Cornered, like rats, and yet more numerous than their fierce opponents, the slavers fought with all the Courage of despair, but naught availed them, and soon the only house in Equatoria which remained intact, was the great public hall, into which the storming party had collected the entire movable wealth of the slaver fraternity, and from the roof of which the Saint George’s ensign now floated lazily upon the labouring breeze. Seeing the good old flag, Grenville at once led his rescued “sister,” as it was always his habit to call her, back to the Mormon town, and the anxious young mother forgot the awful scenes of carnage and of blood, in the joy of embracing, once more, her loving little child.
Ordering the men to shoulder everything worth having, and to return to the upper cave before Zero and his band could arrive, Grenville and Kenyon prepared to leave Equatoria, accompanied by Lady Drelincourt and her son, and by the woman of whom mention has previously been made, together with her child, who was now in better health, whilst the whole of the Mormon-cum-slaver women and children had scampered away to the woods, which lay in the rear of the town.
Just now, however, the victorious little band received a very severe check, for ere they reached the skull-shaped hill, the report of firearms broke upon their ears, and Grenville suddenly exclaimed, “By Jove! what can have happened? There goes Alf’s repeater. What, in the name of fortune, is he doing here?”
Dashing up the hill, and leaving the women in shelter on the town side of it, they came upon a sad sight. Right below their position, Leigh and about a hundred men only, were sullenly falling back upon the knoll, fighting every inch of the ground like fiends, but being steadily driven in, by something like seven times their number of heavily-armed slavers.
As the retreating party got against the hill, the slavers uttered a shout of triumph, and charging in, drove the little band in every direction; but little they reckoned upon the thunderbolt which fell upon them from above. Down from the top of the knoll like a living, irresistible whirlwind, came the lion-hearted children of the Zulu, led by their fierce and active chief, and close upon their heels, in a compact serried mass, followed the ready “People of the Stick,” behind whom Leigh and his gallant little band re-formed and charged the slavers home.
By this time the rifles were almost silent, only Grenville’s piece occasionally speaking its mind, for he seemed to have eyes for every combat of a friend, and when the great Zulu had led his men clean through the heart of the slavers, and had charged madly back again along a ghastly lane of dead and dying men, the foe drew off a little, and sought to load his guns.
This would never do, and with a wild earth-shaking shout, Amaxosa again charged the craven crowd; with him came the staunch war-dogs of the Zulu, who loved the slaughter as they loved their daring chief, and scarce a rod behind came Barad “the Hailstorm,” his faithful people following into the very jaws of death the gallant “Chieftain of the Stick,” and ever side by side with the mighty Zulu, there fought Alf Leigh, scarcely less fierce than his sable friend, and even more determined; and before the “giant three” the foe fell in every direction, like corn beneath the sickle.
Suddenly, however, Leigh broke out of the line, and, with a wild cry of triumph, fiercely engaged Zero himself, hand to hand, and axe to axe. The slaver-chief was a powerful and an active man, but he was no match for the colossal Englishman, to whom fury, revenge, and long-nursed bitter hate, had given a tenfold strength, and in ten seconds Zero lay wounded and stunned upon the ground.
Then there arose a mighty uproar, the slavers charged madly in upon the foe, and bore them back a dozen rods, fighting the while like fiends, and thus succeeded in carrying their wounded chieftain off the field, then surging in around the little band which was now fighting in square, the desperate slavers made a tremendous effort to annihilate their plucky and determined foes. Clubs are poor weapons to keep the face of a square, and the formation was quickly broken, and, fighting like lions, our friends were driven backward to the hill, every one of them fairly drenched with blood, and almost all wounded, whilst their number now totalled something under a hundred men.
All about lay the slain, singly and in knots and heaps; dead men everywhere, and everywhere rivers of blood, and the horrid stench of slaughter.