All at once he became aware of a figure, apparently on horseback, approaching at full speed, and, challenging loudly, commanded the advancing equestrian to halt on pain of instant death.
The horse was reined up less than a score of yards from the bridge, and to Grenville’s astonishment a sweet girlish voice cried out, “Oh! do please let me pass, I want to go with Dora.”
Just then the moon shone out again for a brief space, and Grenville saw a lovely young girl, her luxuriant dark hair blown about her like a curtain by the wind, sitting on the back of an animal which he at once recognised as a quagga, and looking at him imploringly.
“Who are you?” he at length found voice to ask.
“I?” said the little creature, drawing herself up proudly, “I am the Rose of Sharon, queen of the Mormons by right of birth, but kept in the Convent prison by the wicked men who call themselves the Holy Three.” Then, in pleading tones, “You have a kind face, do let me join dear Dora; you would surely not separate the Rose of Sharon from the Lily of the Valley.”
The girl was not more than eighteen years of age, and shut up from almost all human intercourse as she had been for many years, her manners were almost childlike, whilst her form was so petite that Grenville might well be excused for taking her, as he had at first done, for a child of fourteen.
Catching the head of her strange mount, he quietly led her across the bridge, telling the young lady which direction to take in order to come up with her friend, and being much relieved to learn from her that this quagga was an altogether unique specimen in East Utah, as he had feared that the Mormons might have a cavalry troop so mounted, and this would complicate matters fearfully so far as his own party was concerned.
In a few seconds the hoof-strokes of her strange pony died out upon the veldt, and Grenville was once more alone with a mighty struggle before him, but with an additional reason to nerve his arm in the voluntary presence of this fair creature pleading for protection from the common foe.
This, however, was no time for sentiment, and the moon again making her appearance, Grenville looked carefully to his weapons and prepared to make the best defence in his power, determined that no Mormon should cross the bridge except over his dead body. The sky had partly cleared in front of him, and he was relieved to notice this, as his only chance of a prolonged resistance was to put in accurate shooting at a range quite beyond that of the Mormons’ rifles; behind him over the veldt the clouds stretched away to the horizon black as ink and ominous in their sudden death-like quietude.
In the distance he could see the outline of the Convent and the lights actively twinkling in the Mormon town, then some three miles to the eastward the sky-line was broken by a stream of fire, as a rocket sailed up on its errand of inquiry, and was answered almost simultaneously by a like vivid messenger despatched from the Mormon stronghold in the direction of the bridge.