Lawrence Fletcher

“ Woe! woe! woe! to the Mormon host, for up the valley, at a long slinging trot, comes the crack regiment of the famous warriors of the Undi, led on to the charge by Amaxosa, the chief of their ancient house. The Saints form up in square against the rocks, heedless of their white foes above, as they try to meet the resistless charge of the Zulu impi, and stem the awful torrent which rolls up in a dark compact tide and flings itself upon them, even as the surf dashes itself against, against, up, up—ay, and right over the rocky shore. ”

“ Life on such an awful place as this! Better, far better, certain sudden death!
One moment Grenville watched, then springing to his feet, he sent a wild cry of encouragement across the chasm; and in proud and instant answer, pealing across the vast abyss, and waking every sleeping echo in the mighty rocks, came the defiant Zulu war-song, and in one moment more, every child of the Undi within that band was on his feet, ranging up and down the chasm’s edge, shouting the war-cry of his famous chief, and seeking means to aid him. ”

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

“ After a few moments’ rest, the slavers charged in with a wild shout, resolved, at all cost, to wipe out the little band of heroes who held the skull-shaped hill; and when the surging struggling mass of men had been lost in a rain of blows, for full ten minutes, all chance of escape or triumph for our friends seemed gone: but fifty men were left to fight three hundred.
Grenville and Leigh, Amaxosa and Kenyon, were back to back, their blows rained straight and sure, and at every blow from each a man went down, still what could they do against such overwhelming odds as six to one. ”

“ Again springing to his feet, however, the Zulu dashed up to the leader of the party, who was none other than the last remaining member of the Holy Trinity, stabbed him to the heart, and with a cry of victory fell dead across the corpse of the foe, his life-blood welling out through a hundred gaping wounds, and the dead bodies of upwards of a dozen Mormons bearing ghastly testimony to the fact that Myzukulwa, the son of Undi, had died even as he had lived, as a warrior, magnificently brave and fearless, as a friend faithful unto death. ”

“ Thus, when he rises to fire upon our friends, will we fire on him and his, and take him by surprise. Then will our friends upon the mountain wake and shoot their shots. So shall the Black One find himself between two heavy fires. But think upon the weary way, my father, for much I doubt that few will win it, and therein lies my fear; for, spread out wide upon the veldt and weakened, Zero will eat us up, and stamp us flat for ever. Well, even so, my father, we can but try, and if we die ’twill be a brave man’s death, facing a savage foe. ”

“ Thou, Myzukulwa, the chief of the Undi, wast a man after my own heart; thou wast swifter than an eagle, and stronger than a lion. Pride of the Undi, why hast thou left us? Thou art gone, my brother, though thy glory has been even as the sun in his noonday brightness; who that saw thee yesternight would have believed that thou couldst thus have died? Yet hast thou fallen like a warrior, and thrice one hundred foes of the evil men, the witch-finders, have gone before to do thee service and to clear thy path to the shades. ”

“ The Zulu had not left the main body above five minutes when the inky-looking vault right over head was suddenly rent in twain as if some giant hand had ripped the veil of clouds, and heaven and earth seemed fairly to meet for one brief instant in a dazzling, blazing glare of lurid light, which flooded veldt and mountain, rock and river, for miles around the spot, and was instantly succeeded by an unremitting roll of thunder, which seemed to shake all nature to her utmost depths, and threaten earth with chaos worse confounded. ”

“ Handsomely done, Leigh; shell after shell, brave Grenville. Ha! there goes Warden with a bullet through his brain. Well aimed, Dora Winfield! That shot has settled many an old score of thy dear father’s.
Alas! alas! all is lost. They are up—they touch the very plateau, when Grenville again drives them back with a terrific charge, crying out—“Hurrah, old man; bear up another moment—look yonder.” Leigh looks, and so do the Mormons, and with one accord they turn and fly down the rock—and why? Out yonder, under the setting sun, what do they see?—what do they hear? ”

“ Unbarring the door of another room, Zero let the hermit in and closed the portal behind them both, and Kenyon found himself face to face with an imperially beautiful woman, still quite young, but whose lovely face was worn with sorrow and anguish, and furrowed with her bitter tears. A tall, well-knit figure, a wealth of lustrous golden hair, and glorious deep blue eyes, formed a tout ensemble which might have won pity from a stone, but had no effect whatever upon this scoundrel who battened on human misery. ”

“ Reverently Grenville kissed the marble forehead of this loveliest flower of East Utah, and then drew himself up, facing his judge and executioners; and dashing the scalding tears from his eyes, he threw back his head, and his face became as the face of an angry lion, whilst his voice rang over the darkening plain and echoed amongst the forest’s secret aisles.
“Cowards and traitors,” he cried, “villains who shoot and crucify their womenkind, Richard Grenville is not dead yet—nor will he die until every craven soul in East Utah has died miserably. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Grenville let them get within three hundred yards of the rock, and then his party opened fire, knocking the astonished cowards over like ninepins, and in less than ten minutes the blazing pillar of fire showed only the open glade, strewn thickly with corpses, its sickly glare revealing also a mighty gaping rent in the ground, from which smoke still issued, looking as if Nature had herself prepared a Stygian grave for the dishonoured dead. ”

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

“ One ghastly sight, however, did Kenyon see, for absolutely pinned to a burning house by a Zulu assegai, which had passed right through her heart, hung the dead mistress of Zero, the slaver-chief, and the beholder know that the hand that killed her was the hand of justice—justice on a woman more evil in her ways than many a wicked man who had that day fallen in fair fight. ”

“ Had he been able to count upon the night being as dark as it proved to be, and had the lightning not been so much in evidence, Grenville would gladly have taken the Zulu with him; but he well knew that where a white man might possibly pass undetected amongst a half-paralysed and wholly terror-stricken mob of his own colour, the black skin of his faithful friend would at once draw down upon him stern and unfailing punishment, or rather retribution. ”

“ 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? ”

“ For thus shall the matter go:—Seest thou, my father, that yonder comes the dawn. At dawn, next day but one, will the evil Black One, backed by all his wicked host, fall on the white men as they sleep close by the burning mountain; and it shall be, my father, that while the Black One sets a snare for the white men, we ourselves will set a snare for him. ”

“ In East Utah it fell out precisely as the fugitive had feared; the officer was wanted, searched for, and, as he could not be found, his prisoner was next looked up; then finding the bird flown, the community at once determined that treachery had been at work, and an hour after Grenville’s escape fifty men were on his trail, vowing deadly vengeance upon their recreant officer, whilst he, poor soul!—or, rather, all that remained of him—was bobbing up and down in the River of Death as it glided sullenly along its course, carrying to the vast and wandering ocean the message of the peaceful sky. ”

“ In a few short minutes all was again as quiet as death, and the twain looked anxiously at one another, yearning to know with whom the victory rested, when all at once, through the still night air, and right across the rolling veldt was wafted the wild war-cry of the children of the Undi, proclaiming the successful accomplishment of another act of retribution, and the absolutely triumphant success of Amaxosa’s daring scheme for the destruction of the foe—a success which was marred only by the single detail of the temporary escape from their vengeance, of the Slaver-Chief himself. ”

“ Amaxosa, with the perversity of a native, had always insisted—all danger to the contrary notwithstanding—in sleeping outside the house of rock, in a sort of hollow in the scrub which he had dignified by the name of “bed”; but one night, just as Grenville was comfortably dozing off to sleep, whilst Myzukulwa kept watch, a hand was placed on his shoulder, and the voice of Amaxosa whispered, “Let my father rise and follow me; there is danger and witchcraft afoot.”
Springing to his feet, Grenville instantly joined the Zulus outside the cave, and heard strange and terrible tidings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fatal tubes vomited a sheet of angry flame; the deadly messengers sped forth upon their cruel errand; and a body, lately instinct with life and health, lay writhing on the greensward, gasping in the death agony.
But whose body? Bewildered and confused, called back to life when he believed himself already dead, Grenville bent over the person who had so nobly and uselessly given a precious life for him, and uttered a wild and bitter cry of anguish as he recognised the lovely Rose of Sharon. Dropping on his knees, he raised the apparently inanimate corpse in his arms, crying—
“Rose! Rose! ”

“ Africa! The whole country is being depopulated, and every acre of it watered with the tears of a people torn from their happy homes and sold into slavery in distant lands, or sent across the seas, and soon this vast and fertile region, as yet almost unknown to the white races, will become in all directions an impenetrable and useless jungle, through which even the mammoth elephant must fail to force his way—a dark continent in very deed and truth, an eyesore to both God and man. ”

“ The words came in cool, quiet tones. “Well, if I were you, Alf, I should convey my carcass out of the line of fire from yonder rifle, which has been pointed at each of our persons in succession during the last two minutes;” and Grenville, with the stem of his pipe, indicated a spot some three hundred yards away, where his keen eye had detected the browned barrel of a rifle projected through a fissure in the rock; then, in quick, incisive tones, suiting the action to the word, “Lie down, man!” and not a moment too soon, as an angry rifle-bullet sang over his head and flattened against the rock. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was now nothing left, he said, but to revenge them, and on regaining the plateau, he was, along with Leigh and Dora Winfield, discussing what best to do next, when suddenly casting his eyes into the darkness by his side, the courageous Zulu, to Leigh’s utter astonishment and consternation, uttered a frightful yell and rushed away to hide in the sleeping cave, whilst at that instant his beloved and lamented cousin Grenville calmly strode into the firelight, with the body of Rose in his arms, and, placing his precious burden tenderly on the rock, turned and offered Leigh his hand ”