CHAPTER TWENTY.
THE HAND OF GOD.
As our friends had anticipated, they found little difficulty inovertaking the Mormon crowd, and, at once going to the front, they setthe rescue-party a very different pace to that hitherto travelled bythem, and keeping them at the work, despite their murmurs and protests,had knocked off fully twenty miles by noon, and at four o'clock insistedupon a fresh start being made, keeping the pace easier, however, untilevening came on.
The three aged Mormons were carried by the Zanzibaris in hammocks, sothat these formed no obstacle whatever to their forced marching.
Soon the moon came up in all her radiant loveliness, casting a weird andsilvery glamour over the wide expanse of veldt on every side, and on thedistant horizon there ever hung the blazing, star-like cone of thedistant mountain-peak, for which the leaders steered. And so forwardthrough the livelong night they pressed, faint yet pursuing, and when atdawn of day all crept into cover, and threw their wearied bodies on theground, Amaxosa, who had been acting as whipper-in, brought up to thefront the glad news that only twenty men had so far fallen by the way.
The mountain was distant now but twenty miles, and all felt relativelyhappy, for it was a shrewd count that three thousand naked savages, eventhough led by Zero, would not make very much of a figure when they foundthemselves between two bands, each of five hundred desperate whites,armed for the most part, with quick-firing rifles.
Grenville, Kenyon, and Amaxosa had watched and slept by turns, the lastwatch before night being the Zulu's, and when his friends woke up theyfound the chief excessively uneasy in his mind regarding the weather,which looked to him like storm.
However, the party set out as soon as the moon began to rise, and hadarrived within a mile of the mountain, and had despatched the great Zuluon ahead to scout, before the storm broke upon them.
The heavens by this time were transformed into an enormous mass ofdense, black, lowering clouds, which had sunk until they almost shroudedthe waning moon herself, which as yet, however, sailed along in a narrowglorious belt of glittering azure, looking far more lovely from contrastwith the frowning bank of clouds which hung above her, and whichstretched away in every direction ominous in their sullen death-likequietude.
The Zulu had not left the main body above five minutes when theinky-looking vault right over head was suddenly rent in twain as if somegiant hand had ripped the veil of clouds, and heaven and earth seemedfairly to meet for one brief instant in a dazzling, blazing glare oflurid light, which flooded veldt and mountain, rock and river, for milesaround the spot, and was instantly succeeded by an unremitting roll ofthunder, which seemed to shake all nature to her utmost depths, andthreaten earth with chaos worse confounded.
Hardly had the mighty echoes died away than the report of firearms couldbe heard, in scattered shots, away under the mountain side. The reasonwas evident: the Mormons had been on the alert, and the terrific blazeof lightning had, no doubt, revealed to their watchful sentinels, theambush of the hidden savage foe. Sure enough, next minute there camethe steady rolling echoes as the Winchesters opened fire in ringingvolleys, upon the mass of men before them.
Speeding across the veldt, Grenville and his band endeavoured to take upa flank position where they would run no danger from the bullets oftheir friends, and, aided by another blazing flash, were almost withinrange of Zero's troops, which were represented by a dark moving massupon the veldt, when suddenly and without an instant's warning, a mostawful thing happened.
The moon was waning fast and the light was growing dim, when thecountryside for miles and miles was all at once illuminated with abrightness vivid as the glory of the noonday sun himself. This was nopassing flash of lightning; but there, right above the blazing peakitself, hung a mighty zone of dazzling, blinding fire; for one briefinstant thus it stayed, then, with a mighty roar, which rent the earthand quaked the giant rocks, and dwarfed out of recognition the thundersof the sky, the volcano all at once blew up, driving its shatteredfragments to the winds of heaven.
Almost at Grenville's feet the earth yawned wildly, and where one momentbefore had been lovely veldt and sparkling river, there appeared only amighty chasm, from whose abysmal depths rose fearsome sounds and pungentscalding vapours.
For an instant, all was inky blackness and the quietude of death; then,the storm-clouds driven wildly in every direction by the might of theexplosion, the moon shone out once more, and revealed an awful sight.
The mountain-peak was gone--gone, for ever, its fragments scattered wideacross the veldt, whilst between the foot of the mountain and theposition of our friends lay a gulf two hundred feet across, unbroken,save by a tiny island of rock--measuring, perhaps, twenty square yards--which still stood in its very centre. All round the rock--and, perhaps,a hundred feet from its upper edge--there washed a sea of boiling,bubbling water, lashed to frenzy, and heated red-hot, by the streams ofburning lava which, all the time poured themselves into the chasm. Inevery direction this yawning abyss spread itself out, far as the eyecould see, and the effect of its presence was to practically divide theland in two.
Of the Mormons who had held the mountain, and of their savage nativefoes, not a vestige could be seen. The earth had simply opened hermouth upon them, and down alive into the pit had gone thousands of men,women, and children, both white and black, young and old, friend andfoe, consigned, in one dread prayerless instant, to an eternal stygiangrave.
But stop! The moonlight grows, the light increases as the clouds clearoff. And what moves on yonder pinnacle of rock? Two human forms, theyseem--they are. And now, 'fore God, see how they fight--fight wildly,furiously, for life! Life! 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 wildcry of encouragement across the chasm; and in proud and instant answer,pealing across the vast abyss, and waking every sleeping echo in themighty 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 anddown the chasm's edge, shouting the war-cry of his famous chief, andseeking means to aid him.
Little help did the Lion of the Zulu require from mortal hands; unarmedhe was, but, dashing upon his single foe, he dexterously avoided aswinging blow from the ready axe, and seized him by the throat. Downwent the pair, and over and over they rolled, fighting the while likecats, whilst our friends watched, with parted lips and straining, eagergaze, expecting each instant that both combatants would shoot into theabyss of fire beneath. All at once the struggle ceased, for the Zuluhad dashed his opponent's head upon the rocks and stunned him.Springing to his feet he sent a cry of victory pealing across the chasm;there was an upward whirl of the foeman's shining axe, and next instant,with a mighty effort, he cast a bleeding human head across the spacebetween.
The ghastly trophy fell at Grenville's feet, _and the head was the headof Zero, the slaver-fiend_. Then lifting in his powerful arms theheadless trunk, the Zulu cast it into the wild abyss beneath his feet,and thus revenged himself for all the wrongs suffered by his proudspirit, and all the tears and blood of countless slaves, both black andwhite, shed by this curse of Equatorial Africa.
The victory was complete, and their object was accomplished, yet allforgot it in the awful gloom of the moment, cast heavily upon them bythe recollection that they stood upon the graves of thousands, who but afew moments ago had walked the world in health and life--thousandsbrought to a swift and awful end in one brief instant of time; and eachman felt that _the hand which slew them was the hand of God_.
Clearly, however, something must be done to relieve Amaxosa; for heshouted to them that the rock was fast becoming red-hot, and wouldshortly scorch his feet beyond endurance.
Fortunately the party had brought Leigh's rocket apparatus with them,and soon succeeded in firing a line across the rock, and hauling uponthis, the Zulu quickly received a one-inch rope, which he fastened tothe rock by driving Zero's axe firmly int
o a crevice, and attaching therope to its haft, and then, the line being drawn taut, hung fearlesslyby his hands over the literally boiling flood, and coolly commenced towork his way across. When about twenty feet from the edge, where hisfriends stood ready to welcome him, a shriek of horror went up as theaxe gave way, the line slipped, and his giant form was heard to strikewith a sickening blow against the face of the cliff.
The anxious watchers held their breath, expecting to hear the finalsplash as his senseless body plunged into the awful seething horror farbelow; but Amaxosa had fortunately kept his head, and in spite of thewrench received, and of the fearful blow, he hung on like a leech, andwas soon drawn into safety and tended anxiously by friendly hands, andnone too soon, for but one pace away from the abyss his senses left him,and he fell prone upon the earth, but was soon brought back again tolife and health.
Silently the dawn of another lovely day came gliding over the earth, butour friends saw it not, for all slept a troubled and unhappy sleep untilwakened by the fiery sun himself, when they hasted to put some milesbetween themselves and the site of the abysmal grave below the mountain;Grenville first despatching a pigeon to Equatoria, carrying gladtidings, as follows: "Victory! all well--Zero dead.--
"Dick."
Slowly the party took their journey back, for all were more or lessknocked up with the heavy outward march, and it was the evening of thefifth day when, carrying the head of Zero, they reached Equatoria. Noamount of persuasion would induce the old Mormon to part with thisghastly trophy, which he declared he would carry back to Salt Lake Cityto the Holy Three, in order that no doubt might arise as to thesuccessful accomplishment of his mission.