CHAPTER XXVII.

The rock was split into two nearly equal parts, exactly over the fissure where the powder had exploded. One of the blocks remained upright, resting against the side of the mountain, but the other, propelled by the severe shock and detached from the main body, had toppled over completely.

MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle saw, open before them, a large gap, three yards wide, without a single obstruction in it.

They took a few steps forwards, reached the spot where the granite block had stood for so many years, centuries perhaps, and came to a sudden halt.

The ground was giving way beneath their feet; they found themselves on the brink of an abyss some thirty yards deep; the plain was not on the same level as the road blocked up but a few moments previously by the rock.

But they went on, clinging to, and supporting themselves by the side of the mountain, and they then saw that the rock they had displaced not only opened out the horizon to their view, but also afforded them a means whereby they might reach the country just exposed to their gaze. In fact, after having turned a somersault in the air, the top of the rock had fallen on to the plain, whilst its base, resting against the mountain, remained on the spot previously occupied by it. It was exactly like the floor of a bridge which has given away; one of its sides remained fixed to the supports on the right bank of the river, the other was engulfed in the stream.

All the caravan had to do was to slide down an inclined plain of granite, thirty yards long. But, before committing themselves to this descent, and overcoming the very last obstacle which separated them from the plain, MM. Desrioux and Pommerelle looked around them, and were dismayed.

Nothing could be seen on the vast expanse before them but people running in terror in all directions; naked women, raising their hands to heaven and hurrying away with rapid strides; men jostling each other in utter confusion or, stupefied by fear and incapable of movement, throwing themselves down on the ground and seeking to bury themselves in it. The grass of the plain was strewn with arms of every description—lances, arrows, bows, and shields, cast away by the fugitives to render their flight more rapid. In the distance, however, were seen close, compact bodies of men, battalions reforming and being continually reinforced by the accession of stragglers. These soldiers belonged, no doubt, to the victorious army, who, having taken to flight at the commencement of the engagement, were now reappearing to rejoice over the victory of their comrades, and to plunder and massacre the enemies against whom the remainder of their force had so valiantly fought.

But when, after having scanned the distant horizon, MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle turned their eyes to the foreground of the tableau, their astonishment was converted into stupefaction.

A kind of entrenched camp, with a circular ditch round it, met their eyes. It must have been, a few moments previously, taken by assault, and its defenders put to the sword. More than three hundred dead bodies lay there; some on the ground, some on the sides of the ditch, and others on boxes and baggage heaped up in one corner to serve as ramparts, or scattered far and wide, broken open and smashed to pieces, showing that plunder, as well as massacre, had been going on. Underneath the rock, just where it had fallen, was to be seen, in a perfect lake of blood, a hideous mass of mangled corpses, of detached limbs, and flesh in strips. In the midst of all these corpses a few poor wounded wretches were heaving, struggling, making superhuman efforts to avoid the touch of the bodies on whom death had laid his icy hand, and to escape a living tomb among the dead; the very mountains echoed the piercing shrieks which resounded over this ghastly scene.

MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle had then arrived too late, at the end of the battle where one of the two forces had suffered defeat. The upheaving of the rock had only served to augment the number of the victims; the block of granite, in pitching headlong on the plain, had, no doubt, crushed beneath its ponderous weight the remnant of the Europeans left in the camp, for there could be no doubt but that the baggage, tents, and rifles strewn upon the ground belonged to Europeans.

From the camp the gaze of our two travellers wandered to a space, about twenty yards square, where were stationed the survivors of this vast hecatomb. At first they only perceived a confused group, whence were proceeding shouts and signs apparently intended for themselves. Little by little the details became more distinct; Arab bûrnus, linen tunics, European clothes could be distinguished. Then a few white faces stood out from the black and bronzed features surrounding them.

M. Desrioux could look no longer; his eyes closed, he grew deadly pale, his limbs gave way beneath him, and if M. de Pommerelle had not caught him and propped him up against the side of the mountain, he would inevitably have fallen down the abyss.

His eyes had rested on her whom he felt he should see—he had recognised Madame de Guéran.

If the two young men had been able, in a few moments, to discover their friends in the midst of the crowd and single them out on that extensive battle-field, MM. de Morin, Périères, and Delange had seen them for a long time, though without recognizing them. At the moment when, driven out of their camp by the amazons, they had sought refuge with their servants and surviving soldiers on the other side of the entrenchment, at the very moment when they were defending themselves with all the energy of despair, knowing full well that they, in their turn, were about to be massacred as their companions had been, suddenly a terrific detonation had sounded in their ears, and the mountain had appeared and overwhelmed their enemies.

Dazzled by this miracle, and almost alarmed at their own escape, they remained at first with their eyes fixed on the mountain, whose fall had not only delivered them out of the hands of the Walindis, and snatched them from imminent death, but had also opened up for them a road to the east, the lakes, and to Europe.

But, as Parisians are somewhat sceptical on the score of miracles, MM. Delange and de Morin, their momentary stupor over, gave M. Périères the credit of their deliverance. Had not he conceived the idea of blowing up the rock to secure a passage through the mountain, and was it not, therefore, probable that he had put his theory into practice? Périères, for his part, imagined that somebody had stolen his idea, and he was looking with admiration on the thieves, whoever they might be. The minds of all three of them were, nevertheless, rather uneasy. They wanted to know how it had happened that the mountain, instead of bursting open at the base, above the mine which one of them must have sprung, revealed an aperture over their heads?

Whilst these thoughts passed through their minds, and their eyes were fixed on the block of stone, of which one end had just rolled on to the plain, and the other remained supported, thirty yards higher up, beside the welcome aperture, two men appeared suddenly on the threshold of this blessed gate, in the foreground of the triumphal arch.

Under the shade of the two lofty mountains, between which they were advancing, surrounded by shadow, they had all the appearance of emerging from a sepulchre. But, once on the brink of the abyss, on the platform of the uplifted rock, they were in the full glare of the sun. Clothed in white, and radiant in the sunlight, they might have been taken for two angels from heaven, who had lighted on the mountain before continuing their flight down to earth.

It is quite possible that this sudden apparition contributed to the flight of the amazons in a greater degree than the noise of the explosion which accompanied the fail of the rock. After their first consternation they might have rallied for another attack on the Europeans, and for the rescue of their Queen; but, when they saw that their motionless and immoveable hill, their sacred mount, had fallen and crushed beneath it many of their number, and that it had opened to give egress to supernatural beings, a thousand superstitious fears took possession of them, and these terrible warriors became women once more.

The surviving Nubians, the Arab interpreters, the Dinkas, and the Monbuttoos, on the other hand, notwithstanding their amazement, understood that heaven was protecting them; the mountain was their ally, the two angels their deliverers. They, therefore, prostrated themselves in gratitude to the God, the idol, or the sorcerer who had saved them.

As for the Europeans, they thanked their deliverers from the depths of their souls, but they did not endue them with any magic power or supernatural influence. They had a simple explanation at hand; a European caravan, advancing from the south-east to the north-west, after having crossed the Blue Mountains, had found their road blocked up by an immense rock, and, being unable either to get round or over it, they had underminded it and blown it up. Their only idea had been to open up a passage for themselves, and chance had willed that at the same time they should do a like office for another caravan proceeding in an opposite direction. Accident, which always appears so improbable in romances, but which plays so large a part in human life, had also contrived that the meeting of these two caravans, and the fall of the mountain should take place at an opportune moment, and in a propitious hour.

The idea never occurred to them that chance, or accident, was not entirely responsible for what had occurred, and that they were face to face with their friends, the Count de Pommerelle and Dr. Desrioux. How could they possibly have supposed that these two men, one detained, as far as they knew, in France by duty, and the other by the force of habit and his own disinclination to move, would appear in the heart of Africa, in 2° lat. N.?

M. Desrioux, on the contrary, who was entirely taken up with the thought of Madame de Guéran, who had for so long a time been journeying towards her, and expecting every moment to meet her, had recognised her at once, or, perhaps, felt by inspiration that she was at hand. It is more than probable, also, that she in her turn was conscious of his presence before he was seen by his friends.