Part 10 (1/2)

Ma was vexed, and she was ill and tired. ”I am not going to hunt for them this time,” she said quietly. ”They must learn to obey the law, and I will give them a lesson.”

So she wrote to the Government at Duke Town, asking them to send up some one to deal with the matter, and she took the letter herself to the beach, and dispatched it by a special canoe.

Nothing can be hidden in negroland, and the news of what she had done soon reached the disobedient people. They came out of the forest in as great a hurry as they went in, and rushed to the Mission House.

”Where is Ma? We want Ma.”

”Ma,” said Janie crossly, ”is away for the Consul. I hope he will bring a big gun with him. It's time. You are killing her with your silly ways.”

They went back sorrowful and alarmed, for a big gun meant ruined homes and crops, and many arrests, and imprisonment down at the coast. When they saw Ma later, they begged her to ask the Consul to come with thoughts of peace and not of war.

”Good,” she replied, ”and we shall have a proper big palaver about all your bad customs.”

When the Government official with his guard of soldiers arrived, he was amused to find the Queen of Okoyong sitting bareheaded on the roof of her house repairing a leak. She came down, and they had a palaver with the chiefs and people, who promised not to do any more killing at funerals, and not to murder twins.

Ma shrugged her shoulders. ”They will promise anything,” she told the officials. ”I'll have to keep a close eye on them all the same.”

She did; and as they broke their word she brought up the Consul-General himself, Sir Claude Macdonald. He spoke kindly, but firmly, to the chiefs.

”The laws are made for your good and safety and peace, and if you do not obey them you will be punished.”

They agreed to all he said. ”Sir, when words are spoken once, we don't mind them; but when they are spoken twice, we obey.”

Ma also addressed them, telling of the blessings that would follow obedience, and of the quiet and happy days they would enjoy long after she had gone.

”Ma! Ma!” they cried in alarm, ”you must not leave us! You are our Mother, and we are your children. G.o.d must not take you from us until we are able to walk by ourselves.”

After that things were better, though Ma's life did not grow less hard.

Indeed, it was more stirring than ever. For various reasons her people were leaving their huts and building new ones at a place called Akpap, and Ma had to shut up the Mission and go with them.

The only house she could find to live in was a little shed like a two-stalled stable, or one of the sheep-houses you see on the Scottish hills, with a mud floor and no windows. But she did not mind. She always thought of her Master, who had not a place to lay His head. So she put her boxes in one end, and in the other she lived and slept with the children.

It was a grand play-ground for rats, lizards, ants, beetles, and other jumping and creeping things. At night the rats ran over Ma, and played hide-and-seek in the roof. Once, when Mr. Ovens arrived to do some carpentry work, he went to wash himself in the shed. In the dimness he felt what he thought was a sponge floating in the basin, and saying Ma was surely getting dainty, he used it for his face, only to find that it was a drowned rat!

From this lowly hut, as from a palace, Ma continued to rule Okoyong.

Soon a strange disease seized her new lot of babies, and four died from it. Then smallpox, that dreadful scourge, swept through the land, and so many of her people were carried off that they lay unburied in their huts. Ma was busy from dawn till dark, and often from dark again till dawn, vaccinating the well ones, and nursing the ill and the dying.

To her great grief her old friend, Chief Edem, caught the disease. In spite of his faults, which, after all, were the faults of his African upbringing, he had been very good to her, and she was grateful for all he had done. When she reached his hut at Ekenge there was no one with him, for as soon as a man or a woman was stricken all others fled. She fought the disease through long weary hours, but was not able to save him, and he died in the middle of the night. Tired as she was, and weak from lack of sleep, and alone, she felt that she could not let him lie like that. Going out she got some wood and made a coffin. Then in the darkness she dug a grave and buried him. There was no dancing and drinking and killing as this chief of Okoyong entered the spirit-land, only the faint noises of the forest, and the stillness of the starry sky, and a woman's mute prayer. When all was done she dragged her wearied body back in the cool of the dewy dawn to Akpap.

Was it a wonder that she began to lose her strength? Fevers laid her low, and illnesses, due to lack of good food, weakened her. She could scarcely crawl about. Yet she would not give in, and bravely drudged away at her work. At last the other missionaries said, ”Ma, if you don't go home, you will die.” She did not want to die: she wanted to live, and do much more for Jesus. ”If,” she said, ”a holiday will help me, I will go. But what shall I do with my girls? I cannot leave Janie, Mary, Alice, and Maggie here. If I go I must take them with me.”

Her friends were astonished.

”How can you take four black girls to Scotland, and you so ill, Ma? It is impossible.”

”G.o.d can do impossible things,” she replied in simple faith. ”He will keep me and take care of them.”

”What about your clothes?” they asked.

”We have none but the old things we have on: the ants have eaten up the rest. But G.o.d will provide what we need.”