“I was afraid you’d crucify me like those poor devils near the great stairway; and I didn’t enjoy the idea,” was the reply.
The men looked wonderingly at one another, and, as Grenville thought, with awed faces, as if asking what new and unknown horror this was; but not one of them had a word to say.
The prisoner now inquiring who in East Utah was at the head of affairs, was soon apprised of the fact that it was Ishmael Warden’s own brother, a man as much feared and hated for his cruel villainies as that worthy himself had been. Clearly there was no mercy to be looked for from him, and one of the guards, who appeared well disposed to Grenville, told him as much.
“I see,” replied he. “Well, if he is such a scoundrel as it’s easy to see you think him, I hope my friends will wipe him out for you at an early opportunity. I’d make another attack on the plateau if I were you, and get Brother Warden to take a front place and try the quality of those excellent bomb-shells of ours. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, my friend; I should never have tried on such an unsportsmanlike game, unless you had first treated me to it, and the result just serves you right.”
In the afternoon Grenville was led out; his fetters, much to his delight, were taken off; and, escorted by a guard of a hundred men, he was marched away to the place of execution.
Arrived there, the prisoner found it to be a perfectly level forest glade about half a mile across—open sward in the centre, with the forest fringing it on all sides but one. The one remaining side was, however, guarded by the dreadful River of Death, which at this point flowed with a slow hoarse murmur between rugged cliffs which, nearly three hundred feet above, seemed to brood over the stream as it glided beneath. If it be an accepted fact that still waters run deep, then the depth of the River (the chasm being some thirty feet across) must at this point have been considerable; whilst, to add to the dreary solemnity of the place, the dark shadows of the trees in the background seemed to keep friendly and untiring watch over the graves of the Mormon dead.
On looking round him, Grenville came to the conclusion that positively the entire community of both sexes had assembled in this forest glade, partly to swell the funeral cortege of the Holy Three, and partly, no doubt, drawn by curiosity, or by vengeful feelings, to see the very last of himself personally.
Of the burial rites our friend saw but little, as his guards kept the unbelieving Gentile at a respectful distance from the remains of the holy dead; but the moment the funeral was over, there arose from the whole of that vast crowd one mighty earth-shaking yell for vengeance on the common foe. Men, women, and children alike lent their voices to this fearful cry; and well, in sooth, they might, for there were few families in the comparatively small community of the latter day Saints which had not recently been rendered houses of mourning by one action or another of the prisoner or his friends.
On hearing the cry of the people thirsting for his blood, Grenville started; then, drawing himself up proudly, he took a long farewell glance at the setting sun, the distant mountains, the dense dark forest, and the green and rolling veldt, and then, walking to the spot indicated by his guards, the prisoner folded his arms across his breast and faced his executioners with haughty contempt in every line of his expressive and handsome countenance.
Just as the last few rifles which alone remained loaded in East Utah were about to be discharged at him, at one dozen paces, he suddenly held up his hand, and his clear voice went ringing across the veldt and into the silent forest glades.