Part 4 (1/2)
”Bother! now what shall I do?”
”I wash out that steak tin, Ma.”
”Right; if you use what you have you will never want.”
But alas! the tin slipped out of his hand and sank.
Ma was a philosopher. ”Ah, well,” she said, ”it cannot be helped. I'll drink out of the saucer.”
Ma was really very timid. Just before leaving Devons.h.i.+re she would not go out on Guy Fawkes' Day, because she shrank from the crowds who were parading the streets; and yet, here she was going alone into an unknown region in Africa to face untamed savages. What made her so courageous was her faith in G.o.d. She believed that He wanted her to do this bit of work, and that therefore He would take care of her. She would not carry a weapon of any kind. Even David, when he went out to fight Goliath, had a sling and a stone as well as his faith. Ma was going to fight a much bigger giant, and she took nothing with her but a bright face and a heart full of love and sympathy. She was more like Jesus, who faced His enemies with nothing but the power of His spirit.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CANOE BEING MADE OUT OF A TREE-TRUNK.]
The paddlers landed her at a strip of beach on the river, and with a fast-beating heart she trudged along the forest path for about four miles until she reached a village called Ekenge.
Shouts arose: ”Ma has come! Ma has come!” and a crowd rushed forward. To her surprise they seemed pleased to see her. ”You are brave to come alone,” they said; ”that is good.”
The chief, who was called Edem, was sober, and he would not allow her to go on farther, because the people at the next village were drunk and might harm her. So she stayed the night at Ekenge.
”I am not very particular about my bed nowadays,” she told a friend, ”but as I lay on a few dirty sticks laid across and across and covered with a litter of dirty corn-sh.e.l.ls, with plenty of rats and insects, three women and an infant three days old alongside, and over a dozen goats and sheep and cows and countless dogs outside, you don't wonder that I slept little! But I had such a comfortable quiet night in my own heart.”
Next day all the big men of the district came to see her, and her winsome ways won them over, and they agreed to give her ground for a church and school, and promised that when these were built they would be places of refuge into which hunted people could fly and be safe.
She was so happy that she did not mind the rain, which came on and wetted her to the skin as she walked back through the forest to the river. The tide, too, was against the paddlers, so they had to put the canoe into a cove and tie it to a tree for two hours. Ma was cold and s.h.i.+very, and lay watching the brown crabs fighting in the mud, but she dared not sleep in case a crocodile or snake might make an attack. The men kept very quiet, and sometimes she heard them whisper, ”Speak softly and let Ma sleep,” or ”Don't shake the canoe and wake Ma.” When they started again she gradually pa.s.sed into sleep, and only wakened to see the friendly lamps of Creek Town gleaming like stars through the night.
A month or two later she was ready to go and make her home among the Okoyong. The people of Creek Town were alarmed, and tried to make her give up the idea.
”Do you think any one will listen to you?”
”Do you think they will lay aside their weapons of war for you?”
”We shall never see you again.”
”You are sure to be murdered.”
Such were some of the things said to her. But she just smiled, and thought how little there was to fear when Jesus was with her.
”I am going,” she wrote home, ”to a new tribe up-country, a fierce, cruel people, and every one tells me they will kill me. But I don't fear any hurt. Only--to combat their savage customs will require courage and firmness on my part.”
The night before she left she could not sleep for thinking and wondering about all that was before her, and lay listening to the dripping of the rain until daylight. When she heard the negro carriers coming for the packages she rose. It was still wet, and the men were miserable and grumbled and quarrelled amongst themselves until good King Eyo arrived and took them in hand. Seeing how nervous she was he sat down beside her and cheered her up, saying that he would send secret messengers from time to time to find out how she was getting on, and that she was to let him know if ever she needed help. Her courage and smiles came back, and she jumped up, gathered her children together, and walked down to the beach. Amidst the sighs and sobs and farewells of the people she stepped into the canoe.
”Good-bye, good-bye,” she cried to every one, and the canoe sped into the middle of the stream and was lost in the mist and the rain.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”PLUNGED INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST.”]
It was night when the landing-beach was reached, and the stars were hidden by rain-clouds. As Ma stepped ash.o.r.e on the mud-bank and looked into the dark forest and thought of the long journey before her, and the end of it, her heart failed. She might lose her way in that unlit tangle of wood. She would meet wild beasts, the natives might be feasting and drinking and unwilling to receive her. A score of shadowy terrors arose in her imagination. For a moment she wished she could turn back to the safe shelter of her home, but when she thought of Jesus and what He had done for her sake, how He was never afraid, but went forward calm and fearless even to His death on the Cross, she felt ashamed of her weakness, and, calling the children, she plunged stoutly into the black depths of the forest.
What a queer procession it was! The biggest boy, eleven years old, went first with a box of bread and tea and sugar on his head, next a laddie of eight with a kettle and pots, then a wee fellow of three st.u.r.dily doing his best, but crying as if his heart would break. Janie followed, also sobbing, and lastly the white mother herself carrying Annie, a baby slave-girl, on her shoulder, and singing gaily to cheer the others, but there was often a funny little break in her voice as she heard the scream of the vampire-bat or the stealthy tread and growling of wild animals close at hand.
Brus.h.i.+ng against dripping branches, stumbling in the black and slippery mud, tired and hungry and wretched, they made their way to Ekenge. When they arrived all was quiet, and no one greeted them.