the flesh, for to-day he dies—ay! dies a dog’s death, and does it for his faith, like a gallant Christian man.”

“Dies?” thundered Leigh; “he shall not die, he must not die—oh! Dick, Dick, have I come right across the world to arrive one day too late?”

Eagerly the pair tried to question the old man, but he at once grew confused and his weak mind evidently failed to realise their anxiety or to grasp the drift of their questions, and at last he turned upon them with quiet dignity. “Leave me now, my sons,” he said, “for I go to offer prayers for him who dies when yonder sun reaches the zenith. Return whence ye came, so shall ye live and not die—go, and God go with ye—farewell!” and this strange individual moved slowly away down the cavern and disappeared in the inner gloom.

Hastily directing their men to lie hidden in the cave until their return, Leigh and Kenyon armed themselves to the teeth, and quickly slipping down the rocky path, were soon speeding across the open, and directing their hurried steps towards the forest.

Each was equipped with a repeating-rifle, four Smith and Wesson’s revolver-pistols, and as much ammunition as he could well carry, so that the pace, in spite of the best endeavours of the pair, was somewhat slow, and when, after two hours of continued effort, they entered the belt of wood, both judged it expedient to sit down and eat some food whilst enjoying a short rest. Soon, however, getting on their legs again, our friends struck into a forest path, which they followed as fast as they could travel, instinct, or else the promptings of despair leading them in the right direction.

For another hour the pair ascended gradually through the forest, the path leading steadily upwards, and ultimately terminating in a sharp climb; but, just as they were about to negotiate this piece of wooded rock, they heard a burst of music (sic) evidently proceeding from tom-toms, horns, and other instruments of abomination, dear to the heart of the aboriginal African.

Cautiously ascending the rock, our friends concealed themselves in a bush, and then a curious sight met their eyes. Some thirty feet below them lay a sort of hollow in the mountains, which looked as if it had at one time formed the base of a vast quarry, being perhaps a thousand yards across its widest part, and shaped somewhat in the form of a horseshoe, but now carpeted everywhere with short, smooth turf. At the farther side of this mighty enclosure was a narrow gap or pass in the mountains, which clearly gave access to the spot, and through this striking natural gateway some thousands of ebony-skinned Africans were now pouring, accompanying their march with all sorts of horrible and ear-splitting native music.

Quickly the black fellows filed in, to the number of, probably, three thousand, and squatted themselves down on the rocks, which, as on the side occupied by Leigh and his comrade, formed a solid barrier some thirty feet high round the ring of level turf.

Following upon the heels of this riff-raff appeared a mixed mob of some three to four hundred white men and women, escorting a native who was evidently a King, or, at least, a “Big Chief,” judging from the attentions they lavished upon him, and from his striking “get up.” This last consisted of a stove-pipe hat, a scarlet coat adorned with gold braid, and a pair of bright yellow stockings of unusual length, reaching well up the thigh; round his waist was buckled an enormously long cavalry sword, which trailed upon the ground as he walked, and in his hand he carried a “gun” considerably taller than himself; it was, in fact, one of those fearfully and wonderfully made specimens of the genus gas-pipe with which England and Germany delight to arm the whole of Africa at about eight shillings per head.

“Solomon in all his glory, by Jove,” whispered Leigh to the observant and attentive Kenyon. All disposition to laugh was, however, quickly stifled by the appearance of a man carrying a flag, which was promptly planted in the very centre of the open space, and welcomed by the assembled thousands with a positive frenzy of enthusiasm, but was greeted by Leigh with a groan of horror and dismay, for upon a dead black ground it bore a white circle, and in the centre of this ring were three horrible basilisk-looking eyes.

Kenyon on his part whistled quietly. “So!” he said, “Zero and the Mormon Trinity—birds of a feather, by all that’s holy! Well, we must watch and wait, and somehow I don’t think our patience will be tried for very much longer.”

Just then a hammock was borne in, and from this there alighted a white woman, a Spaniard or an Italian by her looks; this female being instantly accommodated with a seat, and approached with much deference by the white men in the crowd.

Leigh thought he had never seen a more wicked, yet withal a more handsome, face. Her complexion was beautifully clear, her hair black and glossy as the raven’s wing, and her figure simply superb; but the eyes looked like coals of living fire, and the mouth, as Kenyon—who was busy sketching her in his notebook—remarked, was more like a spring rat-trap than anything else.

A wait of half an hour next ensued, during which the native band discoursed sweet (?) music, and then there went up a mighty shout from the motley throng which thickly lined the farther side of the great enclosure, as a small crowd of men, white and black, were driven in at the spear’s point; all had their hands tied behind them, but had their legs left perfectly free to enable them to run at will, the slavers knowing well, that deprived as the captives were of the use of their hands and arms, they could not escape by climbing up the rocks.

A moment later the friends, to their utter horror, beheld a barrier lifted, and through the opening thus made there immediately charged a colossal-looking bull-elephant. For a full minute the great brute gazed wickedly about him, as if debating the possibility of getting at the block fellows who were rapidly angering him with their infernal tom-toms; next he trumpeted until the welkin rang again, and then all of a sudden threw up his trunk, and hurled his vast bulk blindly at the wretched band of captives, who fled incontinently in every direction, whilst the air resounded with yells of laughter from the spectators, black and white, across the wide enclosure. These wretches were evidently enjoying to the full this intensely Roman spectacle, and Leigh felt his blood boil at the thought that the lives of human beings—white men, moreover—were to be deliberately sacrificed in this truly diabolical manner to provide an hour’s amusement for an ignorant savage and his greasy, yelping retinue of semi-monkeyfied followers. By and by, however, a great black man fleeted—with the speed of light—past the rock where our friends lay hid, the enraged elephant following close upon his heels; and brief though the glimpse was, in an instant Leigh knew his man, and blew a peculiar little reed whistle which Kenyon had often noticed attached to his friend’s watch-chain.

Once! twice! thrice! he sounded the signal, and then, lo! and behold, every captive on the ground, both white and black, was seen to turn short in his tracks and speed madly across the wide stretch of open, in a wild endeavour to reach the distant rock; close behind the crowd thundered the giant mammal, screaming with rage, and gaining upon the luckless wights at every step, the tip of his snake-like trunk almost seeming to touch the hindmost runner. It was an altogether extraordinary, yet at the same time a very dreadful, sight; and as Leigh’s rifle leaped to his shoulder, he seemed, by one of those curious tricks which fancy sometimes plays us, to see the Colosseum spread out before him, its benches packed to suffocation with the pleasure-seekers of an ancient Roman holiday, and its arena peopled by the noble martyrs falling beneath the claws of Nero’s ravening beasts.

History ever repeats itself, and at this very instant, whilst the easy-going people of the nineteenth Christian century were sitting quietly in their peaceful homes, thanking God that such acts and deeds were for ever at an end, here was the horrid self-same spectacle being re-enacted in darkest Africa, without any of the added refinements of modern cruelty, upon the living bodies of their own fellow-men, both white and black.

Thought, however, is swift, and Leigh’s thought delayed him never an instant, and even as he pressed the trigger and saw the deadly bullet go homo, and the mighty elephant pitch forward upon his knees, he sprang upright upon the ledge of rock, to show the captives where their friends lay hid; then, as his rifle thundered out again, backed up by the echo of Kenyon’s heavy piece, and the discomfited elephant wallowed on the ground with three shell bullets in his ugly carcass, Leigh was conscious that Kenyon was slipping down the rock, and quickly following his friend, both were in an instant busy with their hunting-knives upon the thongs which held the prisoners, who, twenty-five in number, six white and the rest black, were all at liberty and eagerly scrambling up the rock before the mixed assemblage beyond the great enclosure had thoroughly realised what was going on, less than a thousand yards away, under cover of the smoke and the rapid discharges of strange rifles.