Zero the Slaver Part 2

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 pa.s.s 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 rea.s.sure 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 lat.i.tude) _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 gra.s.s 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, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 Pa.s.s 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" pa.s.sed 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 hoa.r.s.ely, "and excuse my want of self-control.

You are right, the loved and unforgotten dead are pa.s.sed 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 sc.r.a.p 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d!" 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 un.o.btainable, 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 h.e.l.l.

Leigh had naturally asked Kenyon for an explanation of his wild excitement consequent upon the production of the treasured sc.r.a.p 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 cla.s.s, 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 Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s, 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 mora.s.s--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 compa.s.s another two days' journey towards the rising sun, ere the swamp would permit them once more to travel southwards.