“No, old man, they’ve got a rifle hidden in the grass less than 100 yards from every fire. Just watch, and you’ll see. Yonder scoundrel is 500 yards if he is an inch, but I’ll see if I can’t rouse the snake out of that.”
A careful sight preceded the report, and the concealed Mormon bounded from his hiding-place, with a bullet through his shoulder, only to be shot dead before he could move another yard.
A cry of astonishment broke from the forest—the range of the English rifles exceeded all they had feared or believed.
And now fire after fire died out, and Grenville commanded his little party to take up certain positions, where they would be more or less screened, and also confided the two girls to a perfectly safe corner, and then waited the result, straining his eyes through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the foe, as he felt sure the Mormon crowd must now be on their way across the open space and speeding towards the rock.
Just at this critical moment the beleaguered party was relieved, and at the same time fairly astonished by an extraordinary occurrence. Half-way between the rock and the fringe of forest the ashes of one fire had been quietly smouldering for some moments, after all the other beacons were clean burnt out; and now, as all listened intently, expecting to hear the cautious tread of the approaching foe, a curious rumbling sound was heard, and a single instant later a liquid column of fire suddenly burst from the ground, shooting up to the height of thirty or forty feet, where it uniformly hung like a gigantic fountain of living flame, whose waves, as they reached the ground, scorched the grass and rolled irresistibly towards the forest like a sea of blazing boiling lava.
The fire had burnt through the earth’s crust and ignited a vast reservoir of petroleum, which now sprang heavenwards in a vivid pillar of lurid light, plainly revealing every stick and stone for fully half a mile around the rock.
All this Grenville realised as it were by instinct; but there was no time to observe the extraordinary natural phenomenon, for the whole Mormon army appeared to be rushing across the open glade within two hundred and fifty yards of the rock.
The fire of the besieged was close and deadly; and though upwards of twenty men fell to rise no more, whilst another score or two turned tail and incontinently fled into cover, still some ten in number, braver than their comrades, gained the rock and attempted to enter, only to fall a useless sacrifice to the spears of the Zulus and the revolvers of Leigh and Winfield.
Thus closed the Mormon attack on the rocky fortress of the little band.
Careful watch was kept all night, but at dawn not a living soul was to be seen, and ascending the rock Grenville soon found that the entire party had gone clean away, leaving only their dead and their shame.