Into the Unknown: A Romance of South Africa

by Lawrence Fletcher

  CHAPTER TEN.

  "ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE."

  Throughout that day perfect quiet prevailed, but Grenville, uneasy, heknew not why, and unable to get Winfield's warning out of his mind, tookhis sleep early in the evening, and determined himself to keep watchuntil dawn.

  For hours he strained every faculty, but could neither see nor hearanything to cause him anxiety, and when the moon rose he felt muchrelieved, but after patrolling carefully round the rock he at lengthheard a curious sound he could not account for, so mounted up to thetop, from whence he could see far and wide under the bright moonlight.The rock, as already said, was situated in a hollow, with belts of treeson almost every hand, one exception being on the side furthest from theveldt, consequently nearest to the Western range, and from this quartera wide channel of rocks seemed to run for miles in the direction of themountains. To Grenville it had the appearance of a roadway upon whichgiants had, here and there, flung heaps of stones and enormous masses ofrock in the wildest confusion. Winfield, however, had pronounced it tobe a quartz river, pregnant with gold beyond the dreams of avarice.Machinery would, however, he had said, be required to work the oreprofitably, so that it was extremely improbable the locality would everbe disturbed. Grenville had more than once, in the last few minutes,been rendered uneasy by a distant sighing, soughing noise, such as iscaused by wind among fir-trees, and as there was not a breath of airstirring, it was partly the anxious feeling generated by this unknownand uncanny sound which had caused him to ascend the rock.

  Even from this coign of vantage he could see nothing alarming; allaround and beneath him, bush and veldt and forest, lay sleepingpeacefully under the lovely radiance of the African moon.

  Still unable to conquer, yet secretly despising, the presentiments whichoppressed him, Grenville raised a small silver whistle to his lips andblew a low call upon it, and in a few moments later was joined byAmaxosa, who stalked forth from his lair at the first sound made by hischief indicative of a wish to see him.

  Grenville directed his attention to the curious sound, and for somelittle time the Zulu strained both sight and hearing, but could offer nosuggestion as to the cause of the unusual noise. Our hero then sent himto fetch Winfield, who, when he came, listened intently for one briefinstant and then wrung his hands in despair.

  "My God!" he cried, "those hellish scoundrels have burst the rocky sideof the great mountain lake and let loose thousands of tons of water, andin an hour's time, or less, we shall be drowned out like rats! Whatevershall we do?"

  "Go quickly," said Grenville: "awake everyone pack the quagga with thegold and all the food we can carry. We must be gone in ten minutes. Weare down in a hole here, and this place will be a lake in less than notime if you are correct as to the volume of water up yonder."

  "There can, I regret to say, be no doubt about it," replied Winfield."I have seen the place myself, and I feel certain that they have done asI say."

  "You are quite right," rejoined Grenville. "I heard distant explosionsonce or twice this evening, but thought nothing of them, onlycongratulating myself, like a fool, at the waste of gunpowder which wasgoing on." Then, turning to Amaxosa, "Now, what does my brother, theChief of the Sons of Undi, advise?"

  The Zulu thought for a few moments, and then made answer. "Let myfather with all the party make a big push for the great stairway; therewill be but few guards there, and we will slay them and escape from thisfearful country by the dark rood through the mountains; and if the evilones be too many for my father's sons, we can but take to the hillsbeyond the stairway until the water be gone, for it will surely pouritself into the River of Death until there be none remaining, and go faraway to the great salt sea from which my father came."

  "Thou art a shrewd man as well as a brave one," said Grenville, shakingthe gratified Zulu by the hand; and instantly descending the rock, theyrejoined the others, who were now quite ready, and telling all to followhim and look out sharply for the enemy, our hero, to the surprise ofall, led off at a quick pace in the direction of the very danger theysought to escape.

  Grenville, however, showed his wisdom by this action, for he thus keptthe rock between his party and any prying eyes, and he well knew thatlarge bodies of the foe would be posted on or near the veldt adjacent tothe rock, expecting the party--if they were fortunate enough to detectthe approach of the water before it overwhelmed them--to make adesperate effort to cut their way through to the stairway. Thisknowledge had decided Grenville to make a detour, which he successfullydid, and the party gained the open veldt some miles further on, withouttheir escape from the rock having been observed by the enemy, and weresoon pushing across this rolling prairie, with the terrific sound of theadvancing water in their ears, and hoping to gain the stairway withouthaving been perceived.

  Vain hope!--when, after some hours of unmolested and ceaseless travel,the little band arrived within earshot of the stairway, a blazing threadof light shot upwards to the sky, and the hissing of a second rocket washeard preparing to take its aerial flight. The Mormon in charge of thisincautiously showed himself for one second, and promptly receivedLeigh's bullet through his brain; and then, without waiting for orders,the active Zulus rushed up the steps and broke into the cavern, utteringtheir fearful war-cries, and a moment later were joined by Grenville andLeigh, and an awful battle took place between these four and sevenheavily-armed Mormons. Fortunately a torch was burning, and, equallyhappily, the Zulus had taken the men by surprise and given them no timeto prime the pans of their rifles; but even as the cousins entered thecave two men were diligently performing this interesting occupation, andinstantly went down with revolver bullets through them. In a couple ofminutes the Mormons were all disposed of, the only casualties being apistol bullet through Myzukulwa's shoulder, which had fortunately notinjured the bone, and a nasty slash from a cutlass which Leigh hadreceived on his left arm. Quickly the whole party passed up thecavernous road, again taking the precaution to carry away all thetorches, and congratulating themselves upon the complete and unexpectedsuccess of their plan; for Winfield, with the help of Rose--to whom thebeast was sincerely attached--had actually got the quagga up thestaircase, when suddenly Grenville called a halt, listened carefully,and then turned to the others with the horror of a living deathimprinted upon every line of his face.

  "Back!" he said, and his voice sounded but a hoarse, dreadful whisper;"back, all of you, quick; _the lake has broken out on both sides of themountain, and the water is racing down, our road, and will be heredirectly_!" With a cry of agony, Winfield seized his daughter by onehand, Leigh grasped the other, and all ran for the stairway, whichfortunately was not far off; and having once seen the women safely down,and directed them to hurry on towards the Eastern Mountains with Leighand Winfield, Grenville and the Zulus, after infinite trouble, succeededin pushing and pulling master quagga on to _terra firma_ once more, andthey then put their best foot foremost, and rejoined their companions.

  Soon gaining the shelter of the forest and the rising land, they watchedcarefully, and could see across the veldt a Mormon host speeding forwardto the stairway, in answer to the rocket's message, and not far behindthem was a dull, angry line, which Winfield pronounced to be theadvancing water. The band, which numbered some twenty men, wasevidently uneasy at its near approach, and anxious to gain the stairway,and now, even as they reached their desired haven, an awful thinghappened, and the wicked certainly did fall hopelessly into his own netfor once--there was a rushing, roaring sound, and then, with athundering boom, the torrent came sweeping through the mouth of thecavern in hundreds of tons of water at one awful burst, hung for a shortsecond, as it seemed, in mid air, and then plunged down in one mighty,irresistible volume right upon the luckless Mormons, who were instantlylost to human ken, and in less time than it takes to tell, the twoforces of water had combined, and the veldt far and near was blotted outin one vast rolling, tumbling sea of agitated foam, upon which nothingcould be seen save here and there a corpse bobbing
up and down as ittook its gradual and apparently unwilling course towards the River ofDeath.

  After searching for some little time our friends discovered a cave abouta mile from the great stairway, into which they thankfully entered; andafter setting a watch, though the precaution seemed a useless one, laydown to sleep. The rest of the night passed uneventfully; and when thesun again shone out, the eye rested only upon what was seemingly a vastand wandering waste of waters, for a thick steaming mist, which wasalready rising from the surface of this suddenly-created inland sea,caused one's range of vision to be limited to a few miles.

  One thing, however, our friends did notice, which filled them withdismay. Grenville had calculated that as soon as the volume of waterwas quite exhausted in the natural reservoir on the mountains, their waythrough the subterranean road would be clear, and they would have a longstart and be able to get clean through the River Pass before ever theirenemies had a chance of moving from their own side of the chasm. Nowall hope of escape seemed to be cut off, for the mighty rush of waterfalling from the subterranean road had entirely demolished the greatstairway, not a single step of which they could now see, and it wasobviously impossible for them to ascend several hundred feet of aprecipitous wall of solid rock, which was what they would now have to doin order to regain the rood.

  After two days had been spent hopelessly and aimlessly in the cavern,the water was observed to abate as fast as it had risen, and on thethird day the veldt could again be seen in every direction, steaming ina most unpleasant manner under the rays of a vertical sun. Our friendswere, however, well situated at some height above the plain, and Amaxosaspent that day in prospecting for a safer hiding-place, which he foundabout three miles off, along the mountain-side, and which consisted of athree-roomed cave, quite two hundred feet above the veldt, in acommanding position, approached only by narrow paths, a wall of solidrock behind, and blessed with an ample supply of water. Grenvilleunhesitatingly approved of the place as a temporary residence, andthither the party removed at nightfall.

  The following morning smiled down upon East Utah in all its revivedloveliness--the veldt looked greener and fresher for its wholesale bath,and a newcomer would certainly have had no idea of the awful tragedieswhich had recently been enacted in this country, where all looked soquiet and peaceful.

  On this morning a band of Mormons, some fifty in number, arrived at thegreat stairway, and appeared struck dumb by its destruction, for theyran about gesticulating madly, and wringing their hands over the greatblocks of stone cast hither and thither about the adjacent veldt. Itwas, however, evident, as Grenville had foreseen, that they did notbelieve the enemy had left the country by the roadway. The river hadbroken through too soon after the rockets had been fired to admit of anypossibility of their escape in that direction. The only doubt theyentertained was if the invaders had really been drowned and theirbodies, together with those of their own ill-fated comrades, carriedaway by the River of Death.

  The Mormons now examined the neighbourhood, with a keen scrutiny whichlet nothing escape unquestioned; but, having foreseen this search,Grenville had acted with the utmost caution, and no trace of theirmovements had been left behind, so that he was not in the leastsurprised when the Mormons--who were, he observed, led by RadfordCustance--turned their backs on the stairway early in the afternoon, andset off across the veldt in the direction of their town.

  On the day following, our friends went into council. Their position wasfast becoming a dangerous one; food was running out and none coming in,and it was evident that unless steps were taken to replenish theirlarder at an early date, starvation must overtake them in the very midstof plenty, for on the eastern side of the mountains the streams weresmall, and so far had not even produced fish, which would have helped toeke out their stores.

  After a long and earnest consultation it was decided to beard the lionin his den--in other words, Grenville and Amaxosa were detailed to crossthe river, penetrate into the enemy's country, and there endeavour tofind in the rear of East Utah a strong position, which they, surroundedby plenty, could defend until they fairly wore the Mormons out andcompelled them to make peace and let the party go.

  It was a desperate venture; and when our heroes set out at nightfall theRose of Sharon wept piteously, saying she never expected to see poorDick again; and Leigh and Winfield, who were left in charge along withMyzukulwa, wrung Grenville's hand in silence, and also felt the tearsstarting to their eyes.

  The parting between the Zulus was a characteristic one.

  "Let my brother," said Amaxosa, "remember that the great chief ourfather will look to the sons of Undi for the safety of the gentle Roseof Sharon and the lovely Lily of the Valley. Amaxosa will bring backhis father, or will die with him."

  And so the pair set out, instructing those they left behind, to have nouneasiness about them, as it was likely they would be gone at least tendays.

  Pushing steadily on all night and lying hidden all day, Grenville andAmaxosa reached the neighbourhood of the eastern bridge just after dawnon the second morning, and crept up as close as they dared under coverof the heavy fog, which hung like a curtain upon the veldt. When thesun's welcome rays had cleared away the mists, the pair saw, to theirsurprise, that the eastern bridge was still open, and lying flush withtheir own side of the chasm, just as the Zulus had left it weeks ago.The Mormons had evidently been too busy to pay any attention to thatpart of their country, and had considered care in that directionunnecessary whilst they knew the foe to be fifty miles away upon thewestern mountains.

  This was in some degree unsatisfactory; for if our friends turned thebridge and crossed, as they were obliged to do, and the locality wasvisited by the Mormons in the interim, they would of course realiseimmediately that the obnoxious little band was still at large, and had,moreover, had the audacity to cross the river. This was an awkwardposition; yet there appeared to be nothing else for it, and Grenvillelay down to sleep at four in the afternoon, determined, at all hazards,to proceed that night. On being awakened at dusk, however, Amaxosa hadgood news for him. About an hour ago, he said, several of the"witch-finders" had arrived by the outside of the veldt, and, turning onthe bridge, had crossed over, laughing and talking. They wereapparently in splendid spirits, and, having left two men to guard thebridge, had pressed on at a good speed in the direction of East Utah.

  This simplified matters a little, and our friends were arranging in whatmanner they should rush the guards, so as to avoid the possibility oftheir getting at the rocket apparatus, when the quick-eared Zuluannounced the approach of another party by the eastern veldt. The moonwas now rising, and the pair ought to be gone before the advent of thenew arrivals; but the guards, having also heard the approach of theircomrades, were on the alert, and the only thing to do was to lie quietand watch their opportunity.