As the party drew near the bridge, Leigh whispered a few words to his cousin, who at once moved on ahead, and, finding the bridge just as they had left it, coolly tipped the two lifeless sentinels over the parapet into the water, and a sullen plunge which reached Leigh’s ears as he approached with his fair companion told him that she would be spared the ghastly sight of those two livid corpses acting such a hollow, hideous mockery.
As the party crossed the bridge, Leigh laughingly observed that it was more like going home from a nineteenth-century dinner than leading the forlorn hope they had looked for.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than a rocket again shot up from the Mormon stronghold and described an arc over their heads, and, turning to look behind them, all saw a singular spectacle.
From the roof of the Novices’ Convent shone a small cross of fire, and, even as they looked, this signal was answered by the startlingly sudden appearance of an enormous emblem of similar shape posted upon the very top of a steep hill just behind the town.
By this time the sky had darkened considerably, the lustre of both moon and stars were dimmed by driving belts of angry-looking scud, which shut out both the town and the hill behind it, and gave this extraordinary signal an altogether terrible effect. Soon the cross upon the Convent died out, but the one upon the mountain-top continued to glow more fiercely than ever, hanging as it seemed between earth and heaven, instinct with a wondrous radiant brilliancy. All at once the light died out, as suddenly as it had appeared; but rocket after rocket ascended from East Utah, still following the direction of the bridge, conveying to the whole Mormon community, with the help of the fiery cross, the fact of an escape from the Convent, and indicating that the fugitives were flying by the central bridge.
Grenville afterwards ascertained that these crosses were made of a pure crystal cut in slabs from the mountain-side, and were lighted by the same natural gas which had startled him in the subterranean road.
After watching the Eastern heavens for some moments Grenville turned to his cousin and said—
“I don’t half like it, Alf; the main body is already on its return journey, or an answering rocket would have been fired from the eastern bridge. You must push on with Miss Winfield and her father, and try to make the Table Rock. I think we are in for a storm, but never mind that I will stay by the bridge and stop any stragglers from pursuing; if you come across the Zulus, send one to me and take the other one on with you. Now be off, there’s a good fellow,” as Leigh was about to argue the point.
“God bless you, dear old man!” burst from the other, as he wrung Grenville’s hand and turned away, for he knew that his cousin was facing almost certain death to effectually cover their retreat; and but for Dora Winfield’s sake he would have insisted upon taking his own share of the danger, as usual.
Another moment and Grenville was alone upon the bridge, the gathering gloom around him, and the weird whispering veldt stretching out behind, whilst beneath him the River of Death seemed to murmur hoarsely along its eerie and unwilling course.