Part 5 (2/2)
Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.
Why don't you trade with Calabar?”
He grinned. ”We do trade with Calabar,” he said; ”we trade in heads.”
”Well, you must trade in palm oil and food instead. And first you must make peace.”
”We can't do that, Ma, because Calabar won't come to Okoyong.”
”Of course not, because they are afraid, and rightly too. Well, if they won't come to you, you must go to them.”
”But, Ma, we would never come back.”
”Tuts! I will go with you.”
She made them go to the river and get a large canoe and fill it with yams and plantains (these were gifts for the Calabar people), and with bags of palm nuts and a barrel of oil (these were to begin trading with). But they knew little about boats, and they loaded it so high that it sank. Another was got, and all was ready, when some of the chiefs drew back and said they would only go if Ma allowed them to take their guns and swords.
”No, no,” she said, ”that would be foolish. We are going in peace and not in war.”
”Ma, you make women of us! No man goes to a strange place without arms.”
But she would not yield, and they started. Suddenly she caught sight of some swords hidden under the bags of nuts, and, stooping, she seized them and pitched them out on the bank. ”Go on,” she cried, and the canoe swept down the river.
King Eyo received the trembling chiefs like a Christian gentleman, spoke to them kindly, and showed them over his large house. There was a palaver, and all quarrels between the two peoples were made up, and all evil thoughts of one another vanished, and the men from Okoyong went back astonished and joyful. They began to trade with the coast, and so busy did they become in their fields growing food and making palm oil that they had less time for drinking and fighting, and grew more sober and prosperous.
They were very grateful to Ma.
”We are not treating her well,” they said to one another. ”We must build her a better house.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: MA'S TINY COMPa.s.s.]
And they began to erect a large one with upstairs rooms and a verandah, but they could not manage the woodwork. Ma begged the Mission authorities to send up a carpenter to put in the doors and windows, and by and by one came from Scotland, named Mr. Ovens, and appeared at Ekenge with his tools and Tom, a native apprentice, and set to work. Mr.
Ovens was bright and cheery, and had a laugh that made everybody else want to laugh; and he made so light of the hard life he had to live that Ma praised G.o.d for sending him. Like herself, he spoke the dear Scots tongue, and at night he sang the plaintive songs of their native land until she was ready to echo the words of Tom, ”Master, I don't like these songs, they make my heart big and my eyes water.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: JUDGE SLESSOR IN COURT.]
CHAPTER IV
Stories of how Ma kept an armed mob at bay and saved the lives of a number of men and women; how in answer to a secret warning she tramped a long distance in the dark to stop a war; how she slept by a camp-fire in the heart of the forest, and how she became a British Consul and ruled Okoyong like a Queen.
A low wailing cry, with a note of terror in it, drifted out of the forest into the suns.h.i.+ne of the clearing where Ma was sitting watching the work on the new house. She leapt to her feet, and listened with a far-away look on her face. Next moment she sprang in amongst the trees and disappeared.
Mr. Ovens saw that the natives about him were uneasy, and when a messenger came running up and said, ”You have to go to Ma and take medicine for an accident,” they burst into loud lamentations. On reaching the spot he found that Etim, the son of the chief, a lad about twenty years of age, had been caught by a log which he had been handling, and struck senseless to the ground.
”This is not good for us,” Ma said, shaking her head. ”The people believe that accidents are caused by witchcraft, the witch-doctor will be called in to smell out the guilty ones, and many will suffer.”
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