Into the Unknown.

by Lawrence Fletcher.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE GHOSTS' Pa.s.s.

"Well, old man, what do we do next?" The speaker, a fine young fellow of some five-and-twenty summers, reclining on the rough gra.s.s, with clouds of tobacco-smoke filtering through his lips, looked the picture of comfort, his appearance belying in every way the discontent expressed in his tones as he smoked his pipe in the welcome shade of a giant rock, which protected him and his two companions from the mid-day glare of a South African sun.

Alfred Leigh, second son of Lord Drelincourt, was certainly a handsome man: powerfully and somewhat heavily built, his physique looked perfect, and, as he gradually and lazily raised his huge frame from the rough gra.s.s, he appeared--what he was, in truth--a splendid specimen of nineteenth-century humanity, upwards of six feet high, and in the perfection of health and spirits; a fine, clear-cut face, with blue eyes and a fair, close-cropped beard, completed a _tout ensemble_ which was English to a degree.

The person addressed was evidently related to the speaker, for, though darker than his companion, and by no means so striking in face or figure, he still had fair hair, which curled crisply on a well-shaped head, and keen blue eyes which seemed incessantly on the watch and were well matched by a resolute mouth and chin, and a broad-shouldered frame which promised strength from its perfect lines. d.i.c.k Grenville, _aetat._ thirty, and his cousin, Alf Leigh, were a pair which any three ordinary mortals might well wish to be excused from taking on.

The third person--singular he certainly looked--was a magnificent creature, a pure-blooded Zulu chief, descended from a race of warriors, every line of his countenance grave and stern, with eyes that glistened like fiery stars under a lowering cloud, the man having withal a general "straightness" of appearance more easily detected than described. A "Keshla," or ringed man, some six feet three inches high, of enormously powerful physique, armed with a murderous-looking club and a brace of broad-bladed spears, and you have a faithful picture of Myzukulwa, the Zulu friend of the two cousins.

The scene is magnificently striking, but grand with a loneliness awful beyond description, for, so far as the eye can reach, the fervid sun beats upon nothing but towering mountain-peaks, whose grey and rugged summits pierce the fleecy heat-clouds, and seem to lose themselves in a hopeless attempt to fathom the unspeakable majesty beyond.

"Do next, old fellow?" The words came in cool, quiet tones. "Well, if I were you, Alf, I should convey my carca.s.s out of the line of fire from yonder rifle, which has been pointed at each of our persons in succession during the last two minutes;" and Grenville, with the stem of his pipe, indicated a spot some three hundred yards away, where his keen eye had detected the browned barrel of a rifle projected through a fissure in the rock; then, in quick, incisive tones, suiting the action to the word, "Lie down, man!" and not a moment too soon, as an angry rifle-bullet sang over his head and flattened against the rock. In another instant all three were ensconced behind a rocky projection, and endeavouring to ascertain their unknown a.s.sailants' force.

Truly, an unpleasant place was this to be beleaguered in--little food, still less water, and positively no cover to protect them in the event of a night attack upon the position they occupied. Grenville quietly picked up the flattened bullet, eyed it curiously, and then handed it to Myzukulwa with an interrogative look; the other scarcely glanced at the missile and replied quietly, yet in singularly correct English, "Inkoos (chief), that lead came from a very old gun, but it is a true one--the Inkoos, my master, was too near it."

"Yes," responded Grenville, who had now quite taken command of matters, "but we must find out how many of these rascals are lurking behind yonder rocks with murder in their hearts." So saying he coolly stepped out into the open again, ostensibly to pick up his pipe, which lay on the ground, but kept his eye warily fixed upon the expected point of offence, and instantly dropped on his hands and knees as another bullet whizzed over him. Then he quietly rose to his feet, but with a beating heart, for, if the rifle were a double-barrelled one, or if more than the one marksman were lying hid, he was in deadly peril. No shot followed, however, and he calmly picked up his pipe and again sought shelter with his companions.

"Now, chief," said Grenville, after a brief interval, "wait till I have drawn the scoundrel's fire again, and then rush him," and, executing a rapid movement round the rocky boulder which served the party as a shelter, he once more provoked the fire of the hidden foe, delivered with greater accuracy than before, the bullet grazing the skin of one hand as he swung himself into cover, crying, "Now, Myzukulwa!" but the fleet-footed Zulu was already half-way across the open s.p.a.ce, going like a sprint-runner, having started simultaneously with the flash of the rifle. In a moment more the cousins were after him, only to find, upon reaching the rock, that there was no trace of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, and that the Zulu was hopelessly at fault. A little powder spilled upon a stone showed where the man had been placed, and that was all.

Just then Grenville's quick eye "spotted" the barrel of a rifle slowly rising a hundred yards away, out of a hollow in the ground, imperceptible from where they stood; he instinctively pitched forward his Winchester, and the two reports blended into one. Leigh's hat flew off his head, carried away by a bullet, and at the same instant Myzukulwa again "rushed" the hidden marksman, only to find the work done; and a gruesome sight it was. There lay a fine-looking man, stone-dead, with the blood welling out of a ghastly hole in his head, the heavy sh.e.l.l-bullet doing frightful execution at such short range, having fairly smashed his skull to pieces.

The Englishmen were very considerably taken aback at finding that their a.s.sailant was as white-skinned as themselves; they had half expected to find some loafing Hottentot or Kaffir, though the accuracy of the shooting had already caused Grenville to doubt that the marksman could be either of these, for, as a general rule, if a Kaffir aims at anything a hundred yards from him he misses it nine times out of ten. The dead man was dressed in a deerskin costume, which caused the cousins to remark that he looked like many a man they had seen when shooting buffalo on the prairies of the Wild West. His gun proved to be a long flint-lock rifle of an obsolete type, but extremely well finished, and it was the flash of the powder in the pan which had enabled Grenville to antic.i.p.ate the leaden messenger from this weapon.

Leigh, who was disposed to scoff at their present undertaking, which he called "a wild-goose chase," gave it as his opinion that the miserable man was some escaped convict who had gravitated up country, and who, no doubt, imagined that the white men were in search of him with a native tracker--anyway, it had been a very near thing with them, and nothing but Grenville's unceasing watchfulness could have saved his cousin's life, as it unquestionably had done, twice over.

Grenville listened in silence to Leigh's remarks, and then, turning their backs on the mortal remains of their foe, they left him to the eternal solitude of that vast and rocky wilderness.

Several hours of hard toil followed, during which they slowly and warily ascended the Pa.s.s, without, however, seeing any further sign of life.

Stopping once to take a hurried mouthful of dried deer-flesh, the party was soon again on its way, and reached the top of the Pa.s.s just before sunset. Beyond this point all possibility of advance in any direction seemed at an end. The mountains shot up towards the sky, based, as it were, by a precipitous wall of rock, and flanked by mighty spurs, whose peaks stood out, clear and sharp, some fifteen thousand feet above the Pa.s.s, their barren and rugged sides almost beautified by the glow of the setting sun.

The sterile appearance of the valley was, however, to some slight extent relieved by a magnificent waterfall, which appeared to receive its supply through a fissure in the wall of rock, whence it came sheer over a beetling crag and fell from a height of at least one hundred feet into a rocky basin at the very head of the Pa.s.s.

Grenville quickly bestowed his party in a small cave for the night, and by the time they were comfortably domiciled the sun had set. He then mounted guard whilst the others slept, and three hours later, having aroused the Zulu, he himself turned in for a much-needed rest.

CHAPTER TWO.

AN ANXIOUS DAY.

In the morning, after a meal of dried flesh and water--an appetising repast at which Leigh grumbled considerably--the trio lighted their pipes and went into council.

"Now then, d.i.c.k," said Alf Leigh, "as I, at all events, see no more of those objectionable rifle-barrels round here, I'll repeat my question of yesterday--What do we do next?"

"Ah! that's the point," responded Grenville. "Now doesn't it strike you as very odd, not to say significant, that we should be so murderously a.s.saulted precisely on the spot where our mission is supposed to commence? I am convinced that there is more in that attack than you fancy. However, here is the inscription which, as you know, we found scratched with a pin-point on a slaty rock down the Pa.s.s yesterday--'_An Englishman and his daughter imprisoned in the h.e.l.l at the top of this Pa.s.s. Help us, for the love of Heaven_.' Well, as you also know, we resolved to carry help to the unfortunates who make this pitiful appeal to our honour as countrymen, or die in the attempt; and, by Jove, if you ask me anything, we came perilously near doing the latter yesterday. To proceed, Myzukulwa here declares that there has been handed down for generations in his tribe, legends of a strange and mighty people, who frequent this pa.s.s by night only, who, on being followed, vanish into thin air, and whose description answers accurately to the gentleman I settled yesterday, with the one exception, easily accounted for, that these people were said to have black faces."

"And a nice beginning we've made if, according to your idea, our friend of yesterday was one of them," grumbled Leigh.

"Don't make any mistake, Alf," rejoined Grenville; "we shall gain nothing by palaver; whoever sees the inside of their territory will never again, with their consent, re-enter the outside world to give them away. This kingdom is an inscrutable mystery, enveloped in something like a hundred miles of inaccessible rock and impa.s.sable mountain, and upon the very threshold of it I feel convinced that we have now arrived."

"Inkoos," said the great Zulu, "your words are wise, even as the wisdom of my father's father. For a thousand moons--ay, and for a thousand before that--has this place been haunted, and the traditions of my people ever warn us to beware of sleeping nigh to this falling water.

Many have done so, and have never again visited their kraals; I, Myzukulwa, have alone done so and lived. More, Inkoos; as I watched yesternight I heard strange sounds, as though the spooks (ghosts) were mourning over the dead one who lies below us."

"Hah!" said Grenville, starting suddenly to his feet, "we'll have another look at that body," and, followed by his companions, he strode away down the Pa.s.s, but, when the party reached the scene of the previous day's rencontre, the lifeless remains were nowhere to be seen; there was the hole, the rock crusted with coagulated blood, but not the faintest trace of the body they had left behind them a dozen hours before. Clearly no beast of prey had been responsible for its disappearance, for the man's gun and ammunition had also been removed.

A lengthy and careful examination of the surroundings revealed nothing; all was barren rock, without a single sign of its having ever been pressed by the foot of man, and, with most uncomfortable feelings, the trio retraced their steps up the Pa.s.s, and reached the cave again, weary and disheartened, as the sun went out with the rapidity peculiar to the lat.i.tudes of Equatorial Africa, at once plunging everything into darkness that might be felt.

Grenville's active mind was, however, at work upon the incidents of the day, and he never rested until his party was safely housed in a cave some hundred yards from the previous location. This night all kept watch; and well was it for them that they were on the alert, for, just before the moon got up, the darkness of the Pa.s.s was suddenly cut, as if by magic, with the flash of at least a score of rifles, fired so as to fairly sweep their old resting-place. Grenville and his companions crouched down amongst the rocks, straining eyes and ears for sight or sound of their murderously-inclined foes; but all was as still as death, and at daybreak the Pa.s.s was again, to all appearance, utterly deserted, only their old cave was strewn with flattened bullets, which had been fired with murderous precision.

Grenville tried to get Myzukulwa's views upon the events of the night as they smoked their pipes after breakfast, but the chief was unusually reticent. "Spooks," he said, "who shot as well as these did were dangerous; nothing but a spook could shoot like that in the dark."

Leigh was for clearing out altogether; he was as plucky a fellow as ever stepped, but this sort of thing was enough to shake any man's nerves.

That day was spent in a rigid search which literally left no stone unturned; but the keenest scrutiny revealed no place of concealment and no way into the mountain--over it none could go, for that towering wall of rock would have defied anything short of an eagle's wings--and a couple of hours before sunset the party set off again down the Pa.s.s.

CHAPTER THREE.

A LEAP IN THE DARK.

As the party sullenly descended the Pa.s.s, no one seemed in a conversational mood, but Leigh noticed that his cousin took a very easy pace, and urged them to feed well, just before the sun set.

No sooner was the darkness fairly upon them than Grenville turned short in his tracks and quietly said, "I'm going back, Alf, and I'm going through with this. There's a secret up there, and I believe it's a black one, and I've no intention of playing into the hands of these rascals by running away."

"But, my dear boy," remonstrated Leigh, with a rueful face, "you don't know your way into the mountain; you aren't a bird to fly over it, and you'll only get yourself shot."

"I believe I do know my way into the mountain, and I hope I shan't get shot; so come along, old fellow," replied his cousin.

Grumbling and arguing, Leigh turned to follow, and very soon Grenville imposed the strictest silence upon his companions.

The darkness was now something almost tangible, but after walking--or, rather, feeling--their way at a funereal pace for a couple of hours, the murmur of the waterfall broke upon their ears, and the stars now beginning to grow bright, greater caution than ever became necessary.

Soon the trio were flat on the ground, wriggling along like three gigantic lizards over the rough, k.n.o.bbly rocks, which called forth many a subdued groan from poor Leigh. The advance was, however, continued, all obstacles to the contrary notwithstanding, and in another hour the party lay securely hidden within a stone-throw of the waterfall.

A little later, becoming dissatisfied with his position, Grenville drew his party back some fifty yards under the cover of a rock, and then proceeded to act in a most singular manner. Divesting himself of his hat, jacket, and hunting-shirt, he slipped a brace of six-shooters into his hip-pockets, and, directing Leigh and the Zulu to stay where they where--unless they heard him blow a small whistle, which he always carried--he left the pair wondering at his extraordinary movements, and gradually and cautiously approached the Fall. Arrived there, his conduct became curious to a degree, for, lying flat on the rock, on the very edge of the basin indeed, where the spray from the cataract fell in a continuous and blinding shower, Grenville first commenced feeling about inside the rush of the water at the very back of the Fall, and finally buried himself, head and shoulders, in the water of the basin, frequently raising his head to take breath. After he had expended quite ten minutes in this edifying manner, he gave a grunt indicative of satisfaction, rose dripping wet, and retired into concealment behind the nearest rock, watching the Fall like a lynx.

Soon his patience was well rewarded, for a wonderful and beautiful thing happened. In a single instant the Fall grew gloriously light and beautiful, and the foaming, flashing surface of the water seemed by the touch of some fairy wand transformed into a stupendous rainbow of indescribable loveliness, as the changing lights appeared to come and go through the driving rifts of steaming, gauze-like vapour.

Grenville smiled, and made himself, if possible, still smaller amongst the stones; a slight splashing was heard, and in another moment the light went out suddenly and the Fall resumed its normal appearance--a white, angry-looking streak of sliding foam, clearly outlined against the dark background of rock. And now Grenville could see by the starlight the forms of fully a dozen men who appeared to have sprung from the earth; crouching down, he lay for some moments breathless and motionless as the rocks beneath him, but, hearing no footsteps, and cautiously raising his head, he found no one within his limited range of vision. Hazardous though the act was, Grenville crawled out, snake-like, to the spot where he had seen the strange party take its stand, and, by following the damp feel of the rock where wet footsteps had pa.s.sed, quickly satisfied himself that the enemy had proceeded down the Pa.s.s. Quietly rejoining his anxious friends, he led them back, after a brief consultation, to the basin at the foot of the Fall, into which each silently dropped in turn, and instantly vanished from sight.

A few moments later three dripping, panting forms stood whispering together upon a rocky ledge, which was in fact the entrance to a vast cave, by which, as Grenville had cleverly surmised, their a.s.sailants pa.s.sed through the base of the mountain-range and obtained access to their mysterious country beyond.

The air, though dense with a heavy, noxious odour, was still very refreshing to the party after their dive; but Grenville soon reminded the others that they had no time to lose, and, warning them to look to their arms, ammunition and matches, all of which had been most carefully enveloped in mackintosh ground-sheets, himself proceeded to strike a light. Now the striking of a match is a very trifling affair at ordinary times, but, with a dark and doubtless vast unknown before them, each waited anxiously to see what the tiny flame would reveal. One brief instant it shed its feeble light upon their pallid faces, then, in an endeavour to pierce the apparently limitless gloom, Grenville raised the match above his head, and at that very moment there was a wild, hissing rush, and the cavern stood revealed in a blinding glare of light. The match had evidently ignited by accident a reservoir of natural gas, and this, in the shape of an enormous stream of fire, now hung globe-like from a rift in the roof of rock, where it arched a score of feet above their heads.