Our friends calculated that the slavers, on discovering the near approach of the water, would first drive their black captives up the hill, and after Grenville’s party had allowed these to pass and save themselves, his men would keep the road against the slavers and fiercely contest the narrow passage hand to hand, with axe and spear, rifle and pistol. It would be a stubborn fight; that was certain, for, granting that the slavers had expended a few men on their distant foray, they would still be in the proportion of two to one; and if they once penetrated the ranks of our friends, it would be all up with the little band, as they would instantly be driven back by sheer weight of numbers, into a ready-made watery grave of their own providing.
At dawn, therefore, the entire party breakfasted hastily, and, after leaving in the outer cave a few articles likely to be of service to the friendly old hermit, made their way quickly down the hill, and striking well into the fog-banks at its foot, steered a straight course for the distant mountains; Grenville and the other rescued white men, who were extremely feeble, being carried by the Zanzibaris in hammocks, so as to husband, as far as possible, what little strength they possessed.
The Zulu knew his ground thoroughly, and ere the mist had been completely sucked up by the sun, had got his followers some miles on their way, and travelling smoothly along the shallow bed of a small stream, whose overhanging banks provided a capital safeguard against prying eyes.
Naught of interest occurred that day, and by keeping the men hard at it, so as to shorten the next day’s journey, a good forty miles was knocked off before the tired wayfarers lay down to snatch a brief spell of rest until the tardy appearance of the moon provided them with sufficient light to proceed by, when the little band again took the road and kept moving until the waning light put a welcome period to their labours, and sleeping a heavy, dreamless sleep until the sun once more awoke them to the weary toil and travel of another burning tropic day.
A glorious sight now met the wondering eyes of our friends, for right before them and distant perhaps a score of miles across the veldt, rose the giant fabric of the wished-for mountain, now sharply defined in every detail of its vast and massive grandeur. Straight up into the very heavens themselves shot one glorious, glittering peak, whose perfect beauty was beyond all earthly praise: around its lofty summit the everlasting snows had grouped themselves like gleaming, flashing jewels in the radiant crown of this mighty cloud-clad monarch of the equator. Wreaths of filmy, fleecy mist drifted slowly here and there across his distorted shoulders, which were seamed in every direction with yawning fissures, whose awful blackness was rendered even more striking by contrast with the unmatched, glittering glory of this solitary inland peak, whilst the green and rolling veldt, sweeping away unbroken to the horizon on every hand, formed a fit setting for this lovely, lonely diadem of God’s own fashioning.
Soon, however, the heat-clouds settled down upon the mountain, veiling from sight all but its lower vast proportions, upon whose rugged sides no vestige of vegetation could as yet be seen.
With but a short rest at mid-day, our adventurers pressed on, in spite of the stifling heat, and reached the spring of which Amaxosa had spoken, about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the fighting brigade instantly threw themselves down to rest and sleep in the grateful shade cast by the giant walls of overhanging rock, which stretched grimly upwards on either hand, their barren wildness relieved only here and there by a few odd patches of trees and bush.
Grenville himself kept guard, and Kenyon at once proceeded down the pass and climbed some way up the mountain side to keep a sharp look-out over the southern veldt, whilst Leigh and Amaxosa turned their faces towards the river, and closely scrutinised its banks for quite half a mile beyond the further exit of the pass ere they discovered a species of creek, or inlet, only two score yards from the edge of the track, and in every way eminently suited to their requirements. Leigh then returned to the spring, and promptly dispatched ten of the Zanzibaris, with their implements, to join the Zulu chief, and to lie hidden until they received his further orders.
The scheme, artfully as it hod been planned, had one weak spot in it, which gave both Grenville and Kenyon much serious thought, and that anxiety was caused by the certain knowledge that Zero had with him his three magnificent bloodhounds, which, token in conjunction with their vile master—who was, perhaps, more of a brute than the noble animals themselves—composed the most formidable quartette in Equatoria. Grenville had already warned his friends not to waste their bullets on the dogs, but to leave the brutes to him, as should the slavers once get within range, he would not raise a hand against them until he had first settled with the canine element His great fear was, however, that the hounds would warn their masters of the presence of the little band the moment they struck the scent. The way through the pass being, however, mostly composed of rock, and a heavy gang of slaves going on in front, it was, of course, more than possible that the scent would be rendered too faint to attract anything but a mere passing whimper from the great dogs.
When the party had had perhaps three hours’ rest, a shrill whistle was suddenly heard from Kenyon, and looking upwards Grenville saw him making the agreed danger signal.