Into the Unknown: A Romance of South Africa

by Lawrence Fletcher

All worked like blacks, and soon sank a hole forty feet deep in the soft yet firm clayey sand, and then commenced tunnelling, still, however, tending downwards. The labour was enormous and the heat stifling; still the stake, beyond all price, was the life and liberty of the whole party; and when the tunnel had been unceasingly bored for three hours Grenville pronounced it long enough, and ordered his party to strike work. He then carried down the keg of powder taken at the central bridge, which proved to contain about thirty pounds, and the contents of which were found to be in capital condition.

Then sending all back into the cave with instructions to awake the girls, pack the gold on the quagga, and prepare for a running fight to Amaxosa’s Cave, in the not improbable event of the rock being demolished, he returned to his burrow, bored the keg and laid a thick train of powder for thirty feet along the tunnel.

Then came a long anxious wait; but when our hero had been alone for nearly forty minutes, he at last heard the sound of a pick.

Gliding back to his friends, he found them ready for a start, and after seeing all outside in a safe place well on the leeside of the rock, he again crept into the tunnel. Here he waited for some little time in a fever of anxiety. He could distinctly hear the Mormons now, almost above him, and was in deadly fear lest the floor between their tunnel and his, should give way, when all would be lost. This, however, did not happen, for their enemies, overlooking the fact that the ground outside sank gradually towards the rock, and boring their shaft on the level, had approached dangerously near the upper crust of the earth.

At last the time came, and hearing the foe well above his position, and guessing by the sound of their voices that they were discussing the advisability of executing their diabolical scheme, our hero coolly stepped back some thirty feet, placed a light to his train, and as he saw the fire spurt forward along the sinuous inky-looking line of powder, darted out of his burrow, and reached the exit from the rock as the whole place seemed to be rent and torn by an ear-splitting report, and the outside air, which was for one brief moment lighted by the awful glare of the explosion, resumed its normal blackness, the silence of which was instantly broken by the groans of agony from the mutilated and dying Mormons, who had indeed been hoisted with their own petard. Quickly calling his party back to the rock, which, to his delight, was uninjured, Grenville directed Amaxosa to fire one of the oil wells, feeling sure that a Mormon rush would now be made under the impression that the audacious little band of invaders had perished.

Scarcely was this done than a small army of Mormons debouched from the woods at a run. Grenville let them get within three hundred yards of the rock, and then his party opened fire, knocking the astonished cowards over like ninepins, and in less than ten minutes the blazing pillar of fire showed only the open glade, strewn thickly with corpses, its sickly glare revealing also a mighty gaping rent in the ground, from which smoke still issued, looking as if Nature had herself prepared a Stygian grave for the dishonoured dead.

Seeing that all fear of another attack was over for the present, the little party thankfully regained the shelter of the rock, in order to discuss at their leisure the probable result of the latest Mormon disaster; and in a very short time the tired and hungry quintette of miners were enjoying a hearty breakfast, if a meal served at about three in the morning merits such a denomination.

The men were all so utterly worn out that the girls, upon their own earnest entreaty, were for once allowed to keep guard whilst the fighting brigade took their much-needed repose. Grenville felt that the watch was a mere matter of form, and so the result proved, for it was ten in the morning before he was awakened by the soft hand of Rose, who came with the astounding news that a Mormon had appeared on the edge of the forest belt, where he now stood waving a white flag, and signifying his desire to communicate with the besieged.

In a moment all had shaken off their sleep, and every man was standing at his loophole rifle in hand, the two girls being also directed to project the muzzles of two guns through the loops, whilst Grenville, from outside, guarded the opening to the rock.

Picking up his rifle, Grenville passed through the aperture, and waved his white handkerchief to the messenger as a sign to him to advance. This he did with a cautious mien, stopping altogether, however, when he had got half-way to the rock, and beckoning our friend to come and meet him. Seeing that the man was quite out of range of the rifles of his comrades, who were, no doubt, outlying in the bush, Grenville thought the proposal not unreasonable, and first, in a low voice, cautioning his little garrison to keep a watchful eye on the clearing in their rear, he strode boldly forward until he found himself within a few paces of the Mormon chief, for such he unmistakably was. A handsome man with an evil-looking face, and restless eyes, which seemed to avoid your own by instinct. A fine powerful fellow too, not much under six feet, and armed with a sword, a musket, and a brace of pistols.