“Let not the Inkoosis fear,” replied the Zulu; “the smoke travels through a hole in the roof of the cave and comes out through a heap of reeds in an evil-smelling fever swamp on the high lands above, and which no man will willingly approach; and if the smoke be seen, it will but be taken for the evening mists rising from the marsh. Besides all this, the night is now dark outside; let the Inkoosis look—the words of Amaxosa are true.”
Grenville went down the passage and looked out, only to find that their guide was perfectly right, and that night had indeed cast an unusually black mantle of protection round them.
This being so, they enjoyed to the full a good warm feed, accompanied by hot coffee from their own little store; and then placing Myzukulwa on guard, a precaution which no fancied security would induce Grenville to forego, the party lighted their pipes, and disposed themselves comfortably round the fire to listen to Winfield’s narrative.
This was short, but to the point. He had been gold-prospecting near the foot of the Pass with his party of seven men, his daughter also being with him, and had been surprised one night by about threescore Mormons, who at once murdered his men, but saved Winfield’s life and his daughter’s because he offered a heavy ransom.
“You see, gentlemen,” he said, “my little girl had been with me for five years, and I had forgotten, God forgive me! that she was growing up into a fine young woman. I had been at my work for ten years, and between gold and diamonds I had done so well that I’m afraid I thought of little else. I imagined I could buy these rascals off. My daughter, I now see, they kept for their own vile ends, and, unfortunately for me, they soon found out that I was the very man they were short of in their community, for, let me tell you, this secret territory of theirs is literally bursting with mineral wealth of all kinds, which they have no idea how to work. Over and over again they have pressed me to join their abominable brotherhood and become one of them, offering me instant death as an alternative; but I knew I was much too useful to be killed out of hand, and I laughed in their faces. That blackguard Levert was positively the first man who ever really tried to injure me, and he took me by surprise when we were out on a prospecting trip—he had been importuning me to give him my daughter in ‘marriage’! and I had determined to shoot her dead before I would accede either to his or any Mormon’s wishes in that respect.
“Fortunately every woman is safe here for a full year, unless she chooses to marry of her own accord, and after that time the consent of her nearest relative is sufficient, whether the poor creature wills or no. Now we have been here just ten months, so have still some little time before us—that is, if you gentlemen are, as I understand, willing to assist me in liberating my little girl from the Novices’ Convent in the Mormon town which lies about a dozen miles from here.” And the poor fellow looked at Grenville and Leigh with a half-inquiring and wholly imploring expression on his face.
The cousins were deeply touched by Winfield’s evident anxiety about his daughter; neither, however, spoke—but both reached forward and warmly shook hands with him, and as they did so Grenville saw the tears spring to his eyes. Rightly interpreting their silent sympathy, he went on—
“And now, gentlemen—”
“One moment, old fellow!” interjected Leigh; “this is Dick Grenville, who ‘bosses our show,’ as, I suppose, our unwelcome neighbours would call it, and I am his lazy cousin Alfred Leigh; so do, for goodness’ sake, call us Leigh and Grenville, and drop that ‘gentlemen’ palaver—it sounds a bit off in a cavern, don’t you know.”
Winfield bowed to the cousins over this unceremonious and characteristic introduction, and then again took up the thread of his story.