r" of a
rattlesnake, and quickly lighting a torch of twisted grass, the pair saw
the horrid reptile gliding down the cave towards them, evidently making
for the entrance. Seizing a native sword, Amaxosa rushed at the snake
with a wild shout. Instantly the reptile stopped in its tortuous
course, and reared itself to strike, but the active Zulu was altogether
too quick for it, and, with one fell sweep of his keen weapon, drove its
head clean from its body, when something was heard to roll with a
hollow, bell-like sound upon the rocky floor.

As Amaxosa's voice went ringing up the arches of the cavern, each
occupant had sprung to his feet in an instant, with arms in his hands,
and Grenville was himself the first to step forward and pick up the
article, the fall of which had caused the ringing noise referred to. He
gave but a single glance at this hollow, silver ring, for such it was,
and then handed it to the Zulu chief, with the one word, "Apollyon!"

"Ay! Inkoos," was the answer, "I saw the shining circlet ere I struck,
and the sight lent strength to my arm, for well I knew that if the blow
did not go home I should not live to strike again. Glad am I, my
father, that yon evil beast is dead, for I ever feared it more than I
feared the evil ones themselves."

Grenville then explained to Kenyon and the wonder-stricken Leigh that
this horrible reptile was a pet snake, kept by the white woman they had
that day seen in the enclosure, and who, going by the name of Zero's
wife, was at this time the dominating female spirit of the Mormon
Community in Equatoria, as the adjacent slave-town was called. This
infernal nineteenth-century harpy had made the snake, "Apollyon," her
peculiar care, and _by continual practice upon ailing or dying slaves_
had trained it to follow a trail, and to fix itself upon any person of
whom she gave it the scent, quite as surely, and infinitely more quietly
and fatally, than even Zero's own particular bloodhounds. It was
self-evident that the reptile had been commissioned to destroy
Grenville, and would most certainly have succeeded in doing so had not
an all-merciful Providence willed otherwise. Unfortunately for the
snake, it had drawn its loathsome coils right across the spot where the
fire had recently been blazing, and, although the wood had quite burnt
itself out, the floor of the cave was still absolutely red-hot, and the
whole stomach of the snake was in consequence terribly scorched a