Only four precious letters; yet this man had written them at the peril of his life. It must, it did, mean something, and all her woman’s wit was instantly on the alert to lay hold of the earliest clue to the whereabouts of these her secret friends.
Hope! Oh pity her, gentle reader, a lovely woman in the zenith of her beauty and the pride of motherhood, condemned to die a frightful death before another day had run its course, and die merely to satisfy the insensate malice of a ruffian Mormon hound.
Turning away from Zero, Kenyon would have left the building in silence; but the slaver laid upon his shoulder a firm, detaining hand. “Softly, my good old man! ‘Softly! softly! catch monkey,’ as these infernal niggers say. You live on the mountain, and I reckon you can see a long way. Now have you seen naught of this cursed Grenville and the pack of fools who follow him? Speak out, man, or I guess I’ll soon find means to open your wretched old jaws.”
Like a flash of light, an inspiration came to Kenyon; and, drawing himself up proudly, he shook off the slaver’s hand. “The men ye name are even now within my cave upon the hill,” he said. “Go seek them if ye dare, monster of evil, but beware the end thereof; beware, for Muzi Zimba warns thee!”
The effect was precisely what Kenyon had calculated upon. Flinging the old man from him with a fearful oath, the slaver sent his powerful voice echoing through the house and out along the streets, calling up guards and officers in every direction, whilst our adventurous friend soon after took his departure, entirely unnoticed during the tumult which followed the communication of the news which he had given, regarding the position of his friends.
Hanging about for a few moments, however, Kenyon learned all he wished to know, as he heard Zero, with a volley of oaths, exclaim: “Put off her execution? No, by all the Gods—no, tie the slut to the faggots at noon to-morrow, and let her roast, and mind you have her whelp of a son to watch her die, whilst I eat up these cursed fools who think to change my vengeance and to spoil my trade.”
This was all that Kenyon required to know, and an hour later he was deep in consultation with his friends in the hermit’s cave, amongst the northern hills.
It was agreed on all hands that Kenyon had acted for the best, as the plan he had formed, though simple in the extreme, had every promise of a grand success.
Briefly, the scheme stood thus:—Whilst Zero was moving up to the attack, as he evidently meant to do next morning, a party of their own was, by way of the secret passage and the well, to enter Equatoria, fall upon the few guards left there, carry off the captive woman, and generally do as much damage to the slavers’ town as they found it in their power to accomplish. It was calculated that the rifles of Leigh, Umbulanzi, and Ewan, supported by the Atagbondo marksmen, would be quite sufficient to check Zero in his ascent up the steep and difficult path to the cavern; and, even if he forced his way so far, he would have to reckon with about two hundred of the Atagbondo, and would find their warriors uncommonly hard nuts to crack; whilst Kenyon and Grenville, who were to assail the town, would take with them Amaxosa and his men, together with a hundred of the “People of the Stick,” quite sufficient, they thought, to do irreparable damage to the slavers’ home in the two hours which they promised themselves to spend in Equatoria.
And so, after looking carefully over their arms and their defences, the little band lay down to sleep that night with perfect confidence in their leaders, and in the issues of the morrow; only Leigh sat up the whole night cleaning his weapons, with murder in his heart, and a wealth of determined resolve upon his handsome face.