Zero the Slaver Part 8

As soon as the arms had been collected, and the wounded men properly attended to, a council of war was held by the entire party, and under the circ.u.mstances it was considered useless to try and impose deceptive messages upon Zero, the more so as Kenyon himself was strongly of opinion, that not the pigeons, but the jaguar, had in the present instance been intended to carry back to Equatoria, news of the safe arrival of the band. The great cat would, of course, have been started off in the dark, without loss of time, or risk of suspicion even in the event of its being observed, and would certainly have travelled very swiftly to its distant home.

On the following morning the Atagbondo buried their dead, and then threw the deceased slavers into the river to carry a message of woe and weeping to their friends a hundred miles below.

Noticing his cousin looking anxiously at the summit of the mountain several times that day with Kenyon's field-gla.s.s, "What's the matter with the peak, old chap?" said Leigh.

"I wish I knew, Alf," was the reply; "I haven't seen it since the night we got here: ever since then it has been completely hidden by yonder white cloud, which rests upon it, and unless I am mistaken, the heat emanating from that vapour is so intense, that the everlasting snows are being absolutely melted away from the summit of the cone."

Just then a very wonderful and awful thing happened, for even as Grenville was speaking, the heat-clouds suddenly rolled away like a scroll and curled up out of sight, revealing the glittering peak for one brief instant in all the radiant majesty of its unveiled glory, and then the very next second there shot far, far up into the azure vault, a giant jet of angry, inky-looking smoke, which floated lightly and lazily through the absolutely pulseless air towards the north, and was quickly succeeded by another great puff, and another, until the whole of the northern heavens were densely clouded, and the mountain itself bore the appearance of a gigantic monster mechanically expelling vast volumes of dead black smoke at every labouring respiration of its mighty rock-girt lungs, and shrouding the whole country in a sombre death-like pall of weird and awful shade.

"A volcano, by Jove!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Leigh.

"Yes," replied his cousin, "and an active one, too. I fear that Umbulanzi's explosion, the first night we came, has awakened the slumbering internal fires, or else the water is somehow penetrating into the crater and interfering with the gases imprisoned in its abysmal depths. We shall be in a nice pickle if the volcano takes a fancy to indulge in an eruption just at present; however, we must hope for the best, old man, and put our trust in Providence."

That very night, sad to say, our friends were awakened by the objectionable throes of a mighty earthquake; the rocks quaked and groaned, and the very bowels of the mountain were rent and torn by ear-splitting explosions, and in less than ten minutes the whole party was in full flight across the northern veldt, positively chased from the stronghold upon which they had bestowed so much labour by great streams of burning lava which, like vast rivers, flowed unimpeded down the mountain side, and, instantly setting the long gra.s.s on fire, caused our friends a most anxious time until they had safely crossed the river and got well away from the spot--their movements being rendered relatively slow by the necessity of carefully transporting the wounded men in hammocks.

After a short consultation it was decided to steer for the Hermit's Cave again, and to try and discover a place capable of defence somewhere in the immediate vicinity of Equatoria; for, with the exception of the mountain from which they had just been so rudely expelled, our friends were a.s.sured by the natives that no natural fastness of any kind existed within a hundred miles to the south of their present location, and southwards all, both black and white, absolutely declined to move until Zero was stamped out, or until they themselves were effectually disposed of in attempting to settle with him.

A very sharp look-out would have to be kept in order to avoid falling into the hands of the slavers, who were sure to notice the eruption of the volcano, and, knowing that the little band would have in consequence to relinquish the shelter afforded by the mountain, would doubtless be outlying with a view to falling upon them unawares; but by confining the travels of the party strictly to the night-time, and lying carefully hid by day, Grenville and Amaxosa hoped to bring all safely into the desired haven.

At all events, our friends were no worse off, in consequence of their journey to the peak, having, on the contrary, inflicted two crushing blows upon the enemy, and exchanged the bare handful of men with which they left Equatoria for a small army thoroughly equipped for war, already well-tried, and thirsting for occupation in the fighting line.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

IN FREEDOM'S CAUSE.

Owing to the difficulty of transporting so many wounded men, it took our friends quite four days to accomplish the distance which they had covered on a former occasion in less than one-half that time; but by the fourth night all had safely reached the mountains of the north, and after Amaxosa had carefully reconnoitred the vicinity of the hermit's cave, the party took undisputed possession thereof, and made arrangements to defend the place in the event of an attack, by throwing up a great earthwork round the outlet of the cavern.

This important matter attended to, Grenville and Kenyon next proceeded to explore, by torchlight, the labyrinth of caves with which the heart of the mountain proved to be honeycombed, and in the furthest of those natural vaulted chambers they finally discovered Muzi Zimba the Ancient.

The old man was in a state of very great prostration, and was obviously dying from sheer decay of all his faculties. Kenyon at once administered to him a spoonful of brandy, and afterwards prevailed upon him to swallow some beef-tea. This grateful nourishment soon appeared to revive his sinking form, and, recognising Grenville, he accorded him a hearty welcome, and congratulated him kindly upon his marvellous escape from death, and then, speaking very lucidly, his mental faculties seeming to grow clearer as his bodily vigour gradually died out, he dilated at some length to the attentive pair, upon their present dangerous position, and regarding the cause and the remedy for the horrors of the slave-trade.

It must not, however, be supposed that the conversation given here, is written down precisely as it was spoken; for at times our friends had much ado to keep the poor old man alive, and it was only by continually giving him weak stimulants, that body and soul were kept together until his work was done. Often, too, his halting tongue refused to frame the meanings he desired to convey, and Grenville had thus frequently to come to his a.s.sistance, and express his thoughts for him in clear, every-day English.

"My sons," said the aged man, "I came hither many, many years ago--how many, I know not, for my mind has for a long and weary time been under a very darksome cloud, but it is clearer now, and in the light which streams through heaven's wide-open gates. I once more see, with the eye of faith, and know that all will yet again be well. Hearken, my sons, for I can tell ye much that may avail ye to escape from the hands of the demon who dwells in yonder city of evil.

"Ye are brave men, and I have heard how that ye have already rescued many precious lives from this fiend in human form, and have thrice brought defeat and disaster upon his hateful arms. Nevertheless, be ye ware, my sons, for he has, indeed, a very great army of b.l.o.o.d.y-minded and wicked men, and he has, moreover, sworn to entirely eat you up.

Know, therefore, that in the third cave from here is a spot where, by moving a great black stone, a narrow pa.s.sage can be found, but wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and this leads gently downwards, step by step, right through the bowels of the mountain, and so into the town of the evil ones, where there are many white and black slaves, both of men and women. Mark this pa.s.sage well, my children, for if once yon monster wins the secret of the way, ye, too, will exist only as I do-- even midway between the bitter memories of the unforgotten past and the golden sh.o.r.es of the great hereafter.

"And now, my sons, bear with me yet, regarding this shameful trade in human flesh and blood. Long years ere Zero came hither, like a curse, this country was peaceful and all happy, and much did I teach the simple people that tended to the welfare of both soul and body; but since the coming of this man of sin, all has been turned again to evil, and the land everywhere weeps tears of sorrow and of blood.

"What can we do more, my sons, we who, simply placing our lives in the hands of the good G.o.d who gave them, penetrate unarmed, and with naught of defence but the Gospel of Peace, to the furthest confines of this dark land? What, I say, can we do, when the misguided rulers of Christian countries at home daily permit--nay, encourage--the unrestricted sale to the wretched natives, of millions of gallons of a very evil drink, which goes by the name of 'square face,' but which the traders declare to be but harmless gin. Gin! my sons, _the first coat of which is under one shilling a gallon_, and which is poured into the land, after it has paid the British governors upon the western sea-girt border of this mighty continent _a duty of half-a-crown a gallon_, or equal to two-and-a-half times its cost. Look what follows. The already debased African is at once reduced below the level of the very beasts that perish. He must have this fiery spirit, the first fatal draught of which has inflamed his soul, and brought into active being every vicious slumbering detail of his fallen human nature, and in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase the beloved 'Square Face,' he falls unawares upon his next-door neighbour, so to speak--perhaps upon his own familiar friend, who trusts him--and carrying him off by night, secretly sells him to the highest bidder, white or black, that he can find within easy distance of his home.

"The trade in gin and rum is at the bottom of one-half of this evil slave-dealing, and so long as this crying sin is not only permitted, but encouraged, amongst a simple people, who have no more judgment to exercise, than have a third of the weak-minded ones sheltered from the cruel world in many a private mad-house, so long will Central Africa remain a country where cruelty and misery, and the shedding of blood, prevail, where men bow down to stocks and stones, where Satan's kingdom is, and where the missionary, my sons, is little more than a useless martyr, his precious life expended in the lively faith that the mighty power of his G.o.d will cause the barren soil he waters with his blood to prove a fruitful field before the great day of reckoning comes for missionary, for slaver, and for the miserable aboriginal African, whose body and soul these opposing forces contend for mightily both night and day.

"Hear me further, my sons, for much good may yet be done, in spite of Zero and of the Arabs, who accomplish a world of evil, if someone of the great white nations of the world will but come forward and use its G.o.d-given strength for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade, suppressing entirely the sale of gin and rum in Africa, and supporting the missionaries. 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 G.o.d and man.

"In the earlier days of my sojourn in this place, my sons, I looked to free and happy England to do all that this rich and fruitful land required to make it perfect; and I taught the natives, under G.o.d, to reverence and to pray for the Great White Queen, their mother, in whose all-powerful name I came to them in Freedom's cause. Alas! my sons, the first slaver who entered here and broke up their quiet homes was this shameless scoundrel Zero; and, speaking with the same tongue as my own, naught of difference could this people see between his land and mine; and then worse, far worse, when the horrible slave traffic attracted hither the native dealers from the farther west, these brought with them word that slaves could be freely sold under French and German, and--oh!

the shame of it--under British rule, ay, under Freedom's own flag on the utmost coast of Western Equatorial Africa.

"My sons, I credited it not, and I sent my trusted runner a journey of many, many weary moons, and he brought me back a faithful word--alas!

that it should have been a true one.

"'The thing is even so, my father,' he said. 'Almost within the very cities of the Great White Queen, where the moving water beats, ever murmuring, upon the yellow sands, and within hearing of the guns of British forts, I saw very many slaves; and these were sold from house to house, or from land to land, as their owners in the towns desired.

Also, day by day I watched great caravans of slaves from the peoples of many, many powerful kingdoms, bringing in native produce and dust of gold, and carrying out very many cases of square face and of rum.'

"'It is a false report that ye bring,' I said; 'how know ye that the men were slaves? the Great White Queen frees all who come beneath the shadow of her glorious flag.'

"'That may be,' he said, 'as I saw not the Great White Queen herself, but the slaves were there, all marked with a brand on the cheek, my father. Also, I had speech of some of these, and they said that they were slaves. More, my father, there are also in the cities many native guards, and most of these men are also slaves, who serve under the Queen's ruler for money, which they give to the owners of their bodies whenever the Queen pays them; and so, my father, I would even live here under your shadow, where I and my people are free by the strength of our own right hands, than be a pining slave under the flag of the Great White Queen, my mother, who is too far away to help her suffering children when they cry out of wrong and find none to hear them.'

"Then it was, my sons," said the aged man, "that I lost my reason; I could not eat my food, and my sleep at nights went from me; I could only kneel and humbly pray, both night and day, to the good G.o.d on high that lie would wake the ear of our gracious Queen to hear the pitiful cry of these poor defenceless creatures, over whom he has given her an empire, and power, and glory, and who, though they are so far from her, are yet her loyal subjects, and very near to the great G.o.d Himself, in whose hand her breath is, and whose are all her ways.

"And now, my sons, my eyes are closing fast, and I leave ye to follow me along the weary road which leads to the great hereafter. Take, then, the last blessing of a very aged and a defenceless man, to whom ye were both kind and good. Fear G.o.d, and follow that which is good, so shall we meet again in the land where sorrows are forgotten, and where peace and rest await both you and me. Greeting, then, my sons, to you and yours--greeting and farewell!"

And so he died, this one staunch witness for freedom and his G.o.d, in a land where all else was foul and evil. Very peacefully his life slipped from him with the dawn of day, and his loyal spirit soared to the very presence of Him who gave it life.

"G.o.d rest him," said Grenville gently; "G.o.d rest His faithful servant.

May I too die the death of a brave man, and may my last end be even as the end of Muzi Zimba the Ancient."

That same day the little band buried the hermit's body, the natives following him to the grave with many marks of respect and reverence, and the white men firing a farewell salute over the last resting-place of this gallant soldier, who had given up his life for the truth, and died in freedom's cause, in this far-distant land.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

EQUATORIA.

As soon as our friends had paid the final honours to the mortal remains of Muzi Zimba, they carefully warned the "People of the Stick" against spreading the news of his decease in any shape or form, fearing that the ignorant natives in the surrounding country might foolishly impute his somewhat sudden and unexpected end, to the unauthorised presence of the little hand in his cavernous dwelling.

Hardly were the funeral obsequies over than Kenyon drew Grenville aside, and after a few moments of earnest conversation, the pair announced their intention of investigating the secret stair through the mountain, of which the old hermit had spoken to them.

Taking Amaxosa along, and supplying themselves from Muzi Zimba's ample stores with torches made of fibre, the trio entered the indicated cave, shifted the black, basaltic-looking rock, and duly found themselves in the entrance of the tunnel. The tortuous way was rough and very narrow, but it was, as the old man had said, fairly easy to traverse, and in twenty minutes' time our friends emerged into semi-daylight in the narrow shaft of a dry and disused well, from whence--by means of a stout but roughly-constructed ladder of rope, which hung from its upper orifice--the old man had evidently obtained access at will into the slavers' town.

Withdrawing cautiously into the mountain again, in fear lest the smoke of their torches should be seen above the mouth of the well, our friends entered into a somewhat heated argument.

Grenville was for entirely closing the narrow pa.s.sage by blocking it once for all with mighty rocks, which would effectually prevent Zero from discovering the secret of the way, and perhaps destroying themselves and their cavern by an explosion of gunpowder; but Kenyon declared that, sooner than permit such a capital means of access to Equatoria to be destroyed, he would himself sit and watch it night and day. His specious arguments and professional instinct, at length prevailed over Grenville's caution, and the trio then resolved that two reliable men should be kept constantly on the watch beneath the well, provided with a cord, the other end of which they would attach to the trigger of a small pistol fixed in the cavern above, and should anyone attempt to descend the well, the sentinels were to jerk the cord, fire the pistol as an anxious call for help, and forthwith retreat noiselessly into the mountain burrow, where they would be met at the narrowest part of the tortuous path by armed support.

During the whole of that day the party on the rock could descry in the far distance large bands of the slaver fraternity patrolling the southern veldt, and carefully searching the borders of the eastern forest, being evidently altogether at a loss to know what had become of the dangerous and hated foe, and yearning, no doubt, for the resuscitation of their slaughtered bloodhounds; whilst when night fell, the furthest limit of vision revealed, a hundred miles away, the fire-girt summit of the fierce volcano, its blazing peak hanging upon the distant line of smoke-beclouded sky like a glittering star of the first magnitude.

The night was very dark and moonless when Kenyon and Amaxosa left the outer cave to relieve Leigh and Grenville, who were keeping watch below the well; but, pausing before he entered the narrow pa.s.sage, the American sent the Zulu forward, simply saying he would join him by-and-by, as he had yet some work to do, and so it came to pa.s.s that the two cousins returned to the cavern without having seen him, and that Amaxosa, keeping his lonely vigil by torchlight, pa.s.sed through the most fearsome trial his courageous but untutored heart had ever known; for whilst he watched and waited, patient as a statue carved in stone, the great Zulu heard a light footfall behind him, and, turning quickly, beheld, to his utter horror, the well-known figure of the ancient Muzi Zimba approaching through the gloom. The warrior's heart stood still with fear and his very blood froze in his veins--Muzi Zimba, whose dead body he had that very day helped to consign to its grave, and upon whose breast he had placed giant rocks to scare the beasts of prey; yet here he stood, and there before him in the flesh stood Muzi Zimba. Nay, it could not be flesh and blood, but a spook (spirit) of the mountain, and not even a child of the Undi could fight with spooks. Coming swiftly to him, the vision spoke quietly to him in broken Zulu. "Greeting," it said, "greeting, Lion of the Undi, what dost thou here by night in Muzi Zimba's secret way."

"Greeting, great Father of the Spooks," boldly answered the Zulu. "I do this here, I watch thy dark and narrow stair, oh, Ancient One, by order of the Great White Chief, my father, and if any enter to disturb thy restful peace, he dies a swift and easy death on this my ready spear."

"Well done, Amaxosa," was the cool reply which the astonished chief received from his ancient friend, the "Father of the Spooks," as the dread thing deftly removed its flowing wealth of beard and whiskers, and revealed the clean-shaved countenance of Stanforth Kenyon, the American detective.

"Wow, Inkoos!" said the astonished Zulu. "Wow! the thing was indeed well done; and I, even I, the son of the witch-doctor, Isa.n.u.si, would have let thee pa.s.s and leave me for a spook. Yet, did it seem strange to me, my father, thou shouldst speak to thy son with the tongue of his own people, for ever I heard that the Ancient One who has gone from us, knew not to speak as speak the children of the Zulu."

Briefly explaining his intentions to the chief, Kenyon carefully readjusted his disguise, and, nimbly mounting the ladder of rope, scrambled out of the mouth of the well, and at once found himself in a clump of bushes, and close to the outskirts of the slavers' town, towards which he fearlessly directed his now seemingly feeble steps.