Chapter Twelve.
Fighting the Flames.
For fully three days did our friends occupy themselves in the very necessary work of perfecting the defences of their stronghold on the mountain, and in teaching a picked dozen of the Atagbondo the use of the rifle, with which weapon they soon became fair marksmen, in the native acceptance of the term.
On the fourth day, however, a discovery, trifling in itself, convinced the party that, so far from having been forgotten by Zero, they were at present occupying the whole of his earnest attention.
The incident in question was the accidental notice taken by Kenyon of a small bird wheeling round and round their position; closer and closer it came, until all could see perfectly well that it was a white carrier pigeon, bearing a message. Finding, however, that the party did not whistle it in, the bird grew shy, and quickly took to flight Leigh raised his rifle with the intention of bringing it down, but Kenyon stopped him just in time.
“Don’t shoot, old fellow,” he said; “I’ve a fancy to let that bird severely alone. I want to know just where it’s bound for at the present moment.”
Watching very carefully, the pigeon was at last seen to enter a clump of bush about half a mile up the mountain side, and scarcely ten minutes later, either it, or a similar bird, left the same cover, and winged its rapid way due north.
The inference was plain, and our friends looked blankly at one another; but, ere they could speak, the Zulu chief had summoned Umbulanzi and directed him to take two men, thoroughly search the suspected spot, and put to the assegai anyone they might find lurking there.
Grenville and Kenyon would have much preferred taking the spy—if spy there was—alive, but the fear that his presence would cause the injured People of the Stick to overstep all restraint and become guilty of some fearful act of barbaric cruelty, decided them to let the man fight it out to the bitter end for his own life, rather than to permit him to fall into the hands of a raging mob of naked savages, whose tenderest mercies, maddened as they were by their frightful wrongs, would be cruel indeed.
Anxiously our friends watched the progress of the three Zulus up the mountain, and all at once Leigh took a fancy to follow them, and was soon swinging up the slant with rapid steps, accompanied by Amaxosa and Kenyon.