Into the Unknown Part 12

In the afternoon the brothers lay down to sleep, and as Leigh sat and watched them, and smoked his pipe, he could not help thinking that any of the miserable Mormons who got in their way that night would have a rough time of it. At sunset he awoke the pair, and after they had indulged in a hearty meal, hands were shaken all round, and the Zulus, slipping down from the plateau, were instantly swallowed up in the eerie shadows of the veldt and mountain, and proceeded on their way to East Utah, followed by the prayers and good wishes of their friends upon the rock.

We must now return to poor Grenville, who had spent the day, as usual, surrounded by his guards, and occupied with the all-absorbing topic provided by the death of two members of their Trinity. Our friend learned that the Mormons would have been very awkwardly placed had the prophet before he died not given instructions to issue the necessary proclamation of the death of his colleague Warden, and the consequent need for the appointment of some member of the community in his place.

Had this not happened, it was more than probable that the last surviving representative of the Trinity would have arrogated supreme power to himself, and declined to co-operate with anyone else, and he being as universally despised, as his father had been respected and as Ishmael Warden had been hated, a revolution would in all probability have resulted, by which the remnant of the latter day Saints would have suffered more severely than ever. To his friend the officer Grenville could not help remarking that he was surprised to find a people so intelligent as the Saints allowing themselves to be guided and led by the nose by their false prophets through the medium of their superst.i.tious fancies.

The officer, however, grew quite stern, and ordered him not to blaspheme; then unbending again, "Come," said he, "you are to die, so I don't mind convincing you before you go of the genuineness of the power conferred upon our Holy Three;" and leading Grenville along, still in chains, he brought him to the top of the hill overlooking the city, and upon which stood the signal of the Fiery Cross, fixed above a curious pepper-box-shaped wooden house.

Entering the door, the Mormon signed to Grenville to follow him, which our hero did, wondering to find himself in a darkened room containing a tables surrounded by wooden seats, upon one of which last his guide, whispering in awe-struck tones, instructed him to place himself.

This done, the Mormon gave muttered utterance to a doggerel rhyme of some kind, the words of which Grenville could not catch, but which was evidently supposed to act the part of a spell or incantation; he then pressed a k.n.o.b in the woodwork, which admitted a dim religious sort of light through some aperture apparently in the roof, and reverently withdrawing a cloth from the table, motioned to Grenville to look thereon. This he did, and had much ado to restrain his laughter at the utter simplicity of the fraud thus foisted--as a holy revelation--upon grown and intelligent men.

The place our friend sat in was _neither more nor less than a very poorly contrived "camera obscura_," such as can be seen in so many seaside and other places of holiday resort any day of the week.

Here it was that the Mormon rulers sat, carefully watching and noting all that went on in East Utah during the day, returning to the town at night-time and oracularly relating to their superst.i.tious subjects all that had taken place in their absence. This, however, was not quite sufficient to satisfy some of the more inquiring spirits among the saints, and the Mormons found themselves obliged to resort to _prophecy_ concerning men and things in general; and however awful these predictions were--and awful they certainly became when Ishmael Warden was elected a member of the triumvirate--_they never failed to prove correct_, the prophets took good care of that.

The guard soon withdrew his "holy wonders" from the unhallowed gaze of the Gentile before him, and when outside again heaved a breath of relief, asking our friend in solemn yet triumphant tones what he thought of that. This was really too much for Grenville, and he burst out laughing in his companion's face.

The Mormon eyed him with evident doubt as to his sanity, but Grenville noticed that he was careful to drink in every word of the explanation of the "mystery" subsequently given to him by this strange and well-informed prisoner.

Our friend really began to like the man, and could not refrain from looking sadly at him, knowing but too well that the Mormon was so closely involved in his own fate that he would be the first to fall when the attempt, which he felt certain his own friends would make to release him, came off.

The officer, noticing these looks of his prisoner, asked him if he were thinking of the near approach of his death.

"No," replied he in a melancholy tone, "I was but regretting the certainty that you yourself would die before I should."

"What," said the other mockingly, "are you too a false prophet?"

"Would to G.o.d I might be in this case," said Grenville, holding out his hand to his jailer; "but I fear it is truth I speak. Never mind; you are a brave man--and what is written, is written for you and for me; so don't let us trouble our heads about it till the time comes."

The pair soon gained the town, and Grenville heard his friend the guard call a number of his companions together and detail all the prisoner had said with respect to their "holy wonder;" and after that first one and then another would ask him, himself, leading questions on the government of his own country, England, and so forth; and it struck our hero forcibly that had he but a week or two before him he might, in spite of the old prophet's precaution, get up a very pretty little insurrection against the mystic Holy Three.

He did go so far as to say that if the Mormons were men they had only one course open to them, and that was to dethrone the wretched impostor who was now at their head, and re-instate their beautiful queen, the "Rose of Sharon," the Flower of East Utah, in her hereditary rights; and he noticed that these words seemed to find favour among the guards, though no reply was made to the remark.

Grenville next endeavoured to find out if the community had some concealed way out of their secret territory. This end he attained by chaffing them about knocking down with their own hands their only ladder of communication with the outside world. The men, however, were perfectly frank, and at once admitted that they had done so, giving him likewise details of the work of reconstructing the stairway, which was to be commenced as soon as the invaders were satisfactorily disposed of.

Asked how they accounted for the continued supply of game, the Mormons said they could not account for it at all; but their prophets had told them that the good gifts of Heaven should be thankfully accepted, and not refused simply because the eyes of blinded mortals could not detect the precise manner of their arrival. A very strict inquiry had nevertheless been made into the matter, and a body of men appointed to scour the country in every direction, with the view of ascertaining if there were any other way of ingress into the territory; but after two months of careful searching the band had returned with the news that they were absolutely walled in on every side by impenetrable and inaccessible rocks and mountains.

Grenville was, however, by no means satisfied with this statement, as, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, his common-sense told him that the herds of game must have some way of getting in at certain seasons of the year or the animals would long ago have been exterminated. Still, cudgel his brains as he would, no solution of the difficulty presented itself to him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

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

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

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

Never before had restraint appeared so irksome to our friend. It was certainly probable that he was considered safe in his prison for the night; but, on the other hand, should the prophet wish to talk with him--a not unusual occurrence, as we have seen--at night, or should the officer be missed by his friends, a search would of course be inst.i.tuted, the hue and cry raised, and knowing that he would strike out for the plateau, the Mormons would immediately pursue him at speed.

Grenville fairly groaned at the thought of being again recaught in consequence of their miserable and cowardly cunning in keeping him so heavily ironed.

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

The moon streamed in at the entrance to the forest path and shone full on his magnificent warlike figure, his stern forbidding face, and his glittering spear, and for a moment the Mormons, being without fire-arms, hung in the wind. Seeing this, the Zulu shook hands with Grenville.

"Let my father escape," he said; "he cannot fight with his hands tied, and his faithful son, the child of the Undi, will stop this path--ay, and pile it up with the dead bodies of these evil dogs, even as my father slew them in hundreds by the dark River of Death; and when the whole nation of these cunning witch-finders is dead, and my father is free to come and go as he will, then let him think of his son Myzukulwa, the son of Isa.n.u.si, and take away his body from these low people, and bury him with his face towards the land of the people of the Undi. I have spoken;" and giving Grenville a long and yearning look, which made the tears start to his eyes, the Zulu turned to face the foe, and, uttering his awful war-cry, struck down two of the Mormons who had approached within reach of his spear.

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

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

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

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

"What traitor?" asked Grenville.

"What traitor? why, your late guard of course."

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

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

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

VAE VICTIS!

For the rest of the night Grenville lay racked with mental agony.

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

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

They first smiled, and then said significantly that _he must not expect that before sundown_.

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

"Why there?" he inquired.

"Oh! only because our graveyard is there, and we first bury the Holy Three," was the answer, which certainly appeared the reverse of rea.s.suring.

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

"Of course we shall," replied a guard; "what did you think we'd do?"

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