The rest of the white men and Zulus, all of whom Leigh had been able to arm out of his ample stores of weapons, were already sleeping such a sleep as they had not enjoyed for a full year. To Grenville’s delight, he found that his cousin had got a spare Winchester rifle for him, and with this and a pair of his favourite revolvers, he felt fit and ready for anything once again.
Chapter Eight.
Zero.
Though quietly settled down for the night, our friends had yet, however, to learn that they hod not altogether done with the Mormon-cum-Slaver fraternity, who evidently could not rest satisfied, or allow the day to close, without making a particularly abominable attempt to get even with the fugitives and their new-found friends.
In the very dead of night, as Leigh and Amaxosa stood on guard at the mouth of the cave, conversing in an undertone, they were treated to a new and extremely objectionable sample of the qualities of their detested foes. The fire behind them inside the cavern had completely burnt itself out, and close to its ashes lay Grenville, sleeping heavily, whilst the other members of the party were scattered about the cave on beds of moss or dried grass. Not a sound of any kind betokening the presence of a foe had the anxious watchers heard, when all of a sudden both were startled into action by an angry hiss just behind them, followed by the well-known and universally dreaded “skirr” of a rattlesnake, and quickly lighting a torch of twisted grass, the pair saw the horrid reptile gliding down the cave towards them, evidently making for the entrance. Seizing a native sword, Amaxosa rushed at the snake with a wild shout. Instantly the reptile stopped in its tortuous course, and reared itself to strike, but the active Zulu was altogether too quick for it, and, with one fell sweep of his keen weapon, drove its head clean from its body, when something was heard to roll with a hollow, bell-like sound upon the rocky floor.
As Amaxosa’s voice went ringing up the arches of the cavern, each occupant had sprung to his feet in an instant, with arms in his hands, and Grenville was himself the first to step forward and pick up the article, the fall of which had caused the ringing noise referred to. He gave but a single glance at this hollow, silver ring, for such it was, and then handed it to the Zulu chief, with the one word, “Apollyon!”
“Ay! Inkoos,” was the answer, “I saw the shining circlet ere I struck, and the sight lent strength to my arm, for well I knew that if the blow did not go home I should not live to strike again. Glad am I, my father, that yon evil beast is dead, for I ever feared it more than I feared the evil ones themselves.”
Grenville then explained to Kenyon and the wonder-stricken Leigh that this horrible reptile was a pet snake, kept by the white woman they had that day seen in the enclosure, and who, going by the name of Zero’s wife, was at this time the dominating female spirit of the Mormon Community in Equatoria, as the adjacent slave-town was called. This infernal nineteenth-century harpy had made the snake, “Apollyon,” her peculiar care, and by continual practice upon ailing or dying slaves had trained it to follow a trail, and to fix itself upon any person of whom she gave it the scent, quite as surely, and infinitely more quietly and fatally, than even Zero’s own particular bloodhounds. It was self-evident that the reptile had been commissioned to destroy Grenville, and would most certainly have succeeded in doing so had not an all-merciful Providence willed otherwise. Unfortunately for the snake, it had drawn its loathsome coils right across the spot where the fire had recently been blazing, and, although the wood had quite burnt itself out, the floor of the cave was still absolutely red-hot, and the whole stomach of the snake was in consequence terribly scorched and blistered, and the sudden agony had no doubt caused it to emit the warning hiss which had put Amaxosa on his guard, whilst the severe nature of its injuries had probably contributed, in no small degree, to the success of his attack, by rendering the motions of the reptile unusually slow and extremely painful. Anyhow, it was a miraculous and providential escape, for which all felt uncommonly thankful, and Leigh heard with unconcealed satisfaction that the snake in question was positively the only one so trained which the vindictive Madame Zero had in her possession.