i, which had passed right through her heart, hung the dead
mistress of Zero, the slaver-chief, and the beholder know that the hand
that killed her was the hand of justice--justice on a woman more evil in
her ways than many a wicked man who had that day fallen in fair fight.

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,