Into the Unknown Part 8

Our friends now lay down to rest again, as if nothing had happened, Grenville still keeping guard. The night pa.s.sed away, however, without further disturbance, and when morning came, there was not a single enemy in sight.

After breakfast Winfield elected to go hunting with Amaxosa; his wrist was now practically well, he said, and he felt as if a little exercise would do him good. Grenville, whilst lazily smoking his pipe, was watching the motions of the pair, who were endeavouring, a quarter of a mile away, to stalk several head of game, when he sprang to his feet with a hurried exclamation of fear, and seizing his rifle, pitched it forward, and apparently taking aim at Winfield, fired quickly. Even as he did so a puff of white smoke shot up, apparently from the ground, within forty yards of Winfield's position, and throwing up his hands he fell p.r.o.ne upon his face. The Zulu promptly sprang forward, and lifting the body in his arms commenced to carry it away, whilst two more shots spirted out from the ground, both fortunately being wide of the mark.

In another instant Leigh was down the rugged path and helping Amaxosa to carry Winfield up to the plateau. Grenville anxiously came forward as they reached their destination and laid down their ghastly burden. "Is he dead?" he asked in broken tones.

"Not quite, my father," replied the Zulu, "but he cannot live, the evil men have shot him through the chest." Winfield, as Amaxosa said this, opened his eyes, coughed up some blood, then faintly asked for water; and after receiving this, spoke very feebly to Grenville.

"Thank you for trying to save me, but you were a second too late this time--you have saved my life so often, and I hoped to live to save yours; and now let me say good-bye to Dora, for I am going, going fast;"

and again he coughed up great streams of blood.

Leigh broke the awful calamity as gently as possible to the poor girl, and a moment later she sat with her father's head upon her knee, with the scalding tears running pitifully down her cheeks, and in her heart the awful knowledge that in a few short minutes she would lose the only parent she had, and who was dear to her beyond anything else upon earth.

The end was coming fast; poor Winfield could only whisper, "If you ever get away from here, go home to England, my darling. Oh! how shall I leave you in the hands of strangers. Gentlemen, G.o.d be with you as you are kind to my friendless little girl."

"Not friendless, old fellow," said Leigh, kneeling beside him.

"Winfield, will you give Dora to me? I love her very dearly."

The poor fellow gazed fixedly at Leigh, then at his daughter, who smiled through her tears at him who had so boldly claimed her without even having asked her consent to the bargain. Leigh held out his hand.

"Won't you say yes, darling?"

"Oh! yes, yes," she sobbed, taking his hand for one brief instant.

Winfield smiled feebly.

"G.o.d bless you both, my children;" then with a wild choking cry, "Dora, my child, where are you? All grows dark with me, and I go--I go to her I love. Yes, my own sweet wife, I come--at last;" and choked by another awful rush of blood, poor Jack Winfield fell dead.

Who can describe the anguish of the poor orphan girl? Her father had for years been all in all to her, and the love which had lately sprung up in her heart towards Alf Leigh was still too young to act as a consolation to her; in this dread moment she felt as if the world for her was at an end.

Gently and tenderly her lover led her away, whispering words of comfort, and handed her over to Rose, who was weeping mournfully in concert; then leaving the girls sobbing in each other's arms, he returned to the others, to find the body covered with the British ensign, and Grenville sternly examining the locality from which the death-shot had been fired.

"Alf," he said, "they have burrowed a hole in the ground, put up an earthwork overhead, and thrown three rifles into it. One is dead, and now you shall see Jack Winfield avenged." As he spoke a rocket directed by Amaxosa was fired straight into the cover chosen by the enemy, which in one second more was enveloped in a sheet of flame, the foolish Mormons having built it amongst the dried gra.s.s. Unable to stand the heat and smoke, both marksmen made a dash for life, but were tumbled over by the cousins before they had run a dozen yards.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

STORMED AT WITH SHOT AND Sh.e.l.l.

The next few days pa.s.sed slowly and sadly on the plateau. Winfield was quietly buried close by, his grave being concealed from view, as it was most desirable that the Mormons should be kept in ignorance of the fact that the little band had lost a man.

The gloom of Winfield's untimely death hung over all, and it was all Leigh could do to keep poor Dora from breaking down entirely; and when the Mormons, a week later, made a desperate attack on the plateau, it was a relief to the party to feel that the call for prompt and unanimous action had taken them out of their thoughts, and brought them back to their old ways of living and working.

The attempt of the Mormons proved utterly futile, as the main body never even succeeded in getting within shooting distance of Grenville's party; and after some twenty of their bravest men had been sent to the shades to swell their already awful list of casualties they sullenly drew off and troubled our friends no more for a considerable period.

On the occasion of this attack Dora Winfield developed unexpected qualities. She calmly came forward, insisted on having Leigh's rifle, and used it with a coolness and precision that astonished no one more than the Zulu Amaxosa. "Ow," he said, "the lovely Lily of the Valley has slain two of the witch-finders. See! my brother, there they lie kicking like wounded oxen--ow! my sister, it is good." Her face was set like a flint; and when the Mormons fell back, she returned the weapon to Leigh, expressing the hope that she might yet have a chance of avenging her father's death by shooting at least one of the Holy Three.

All this time the Rose of Sharon was comporting herself very quietly, and though he knew it not, a pa.s.sionate love was growing up in her heart towards Grenville. To Dora only was this revealed. "I would die for a kind word from him," she said.

"Rose, you mustn't say that," remonstrated Miss Winfield; "poor d.i.c.k is very kind to everybody, but he has such a weight of responsibility on his shoulders you can't expect him to think of love-making; only let us get clear of this horrible country, and I'm sure he will soon see what a lovely little woman my dear sister Rose can be. I think, too, he has some great scheme on hand, for of late he has asked me very many questions I have been unable to answer with regard to the Mormon city; and it was only yesterday that I referred him to you, dear, for information; so I daresay he will soon want you for a private conference;" and Dora slily pinched the cheek of the blus.h.i.+ng girl.

It fell out exactly as Miss Winfield had said, for that very evening Grenville led Rose apart, and sitting down beside her, began to question her very closely with regard to the position, defences, public offices, and so forth, of East Utah--particularly asking in what portion of the city the Holy Three resided.

As Grenville catechised her he wondered at the eager comprehensive answers, and the blus.h.i.+ng face of the young girl, particularly when he thanked her warmly for the information, and noted the tears which started to her eyes. Still, it never occurred to the stupid fellow that this lovely flower of the wilderness had lost her heart to him.

Grenville was, as a matter of fact, one of those unimpressionable men who rarely fall in love, unless moved by some mighty and overmastering pa.s.sion. All his life he had made honour and fame his mistress. The path of glory looked none the less inviting to his intrepid soul, because he well know that sooner or later it would, in all probability, lead to a premature and b.l.o.o.d.y grave. He was fond of saying that he knew no grander record in English history than that of the famous warrior of the Elizabethan period whose name he bore, and though he was unrelated to him he should consider it sacrilege to mar in any way a name which would be written in the annals of England in golden letters as long as the nation existed.

Miss Winfield, moreover, was right. Grenville had a deep-laid scheme which was just now hatching in his fertile brain, and what this superbly audacious project was, will presently appear. Do not, however, gentle reader, go away with the idea that d.i.c.k Grenville, for the sake of a little cheap glory, bought perhaps with his life-blood, was willing to sacrifice all his friends. Far from it; his scheme meant salvation to them, and to his Mormon foes destruction and death in their most awful forms.

Grenville's next move was to turn Amaxosa inside out by a simple method of cross-questioning, which was yet complete enough in its results to satisfy even an astute detective.

One of the points he was particularly anxious about was the presence of Game in this curious country. Grenville had now recognised almost every known species of deer, yet had seen no destructive beasts, such as lions; nor was there, Amaxosa a.s.sured him, a single one in the place, nor yet an elephant, though he had once trapped and killed a rhinoceros.

Eager questions with regard to this latter animal resulted in the Zulu going off next day and returning late in the evening with the rhinoceros hide, which was the very thing Grenville wanted. Putting this up at twenty yards, he fired two or three of the Mormon muskets at it, the b.a.l.l.s all failing to penetrate its h.o.r.n.y thickness, and in a short time he had contrived a regular suit of clumsy armour out of the hide--armour which, he felt sure, would prove absolutely bullet-proof, unless. .h.i.t in the seams where he had had to shave it to a mere skin in order to unite the edges with cord.

However, to return to the subject of the deer. Amaxosa declared that the animals were not in any way preserved. On the contrary, the Mormons killed them off freely; but he had always noticed that in the driest season the herds seemed to increase; it was also at the latter end of the dry season he had settled the rhinoceros, and this season was now rapidly drawing to a close--in fact in six weeks, at the outside, the rains would begin.

Over this information Grenville puzzled his brains for days without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. His own opinion coincided with Amaxosa's, and from the vantage ground of the plateau he carefully watched the animals feeding, and on several days noted entirely new cla.s.ses arriving. Did these beasts migrate from some other feeding-ground in East Utah, or had they some means of entrance into the country as yet unknown to man and undiscovered even by such keen instinct as that of the Zulu chief?

Amaxosa reiterated his a.s.surance that he had searched every foot of the country for a way of escape, and had never found one. Still, remembering that the Zulu had never hit upon the subterranean roadway, Grenville thought it possible that some other exit might exist without him having any knowledge of it.

Putting aside this important subject for the nonce, however, our hero's mind reverted to his pet scheme, and to the best methods of carrying it out he now directed all his faculties.

Night after night, accompanied by Amaxosa, did Grenville creep up to the walls--ay, into the very streets of East Utah--until its ways and buildings were as familiar to him as were the streets of fas.h.i.+onable London. The Zulu accompanied his chief in utter wonder, but his splendid training withheld him from asking any explanation--indeed, if "his Father" had asked him to jump into the River of Death he would have complied without hesitation, such power can a brave and fearless leader wield over the heart of any true follower, be he white or black.

Dawn after dawn saw the pair cautiously retaking their devious way to the plateau, comforting the anxious watchers there, who heaved a sigh of relief on being a.s.sured of the safe return of the wanderers.

Devious their way certainly was, for the pair invariably went and came along the course of a river which they struck a few miles from the town, through which it ran and emptied itself into the River of Death. By means of this small stream they were able to pa.s.s the walls unseen and obtain access to the very heart of the city.

One morning, however, soon after Grenville had lain down to rest, being exhausted with the labours of the night, he was awakened by Leigh, with the news that the Mormons were again approaching in force; and on taking up his position on the plateau our hero found that the enemy had brought with them a new engine of warfare in the shape of an enormous catapult somewhat after the ancient Roman style, but worked with india-rubber springs, the country being of course alive with rubber-trees. The operators, moreover, were securely ensconced behind a sheet and roof of the same product, the thickness of which must have been immense, as the rifle-bullets of the little party had evidently not the remotest effect upon it. This curious-looking half-house on wheels was moved forward by its defenders to within fifty feet of the rock, and after some little time had elapsed the engine correctly pitched its first missile right upon the plateau, where, to the horror and consternation of our friends, it revealed itself fuming and hissing, in the shape of _an explosive sh.e.l.l_. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;" still, the sight of that infernal bomb must have roused suspicions as to its capacity for evil in even the ignorant mind of Amaxosa, and he could read a confirmation of some unknown horror in the countenances of his friends. Coolly stepping forward, he took up the sh.e.l.l in his powerful hands, and with a mighty effort threw it, with the fuse still smoking, right on to the top of the covered catapult, where it spontaneously exploded with a fearful roar, tearing the entire engine to pieces and killing its miserable occupants. The Mormon band, watching at a distance to see their foes destroyed, at once made a stampede in the direction of the town, and disappeared from view.

On descending to the plain it was found that the catapult had been worked by five men, all of whom were fairly cut to pieces; and lying close by, Grenville discovered two more sh.e.l.ls with fuses attached.

These bombs were evidently home-made, being simply a lead casing filled with powder and ball, and ignited by a long fuse. They might, however, come in most useful in case of a concentrated Mormon attack upon the plateau; so these instruments of destruction were carefully stowed away in one of the smaller caves, and Grenville was again able to betake himself to his prematurely-disturbed slumbers.

The effect of this last attempt was, however, an added determination upon his part to read the whole Mormon community--and particularly, if it were possible, the Holy Three--such a salutary lesson as would forcibly and unpleasantly bring them to their senses, and teach them for the future to leave our friends severely alone, if it did not indeed deprive them of all power to render any future attack upon their position otherwise than sheer waste of human life without the very faintest hope of success.

As yet Grenville had not given anyone upon the plateau an inkling of the deadly project which his fertile brain had matured, and the putting into operation of which was only hastened by the latest ingenious and vindictive though futile effort of the enemy.

On that afternoon, being anxious to draw a small plan of the city for the purpose of defining his exact intentions to the party, Grenville applied to everyone for a sc.r.a.p of paper on which to work his diagram.

No one was, however, possessed of the desired commodity. All at once Leigh recollected that he had a Bank of England note for one hundred pounds in his purse, and this was forthwith produced, and was the outcome of a curious statement.

Taking the note with a laugh, Grenville laid it out upon a rock to remove the creases, and then proceeded to delineate with pencil upon its back his _modus operandi_.

Rose, however, suddenly exclaimed, "Oh! how did you get that?"

"Get what?" asked Leigh, mystified.

"That wonderful paper money which belongs to the Holy Three."

"Holy Three be hanged," replied Leigh. "I got it from my bankers, Rose."