Chapter Seventeen.
Vae Victis!
For the rest of the night Grenville lay racked with mental agony. Before another dawn came stealing over the Eastern Mountains he was to die a violent death; still, the thought of that did not trouble him nearly so much as the loss of his faithful Zulu friend. The fact that he himself had been unable to lift one finger to assist Myzukulwa against the common foe was gall and wormwood to Grenville. Again and again he pictured to himself the anguish of those at the plateau when they learned not only of the entire failure of the plot for his own release, and the consequent necessity of abandoning him to his fate, but also of the death of one of their trusty defenders. Had the Mormons been now aware that Winfield was dead, Grenville felt sure they would have delivered an immediate and probably overwhelming attack upon the spot occupied by the little band of invaders; and he could find it in his heart to wish that a few more explosive shells had fallen into the hands of his party, whose position would then have been impregnable.
Soon after dawn the prisoner fell into a troubled sleep, from which he soon awoke to find himself crying and moaning bitterly. Directly after this, however, nature re-asserted her claims, and he slept long and peacefully, dreaming that all had ended quite satisfactorily, and that he, poor fellow, was at liberty. When aroused to eat his breakfast, this impression was strong upon him, and he astounded the guards by asking if the order for his release had come down.
They first smiled, and then said significantly that he must not expect that before sundown.
Grenville then asked where he was to be executed, and was told about a dozen miles from East Utah, near to the western bridge.
“Why there?” he inquired.
“Oh! only because our graveyard is there, and we first bury the Holy Three,” was the answer, which certainly appeared the reverse of reassuring.
“Will you bury me when dead?” asked the prisoner, who seemed to take a gruesome interest in all the details of his own fate.
“Of course we shall,” replied a guard; “what did you think we’d do?”