Part 4 (2/2)

”The Inkoos, my father, is indeed a great and very mighty warrior. In one short hour he has slain in fair fight more men than Amaxosa has killed in his whole lifetime; but my father is wounded and very weary after so great a fight, and it is meet that he should now follow on the track of the Lily of the Valley and the Inkoosis to the great black rock and the spring of sweet water; and when these evil men, my old masters, the wicked witch-finders, seek to follow on the road, then it shall come to pa.s.s that my father's faithful war-dogs, the sons of Undi, shall slay them, and if perchance they should by force of numbers overcome the children of my race, then in the evening of his life will my father, the lion-hearted chief, sometime remember Myzukulwa and Amaxosa, the sons of Isa.n.u.si, who fought and died for him on the narrow bridge which spans the River of Death. Let my father's ears receive the words of the voice of his son, for they are good words.”

Grenville, who was deeply touched by the devotion of the Zulus, shook hands warmly with them and thanked them for their timely aid, which had undoubtedly saved his life, but steadfastly declined to desert them or to yield the post of honour.

”Unless my rifle is here to keep the rascals out of range,” he said to Amaxosa, ”you would soon fall to their guns; a brave man, my friend, is no more proof against a bullet than is a coward.”

”Fear not their bullets, Inkoos,” was the quick reply; ”the witch-finders will shoot no more to-night, the rain will stop them.”

And even as the Zulu spoke, the clouds over their heads, which had gradually grown denser and more threatening, were rent asunder by a vivid flame of fire which for one brief instant revealed the whole countryside in a dazzling, blinding glare of lurid light and then vanished into darkness which might be felt, and which was rendered still more awful by the terrific peals of thunder, loud as the trump of doom, which shook the earth and appeared to rend the very vault of heaven itself; the h.e.l.lish clamour being returned in varying and deafening tones by every rugged rock and echoing glen in the mountain-range, till the whole craggy chaos quivered with the conflicting reverberations.

Flash succeeded flash in rapid succession, until the sultry air seemed instinct with blazing levin brands, whilst the forked streams of arrowy fire darted hither and thither, as if impelled by the hand of a giant.

Then all of a sudden came the tropic rain. Rain! It was simply a vast steaming sheet of vaporish water, which in one instant blotted out the landscape, flooded the veldt, and sent the sullen sluggish River of Death roaring down its active course, where it enlivened the rocks with hoa.r.s.e and angry murmurings, and clothed the sides of the dreadful chasm with weird and ghostly echoes.

Grenville now suggested to his followers that it would be a good opportunity to blow up the bridge, before the powder, which they were protecting to the best of their somewhat limited ability, began to get damp; but when Amaxosa understood this wish, he replied--

”Why should my father destroy the bridge? Let him withdraw it, and keep the witch-finders on the other side. Amaxosa thought he wished to kill them all to-night.”

On being questioned, the Zulu explained that these bridges all hinged on pivots which worked on the outer side of the river; this, he said, was to enable the Holy Three and their immediate satellites to effectually prevent any spying upon their movements when they undertook their murderous errands either inside or outside their own country.

”Good!” said Grenville; ”the evil deeds of these scoundrels will recoil upon their own heads.” And in a few moments more, with the help of the Zulus, the bridge was open and lying flush with their own side of the river, and Grenville and his two sable friends were stealing away with cautious steps, carefully carrying the powder and a score of Mormon guns.

Ere the party had reached the fringe of bush less than a mile away, the rain ceased, as suddenly as it had come on, the moon again shed her soft and beauteous radiance on mountain, veldt, and forest, sparkling in every direction with lovely raindrops, which glistened as if all Nature were smiling through her happy bridal tears. As the little party entered the scrub a wild, angry shout was wafted to their ears, and across the rolling veldt, and beyond the now protecting chasm, the Mormons could be seen ranging up and down, like bloodthirsty tigers baulked of their hard-won prey.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A NIGHT ATTACK.

Being perfectly secure from Mormon interference--at all events, for the moment--Grenville and the two Zulus proceeded somewhat leisurely on their way to the rock, for, truth to tell, all three were suffering from both hunger and fatigue, and their one single consolation consisted of a good smoke.

And now, as they gradually knocked off the weary miles which lay between the central river and the great rock, Grenville heard the details of the Zulu expedition to the eastern bridge.

These active children of the veldt had made a very wide detour during the first night, and safely reached the desired shelter of the timber about an hour before dawn, and had watched and slept by turns all day, having first satisfied themselves that no large force of the enemy was near at hand. On the bridge they found two guards instead of one, which, as they said, ”made their hearts glad, as the fight would be a fair one,” for the astute Myzukulwa had determined that _at least three rockets should go up_, by hook or by crook. Instead, therefore, of alarming the sentinels by showing their persons at dusk, they came upon the miserable men in the most approved Zulu fas.h.i.+on, and settled them out of hand, without even giving them the chance of firing a shot.

The pair had then coolly sat down and talked, debating how many rockets to fire, and had ultimately concluded that Amaxosa, who was quite _au fait_ with the method of sending up these aerial messengers, should despatch _five_, and thus cause the Mormons to believe that Winfield and the escaped Zulu had joined themselves to the audacious invaders of their secret kingdom.

No sooner was this operation satisfactorily performed than the brothers prepared to set out for the central bridge, when they were all at once a.s.sailed by five or six Mormons, who had sprung from somewhere close at hand, and a desperate battle of course ensued. One of the attacking party, in trying to shoot Myzukulwa, had kindly missed that worthy and ”potted” one of his own friends, and in less time than it takes to tell, three of the enemy were dead and the others retreating at full speed; but not knowing how many more might be lying hid, the Zulus for a wonder concluded discretion to be the better part of valour, and after turning off the bridge had come at a slinging trot all the way to Grenville's position, which, as we have already seen, they reached just in the very nick of time.

When the trio had put in nearly two hours' solid work, poor Grenville grew faint with fatigue, exposure, and loss of blood. The grey ghostly mists of dawn were now hanging over the party on every side; but, as far as Amaxosa could judge, they were still an hour's journey from the rock, and as the Mormons might have sent a fast detachment by the western bridge, it behoved our friends to lose no time.

For some way the faithful Zulus, themselves nearly dead beat, half supported, half carried Grenville, only to find, when they spoke to him, that he was fast asleep on his feet; laying him gently down, the pair looked at each other as if wondering what to do, when suddenly a colossal figure seemed to burst out of the mist and dash right down upon them at full speed; in one instant the Zulus sprang over their fallen chief and raised their spears to meet the foe, but all at once Myzukulwa lowered his weapon quietly. ”Ow! Inkoos,” he said. ”Ow!”

The new arrival was Alf Leigh, riding the quagga, which had shortly before carried the lovely Rose of Sharon. Seeing his cousin's motionless and bloodstained body, he threw himself off the animal and fell on his knees beside it. ”d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! my poor old d.i.c.k--dead!

dead! dead! Oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d! what shall I do? Would I had died for thee, my dear old d.i.c.k!”

”Stay, Inkoos,” said Amaxosa gently. ”My father the lion-hearted chief is not dead; he does but sleep the sleep of the wounded and the weary.

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