Who can describe the anguish of the poor orphan girl? Her father had for years been all in all to her, and the love which had lately sprung up in her heart towards Alf Leigh was still too young to act as a consolation to her; in this dread moment she felt as if the world for her was at an end.
Gently and tenderly her lover led her away, whispering words of comfort, and handed her over to Rose, who was weeping mournfully in concert; then leaving the girls sobbing in each other’s arms, he returned to the others, to find the body covered with the British ensign, and Grenville sternly examining the locality from which the death-shot had been fired.
“Alf,” he said, “they have burrowed a hole in the ground, put up an earthwork overhead, and thrown three rifles into it. One is dead, and now you shall see Jack Winfield avenged.” As he spoke a rocket directed by Amaxosa was fired straight into the cover chosen by the enemy, which in one second more was enveloped in a sheet of flame, the foolish Mormons having built it amongst the dried grass. Unable to stand the heat and smoke, both marksmen made a dash for life, but were tumbled over by the cousins before they had run a dozen yards.
Chapter Twelve.
Stormed at with Shot and Shell.
The next few days passed slowly and sadly on the plateau. Winfield was quietly buried close by, his grave being concealed from view, as it was most desirable that the Mormons should be kept in ignorance of the fact that the little band had lost a man.
The gloom of Winfield’s untimely death hung over all, and it was all Leigh could do to keep poor Dora from breaking down entirely; and when the Mormons, a week later, made a desperate attack on the plateau, it was a relief to the party to feel that the call for prompt and unanimous action had taken them out of their thoughts, and brought them back to their old ways of living and working.
The attempt of the Mormons proved utterly futile, as the main body never even succeeded in getting within shooting distance of Grenville’s party; and after some twenty of their bravest men had been sent to the shades to swell their already awful list of casualties they sullenly drew off and troubled our friends no more for a considerable period.