{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16657/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16657","id":"gutenberg_16657","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16657","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: Biographies","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Missionaries"],"text":"Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note: Some Footnotes in this text contain special\ncharacters, including a, e, and o with superior macron, represented by\n[=a], [=e], and [=o], and a and u with superior breve, represented by\n[)a] and [)u], to indicate pronunciation of native-language words.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES\n\nBY\n\nBASIL MATHEWS, M.A.\n\n_Author of \"The Argonauts of Faith,\"\n\"The Riddle of Nearer Asia,\"\netc._\n\n\nNEW YORK\n\nGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY\n\n_Copyright, 1922,_\n\n_By George H. Doran Company_\n\n\n\nPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                                               PAGE\n\nPROLOGUE  THE RELAY RACE                                          9\n\nBOOK I: THE PIONEERS\n\n  CHAPTER\n  I      THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL (_St. Paul_)                 19\n  II     THE MEN ON THE SHINGLE BEACH (_Wilfrid of Sussex_)      30\n  III    THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE (_Raymond Lull_)            36\n  IV     FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_)         47\n\nBOOK II: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS\n\n  V      THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP (_The Duff_)                       65\n  VI     THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES (_Papeiha_)                     72\n  VII    THE DAYBREAK CALL (_John Williams_)                     80\n  VIII   KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII (_Kapiolani_)          86\n  IX     THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE (_Elikana_)                      92\n  X      THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ (_Patteson_)                  103\n  XI     FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF (_Patteson_)                 108\n  XII    THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART (_Chalmers_)          113\n  XIII   THE SCOUT OF PAPUA (_Chalmers_)                        118\n  XIV    A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN (_Ruatoka_)                      126\n\nBOOK III: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA\n\n  XV     THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_)                131\n  XVI    A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_)                     136\n  XVII   THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_)      150\n  XVIII  \"A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING\" (_Mackay_)   158\n  XIX    THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_)                               164\n  XX     FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_)                    172\n  XXI    THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_)    186\n  XXII   THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_)     196\n\nBOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT\n\n  XXIII  SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_)              213\n  XXIV   A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_)                   224\n  XXV    THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_)               236\n  XXVI   AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_)    249\n  XXVII  ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_)         260\n  XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_)            271\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nTHE RELAY-RACE\n\n\nThe shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing\nboats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and\nwere driven by galley-slaves with great oars.\n\nA Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful\nmountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above\nCorinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats\ncome sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Piraeus and\nEphesus and the marble islands of the AEgean Sea. Turning round he\ncould watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth\nfrom the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and\nBrundusium.\n\nIn between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men\non the ships were sailing and rowing.\n\nThe people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports\nwere to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in\nthose ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country\nround; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the\nmountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi,\nfrom Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from\nSparta.\n\nThese sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole\nworld, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the\nIsthmian Games.\n\nThe athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded leather\nstraps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the\nMediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and\ntigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung\nspears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of\nthirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses,\nlathered with foam, around the roaring stadium.\n\nOne of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the\nimagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run.\n\nMen bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man\nbelonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of\nmen waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the\nstarting point. Farther on still, out of sight, stood another row and\nthen another and another.\n\nAt the word \"Go\" the men at the starting point leapt forward, their\ntorches burning. They ran at top speed towards the waiting men and\nthen gasping for breath, each passed his torch to his comrade in the\nnext row. He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward and\ndashed along the course toward the next relay, who again raced on and\non till at last one man dashed past the winning post with his torch\nburning ahead of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the\nmultitude.\n\nThe Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined a proverbial\nphrase from it. Translated it runs:\n\n\"Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the others\" or \"Let those\nwho have the light pass it on.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture of the wonderful\nrelay-race of heroes who, right through the centuries, have, with\ndauntless courage and a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through\nthrilling adventures in order to carry the Light across the continents\nand oceans of the world.\n\nThe torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still\ncarry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us.\nA little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught\nthe fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul\ncrosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus\nand Asia Minor, passes over the blue AEgean to answer the call from\nMacedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady\nblaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer\nreaches his goal in Rome.\n\n  \"Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter,\n  Yes, without stay of father or of son,\n  Lone on the land and homeless on the water\n  Pass I in patience till the work be done.\"\n\nCenturies pass and men of another age, taking the light that Paul had\nbrought, carry the torch over Apennine and Alp, through dense forests\nwhere wild beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the North\nSea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles of Britain, on whose\nname Augustine had exercised his punning humour, when he said, \"Not\nAngles, but Angels.\" From North and South, through Columba and Aidan,\nWilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the light came to Britain.\n\n\"Is not our life,\" said the aged seer to the Mercian heathen king as\nthe Missionary waited for permission to lead them to Christ, \"like a\nsparrow that flies from the darkness through the open window into this\nhall and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments to fly out\nagain into the darkness of the night. Even so we know not whence our\nlife comes nor whither it goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not\nreceive his teaching?\" So the English, through these torch-bearers,\ncome into the light.\n\nThe centuries pass by and in 1620 the little _Mayflower_, bearing\nChristian descendants of those heathen Angles--new torch-bearers,\nstruggles through frightful tempests to plant on the American\nContinent the New England that was indeed to become the forerunner of\na New World.[1]\n\nA century and a half passes and down the estuary of the Thames creeps\nanother sailing ship.\n\nThe Government officer shouts his challenge:\n\n\"What ship is that and what is her cargo?\"\n\n\"The _Duff_,\" rings back the answer, \"under Captain Wilson, bearing\nMissionaries to the South Sea.\"\n\nThe puzzled official has never heard of such beings! But the little\nship passes on and after adventures and tempests in many seas at last\nreaches the far Pacific. There the torch-bearers pass from island\nto island and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a blue\nlagoon and coral reef.\n\nOne after another the great heroes sail out across strange seas and\npenetrate hidden continents each with a torch in his hand.\n\nLivingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, goes out as the\nfearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful missionary, faced by\npoisoned arrows and the guns of Arabs and marched with only his black\ncompanions for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, over\nmountain pass and across river swamps, in loneliness and hunger, often\nwith bleeding feet, on and on to the little hut in old Chitambo's\nvillage in Ilala, where he crossed the river. Livingstone is the\nCoeur-de-Lion of our Great Crusade.\n\nJohn Williams, who, in his own words, could \"never be content with\nthe limits of a single reef,\" built with his own hands and almost\nwithout any tools on a cannibal island the wonderful little ship _The\nMessenger of Peace_ in which he sailed many thousands of miles from\nisland to island across the Pacific Ocean.\n\nThese are only two examples of the men whose adventures are more\nthrilling than those of our story books and yet are absolutely true,\nand we find them in every country and in each of the centuries.\n\nSo--as we look across the ages we\n\n  \"See the race of hero-spirits\n  Pass the torch from hand to hand.\"\n\nIn this book the stories of a few of them are told as yarns to boys\nand girls round a camp-fire. Every one of the tales is historically\ntrue, and is accurate in detail.\n\nIn that ancient Greek relay-race the prize to each winner was simply a\nwreath of leaves cut by a priest with a golden knife from trees in the\nsacred grove near the Sea,--the grove where the Temple of Neptune, the\ngod of the Ocean, stood. It was just a crown of wild olive that would\nwither away. Yet no man would have changed it for its weight in gold.\n\nFor when the proud winner in the race went back to his little city,\nset among the hills, with his already withering wreath, all the people\nwould come and hail him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. A great\nsculptor would carve a statue of him in imperishable marble and it\nwould be set up in the city. And on the head of the statue of the\nyoung athlete was carved a wreath.\n\nIn the great relay-race of the world many athletes--men and\nwomen--have won great fame by the speed and skill and daring with\nwhich they carried forward the torch and, themselves dropping in their\ntracks, have passed the flame on to the next runner; Paul, Francis,\nPenn, Livingstone, Mackay, Florence Nightingale, and a host of others.\nAnd many who have run just as bravely and swiftly have won no fame\nat all though their work was just as great. But the fame or the\nforgetting really does not matter. The fact is that the race is still\nrunning; _it has not yet been won_. Whose team will win? That is what\nmatters.\n\nThe world is the stadium. Teams of evil run rapidly and teams of good\ntoo.\n\nThe great heroes and heroines whose story is told in this book have\nrun across the centuries over the world to us. Some of them are alive\nto-day, as heroic as those who have gone. But all of them say the same\nthing to us of the new world who are coming after them:\n\n  \"Take the torch.\"\n\nThe greatest of them all, when he came to the very end of his days, as\nhe fell and passed on the Torch to others, said:\n\n  \"I have run my course.\"\n\nBut to us who are coming on as Torch-bearers after him he spoke in\nurgent words--written to the people at Corinth where the Isthmian\nraces were run:\n\n  \"Do you not know that they which run in a race all run, but one wins\n  the prize?\n  So run, that ye may be victors.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: See \"The Argonauts of Faith\" by Basil Mathews. (Doran.)]\n\n\n\n\nBook One: THE PIONEERS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL\n\n_St. Paul_\n\n(Dates, b. A.D. 6, d. A.D. 67[2])\n\n\n_The Three Comrades._\n\nThe purple shadows of three men moved ahead of them on the tawny\nstones of the Roman road on the high plateau of Asia Minor one bright,\nfresh morning.[3] They had just come out under the arched gateway\nthrough the thick walls of the Roman city of Antioch-in-Pisidia. The\ngreat aqueduct of stone that brought the water to the city from the\nmountains on their right[4] looked like a string of giant camels\nturned to stone.\n\nOf the three men, one was little more than a boy. He had the oval face\nof his Greek father and the glossy dark hair of his Jewish mother.\nThe older men, whose long tunics were caught up under their girdles\nto give their legs free play in walking, were brown, grizzled, sturdy\ntravellers. They had walked a hundred leagues together from the\nhot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus\nmountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5]\nTheir muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not\nquailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the\nstones of angry mobs.\n\nFor the youth this was his first adventure out into the glorious,\nunknown world. He was on the open road with the glow of the sun on his\ncheek and the sting of the breeze in his face; a strong staff in his\nhand; with his wallet stuffed with food--cheese, olives, and some\nflat slabs of bread; and by his side his own great hero, Paul. Their\nsandals rang on the stone pavement of the road which ran straight as\na strung bowline from the city, Antioch-in-Pisidia, away to the west.\nThe boy carried over his shoulder the cloak of Paul, and carried that\ncloak as though it had been the royal purple garment of the Roman\nEmperor himself instead of the worn, faded, travel-stained cloak of a\nwandering tent-maker.\n\nThe two older men, whose names were Paul the Tarsian and Silas, had\ntrudged six hundred miles. Their younger companion, whose name was\n\"Fear God,\" or Timothy as we say, with his Greek fondness for perfect\nathletic fitness of the body, proudly felt the taut, wiry muscles\nworking under his skin.\n\nOn they walked for day after day, from dawn when the sun rose behind\nthem to the hour when the sun glowed over the hills in their faces.\nThey turned northwest and at last dropped down from the highlands of\nthis plateau of Asia Minor, through a long broad valley, until they\nlooked down across the Plain of Troy to the bluest sea in the world.\n\nTimothy's eyes opened with astonishment as he looked down on such a\ncity as he had never seen--the great Roman seaport of Troy. The marble\nStadium, where the chariots raced and the gladiators fought, gleamed\nin the afternoon light.\n\nThe three companions could not stop long to gaze. They swung easily\ndown the hill-sides and across the plain into Troy, where they took\nlodgings.\n\nThey had not been in Troy long when they met a doctor named Luke. We\ndo not know whether one of them was ill and the doctor helped him; we\ndo not know whether Doctor Luke (who was a Greek) worshipped, when\nhe met them, AEsculapius, the god of healing of the Greek people. The\ndoctor did not live in Troy, but was himself a visitor.\n\n\"I live across the sea,\" Luke told his three friends--Paul, Silas and\nTimothy--stretching his hand out towards the north. \"I live,\" he would\nsay proudly, \"in the greatest city of all Macedonia--Philippi. It is\ncalled after the great ruler Philip of Macedonia.\"\n\nThen Paul in his turn would be sure to tell Doctor Luke what it was\nthat had brought him across a thousand miles of plain and mountain\npass, hill and valley, to Troy. This is how he would tell the story in\nsuch words as he used again and again:\n\n\"I used to think,\" he said, \"that I ought to do many things to oppose\nthe name of Jesus of Nazareth. I had many of His disciples put into\nprison and even voted for their being put to death. I became so\nexceedingly mad against them that I even pursued them to foreign\ncities.\n\n\"Then as I was journeying[6] to Damascus, with the authority of the\nchief priests themselves, at mid-day I saw on the way a light from the\nsky, brighter than the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and my\ncompanions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, I heard a voice\nsaying to me:\n\n\"'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick\nagainst the goad.'\n\n\"And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?'\n\n\"The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'\"\n\nThen Paul went on:\n\n\"I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but I told those in\nDamascus and in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, aye! and the foreign\nnations also, that they should repent and turn to God.\n\n\"Later on,\" said Paul, \"I fell into a trance, and Jesus came again\nto me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to the Nations.' That (Paul\nwould say to Luke) is why I walk among perils in the city; in perils\nin the wilderness; in perils in the sea; in labour and work; in hunger\nand thirst and cold, to tell people everywhere of the love of God\nshown in Jesus Christ.\"[7]\n\n\n_The Call to Cross the Sea._\n\nOne night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep in Troy, he\nseemed to see a figure standing by him. Surely it was the dream-figure\nof Luke, the doctor from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading\nwith Paul, saying, \"Come over into Macedonia and help us.\"\n\nNow neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever been across the sea\ninto the land that we now call Europe. But in the morning, when Paul\ntold his companions about the dream that he had had, they all agreed\nthat God had called them to go and deliver the good news of the\nKingdom to the people in Luke's city of Philippi and in the other\ncities of Macedonia.\n\nSo they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, where the singing\nsailor-men were bumping bales of goods from the backs of camels into\nthe holds of the ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting\nship. She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance between\nthe ends of the granite piers of the harbour. The seamen hoisting the\nsails, the little ship went gaily out into the AEgean Sea.\n\nAll day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored under the lee\nof an island. At dawn they sailed northward again with a good wind,\ntill they saw land. Behind the coast on high ground the columns of\na temple glowed in the sunlight. They ran into a spacious bay and\nanchored in the harbour of a new city--Neapolis as it was called--the\nport of Philippi.\n\nLanding from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke climbed\nfrom the harbour by a glen to the crest of the hill, and then on, for\nthree or four hours of hard walking, till their sandals rang on\nthe pavement under the marble arch of the gate through the wall of\nPhilippi.\n\n_Flogging and Prison._\n\nAs Paul and his friends walked about in the city they talked with\npeople; for instance, with a woman called Lydia, who also had come\nacross the sea from Asia Minor where she was born. She and her\nchildren and slaves all became Christians. So the men and women of\nPhilippi soon began to talk about these strange teachers from the\nEast. One day Paul and Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing,\ncoloured tunic. She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for her\nmasters by looking at people and trying to see at a glance what they\nwere like so that she might tell their fortunes. The fortune-telling\ngirl saw Paul and Silas going along, and she stopped and called out\nloud so that everyone who went by might hear: \"These men are the\nslaves of the Most High God. They tell you the way of Salvation.\"\n\nThe people stood and gaped with astonishment, and still the girl\ncalled out the same thing, until a crowd began to come round. Then\nPaul turned round and with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil\nspirit in the girl and said: \"In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order you\nout of her.\"\n\nFrom that day the girl lost her power to tell people's fortunes, so\nthat the money that used to come to her masters stopped flowing. They\nwere very angry and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas. A\nmob collected and searched through the streets until they found them.\nThen they clutched hold of their arms and robes, shouting: \"To the\npraetors! To the praetors!\" The praetors were great officials who sat in\nmarble chairs in the Forum, the central square of the city.\n\nThe masters of the slave girl dragged Paul and Silas along. At\ntheir heels came the shouting mob and when they came in front of the\npraetors, the men cried out:\n\n\"See these fellows! Jews as they are, they are upsetting everything in\nthe city. They tell people to take up customs that are against the Law\nfor us as Romans to accept.\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes!\" yelled the crowd. \"Flog them! Flog them!\"\n\nThe praetors, without asking Paul or Silas a single question as to\nwhether this was true, or allowing them to make any defence, were\nfussily eager to show their Roman patriotism. Standing up they gave\ntheir orders:\n\n\"Strip them, flog them.\"\n\nThe slaves of the praetors seized Paul and Silas and took their robes\nfrom their backs. They were tied by their hands to the whipping-post.\nThe crowd gathered round to see the foreigners thrashed.\n\nThe lictors--that is the soldier-servants of the praetors--untied their\nbundles of rods. Then each lictor brought down his rod with cruel\nstrokes on Paul and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood\nflowed down.\n\nThen their robes were thrown over their shoulders, and the two men,\nwith their tortured backs bleeding, were led into the black darkness\nof the cell of the city prison; shackles were snapped on to their\narms, and their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies ached; the\nother prisoners groaned and cursed; the filthy place stank; sleep was\nimpossible.\n\nBut Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the songs of their own\npeople, such as the verses that Paul had learned--as all Jewish\nchildren did--when he was a boy at school. For instance--\n\n  God is our refuge and strength,\n  A very present help in trouble.\n  Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,\n  And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;\n  Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,\n  Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.\n\nAs they sang there came a noise as though the mountains really were\nshaking. The ground rocked; the walls shook; the chains were loosened\nfrom the stones; the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet\nwere free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an earthquake.\n\nThe jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The moonlight shone on\nhis sword as he was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had\nescaped.\n\n\"Do not harm yourself,\" shouted Paul. \"We are all here.\"\n\n\"Torches! Torches!\" yelled the jailor.\n\nThe jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes\nwere sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas\nwho, he knew, were teachers about God.\n\n\"Sirs,\" he said, falling in fear on the ground, \"what must I do to be\nsaved?\"\n\n\"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,\" they replied, \"and you and your\nhousehold will all be saved.\"\n\nThe jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor\nwashed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil\ninto them.\n\nThe night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp\nof feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to\nthe door of the prison with an order to free them. The jailor was\ndelighted.\n\n\"The praetors have sent to set you free,\" he said. \"Come out then and\ngo in peace.\"\n\nHe had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead of going, Paul\nturned and said:\n\n\"No, indeed! The praetors flogged us in public in the Forum and without\na trial--flogged Roman citizens! They threw us publicly into prison,\nand now they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the praetors come\nhere themselves and take us out!\"\n\nSurely it was the boldest message ever sent to the powerful praetors.\nBut Paul knew what he was doing, and when the Roman praetors heard the\nmessage they knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it were\nreported at Rome that they had publicly flogged Roman citizens without\ntrial.\n\nTheir prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They climbed down from\ntheir marble seats and walked on foot to the prison to plead with Paul\nand Silas to leave the prison and not to tell against them what had\nhappened.\n\n\"Will you go away from the city?\" they asked. \"We are afraid of other\nriots.\"\n\nSo Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the house where Lydia\nlived--the home in which they had been staying in Philippi.\n\nPaul cheered up the other Christian folk--Lydia and Luke and\nTimothy--and told them how the jailor and his wife and family had all\nbecome Christians.\n\n\"Keep the work of spreading the message here in Philippi going\nstrongly,\" said Paul to Luke and Timothy. \"Be cheerfully prepared for\ntrouble.\" And then he and Silas, instead of going back to their own\nland, went out together in the morning light of the early winter of\nA.D. 50, away along the Western road over the hills to face perils\nin other cities in order to carry the Good News to the people of the\nWest.\n\n\n_The Trail of the Hero-Scout._\n\nSo Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face westwards, following\nthe long trail across the Roman Empire--the hero-scout of Christ.\nNothing could stop him--not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor\nrobbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as\na prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner\nand was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he\ncame near to the end:\n\n  +-----------------------------+\n  | I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT; |\n  | I HAVE RUN MY COURSE;       |\n  | I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH.      |\n  +-----------------------------+\n\nLong years afterward, men who were Christians in Rome carried the\nstory of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ across Europe to some savages in\nthe North Sea Islands--called Britons. Paul handed the torch from\nthe Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the torch on to the\npeople of Britain--and from Britain many years later men sailed to\nbuild up the new great nation in America. So the torch has run from\nEast to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago\nto us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary,\nwho gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and\nJudaea, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 2: The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given\nare accepted by high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the\ntime of this adventure.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and\nAntioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author\nwas at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).]\n\n[Footnote 5: A Bible with maps attached will give the route from\nAntioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the\nCilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.]\n\n[Footnote 7: St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in\nthe Author's _Paul the Dauntless_.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH\n\n_Wilfrid of Sussex_\n\n(Date, born A.D. 634. Incidents A.D. 666 and 681[8])\n\n\nTwelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named Wilfrid sailed along\nthe south coast of a great island in the North Seas. With him in the\nship were a hundred and twenty companions.\n\nThe voyage had started well, but now the captain looked anxious as he\npeered out under his curved hand, looking first south and then north.\nThere was danger in both directions.\n\nThe breeze from the south stiffened to a gale. The mast creaked and\nstrained as the gathering storm tore at the mainsail. The ship reeled\nand pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing\nand gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a horse and refused\nto obey her rudder. Wind and current were carrying her out of her\ncourse.\n\nIn spite of all the captain's sea-craft the ship was being driven\nnearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach of the island that stretched\nalong the northern edge of the sea. The captain did not fear the\ncoast itself, for it had no rocks. But the lines deepened on his\nweather-scarred face as he saw, gathering on the shelving beach, the\nwild, yellow-haired men of the island.\n\nThe ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the coast. All on\nboard could now see the Men of the Shingle Beach waving their spears\nand axes.\n\nThe current and the wind swung the ship still closer to the shore, and\nnow--even above the whistle of the gale in the cordage--the crew heard\nthe wild whoop of the wreckers. These men on the beach were the sons\nof pirates. But they were now cowards compared with their fathers. For\nthey no longer lived by the wild sea-rover's fight that had made\ntheir fathers' blood leap with the joy of the battle. They lived by\na crueller craft. Waiting till some such vessel as this was swept\nashore, they would swoop down on it, harry and slay the men, carry the\nwomen and children off for slaves, break up the ship and take the wood\nand stores for fire and food. They were beach-combers.\n\nAn extra swing of the tide, a great wave--and with a thud the ship was\naground, stuck fast on the yielding sands. With a wild yell, and with\ntheir tawny manes streaming in the wind, the wreckers rushed down the\nbeach brandishing their spears.\n\nWilfrid, striding to the side of the ship, raised his hand to show\nthat he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on\nlike an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms,\npoles, rope-ends--whatever they could find--the men on board beat down\nupon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery\nside. One man after another sank wounded on the deck. The fight grew\nmore obstinate, but at last the men of the beach drew back up the\nsands, baffled.\n\nThe Men of the Shingle Beach might have given up the battle had not\na fierce priest of their god of war leapt on to a mound of sand, and,\nlifting his naked arms to the skies, called on the god to destroy the\nmen in the ship.\n\nThe savages were seized with a new frenzy and swept down the beach\nagain. Wilfrid had gathered his closest friends round him and was\nquietly kneeling on the deck praying to his God for deliverance from\nthe enemy. The fight became desperate. Again the savages were driven\nback up the beach.\n\nOnce more they rallied and came swooping down on the ship. But a\npebble from the sling of a man on the ship struck the savage priest\non the forehead; he tottered and fell on the sand. This infuriated\nthe savages, yet it took the heart out of these men who had trusted in\ntheir god of war.\n\nMeanwhile the tide had been creeping up; it swung in still further and\nlifted the ship from the sand; the wind veered, the sails strained.\nSlowly, but with gathering speed, the ship stood out to sea followed\nby howls of rage from the men on the beach.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSome years passed by, yet Wilfrid in all his travels had never\nforgotten the Men of the Beach. And, strangely enough, he wanted to go\nback to them.\n\nAt last the time came when he could do so. This time he did not visit\nthem by sea. After he had preached among the people in a distant\npart of the same great island, Wilfrid with four faithful\ncompanions--Eappa, Padda, Burghelm and Oiddi--walked down to the south\ncoast of the island.\n\nAs he came to the tribe he found many of them gathered on the beach\nas before. But the fierceness was gone. They tottered with weakness as\nthey walked. The very bones seemed ready to come through their skin.\nThey were starving with hunger and thirst from a long drought, when\nno grain or food of any kind would grow. And now they were gathered on\nthe shore, and a long row of them linked hand in hand would rush down\nthe very beach upon which they had attacked Wilfrid, and would cast\nthemselves into the sea to get out of the awful agonies of their\nhunger.\n\n\"Are there not fish in the sea for food?\" asked Wilfrid.\n\n\"Yes, but we cannot catch them,\" they answered.\n\nWilfrid showed the wondering Men of the Shingle Beach how to make\nlarge nets and then launched out in the little boats that they owned,\nand let the nets down. For hour after hour Wilfrid and his companions\nfished, while the savages watched them from the beach with hungry eyes\nas the silver-shining fish were drawn gleaming and struggling into the\nboats.\n\nAt last, as evening drew on, the nets were drawn in for the last time,\nand Wilfrid came back to the beach with hundreds of fish in the boats.\nWith eager joy the Men of the Beach lit fires and cooked the fish.\nTheir hunger was stayed; the rain for which Wilfrid prayed came. They\nwere happy once more.\n\nThen Wilfrid gathered them all around him on the beach and said words\nlike these:\n\n\"You men tried to kill me and my friends on this beach years ago,\ntrusting in your god of war. You _failed_. There is no god of war.\nThere is but one God, a God not of war, but of Love, Who sent His only\nSon to tell about His love. That Son, Jesus Christ, Who fed the hungry\nmultitudes by the side of the sea with fish, sent me to you to show\nlove to you, feeding you with fish from the sea, and feeding you with\nHis love, which is the Bread of Life.\"\n\nThe wondering savages, spear in hand, shook their matted hair and\ncould not take it in at once. Yet they and their boys and girls had\nalready learned to trust Wilfrid, and soon began to love the God of\nWhom he spoke.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, those savages were the great, great, great grandfathers and\nmothers of the English-speaking peoples of the world. The North Sea\nIsland was Britain; the beach was at Selsey near Chichester on the\nSouth Coast. And the very fact that you and I are alive to-day, the\nshelter of our homes, the fact that we can enjoy the wind on the heath\nin camp, our books and sport and school, all these things come to us\nthrough men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Ninian,\nSt. Augustine and others who in the days of long ago came to lift our\nfathers from the wretched, quarrelsome life, and from the starving\nhelplessness of the Men of the Shingle Beach.\n\nThe people of the North Sea Islands and of America and the rest of\nthe Christian world have these good things in their life because\nthere came to save our forefathers heroic missionaries like Wilfrid,\nColumba, and Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea Islands,\nwho are even more helpless than our Saxon grandfathers.\n\nTo get without giving is mean. To take the torch and not to pass it on\nis to fail to play the game. We must hand on to the others the light\nthat has come to us.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 8: The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE\n\n_Raymund Lull_\n\n(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315)\n\n\nI\n\nA little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass,\nwent through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the\neleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came\nnear a town the word ran like a forest fire, \"It is Peter the Hermit.\"\n\nAll the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell\nhow the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of\nhow Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown\ninto prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to\nbuy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for\nthe pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red\nCross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the\nfirst Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an \"expeditionary\nforce\" of six million people was heading toward Palestine.\n\nThe Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of\nMohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance\ninto Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and\nfive times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying \"There is\nno God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God.\" Allah (they believe)\nis wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father,\nnor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in\nParadise women have no place save to serve men.\n\nThe first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099),\nand Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused\nto put a crown upon his head. For, he said, \"I will not wear a crown\nof gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of\nthorns.\"\n\n    The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly\n    two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades\n    ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291.\n\n    The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had\n    probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being\n    overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had\n    begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in\n    method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind.\n    We are going to hear his story now.\n\n\nII\n\n_The Young Knight's Vision_\n\nIn the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a knight of Majorca,\nin the Mediterranean Sea, stood on the shore of his island home gazing\nover the water. Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where he\nhad played as a boy, now looked out southward, where boats with their\ntall, rakish, brown sails ran in from the Great Sea.\n\nThe knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away to the south of his\nisland. He had heard many strange stories from the sailors about the\nlife in the harbours of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had\nnever once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its ports.\n\nIt was the year when Prince Edward of England, out on the mad, futile\nadventure of the last Crusade, was felled by the poisoned dagger of an\nassassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison\nfrom the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight\nso skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest\nwith any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father\ncarried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the\nlast Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he\nwas himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone\nbefore.\n\nHe dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the\nCrescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never\nseen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the\ndesert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to\nsail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who\nthronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go\nout to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any\ntime, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the\nswift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail?\n\nIt was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new\nCrusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would \"Be Prepared\"\nfor every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and\nsharp as his scimitar.\n\nWhat powers do we think a man should have in order to convince\nfanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the\ntruth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience,\nknowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves.\n\n\nIII\n\n_The Preparation of Temper_\n\nSo Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under\nthe heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the\nnarrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of\nhis father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born.\n\nHe hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own\nroom. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young\nmaster, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with\nmysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read.\n\nLull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was\nstudying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be\nable to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew\nthat he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was\nto win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must\nbe swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the\nCrusade on which he was to set out.\n\n\"I see many knights,\" he said, \"going to the Holy Land beyond the seas\nand thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end\nall are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have.\nWhence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not\nto be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles\nachieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears\nand blood.\"\n\nSuddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor\nblurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of\nJesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and\ncaught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury\nthe Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping\nat Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends\nrushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell,\nwhere he slew himself.\n\nLull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and\nremembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he\nhad learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own\nnew way of Crusading--to be master of himself.\n\n\nIV\n\n_The Preparation of Courage_\n\nSo Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to\nhis task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris\nhe rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and\npass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came\nin sight.\n\nHe went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across\nthe Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his passage and sent his goods\nwith all his precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing came.\nHis friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling.\n\nAs he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery,\npersecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew\nthey were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the\nCrusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because\ntheir brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw\nahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years\nin a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply\ndared not go.\n\nThe books were brought ashore again. The ship sailed without Lull.\n\n\"The ship has gone,\" said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a\ntorture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with\nbitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this\nCrusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a\ncraven knight of Christ.\n\nHis agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his\nbed.\n\nSoon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa.\n\nIn spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they\nshould carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing\ndrew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die\non the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all\nhis pleading--they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and\nhis agony of mind made his fever worse.\n\nSoon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull\nwas carried on board and refused to return.\n\nThe ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the\nharbour out into the open sea.\n\n\"From this moment,\" said Lull, \"I was a new man. All fever left me\nalmost before we were out of sight of land.\"\n\n\nV\n\n_The First Battle_\n\nPassing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last\nshe made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf\nof Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of\nGoletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient\ncanal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western\nMohammedan world.\n\nHe landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the\ngrey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another\nabout the law of Mohammed.\n\nThey looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and\nsaid, \"I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life,\nand Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is\nindeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him.\"\n\nThe Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and\ntogether they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the\nwatchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of\nthe vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across\nthe Gulf. \"There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied, \"the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He\ndoes not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He\ndoes not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He\ngave His Son Jesus Christ.\"\n\nTo and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay\nand amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last\nactually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the\nFaith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A\nMoslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis.\n\n\"See,\" he said, \"this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors\nof the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death.\"\n\nThe Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out,\nseized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a\ndark dungeon to wait the death sentence.\n\nBut another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching\ncraved audience with the Sultan.\n\n\"See,\" he said, \"this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would\nbe held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his\nFaith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis.\"\n\nSo when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be\ntaken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the\ndungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust\ninto the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to\nGenoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail\nfrom Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have\ntaken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said\nto himself the motto he had written:\n\n  +--------------------------------------+\n  | \"HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO |\n  |   LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE.\"     |\n  +--------------------------------------+\n\nHe was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves\nand gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about\nChrist.\n\n\nVI\n\n_The Last Fight_\n\nAt last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took\nship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a\nscore of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into\nthe curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In\nthe bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques\nclimbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the\ndark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white\nturbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow.\n\nLull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew\nso well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in\nthis very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid\nhim away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the\ntime had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself.\n\nOne day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out\nthat seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward\nthe sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in\nthe full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in\nJesus Christ His Son.\n\nThe Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried\nto him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed\non him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the\nstreets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There\nthey threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled\nthese grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank\nsenseless to the ground.[9]\n\nIt was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the\nwild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the\nstoning.[10]\n\nDid Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He\nhad conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper,\nsmitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and\nthe Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied\ndeath in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in\nface of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer\nthe scimitar of Mohammed, \"the way in which Christ and His Apostles\nachieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears\nand blood.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nFRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION\n\n(_St. Francis of Assisi_) A.D. 1181-1226 (Date of Incident, 1219)\n\n\nI\n\nThe dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars\nthat seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively\ngroup of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up\nthe steep street of the little city of Assisi.\n\nAs they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of\ntheir country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in\nFrench.\n\n\"That is Francis Bernardone,\" one neighbour would say to another,\nnodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native\nItalian, but also in French.\n\n\"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth\nmerchant,--rich though the merchant be.\"\n\nSo the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis,\nthe wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in\nthe latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand.\nHe loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long\nway round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would\nhold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers\nlived.\n\nHe was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a\njolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut\nhair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black\ntwinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and\nfinely shaped.\n\nWhen he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between\nthin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were\nshortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his\nskin was delicate.\n\nHe was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous,\nyet sweet-toned and very clear.\n\nFor him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi\nall wrong--as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock.\n\nThe song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The\nlittle city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine\nMountains under the dark clear sky.\n\nA few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard.\nFrancis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his\nmother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would\nlive to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left\nhim, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed.\nGradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he\ndesired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around\nAssisi;--the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the\ndainty flowers.\n\nAt last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept\nout of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of\nwhich his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks\npointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the\nhouses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though\nthe light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive\ntrees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers\nwere blooming.\n\nStretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful\nlandscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and\ngreens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the\nlines of the distant hills.\n\nHow he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine,\nto feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what--he wondered--had\nhappened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all\nseemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors\nagain, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel\nagain \"the wild joys of living.\"\n\nAs Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do\nwith the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any\nlonger: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it.\n\nA short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who\nwas just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The\nnobleman--Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid\ntrappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and\nhis horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So\nthey went clattering together out of Assisi.\n\nBut he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever.\nAfter sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to\nhear a voice.\n\n\"Francis,\" it asked, \"what could benefit thee most, the master or the\nservant, the rich man or the poor?\"\n\n\"The master and the rich man,\" answered Francis in surprise.\n\n\"Why then,\" went on the voice, \"dost thou leave God, Who is the Master\nand rich, for man, who is the servant and poor?\"\n\n\"Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?\" asked Francis.\n\n\"Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown thee there what thou\nshall do,\" said the voice.\n\nHe obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He tried to join again in\nthe old revels, but the joy was gone. He went quietly away to a cave\non the mountain side and there he lay--as young Mahomet had done, you\nremember, five centuries before, to wonder what he was to do.\n\nThen a vision came to him. All at once like a flash his mind was\nclear, and his soul was full of joy. He saw the love of Jesus\nChrist--Who had lived and suffered and died for love of him and of\nall men;--that love was to rule his own life! He had found his\nCaptain--the Master of his life, the Lord of his service,--Christ.\n\nYet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went home and told his\nfriends as well as he could of the change in his heart.\n\nSome smiled rather pityingly and went away saying to one another:\n\"Poor fellow; a little mad, you can see; very sad for his parents!\"\n\nOthers simply laughed and mocked.\n\nOne day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered up the mountain\nside to an old church just falling into ruin near which, in a cavern,\nlived a priest. He went into the ruin and fell on his knees.\n\n\"Francis,\" a voice in his soul seemed to say, \"dost thou see my house\ngoing to ruin. Buckle to and repair it.\"\n\nHe dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with rich garments and\nrode off to another town to sell the goods. He sold the horse too;\ntrudged back up the hill and gave the fat purse to the priest.\n\n\"No,\" said the priest, \"I dare not take it unless your father says I\nmay.\"\n\nBut his father, who had got rumour of what was going on, came with a\nband of friends to drag Francis home. Francis fled through the woods\nto a secret cave, where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind\nto face all. He came out and walked straight towards home. Soon the\ntownsmen of Assisi caught sight of him.\n\n\"A madman,\" they yelled, throwing stones and sticks at him. All the\nboys of Assisi came out and hooted and threw pebbles.\n\nHis father heard the riot and rushed out to join in the fun. Imagine\nhis horror when he found that it was his own son. He yelled with\nrage, dashed at him and, clutching him by the robe, dragged him along,\nbeating and cursing him. When he got him home he locked him up. But\nsome days later Francis' mother let him out, when his father was\nabsent; and Francis climbed the hill to the Church.\n\nThe bishop called in Francis and his father to his court to settle the\nquarrel.\n\n\"You must give back to your father all that you have,\" said he.\n\n\"I will,\" replied Francis.\n\nHe took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a hair-vest, he\nput the clothes and the purse of money at his father's feet.\n\n\"Now,\" he cried, \"I have but one father. Henceforth I can say in all\ntruth 'Our Father Who art in heaven.'\"\n\nA peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went thus, without home\nor any money, a wanderer. He went to a monastery and slaved in the\nkitchen. A friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He went\nout wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; he owned nothing; he\nwanted everyone to know the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that\nlove.\n\nThere came to Francis many adventures. He was full of joy; he sang\neven to the birds in the woods. Many men joined him as his disciples\nin the way of obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in\nSpain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the flame of his\nsimple love and careless courage. Never had Europe seen so clear a\nvision of the love of Jesus. His followers were called the Lesser\nBrothers (Friars Minor).\n\nAll who can should read the story of Francis' life: as for us we are\nhere going simply to listen to what happened to him on a strange and\nperilous adventure.\n\n\nII\n\nAbout this time people all over Europe were agog with excitement about\nthe Crusades. Four Crusades had come and gone. Richard Coeur-de-Lion\nwas dead. But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was still\nin the hearts of men.\n\n\"The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands of the Saracen,\"\nthe cry went up over all Europe. \"Followers of Jesus Christ are slain\nby the scimitars of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the\nhands of the Saracen.\"\n\nThere was also the danger to Europe itself. The Mohammedans ruled in\nSpain as well as in North Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land.\n\nSo rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour and to fit\nthemselves and their foot soldiers for the fray. Poor men came armed\nwith pike and helmet and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red\ncross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, with John\nof Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief (the brother of that Walter of\nBrienne with whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars as\na knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight for the Cross in\nEgypt.\n\nThey attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled over Jerusalem and\nthey hoped by defeating him to free Jerusalem at the same time.\n\nAs Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades in shining armour\nwith the trappings of their horses all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as\nhe thought of the lands where the people worshipped--not the God and\nFather of our Lord Jesus Christ--but the \"Sultan in the Sky,\" the\nAllah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire within him.\n\nFrancis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He\ncould not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,--the tingle\nof the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the\nCrusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens.\n\nFrancis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he\nwanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by\nJesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him.\n\n\"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they\nare not saved,\" he said to himself.\n\nAs he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to\nhim (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)--\"Come over and\nhelp us.\" St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe;\nand had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the\nexecutioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the\nsame message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for\nit?\n\n\"I will go,\" he said, \"but to save the Saracens, not to slay them.\"\n\nHe was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that\nneeded him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior\nin the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero\nas Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more\npowerful.\n\nSo he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with him and they\nsailed away together over the seas. They sailed from Italy with Walter\nof Brienne, with one of the Crusading contingents in many ships.\nSoutheast they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nFrancis talked with the Crusaders on board; and much that they said\nand did made him very sad. They squabbled with one another.\nThe knights were arrogant and sneered at the foot soldiers; the\nmen-at-arms did not trust the knights. They had the Cross on their\narmour; but few of them had in their hearts the spirit of Jesus who\nwas nailed to the Cross.\n\nAt last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was sighted. Behind it\nlay the minarets and white roofs of a city. They were come to the\neastern mouth of the Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta.\nThe hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the Crusaders as\nthey landed. The sky and the sea were of an intense blue; the sand and\nthe sun glared at one another.\n\nFrancis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry of the muezzin from\nthe minarets of Damietta, \"Come to prayer: there is no God but Allah\nand Mahomet is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than\nsleep.\"\n\nJohn of Brienne began to muster his men in battle array to attack the\nSultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a name which means \"the Perfect Prince.\"\n\nFrancis, however, was quite certain that the attempt would be a\nghastly failure. He hardly knew what to do. So he talked it over with\nhis friend, Brother Illuminato.\n\n\"I know they will be defeated in this attempt,\" he said. \"But if I\ntell them so they will treat me as a madman. On the other hand, if\nI do not tell them, then my conscience will condemn me. What do you\nthink I ought to do?\"\n\n\"My brother,\" said Illuminate, \"what does the judgment of the world\nmatter to you? If they say you are mad it will not be the first time!\"\n\nFrancis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned them. They\nlaughed scornfully. The order for advance was given. The Crusaders\ncharged into battle. Francis was in anguish--tears filled his eyes.\nThe Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers and\nslaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell under the scimitar or\nwere taken prisoner. The Crusaders were defeated.\n\nFrancis' mind was now fully made up. He went to a Cardinal, who\nrepresented the Pope, with the Crusading Army to ask his leave to go\nand preach to the Sultan of Egypt.\n\n\"No,\" said the Cardinal, \"I cannot give you leave to go. I know full\nwell that you would never escape to come back alive. The Sultan of\nEgypt has offered a reward of gold to any man who will bring to him\nthe head of a Christian. That will be your fate.\"\n\n\"Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death,\" pleaded Francis and\nIlluminato, again and again.\n\n\"I do not know what is in your minds in this,\" said the Cardinal, \"but\nbeware--if you go--that your thoughts are always to God.\"\n\n\"We only wish to go for great good, if we can work it,\" replied\nFrancis.\n\n\"Then if you wish it so much,\" the Cardinal at last agreed, \"you may\ngo.\"\n\nSo Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and tightened their\nsandals and set away from the Crusading Army towards the very camp of\nthe enemy.\n\nAs he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear voice. These were\nthe words that he sang:\n\n\nYea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will\nfear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they\ncomfort me.\n\n\nAs they walked along over the sandy waste they saw two small sheep\nnibbling the sparse grass growing near the Nile.\n\n\"Be of good cheer,\" said Francis to Illuminato, smiling, \"it is the\nfulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold I send you as sheep in the\nmidst of wolves.'\"\n\nThen there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They were, at first, for\nletting the two unarmed men go by; but, on questioning Francis, they\ngrew angrier and angrier.\n\n\"Are you deserters from the Christian camp?\" they asked.\n\n\"No,\" replied Francis.\n\n\"Are you envoys from the commander come to plead for peace?\"\n\n\"No,\" was the answer again.\n\n\"Will you give up the infidel religion and become a true believer and\nsay 'There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet?'\"\n\n\"No, no,\" cried Francis, \"we are come to preach the Good News of Jesus\nChrist to the Sultan of Egypt.\"\n\nThe eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: they could\nhardly believe their ears. Their faces flushed under their dark skins\nwith anger.\n\n\"Chain them,\" they cried to one another. \"Beat them--the infidels.\"\n\nChains were brought and snapped upon the wrists and ankles of\nFrancis and Illuminato. Then they took rods and began to beat the two\nmen--just as Paul and Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier.\n\nAs the rods whistled through the air and came slashing upon their\nwounded backs Francis kept crying out one word--\"Soldan--Soldan.\" That\nis \"Sultan--Sultan.\"\n\nHe thus made them understand that he wished to be taken to their\nCommander-in-Chief. So they decided to take these strange beings to\nMalek-Kamel.\n\nAs the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato were led in.\nThey bowed and saluted him courteously and Malek-Kamel returned the\nsalute.\n\n\"Have you come with a message from your Commander?\" said the Sultan.\n\n\"No,\" replied Francis.\n\n\"You wish then to become Saracens--worshippers of Allah in the name of\nMahomet?\"\n\n\"Nay, nay,\" answered Francis, \"Saracens we will never be. We have come\nwith a message from God; it is a message that will save your life. If\nyou die under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have come to tell\nyou so: if you listen to us we will show all this to you.\"\n\nThe Sultan seems to have been amused and interested rather than angry.\n\n\"I have bishops and archbishops of my own,\" he said, \"they can tell me\nall that I wish to know.\"\n\n\"Of this we are glad,\" replied Francis, \"send and fetch them, if you\nwill.\"\n\nThe Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem great men. When\nthey came in he said to them: \"See these men, they have come to teach\nus a new faith. Shall we listen to them?\"\n\n\"Sire,\" they answered him at once, \"thou knowest the law: thou art\nbound to uphold it and carry it out. By Mahomet who gave us the law\nto slay infidels, we command thee that their heads be cut off. We will\nnot listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!\"\n\nThe great men, having given their judgment, solemnly left the presence\nof the Sultan. The Sultan turned to Francis and Illuminato.\n\n\"Masters,\" he said to them, \"they have commanded me by Mahomet to have\nyour heads cut off. But I will go against the law, for you have risked\nyour lives to save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time.\"\n\nThe two Christian missionaries were led away; but in a day or two\nMalek-Kamel called them to his presence again.\n\n\"If you will stay in my dominions,\" he said, \"I will give you land and\nother possessions.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Francis, \"I will stay--on one condition--that you and your\npeople turn to the worship of the true God. See,\" he went on, \"let\nus put it to the test. Your priests here,\" and he pointed to some who\nwere standing about, \"they will not let me talk with them; will they\ndo something. Have a great fire lighted. I will walk into the fire\nwith them: the result will shew you whose faith is the true one.\"\n\nAs Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem leaders were\ntransfigured with horror. They turned and quietly walked away.\n\n\"I do not think,\" said the Sultan with a sarcastic smile at their\nretreating backs, \"that any of my priests are ready to face the flames\nto defend their faith.\"\n\n\"Well, I will go _alone_ into the fire,\" said Francis. \"If I am\nburned--it is because of my sins--if I am protected by God then you\nwill own Him as your God.\"\n\n\"No,\" replied the Sultan, \"I will not listen to the idea of such a\ntrial of your life for my soul.\" But he was astonished beyond measure\nat the amazing faith of Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence\nof the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly presents.\n\n\"You must take them back,\" said Francis to the messengers; \"I will not\ntake them.\"\n\n\"Take them to build your churches and support your priests,\" said the\nSultan through his messengers.\n\nBut Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. He left him and\nwent back with Illuminato from the Saracen host to the camp of the\nCrusaders. As he was leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis\nand said: \"Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration\nfrom above that I may join myself to the religion that is most\napproved by God?\"\n\nThe Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with the two men and\nto protect them from any molesting till they reached the Crusaders'\nCamp. There is a legend--though no one now can tell whether it is true\nor not--that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he sent for a disciple\nof Francis to be with him and pray for him. Whether this was so or\nnot, it is quite clear that Francis had left in the memory of the\nSultan such a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before or\nwas ever to see again.\n\nThe Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy Land; but to-day men are\ngoing from America and Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi\nthe Christian missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the Holy\nLand and in all the Near East, the message that Francis took of the\nlove of Jesus Christ. The stories of some of the deeds they have done\nand are to-day doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book.\n\n\n\n\nBook Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE ADVENTUROUS SHIP\n\n_The Duff_\n\n(Date of Incident, 1796)\n\n\nA ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an ebb-tide. She was\nslipping out from the river into the estuary when suddenly a challenge\nrang out across the grey water.\n\n\"What ship is that?\"\n\n\"_The Duff_,\" was the answer that came back from the little ship whose\ncaptain had passed through a hundred hairsbreadth escapes in his life\nbut was now starting on the strangest adventure of them all.\n\n\"Whither bound?\" came the challenge again from the man-o'-war that had\nhailed them.\n\n\"Otaheite,\" came the answer, which would startle the Government\nofficer. For Tahiti[11] (as we now call it) was many thousands of\nmiles away in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only\nbeen discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768.\n_The Duff_ was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean\nliners of to-day could put into her dining saloon.\n\n\"What cargo?\" The question came again from the officer on the\nman-o'-war.\n\n\"Missionaries and provisions,\" was Captain Wilson's answer.\n\nThe man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not know what strange\nbeings might be meant by missionaries. He was suspicious. Were they\npirates, perhaps, in disguise!\n\nWe can understand how curious it would sound to him when we remember\nthat (although Wilfrid and Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain\nas missionaries over a thousand years before _The Duff_ started down\nthe Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever before sailed from those\nNorth Sea Islands of Britain to the savages of other lands like the\nSouth Sea Islands.\n\nThere was a hurried order and a scurry on board the Government ship.\nA boat was let down into the Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled\ninto her and rowed to _The Duff._ What did the officer find?\n\nHe was met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of\nadventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle\ncollier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as\na soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with\nIndia, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He\nescaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty\nfeet on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators,\nand swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators only to be captured\non the other bank by Indians, chained and made to march barefoot\nfor 500 miles. Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison,\nstarved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of two years was\nset free.\n\nThis was the daring hero who had now undertaken to captain the little\n_Duff_ across the oceans of the world to the South Seas. With\nCaptain Wilson, the man-o'-war officer found also six carpenters, two\nshoemakers, two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a\nsurgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, a\ndraper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a butcher and four ministers.\nBut they were all of them missionaries. With them were six children.\n\nAll up and down the English Channel French frigates sailed like hawks\nwaiting to pounce upon their prey; for England was at war with France\nin those days. So for five weary weeks _The Duff_ anchored in the\nroadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels,\nshe could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected\nby British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, _The Duff_\nheld on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of Madeira hove\nin sight.\n\nAcross the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was to sail round\nSouth America into the Pacific. But on trying to round the Cape Horn\n_The Duff_ met such violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in\nher tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the Cape of Good\nHope.\n\nWeek after week for thousands and thousands of miles she sailed.\nShe had travelled from Rio de Janiero over 10,000 miles and had only\nsighted a single sail--a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed\nwithout seeing land.\n\n\"Shall we see the island to-day?\" the boys on board would ask Captain\nWilson. Day after day he shook his head. But one night he said:\n\n\"If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an island in the\nmorning, but not the island where we shall stop.\"\n\n\"Land ho!\" shouted a sailor from the masthead in the morning, and,\nsure enough, they saw away on the horizon, like a cloud on the edge of\nthe sea, the island of Toobonai.[12]\n\nAs they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled through the rigging.\nIt tore at the sail of _The Duff,_ and the great Pacific waves rolled\nswiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and\ntossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and,\nas the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the\nsky-line, the mountain tops of Tahiti.\n\nIt was Saturday night when the island came in sight. Early on the\nSunday morning by seven o'clock _The Duff_ swung round under a gentle\nbreeze into Matavai[13] Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could\neven anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. They\nthronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent them skimming\nacross the bay to the ship.\n\nCaptain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and anxiously, saw with\nrelief that the men were not armed. But the missionaries were startled\nwhen the savages climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering\neyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of the deck.\nThey then leapt on board and began dancing like mad on the deck with\ntheir bare feet. From the canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl,\nfish, bananas, and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain\nWilson and all his company would not buy on that day--for it was\nSunday.\n\nThe missionaries gathered together on deck to hold their Sunday\nmorning service. The Tahitians stopped dancing and looked on with\namazement, as the company of white men with their children knelt to\npray and then read from the Bible.\n\nThe Tahitians could not understand this strange worship, with no\ngod that could be seen. But when the white fathers and mothers and\nchildren sang, the savages stood around with wonder and delight on\ntheir faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful sounds.\n\nBut the startling events of the day were not over. For out from the\nbeach came a canoe across the bay, and in it two Swedish sailors,\nnamed, like some fishermen of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These\nwhite men knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as the\nnatives lived.\n\nAnd after them came a great and aged chief named Haamanemane.[14] This\ngreat chief went up to the \"chief\" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and\ncalled out to him \"Taio.\"[15]\n\nThey did not know what this meant, till Peter the Swede explained\nthat Haamanemane wished to be the brother--the troth-friend of Captain\nWilson. They were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be called\nHaamanemane, and Haamanemane would be called Wilson.\n\nSo Captain Wilson said \"Taio,\" and he and the chief, who was also high\npriest of the gods of Tahiti, were brothers.\n\nCaptain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through Peter, who translated each\nto the other:\n\n\"We wish to come and live in this island.\"\n\nHaamanemane said that he would speak to the king and queen of Tahiti\nabout it. So he got down again over the side of the vessel into the\ncanoe, and the paddles of his boatman flashed as they swept along over\nthe breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white chief\nwho had come to visit them.\n\nAll these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday word came that the\nking and the queen would receive them. So Captain Wilson and all his\nmissionaries got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The\nnatives rushed into the water, seized the boat and hauled her aground\nout of reach of the great waves.\n\nThey were startled to see the king and queen come riding on the\nshoulders of men. Even when one bearer grew tired and the king or\nthe queen must get upon another, they were not allowed to touch the\nground. The reason was that all the land they touched became their\nown, and the people carried them about so that they themselves might\nnot lose their land and houses by the king and queen touching them.\n\nSo at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with the beating\nof the surf on the shore before them, and the great mountain forests\nbehind, these brown islanders of the South Seas gave a part of their\nland to Captain Wilson and his men that they might live there.\n\nThe sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands had met their first\ngreat adventure in bringing to the men of the South Sea Islands the\nstory of the love of the Father of all.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 11: Ta-hee-tee.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Too-b[=o]-n[=a]-ee.]\n\n[Footnote 13: M[=a]-t[)a]-v[)a]-ee.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Haa-m[)u]-n[=a]y-m[)a]-nay.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Ta-ce-[=o].]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE ISLAND BEACON FIRES\n\n_Papeiha_[16]\n\n(Date of Incident, 1823)\n\n\nThe edge of the sea was just beginning to gleam with the gold of the\nrising sun. The captain of a little ship, that tossed and rolled on\nthe tumbling ocean, looked out anxiously over the bow. Around him\neverywhere was the wild waste of the Pacific Ocean. Through day after\nday he had tacked and veered, baffled by contrary winds. Now, with\nlittle food left in the ship, starvation on the open ocean stared them\nin the face.\n\nThey were searching for an island of which they had heard, but which\nthey had never seen.\n\nThe captain searched the horizon again, but he saw nothing, except\nthat ahead of him, on the sky-line to the S.W., great clouds had\ngathered. He turned round and went to the master-missionary--the hero\nand explorer and shipbuilder, John Williams, saying:\n\n\"We must give up the search or we shall all be starved.\"\n\nJohn Williams knew that this was true; yet he hated the thought of\ngoing back. He was a scout exploring at the head of God's navy. He had\nleft his home in London and with his young wife had sailed across the\nworld to the South Seas to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the\npeople there. He was living on the island of Raiatea: but as he\nhimself said, \"I cannot be confined within the limits of a single\nreef.\" He wanted to pass on the torch to other islands. So he was now\non this voyage of discovery.\n\nIt was seven o'clock when the captain told John Williams that they\nmust give up the search.\n\n\"In an hour's time,\" said Williams, \"we will turn back if we have not\nsighted Rarotonga.\"\n\nSo they sailed on. The sun climbed the sky, the cool dawn was giving\nway to the heat of day.\n\n\"Go up the mast and look ahead,\" said Williams to a South Sea Island\nnative. Then he paced the deck, hoping to hear the cry of \"Land,\" but\nnothing could the native see.\n\n\"Go up again,\" cried Williams a little later. And again there was\nnothing. Four times the man climbed the mast, and four times he\nreported only sea and sky and cloud. Gradually the sun's heat had\ngathered up the great mountains of cloud, and the sky was clear to the\nedge of the ocean. Then there came a sudden cry from the masthead:\n\n\"Teie teie, taua fenua, nei!\"[17]\n\n\"Here, here is the land we have been seeking.\"\n\nAll rushed to the bows. As the ship sailed on and they came nearer,\nthey saw a lovely island. Mountains, towering peak on peak, with deep\ngreen valleys between brown rocky heights hung with vines, and the\ngreat ocean breakers booming in one white line of foaming surf on the\nreef of living coral, made it look like a vision of fairyland.\n\nThey had discovered Rarotonga.\n\nBut what of the people of the island?\n\nThey were said to be cannibals.\n\nWould they receive the missionaries with clubs and spears? Who would\ngo ashore?\n\nOn board the ship were brown South Sea men from the island where John\nWilliams lived. They had burned their idols, and now they too were\nmissionaries of Jesus Christ. Their leader was a fearless young man,\nPapeiha. He was so daring that once, when everybody else was afraid to\ngo from the ship to a cannibal island, he bound his Bible in his loin\ncloth, tied them to the top of his head, and swam ashore, defying the\nsharks, and unafraid of the still more cruel islanders.\n\nSo at Rarotonga, when the call came, \"Who will go ashore?\" and a canoe\nwas let down from the ship's side, two men, Papeiha and his friend\nVahineino,[18] leapt into it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the\nshore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together\nto see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the\nsea's edge.\n\nThe Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and Vahineino, who knew\nthe ways of the water from babyhood and could swim before they could\nwalk, waited for a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her\nfoaming crest. The canoe grated on the shore. They walked up the beach\nunder the shade of a grove of trees and said to the Rarotongan king,\nMakea,[19] and his people:\n\n\"We have come to tell you that many of the islands of the sea have\nburned their idols. Once we in those islands pierced each other with\nspears and beat each other to death with clubs; we brutally treated\nour women, and the children taken in war were strung together by their\nears like fish on a line. To-day we come--before you have destroyed\neach other altogether in your wars--to tell you of the great God, our\nFather, who through His Son Jesus Christ has taught us how to live as\nbrothers.\"\n\nKing Makea said he was pleased to hear these things, and came in his\ncanoe to the ship to take the other native teachers on shore with him.\nThe ship stood off for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for\nanchorage.\n\nPapeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night\nfell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss\nof the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps\nand the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians\nlistened intently. At last a chief, carried by his warriors, came\nnear. He was the fiercest and most powerful chief on the island.\n\nWhen he came close to Papeiha and his friends, the chief demanded that\nthe wife of one of the Christian teachers should be given to him,\nso that he might take her away with him as his twentieth wife. The\nteachers argued with the chief, the woman wept; but he ordered the\nwoman to be seized and taken off. She resisted, as did the others.\nTheir clothes were torn to tatters by the ferocious Rarotongans. All\nwould have been over with the Christians, had not Tapairu,[20] a brave\nRarotongan woman and the cousin of the king, opposed the chiefs and\neven fought with her hands to save the teacher's wife. At last the\nfierce chief gave in, and Papeiha and his friends, before the sun\nhad risen, hurried to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled\nswiftly to the ship.\n\n\"We must wait and come to this island another day when the people are\nmore friendly,\" said every one--except Papeiha, who never would turn\nback. \"Let me stay with them,\" said he.\n\nHe knew that he might be slain and eaten by the savage cannibals on\nthe island. But without fuss, leaving everything he had upon the\nship except his clothes and his native Testament, he dropped into his\ncanoe, seized the paddle, and with swift, strong strokes that never\nfaltered, drove the canoe skimming over the rolling waves till it\nleapt to the summit of a breaking wave and ground upon the shore.\n\nThe savages came jostling and waving spears and clubs as they crowded\nround him.\n\n\"Let us take him to Makea.\"\n\nSo Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he heard them shouting\nto one another, \"I'll have his hat,\" \"I'll have his jacket,\" \"I'll\nhave his shirt.\"\n\nAt length he reached the chief, who looked and said, \"Speak to us, O\nman, that we may know why you persist in coming.\"\n\n\"I come,\" he answered, looking round on all the people, \"so that you\nmay all learn of the true God, and that you, like all the people in\nthe far-off islands of the sea, may take your gods made of wood, of\nbirds' feathers and of cloth, and burn them.\"\n\nA roar of anger and horror burst from the people. \"What!\" they cried,\n\"burn the gods! What gods shall we then have? What shall we do without\nthe gods?\"\n\nThey were angry, but there was something in the bold face of Papeiha\nthat kept them from slaying him. They allowed him to stay, and did not\nkill him.\n\nSoon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild\nroars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods\noffering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal\nand with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the\nwarriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white\nsea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he\nrushed into, went into the midst of the people and said:\n\n\"Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a log of wood and carve\nit, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. Some day soon\nyou shall make these very gods fuel for fire.\" So with the companion\nwho came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out of the island just\nas brave Paul went in and out in the island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in\nBritain. He would take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on\na great stone, and now in a village, where the people from the huts\ngathered round, and again on the beach, where he would lift up his\nvoice above the boom of the ocean breakers to tell the story of Jesus.\nAnd some of those degraded savages became Christians.\n\nOne day he was surprised to see one of the priests come to him leading\nhis ten-year-old boy.\n\n\"Take care of my boy,\" said the priest. \"I am going to burn my god,\nand I do not want my god's anger to hurt the boy. Ask your God to\nprotect him.\" So the priest went home.\n\nNext morning quite early, before the heat of the sun was great,\nPapeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering along with bent and\naching shoulders. On his back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the\npriest came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying out:\n\n\"Madman, madman, the god will kill you.\"\n\n\"You may shout,\" answered the priest, \"but you will not change me.\nI am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha.\" And with that he\nthrew down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and\nbrought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs.\nSome of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others--even some of\nthe newly converted Christians--hid in the bush and peered through\nthe leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; the logs were\nthrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was burned.\n\n\"You will die,\" cried the priests of the fallen god. But to show that\nthe god was just a log of wood, the teachers took a bunch of bananas,\nplaced them on the ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted\nthem. Then they sat down and ate the bananas.\n\nThe watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead,\nbut nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether,\nafter all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they\nhad got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them\nin enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark\nbackground of trees. Those bonfires could be seen far out across the\nPacific Ocean, like a beacon light.\n\nTo-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through\nperils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across\nthe ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who\nwere cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall\nsee later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the\nfar-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 16: P[)a]-pay-ee-h[)a].]\n\n[Footnote 17: Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-[)a]: nay-ee.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Va-hee-nay-ee-n[=o].]\n\n[Footnote 19: M[)a]-kay-[)a].]\n\n[Footnote 20: T[)a]-p[=a]-ee-roo.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE DAYBREAK CALL\n\n_John Williams_ (Date of Incident, 1839)\n\n\nTwo men leaned on the rail of the brig _Camden_ as she swept slowly\nalong the southern side of the Island of Erromanga in the Western\nPacific. A steady breeze filled her sails. The sea heaved in long,\nsilky billows. The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the\nfull, clear light of morning.\n\nThe men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line closely. There was the\ngrey, stone-covered beach, and, behind the beach, the dense bush and\nthe waving fronds of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills\nof the island. The elder man straightened himself and looked keenly to\nthe bay from which a canoe was swiftly gliding.\n\nHe was a broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair over keen watchful\neyes. His open look was fearless and winning. His hands, which grasped\nthe rail, had both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic\nand the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, make a boat and\nsail them both against any man in all the Pacific. He could work with\nhis hammer at the forge in the morning, make a table at his joiner's\nbench in the afternoon, preach a powerful sermon in the evening, and\nwrite a chapter of the most thrilling of books on missionary travel\nthrough the night. Yet next morning would see him in his ship, with\nher sails spread, moving out into the open Pacific, bound for a\ndistant island.\n\n\"It is strange,\" Williams was saying to his friend Mr. Cunningham,\n\"but I have not slept all through the night.\"\n\nHow came it that this man, who for over twenty years had faced\ntempests by sea, who had never flinched before perils from savage men\nand from fever, on the shores of a hundred islands in the South Seas,\nshould stay awake all night as his ship skirted the strange island of\nErromanga?\n\nIt was because, having lived for all those years among the coral\nislands of the brown Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific, he was now\nsailing to the New Hebrides, where the fierce black cannibal islanders\nof the Western Pacific slew one another. As he thought of the fierce\nmen of Erromanga he thought of the waving forests of brown hands he\nhad seen, the shouts of \"Come back again to us!\" that he had heard\nas he left his own islands. He knew how those people loved him in the\nSamoan Islands, but he could not rest while others lay far off who\nhad never heard the story of Jesus. \"I cannot be content,\" he said,\n\"within the narrow limits of a single reef.\"\n\nBut the black islanders were wild men who covered their dark faces\nwith soot and painted their lips with flaming red, yet their cruel\nhearts were blacker than their faces, and their anger more fiery than\ntheir scarlet lips. They were treacherous and violent savages who\nwould smash a skull by one blow with a great club; or leaping on a man\nfrom behind, would cut through his spine with a single stroke of their\ntomahawks, and then drag him off to their cannibal oven.\n\nJohn Williams cared so much for his work of telling the islanders\nabout God their Father, that he lay awake wondering how he could\ncarry it on among these wild people. It never crossed his mind that\nhe should hold back to save himself from danger. It was for this work\nthat he had crossed the world.\n\n\"Let down the whale-boat.\" His voice rang out without a tremor of\nfear. His eyes were on the canoe in which three black Erromangans were\npaddling across the bay. As the boat touched the water, he and the\ncrew of four dropped into her, with Captain Morgan and two friends,\nHarris and Cunningham. The oars dipped and flashed in the morning sun\nas the whale-boat flew along towards the canoe. When they reached it,\nWilliams spoke in the dialects of his other islands, but none could\nthe three savages in the canoe understand. So he gave them some beads\nand fish-hooks as a present to show that he was a friend and again his\nboat shot away toward the beach.\n\nThey pulled to a creek where a brook ran down in a lovely valley\nbetween two mountains. On the beach stood some Erromangan natives,\nwith their eyes (half fierce, half frightened) looking out under their\nmatted jungle of hair.\n\nPicking up a bucket from the boat, Williams held it out to the chief\nand made signs to show that he wished for water from the brook. The\nchief took the bucket, and, turning, ran up the beach and disappeared.\nFor a quarter of an hour they waited; and for half an hour. At last,\nwhen the sun was now high in the sky, the chief returned with the\nwater.\n\nWilliams drank from the water to show his friendliness. Then his\nfriend, Harris, swinging himself over the side of the boat, waded\nashore through the cool, sparkling, shallow water and sat down. The\nnatives ran away, but soon came back with cocoa-nuts and opened them\nfor him to drink.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"See,\" said Williams, \"there are boys playing on the beach; that is a\ngood sign.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Captain Morgan, \"but there are no women, and when the\nsavages mean mischief they send their women away.\"\n\nWilliams now waded ashore and Cunningham followed him. Captain Morgan\nstopped to throw out the anchor of his little boat and then stepped\nout and went ashore, leaving his crew of four brown islanders resting\non their oars.\n\nWilliams and his two companions scrambled up the stony beach over\nthe grey stones and boulders alongside the tumbling brook for over a\nhundred yards. Turning to the right they were lost to sight from the\nwater-edge. Captain Morgan was just following them when he heard a\nterrified yell from the crew in the boat.\n\nWilliams and his friends had gone into the bush, Harris in front,\nCunningham next, and Williams last. Suddenly Harris, who had\ndisappeared in the bush, rushed out followed by yelling savages with\nclubs. Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, and fell\nin. The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, with the red fury\nof slaughter in their eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs.\n\nCunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted club, stooped,\npicked up a great pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was\npursuing him. The man was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt\nsafely into the boat.\n\nWilliams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into\nthe sea. Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply\ninto the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water.\n\nCunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at\nWilliams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with\nuplifted club. The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat\nhim with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples\nof the beach ran red with his blood.\n\nThe hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to\nthe savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was\ndead--the first martyr of Erromanga.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen _The Camden_ sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to\nmeet her. A brown Samoan guided the first canoe.\n\n\"Missi William,\" he shouted.\n\n\"He is dead,\" came the answer.\n\nThe man stood as though stunned. He dropped his paddle; he drooped his\nhead, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander\nand ran down his cheeks.\n\nThe news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all\ndirections came the natives crying in multitudes:\n\n\"Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!\" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!)\n\nAnd the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams,\ncried:\n\n\"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his\nface from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good\nword of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they\ndid! How great a man they have destroyed!\"\n\nJohn Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown\nmen loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach\nof Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveille to our\nslumbering camps:\n\n  \"The daybreak call,\nHark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift\nto the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!\"[23]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.]\n\n[Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].]\n\n[Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nKAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII\n\n_Kapiolani_\n\n(Date of Incident, 1824)\n\n\n\"Pele[24] the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl her thunder\nand her stones, and will slay you,\" cried the angry priests of\nHawaii.[25] \"You no longer pay your sacrifices to her. Once you gave\nher hundreds of hogs, but now you give nothing. You worship the new\nGod Jehovah. She, the great Pele, will come upon you, she and\nthe Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, and the Red-Fire\nCloud-Queen, they will destroy you altogether.\"\n\nThe listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the shaggy priests\ncalling down the anger of Pele. One of the priests was a gigantic man\nover six feet five inches high, whose strength was so terrible that he\ncould leap at his victims and break their bones by his embrace.\n\nAway there in the volcanic island[26] in the centre of the greatest\nocean in the world--the Pacific Ocean--they had always as children\nbeen taught to fear the great goddess.\n\nThey were Christians; but they had only been Christians for a short\ntime, and they still trembled at the name of the goddess Pele, who\nlived up in the mountains in the boiling crater of the fiery volcano,\nand ruled their island.\n\nTheir fathers had told them how she would get angry, and would pour\nout red-hot rivers of molten stone that would eat up all the trees and\npeople and run hissing into the Pacific Ocean. There to that day was\nthat river of stone--a long tongue of cold, hard lava--stretching\ndown to the shore of the island, and here across the trees on the\nmountain-top could be seen, even now, the smoke of her anger.\nPerhaps, after all, Pele was greater than Jehovah--she was certainly\nterrible--and she was very near!\n\n\"If you do not offer fire to her, as you used to do,\" the priests went\non, \"she will pour down her fire into the sea and kill all your fish.\nShe will fill up your fishing grounds with the pahoehoe[27] (lava),\nand you will starve. Great is Pele and greatly to be feared.\"\n\nThe priests were angry because the preaching of the missionaries had\nled many away from the worship of Pele which, of course, meant fewer\nhogs for themselves; and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic\nisland of the seas, seemed to be deserting her.\n\nThe people began to waver under the threats, but a brown-faced woman,\nwith strong, fearless eyes that looked out with scorn on Pele priests,\nwas not to be terrified.\n\n\"It is Kapiolani,[28] the chieftainess,\" murmured the people to one\nanother. \"She is Christian; will she forsake Jehovah and return to\nPele?\"\n\nOnly four years before this, Kapiolani had--according to the custom of\nthe Hawaiian chieftainesses, married many husbands, and she had given\nway to drinking habits. Then she had become a Christian, giving up her\ndrinking and sending away all her husbands save one. She had thrown\naway her idols and now taught the people in their huts the story of\nChrist.\n\n\"Pele is nought,\" she declared, \"I will go to Kilawea,[29] the\nmountain of the fires where the smoke and stones go up, and Pele shall\nnot touch me. My God, Jehovah, made the mountain and the fires within\nit too, as He made us all.\"\n\nSo it was noised through the island that Kapiolani, the queenly, would\ndefy Pele the goddess. The priests threatened her with awful torments\nof fire from the goddess; her people pleaded with her not to dare the\nfires of Kilawea. But Kapiolani pressed on, and eighty of her people\nmade up their minds to go with her. She climbed the mountain paths,\nthrough lovely valleys hung with trees, up and up to where the hard\nrocky lava-river cut the feet of those who walked upon it.\n\nDay by day they asked her to go back, and always she answered, \"If I\nam destroyed you may believe in Pele; if I live you must all believe\nin the true God, Jehovah.\"\n\nAs she drew nearer to the crater she saw the great cloud of smoke that\ncame up from the volcano and felt the heat of its awful fires. But she\ndid not draw back.\n\nAs she climbed upward she saw by the side of the path low bushes, and\non them beautiful red and yellow berries, growing in clusters. The\nberries were like large currants.\n\n\"It is chelo,\"[30] said the priests, \"it is Pele's berry. You must not\ntouch them unless we ask her. She will breathe fire on you.\"\n\nKapiolani broke off a branch from one of the bushes regardless of\nthe horrified faces of the priests. And she ate the berries, without\nstopping to ask the goddess for her permission.\n\nShe carried a branch of the berries in her hand. If she had told them\nwhat she was going to do they would have been frenzied with fear and\nhorror.\n\nUp she climbed until the full terrors of the boiling crater of Kilawea\nburst on her sight. Before her an immense gulf yawned in the shape of\nthe crescent moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand\nfeet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds of feet beneath her, a\nlake of fiery lava rolled in flaming waves against precipices of\nrock. This ever-moving lake of molten fire is called: \"The House of\nEverlasting Burning.\" This surging lake was dotted with tiny mountain\nislets, and, from the tops of their little peaks, pyramids of flame\nblazed and columns of grey smoke went up. From some of these little\nislands streams of blazing lava rolled down into the lake of fire. The\nair was filled with the roar of the furnaces of flame.\n\nEven the fearless Kapiolani stood in awe as she looked. But she did\nnot flinch, though here and there, as she walked, the crust of the\nlava cracked under her feet and the ground was hot with hidden fire.\n\nShe came to the very edge of the crater. To come so far without\noffering hogs and fish to the fiery goddess was in itself enough to\nbring a fiery river of molten lava upon her. Kapiolani offered nothing\nsave defiance. Audacity, they thought, could go no further.\n\nHere, a priestess of Pele came, and raising her hands in threat\ndenounced death on the head of Kapiolani if she came further.\nKapiolani pulled from her robe a book. In it--for it was her\nNew Testament--she read to the priestess of the one true, loving\nFather-God.\n\nThen Kapiolani did a thing at which the very limbs of those who\nwatched trembled and shivered. She went to the edge of the crater and\nstepped over onto a jutting rock and let herself down and down toward\nthe sulphurous burning lake. The ground cracked under her feet and\nsulphurous steam hissed through crevices in the rock, as though the\ndemons of Pele fumed in their frenzy. Hundreds of staring, wondering\neyes followed her, fascinated and yet horrified.\n\nThen she stood on a ledge of rock, and, offering up prayer and praise\nto the God of all, Who made the volcano and Who made her, she cast the\nPele berries into the lake, and sent stone after stone down into the\nflaming lava. It was the most awful insult that could be offered to\nPele! Now surely she would leap up in fiery anger, and, with a hail\nof burning stones, consume Kapiolani. But nothing happened; and\nKapiolani, turning, climbed the steep ascent of the crater edge and at\nlast stood again unharmed among her people. She spoke to her people,\ntelling them again that Jehovah made the fires. She called on them all\nto sing to His praise and, for the first time, there rang across the\ncrater of Kilawea the song of Christians. The power of the priests\nwas gone, and from that hour the people all over that island who had\ntrembled and hesitated between Pele and Christ turned to the worship\nof our Lord Jesus, the Son of God the Father Almighty.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 24: Pay-lay.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Hah-wye-ee.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. The first Christian\nmissionaries landed in 1819. Now the island is ruled by the United\nStates of America.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Pa-h[=o]-e-h[=o]-e.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Kah-pee-[=o]-l[)a]-nee. She was high female chief, in\nher own right, of a large district.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Kil-a-wee-[)a]. The greatest active volcano in the\nworld.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Chay-lo.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE CANOE OF ADVENTURE\n\n_Elikana_\n\n(Date of Incident, 1861)\n\n\n  \"I know not where His islands lift\n    Their fronded palms in air;\n  I only know I cannot drift\n    Beyond His love and care.\"\n\n\nI\n\nManihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far away across\nthe Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from his place at the tiller. He\nsang, meantime, quietly to himself an air that still rang in his ears,\nthe tune that he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of\nthe Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki. For the\nChristian people of the Penrhyn group of South Sea Islands had come\ntogether in April, 1861, for their yearly meeting, paddling from the\ndifferent quarters in their canoes through the white surge of the\nbreakers that thunder day and night round the island.\n\nElikana looked ahead to where his own island of Rakahanga grew clearer\nevery moment on the sky-line ahead of them, though each time his craft\ndropped into the trough of the sea between the green curves of the\nleague-long ocean rollers the island was lost from sight.\n\nHe and his six companions were sailing back over the thirty miles\nbetween Manihiki and Rakahanga, two of the many little lonely ocean\nislands that stud the Pacific like stars.\n\nThey sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called raft or canoe\nor hut. It was all these and yet was neither. Two canoes, forty-eight\nfeet long, sailed side by side. Between the canoes were spars,\nstretching across from one to the other, lashed to each boat and\nmaking a platform between them six feet wide. On this was built a hut,\nroofed with the beautiful braided leaves of the cocoa-nut palm.\n\nOverhead stretched the infinite sky. Underneath lay thousands of\nfathoms of blue-green ocean, whose cold, hidden deeps among the\nmountains and valleys of the awful ocean under-world held strange\ngoblin fish-shapes. And on the surface this hut of leaves and bamboo\nswung dizzily between sky and ocean on the frail canoes. And in the\ncanoes and the hut were six brown Rakahangan men, two women, and a\nchubby, dark-eyed child, who sat contented and tired, being lapped to\nsleep by the swaying waters.\n\nAbove them the great sail made of matting of fibre, strained in\nthe breeze that drove them nearer to the haven where they would be.\nAlready they could see the gleam of the Rakahanga beach with the rim\nof silver where the waves broke into foam. Then the breeze dropped.\nThe fibre-sail flapped uneasily against the mast, while the two little\ncanvas sails hung loosely, as the wind, with little warning, swung\nround, and smiting them in the face began to drive them back into the\nocean again.\n\nElikana and his friends knew the sea almost like fish, from the time\nthey were babies. And they were little troubled by the turn of the\nbreeze, save that it would delay their homecoming. They tried in vain\nto make headway. Slowly, but surely they were driven back from land,\ntill they could see that there was no other thing but just to turn\nabout and let her run back to Manihiki. In the canoes were enough\ncocoa-nuts to feed them for days if need be, and two large calabashes\nof water.\n\nThe swift night fell, but the wind held strong, and one man sat at\nthe tiller while two others baled out the water that leaked into the\ncanoes. They kept a keen watch, expecting to sight Manihiki; but when\nthe dawn flashed out of the sky in the East, where the island should\nhave been, there was neither Manihiki nor any other land at all. They\nhad no chart nor compass; north and south and east and west stretched\nthe wastes of the Pacific for hundreds of leagues. Only here and there\nin the ocean, and all unseen to them, like little groups of mushrooms\non a limitless prairie, lay groups of islets.\n\nThey might, indeed, sail for a year without ever sighting any land;\nand one storm-driven wave of the great ocean could smite their little\negg-shell craft to the bottom of the sea.\n\nThey gathered together in the hut and with anxious faces talked of\nwhat they might do. They knew that far off to the southwest lay the\nislands of Samoa, and Rarotonga. So they set the bows of their craft\nsouthward. Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening and night,\nand nothing did they see save the glittering sparkling waters of the\nuncharted ocean, cut here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting\nshark. It was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven times\nwhile their wonderful hut-boat crept southward along the water, till\nthe following Friday. Then the wind changed, and, springing up from\nthe south, drove them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then\nbore them eastward.\n\nFor another week they drove before the breeze, feeding on the\ncocoa-nuts. But the water in the calabashes was gone. Then on\nthe morning of the second Friday, the fourteenth day of their\nsea-wanderings, just when the sun in mid heaven was blazing its\nnoon-heat upon them and most of the little crew were lying under\nthe shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours of tedious\nhunger, they heard the cry of \"Land!\" and leaping to their feet gazed\nahead at the welcome sight. With sail and paddle they urged the craft\non toward the island.\n\nThen night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain came\nand buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles for the\nbailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat. Taking down the sails they\nspread them flat to catch the pouring rain, and then poured this\nprecious fresh water--true water of life to them--into their\ncalabashes. But when morning came no land could be seen anywhere. It\nwas as though the island had been a land of enchantment and mirage,\nand now had faded away. Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next\nday when land was sighted again; but the sea and the wind, as though\ndriven by the spirits of contrariness, smote them back.\n\nFor two more days they guided the canoe with the tiller and tried to\nset her in one steady direction. Then, tired and out of heart, after\nsixteen days of ceaseless and useless effort, they gave it up and let\nher drift, for the winds and currents to take her where they would.\n\nAt night each man stood in his canoe almost starving and parched with\nthirst, with aching back, stooping to dip the water from the canoe and\nrising to pour it over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm\nmoon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task. Lulled by\nthe heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the\nkeels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they\nstood. The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old\nlullaby--crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, \"It\nis better to lie down and sleep and die than to live and fight and\nstarve.\"\n\nThen a moan from the sleeping child, or a sight of a streaming ray\nof moonlight on the face of its mother would send that nameless Voice\nshivering back to its deep hiding-place--and the man would stoop and\nbail again.\n\nEach evening as it fell saw their anxious eyes looking west and north\nand south for land, and always there was only the weary waste of\nwaters. And as the sun rose, they hardly dared open their eyes to the\nunbroken rim of blue-grey that circled them like a steel prison. They\nsaw the thin edge of the moon grow to full blaze and then fade to a\ncorn sickle again as days and nights grew to weeks and a whole month\nhad passed.\n\nEvery morning, as the pearl-grey sea turned to pink and then to\ngleaming blue, they knelt on the raft between the canoes and turned\ntheir faces up to their Father in prayer, and never did the sun sink\nbehind the rim of waters without the sound of their voices rising into\nthe limitless sky with thanks for safe-keeping.\n\nSlowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of them with its\nsweet milk and flesh was more precious to them than a golden chalice\nset with rubies. The drops of milk that dripped from them were more\nthan ropes of pearls.\n\nAt last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; and now at the\nend of the day there was only the half of one cocoa-nut remaining.\nWhen that was gone--all would be over. So they knelt down under the\ncloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They were on that\ninvisible line in the Great Pacific where the day ends and begins.\nThose seven on the tiny craft were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the\nlast worshippers in all the great world-house of God as Sunday drew\nto its end just where they were. Was it to be the last time that they\nwould pray to God in this life?\n\nPrayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, who had kept\ntheir spirits from utterly failing, stood up and gazed out with great\nanxious eyes before the last light should fail.\n\n\"Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun sets. Is it--\" He\ncould hardly dare to believe that it was not the mirage of his weary\nbrain. But one and another and then all peered out through the swiftly\nwaning light and saw that indeed it was land.\n\nThen a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away from the land. Was\nthis last hope, by a fine ecstasy of torture, to be dangled before\nthem and then snatched away? But with the danger came the help; with\nthe wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving water.\nThen the squall of wind dropped and changed. They hoisted the one sail\nthat had not blown to tatters, and drove for land.\n\nYet their most awful danger still lay before them. The roar of the\nbreakers on the cruel coral reef caught their ears. But there was\nnothing for it but to risk the peril. They were among the breakers\nwhich caught and tossed them on like eggshells. The scourge of the\nsurf swept them; a woman, a man--even the child, were torn from them\nand ground on the ghastly teeth of the coral. Five were swept over\nwith the craft into the still, blue lagoon, and landing they fell\nprone upon the shore, just breathing and no more, after the giant\nbuffeting of the thundering rollers, following the long, slow\nstarvation of their wonderful journey in the hut on the canoes among\n\"the waters of the wondrous isles.\"\n\n  \"Wake: the silver dusk returning\n    Up the beach of darkness brims,\n  And the ship of sunrise burning\n    Strands upon the eastern rims.\"\n\n\nII\n\nThrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, Elikana and his\ncompanions lay on the grey shore. Against the dim light of the stars\nand beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of\nthe palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and the green\ncocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food and drink. But their\nbodies, broken and tormented as they were by hunger and the battering\nbreakers, refused even to rise and climb for the food that meant life.\nSo they lay there, as though dead.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOver the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale copper skin shone in\nthe fresh sunlight of the morning. His quick black eyes were caught by\nthe sight of torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down the\nbeach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with arms thrown out, face\ndownward. Turning the body over Faivaatala[31] found that the man was\ndead. Taking the body in his arms he staggered with it up the beach,\nand placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning he found the\nliving five. Their gaunt bodies and the broken craft on the shore told\nhim without words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness\nof the waters.\n\nWithout stopping to waste words in empty sympathy with starving men,\nFaivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut tree and, climbing it, threw\ndown luscious nuts. Those below quickly knocked off the tops, drank\ndeep draughts of the cool milk and then ate. Coming down again,\nFaivaatala kindled a fire and soon had some fish grilling for these\nstrange wanderers thrown up on the tiny islet.\n\nThey had no time to thank him before he ran off and swiftly paddled\nto Motutala, the island where he lived, to tell the story of these\nstrange castaways. He came back with other helpers in canoes, and the\nfive getting aboard were swiftly paddled to Motutala.\n\nAs the canoes skimmed over the surface of the great lagoon Elikana\nand his friends could see, spread out in a great semi-circle that\nstretched to the horizon, the long low coral islets crowned with palms\nwhich form part of the Ellice Islands.\n\nThe islanders, men, women, and children, ran down the beach to see the\nnewcomers and soon had set apart huts for them and made them welcome.\nElikana gathered them round him, and began to tell them about the\nlove of Jesus and the protecting care of God the Father. It all seemed\nstrange to them, but quickly they learned from him, and he began to\nteach them and their children. This went on for four months, till one\nday Elikana said: \"I must go away and learn more so that I can teach\nyou more.\"\n\nBut they had become so fond of Elikana that they said: \"No, you must\nnot leave us,\" and it was only when he promised to come back with\nanother teacher to help him, that they could bring themselves to part\nwith him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in cocoa-nuts\nElikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa to the London Missionary\nSociety's training college there at Malua.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"A ship! A ship!\" The cry was taken up through the island, and the\npeople running down the beach saw a large sailing vessel. Boats put\ndown and sculls flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore.\n\nThey landed and the people gathered round to see and to hear what they\nwould say.\n\n\"Come onto our ship,\" said these men, who had sailed there from Peru,\n\"and we will show you how you can be rich with many knives and much\ncalico.\"\n\nBut the islanders shook their heads and said they would stay where\nthey were. Then a wicked white man named Tom Rose, who lived on the\nisland and knew how much the people were looking forward to the day\nwhen Elikana would come back to teach them, went to the traders and\nwhispered what he knew to them.\n\nSo the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their eyes, turned\nagain to the islanders and said: \"If you will come with us, we will\ntake you where you will be taught all that men can know about God.\"\n\nAt this the islanders broke out into glad cries and speaking to one\nanother said: \"Let us go and learn these things.\"\n\nThe day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds of brown feet\nwere running to the beach, children dancing with excitement, women\nsaying \"Goodbye\" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in\nall their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world\nbeyond the ocean.\n\nSo two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they\nwent away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to\nthe sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the\nplantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of\nprey, the Peruvian slavers.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYears passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor\noutside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into\nthe little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The\nwomen and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for\nnearly all had gone.\n\n\"Where is this one? Where is the other?\" cried Elikana, with sad face\nas he looked around on them.\n\n\"Gone, gone,\" came the answer; \"carried away by the man-stealing\nships.\"\n\nElikana turned to the white missionary who had come with him, to ask\nwhat they could do.\n\n\"We will leave Joane and his wife here,\" replied Mr. Murray.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the people, while\nElikana went to begin work in an island near by.\n\nTo-day a white lady missionary has gone to live in the Ellice Islands,\nand the people are Christians, and no slave-trader can come to snatch\nthem away.\n\nSo there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles first the boat\nof sunrise and then the ship of darkness, and last of all the ship\nof the Peace of God. The ship of darkness had seemed for a time to\nconquer, but her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the\nsunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new Lord's Day dawns,\nyou may hear the islanders sing their praise to the Light of the\nWorld, Who shines upon them and keeps them safe.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 31: F[)a]-ee-v[)a] t[)a] l[=a].]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ\n\n_Bishop Patteson_\n\n(Date of Incident--August 15th, 1864)\n\n\nThe brown crew of _The Southern Cross_ breathed freely again as the\nanchor swung into place and the schooner began to nose her way out\ninto the open Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island\nof Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by its hourly perils\nfrom club and flying arrow. The men were glad to see their ship's bows\nplunge freely again through the long-backed rollers.\n\nAs they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz the crew talked\ntogether of the men of the island they had left. In his cabin sat a\ngreat bronzed bearded man writing a letter to his own people far away\non the other side of the world. Here are the very words that he wrote\nas he told the story of one of the dangers through which they had just\npassed on the island:\n\n    \"As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most of them\n    suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my head I saw a man (from\n    the boat they saw two) coming to me with club uplifted. I remained\n    sitting and held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men\n    jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him off.\n\n    \"After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I found out that\n    a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot dead two months ago by a\n    white trader for stealing a bit of calico. The wonder was, not\n    that they wanted to avenge the death of their kinsman, but that\n    others should have prevented it. How could they possibly know that\n    I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they did.... The plan of\n    going among the people unarmed makes them regard me as a friend.\"\n\nThen he says of these men who had just tried to kill him: \"The people,\nthough constantly fighting, and cannibals and the rest of it, are to\nme very attractive.\"\n\nThe ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the beating of the\nsurf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind the silver line of the breakers\nthe waving fronds of her palms came into sight. They put _The Southern\nCross_ in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. Into the\nboat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a young twenty-year-old\nEnglishman named Atkin, and three brown South-Sea Island boys from the\nmissionary training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island,\nand their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man who, having faced the\nclubs of savages on a score of islands, never flinched from walking\ninto peril again to lead them to know of \"the best Man in the world,\nJesus Christ.\" These brown boys were young helpers of Bishop Patteson.\nAnd one of them especially, Fisher Young, would have died for his\ngreat white leader gladly. They were like father and son.\n\nThe reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the\nfoam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond\nwas black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see\nthe strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat\non to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson\nswung himself over the side into the cool water. He waded across the\nreef between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a club or\nspear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow ready to notch in its\nbamboo string.\n\nPatteson had come to make friends with them. So he entered a dark\nwattled house and sat down to talk. The doorway was filled with\nthe faces of wondering men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of\nlonging came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened\nthe strength of his brown face--the longing and the tenderness of\na shepherd looking for wandering sheep who are lost on the wild\nmountains of the world.\n\nThen he rose, left the house, and went back to the boat. The water was\nnow one seething cauldron of men--walking, splashing, swimming. Some,\nas Patteson climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale and\ncould hardly be made to loosen their hold. The four young fellows in\nthe boat swung their oars and got her under way, but they had made\nbarely half a dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow whizzed\nthrough the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows followed.\n\nSix canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, who surrounded\nthe boat and joined in the shooting. Patteson, who was in the stern\nbetween his boys and the bowmen, had not shipped the rudder, so\nhe held it up, as the boat shot ahead of the canoes, to shield off\narrows.\n\nTurning round to see whither his now rudderless boat was being pulled,\nhe saw that they were heading for a little bay in the reef, which\nwould have wrecked their hopes of safety.\n\n\"Pull, port oars, pull on steadily,\" shouted Patteson; and they made\nfor _The Southern Cross_.\n\nAs he called to them he saw Pearce, the young British sailor, lying\nbetween the thwarts with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, and\na young Norfolk Islander with an arrow under his left eye. The\narrows flew around them in clouds, and suddenly Fisher Young--the\nnineteen-year-old Polynesian whom he loved as a son--who was pulling\nstroke, gave a faint scream. He was shot through the left wrist.\n\n\"Look out, sir! close to you,\" cried one of his crew. But the arrows\nwere all around him. All the way to the schooner the canoes skimmed\nover the water chasing the boat. The four youths, including the\nwounded, pulled on bravely and steadily. At last they reached the ship\nand climbed on board, while the canoes--fearing vengeance from the men\non the schooner--turned and fled.\n\nOnce aboard, Bishop Patteson knelt by the side of Pearce, drew out\nthe arrow which had run more than five inches deep into his chest,\nand bound up his wound. Turning to Fisher, he found that the arrow had\ngone through the wrist and had broken off in the wound. Taking hold\nof the point of the arrow where it stood out on the lower side of the\nwrist, Patteson pulled it through, though the agony of the boy was\nvery great.\n\nThe arrows were wooden-headed and not poisoned. The wounds seemed to\nbe healing, but a few days later Fisher said, \"I can't make out what\nmakes my jaws feel so stiff.\"\n\nFisher Young was the grandson of fierce, foul Pitcairn Island\ncannibals, and was himself a brave and pure Christian lad. He had\nfaced death with his master many times on coral reefs, in savage\nvillages, on wild seas and under the clubs of Pacific islanders. Now\nhe was face to face with something more difficult than a swift\nand dangerous adventure--the slow, dying agony of lockjaw. He grew\nsteadily worse in spite of everything that Patteson could do.\n\nNear to the end he said faintly, \"Kiss me; I am very glad I was doing\nmy duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be\nso glad. Poor Santa Cruz people!\"\n\nHe spoke in that way of the people who had killed him. The young brown\nhero lies to-day, as he would have wished, in the port that was named\nafter the Bishop whom he loved, and who was his hero, Port Patteson.\n\n\"I loved him,\" said Patteson, \"as I think I never loved anyone else.\"\nFisher's love to his Bishop had been that of a youth to the hero whom\nhe worships, but Patteson had led that brown islander still further,\nfor he had taught the boy to love the Hero of all heroes, Jesus\nChrist.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nFIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF\n\n_The Death of Patteson_\n\n(Date of Incident, September 20th, 1871)\n\n\nThe masts of the schooner _The Southern Cross_ swung gently to and\nfro across the darkening sky as the long, calm rollers of the Pacific\nslipped past her hull. Her bows spread only a ripple of water as the\nslight breeze bore her slowly towards the island of Nukapu.[32]\n\nOn deck stood a group of men, their brown faces turned to a tall,\nbearded man. As the light of the setting sun gleamed on his bronze\nface, it kindled his brave eyes and showed the grave smile that played\nabout the corners of his mouth. They all looked on him with that\nworship which strong men give to a hero, who can be both brave and\nkindly. But \"he wist not that his face shone\" for them.\n\nPatteson read to these young men from a Book; and the words that\nhe read were these: \"And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and\nsaying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried,\nwith a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and when\nhe had said this, he fell asleep.\"\n\nWhen he had spoken to them strongly on these words and said how it may\ncome to any man who worships Jesus to suffer so, Bishop Patteson and\nall except the man on watch went to their sleep. The South Sea Island\nmen and the young Englishman who were there remembered all their\nlives what Patteson had said that evening; partly because these men\nthemselves had seen him brave such a death as Stephen's again and\nagain, and, indeed, they had themselves stood in peril by his side\nface to face with threatening savages, but even more because of the\nadventure that came to them on the next day.\n\nAt dawn they sighted land, and by eleven o'clock they were so near\nthat they could see, shimmering in the heat of the midsummer sun, the\nwhite beach of coral sand and the drooping palms that make all the\nisland of Nukapu green.[33] Looking out under their hands to the\nisland, the men aboard _The Southern Cross_ could see four great\ncanoes, with their sails set, hovering like hawks about the circling\nreef which lay between them and the island. On the reef the blue waves\nbeat and broke into a gleaming line of cool white foam.\n\nThe slight breeze was hardly strong enough to help the ship to make\nthe island. It was as though she knew the danger of that day and would\nnot carry Patteson and his men into the perils that lay hidden behind\nthe beauty of that island of Nukapu.\n\nPatteson knew the danger. He knew that, but a little time before their\nvisit, white men had come in a ship, had let down their boats and\nrowed to the men of the island, had pretended to make friends, and\nthen, shooting some and capturing others, had sped back to the ship,\ncarrying off the captives to work for them on the island of Fiji. The\nlaw of the savages of the islands was \"Blood for blood.\" And to\nthem all white men belonged to one tribe. The peril that lay before\nPatteson was that they might attack him in revenge for the foul crime\nof those white traders.\n\nJust before noon the order was given to lower a boat from _The\nSouthern Cross_. Patteson went down into it, and sat in the stern,\nwhile Mr. Atkin (his English helper), Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa,\nand John Nonono came with him to row. The boat swung toward the\nreef. Between the reef and the island lay two miles of the blue and\nglittering lagoon.\n\nBy the time the boat reached the reef six canoes full of warriors had\ncome together there. The tide was not high enough to float the boat\nacross the reef. The Nukapuan natives said they would haul the boat up\non to the reef, but the Bishop did not think it wise to consent. Then\ntwo of the savages said to \"Bisipi,\" as they called the Bishop:\n\n\"Will you come into our canoe?\"\n\nWithout a moment's hesitation, knowing that confidence was the best\nway to win them, he stepped into the canoe. As he entered they gave\nhim a basket with yams and other fruit in it.\n\nAs the tide was low, the Bishop and the savages were obliged to wade\nover the reef, dragging the canoe across to the deeper lagoon within.\nThe boat's crew of _The Southern Cross_ stopped in the outer sea,\ndrifting on the tide with the other four Nukapu canoes. They watched\nthe Bishop cross the lagoon in the canoe and land far off upon the\nbeach. Then he went from their sight.\n\nThe brown men and the white man in the boat were trying to talk to the\nislanders in the remaining canoes outside the reef, when suddenly a\nsavage jumped up in the nearest canoe, not ten yards from them, and\ncalled out in his native language:\n\n\"Have you anything like this?\"\n\nHe drew his bow to his ear and shot a yard arrow. His companions\nin the other canoes leapt to their feet and sent showers of arrows\nwhizzing at the men in the boat, shouting as they aimed:\n\n\"This for New Zealand man, this for Bernu man, this for Motu man.\"\n\nPulling away with all their speed, Patteson's men were soon out of\nrange, but an arrow had nailed John Nonono's cap to his head. Stephen\nlay in the bottom of the boat with six arrows in his chest and\nshoulders. Mr. Atkin, the white man, had one in his left shoulder.\n\nThey reached the ship and were helped on board. The arrow head was\ndrawn out from Mr. Atkin's shoulder, and was found to be made of a\nsharpened human bone. No sooner was the arrow head out than Mr. Atkin\nleapt back into the boat, insisting on going back to find Patteson.\nHe alone knew how and where the reef could be crossed on the tide that\nwas now rising.\n\nSo they got a boat's crew from the ship, put a beaker full of water\nand some food in the boat, and pulled toward the reef.\n\nAt half-past four the tide was high enough to carry them across, and\nthey rowed over, looking through their glasses anxiously at the white\nshore which was lined with brown figures. A canoe rowed out towards\nthem bringing another canoe in tow. As the boat went towards the\nisland, one canoe cast off the other, and went back; the second canoe\ndrifted towards them slowly on the still waters of the blue lagoon.\n\nAs it came nearer they saw that in the middle of it lay Something\nmotionless, covered with matting. They pulled alongside, leaned over\nthe canoe, and lifted into their boat--the body of Patteson. The empty\ncanoe now drifted away.\n\nA yell went up from the savages on the shore. The boat was pulled\ntowards the ship and then the body lifted up and laid on the deck. It\nhad been rolled in the native matting as a shroud, tied at the head\nand feet. They unrolled the mat, and there on the face of the dead\nBishop was still that wonderful, patient and winning smile, as of one\nwho at the moment when his head was beneath the uplifted club said,\n\"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,\" and had then fallen asleep.\n\nThere was a palm leaf fastened over his breast. In its long leaflets\nfive knots were made. On the body, in the head, the side, and the\nlegs were five wounds. And five men in Fiji were at work in the\nplantations--men captured from Nukapu by brutal white traders.\n\nIt was the vengeance of the savage--the call of \"blood for blood\"; and\nthe death of Patteson lies surely upon the head of those white traders\nwho carried death and captivity to the white coral shore of Nukapu.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 32: Noo-k[)a]-poo.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Midsummer day on the Equator, September 21.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART\n\n_Chalmers, the Boy_\n\n(Born 1841, martyred 1901)\n\n\nThe rain had poured down in such torrents that even the hardy boys of\nInverary in Scotland had been driven indoors. Now the sky had cleared,\nand the sun was shining again after the great storm. The boys were out\nagain, and a group of them were walking toward the little stream of\nAray which tumbled through the glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream\nwas \"little\" no longer.\n\nAs the boys came near to the place called \"The Three Bridges,\" where\na rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards\nthe stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which\nshook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from\nthe hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent.\n\nSuddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy dashed toward them\nsaying that one of his schoolmates had fallen into the rushing water,\nand that the full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to the\nsea. The boys stood horrified--all except one, who rushed forward,\npulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt down the bank to the lower\nside of the bridge, and, clinging to the timber, held to it with one\narm while he stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being\ncarried under the bridge, seized him, and held him tightly with his\nleft hand.\n\nJames Chalmers--the boy who had gone to the rescue--though only ten\nyears old, could swim. Letting go of the bridge, while still holding\nthe other boy with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them both\ndown to where the branches hung over the bank to the water's surface.\nSeizing one of these, he dragged himself and the boy toward the bank,\nwhence he was helped to dry land by his friends.\n\nThe boy whom young James Chalmers had saved belonged to a rival\nschool. Often the wild-blooded boys (like their fierce Highland\nancestors who fought clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this\nschool and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason and\nwhose mother was a Highland lassie born near Loch Lomond, was the\nleader in these battles, but all the fighting was forgotten when he\nheard that a boy was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in\nas swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy from his own\nschool.\n\nWe do not hear that James was clever at lessons in his school, but\nwhen there was anything to be done, he had the quickest hand, the\nkeenest eye, the swiftest mind, and the most daring heart in all the\nvillage.\n\nThough he loved the hills and glens and the mountain torrent, James,\nabove everything else, revelled in the sea. One day a little later on,\nafter the rescue of his friend from drowning, James stood on the\nquay at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the sails of the\nfishing boats, when he heard a loud cry.\n\nHe looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, stood a mother\nwringing her hands and calling out that her child had fallen into the\nwater and was drowning. James ran along the quay, and taking off his\ncoat as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, seizing\nthe little child by the dress, drew him ashore. The child seemed dead,\nbut when they laid him on the quayside, and moved his arms, his breath\nbegan to come and go again and the colour returned to his cheeks.\n\nTwice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. Three times he himself,\nas the result of his daring adventures in the sea, was carried home,\nsupposed to be dead by drowning.\n\nAt another time he, with two other boys, thrust a tarred herring-box\ninto the sea from the sandy shore between the two rocky points where\nthe western sea came up the narrow Loch Fyne.\n\n\"Look at James!\" shouted one of the boys to his companions as Chalmers\nleapt into the box.\n\nIt almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and then steadied as\nthe box swung out from the shore.\n\nThe other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him and his boat through\nthe sea as they walked along the shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they\nstaggered forward. The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand,\nstill laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on\ntheir lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to\nsea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were\nof no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore.\n\nThe boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a\ncottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach,\nstrode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar\nhimself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the\ntide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was\nsinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his\nmother gave him a proper thrashing.\n\nSome of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in\nInverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the\nvestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson\nthey went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr.\nMeikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one\nafternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the \"Presbyterian\nRecord\"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary\nin the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage\nlife there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men\nno longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile\nup the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The\nwriter said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful\nterror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and\nwitches was gone.\n\nWhen Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up\nagain and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying:\n\n\"I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will become a\nmissionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to other such cannibals as\nthose?\"\n\nEven as the minister said those words, the adventurous heart of young\nChalmers leapt in reply as he said to himself, \"Yes, God helping me, I\nwill.\"\n\nHe was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, a boy\ntingling with the joy of the open air and with the love of the heave\nand flow of the sea. But when he made up his mind to do a thing,\nhowever great the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it\nthrough.\n\nSo it came about that some years later in 1866, having been trained\nand accepted by the London Missionary Society, Chalmers, as a young\nman, walked across the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper\nship. It had been christened _John Williams_ after the great hero\nmissionary[34] who gave up his life on the beach of Erromanga.\n\nThis boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with joy in the face of\nadventure and peril, had set his face towards the deep, long breakers\nof the far-off Pacific. He was going to carry to the South Seas the\nstory of the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love within the\nsound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed and fretted against the\nrocks of Western Scotland.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35]\n\n_Chalmers, the Friend_\n\n(Date of Incident, about 1893)\n\n\nThe quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to\nbreak the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch\nwere three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who\nhad ever broken the silence of that stream.\n\nThey gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the\nPurari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers\nof the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the\nsouth rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea\nand Northern Australia.\n\nThey saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with\ntheir roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents.\nThey peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down\nto the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of\nthe boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled\nwith sunlight under the trees. For they were facing an unknown\ndistrict where savage Papuans lived--as wild as hawks. They did not\nknow what adventure might meet them at the next bend of the river.\n\n\"Splendid! Splendid!\" cried one of the white men, a bearded giant\nwhose flashing eyes and mass of brown hair gave him the look of a\nlion. \"We will make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!\" And he turned\nto Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure at his happy excitement.\n\n\"No white man has even seen the people of Iala,\"[38] said Tamate--for\nthat was the native name given to James Chalmers, the Scottish boy\nwho had now gone out to far-off Papua as a missionary.[39] \"Iko\nthere\"--and he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the\nfunnel--\"is the only one of us who has seen them and can speak their\ntongue.\n\n\"It is dangerous for your wife to go among these people,\" he went on,\nturning to Mr. Abel, \"but she will help us more than anything else\npossibly can to make friends.\" And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that\nwhen the Papuans mean to fight they send their women and children\naway; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel they would believe that the\nwhite people came as friends and not enemies.\n\nAs the steamer carried this scouting party against the swift current\nup the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted to find how far up the river\nthe village lay. So he beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word\nof the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him an old wrinkled\nPapuan, who knew Iko's language, and who looked out with worshipping\neyes at the great white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing\nto ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke first to old\nVaaburi,[40] and then Vaaburi asked Iko.\n\nIko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them understand that\nthat finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his\nother hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show\nhow far they had travelled on their journey--not a third of the\ndistance.\n\nHour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her way through the\nswiftly running waters of Aivai. And ever Iko pointed further and\nfurther up his finger until at last they had reached his claw-like\nnail. By three o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of\nall looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river they strained\ntheir sight to see if Iala were in view. How would these savage people\nwelcome the white men and woman in their snorting great canoe that had\nno paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the river, and then\na long straight reach of water lying between the forest-covered banks.\nSuddenly Iko called out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered\nahead.\n\nThe great trees of the river nearly met above their heads, and only a\nnarrow strip of sky could be seen.\n\nThere in the distance were the houses of Iala, close clustered on both\nbanks of the steaming river. They stood on piles of wood driven into\nthe mud, like houses on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs\nstood out over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets.\n\n\"Slow,\" shouted Tamate to the engineer. The _Miro_ slackened speed\ntill she just stemmed the running current and no more.\n\n\"It will be a bit of a shock to them,\" said Tamate to his friends,\n\"to see this launch. We will give them time to get their wits together\nagain.\"\n\nLooking ahead through their glasses, the white men and Mrs. Abel could\nsee canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing the river and men rushing\nabout.\n\n\"Full speed ahead,\" cried Tamate again, and then after a few\nrevolutions of the engine, \"Go slow. It will never do,\" he said, \"to\ndrop amongst them while they are in that state. They will settle down\npresently.\" And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving\nbranches of the giant trees, \"we have got a good two hours' daylight\nyet,\" he said.\n\nLife and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the balance, for\nthey were three people unarmed, and here were dark savage warriors in\nhundreds. Everything depended on his choosing just the right moment\nfor going into the midst of these people. So he watched them closely,\nknitting his shaggy eyebrows together as he measured their state of\nmind by their actions. He was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he\nmust be watchful and note all those things that escape most men but\nmean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to have a strange gift\nthat made him able, even where other men could tell nothing, to say\nexactly when it was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild,\nuntouched tribe.\n\nNow the bewildered Ialan savages had grown quieter. Tamate called to\nthe engineer to drive ahead once more. Slowly the launch forged her\nway through the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the\ncentre of Iala.\n\nThere on either side stood the houses in long rows stretching up the\nriver, and on the banks hundreds of men stood silent and as still as\ntrees. Their canoes lay half in and half out of the water ready for\ninstant launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and waiting. All\nthe women and children had been sent away, for these men were out to\nfight. They did not know whether this strange house upon the water\nwith the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of gods or devils.\nStill they stood there to face the strange thing and, if need be, to\nfight.\n\nBrown Iko stood in the bows of the _Miro_; near him stood Tamate. Then\nthe engine stopped and the anchor was dropped overboard. The savages\nstood motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, hearing\nthe anchor-chain rattle through the hole, blew the steam-whistle in\nsimple high spirits. As the shriek of the whistle echoed under\nthe arches of the trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan\nwarriors swung their long bows from behind their bodies. Without\nstooping each caught up an arrow that stood between his toes and with\none movement fixed it and pulled the bamboo strings of their black\nbows till the notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows\nwere aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel.\n\nSwiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the _Miro_, and shouted just one\nword at the top of his voice. It was the Ialan word for \"Peace.\" And\nagain he shouted it, and yet again \"Peace, Peace!\"\n\nThen he cried out \"Pouta!\"[41] It was the name of the chief of these\nsavages. They had but to let the arrows from their bows and all would\nhave been over. There was silence. What order would Pouta give?\n\nThen from the bank on their right came the sound of an answering\nvoice. In a flash every arrow was taken from its bow, and again not a\nweapon was to be seen.\n\nIko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told Iko what he was to\nsay to his friend, the savage chief. For some minutes the conversation\nwent on. At last Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take\nthem ashore.\n\nChief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was\nlaunched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the\n_Miro_.\n\nAs the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had\nstood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the\nboat; and he spoke words like these: \"Your bravery is our strength.\nSeeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. You give them\ngreater confidence in us than all our words.\"\n\nBy this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch. Tamate went\nover the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel,\nIko, and Vaaburi. The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the\nlanding place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of\nspace.\n\nAs soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without\nhesitating a second, stepped out with Iko. Together they walked up to\nthe chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of\npeace.\n\nPouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors. But none\nof the white people knew a word of his meaning.\n\nLook where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the\ntwo men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and\narmed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their\nmidst.\n\nTamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear,\nspoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko.\n\n\"We have come,\" he said, \"so that we may be friends. We have come\nwithout weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for\nwe come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to\ntell. Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell\nyou all our message. To-day we come only to make friends.\"\n\nThen Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of\nIala.\n\nTurning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly:\n\"Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a\nfirst visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. When\nwe are gone they will talk to one another about us. Next time we come\nwe shall meet friends.\"\n\nSo they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank,\nand got into the canoe again: the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly\nthrough the water toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the\nanchor was weighed, the _Miro_ swung round, her engines started, and,\ncarried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses\nof silent men who lined the banks.\n\nIt is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no\nman has penetrated before. But it is a greater thing to do as these\nmissionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path\nof friendship into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in\nTamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many years in this work:\n\n\"Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give\nme its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give\nit me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back\nagain with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the\nground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 35: Pa-poo-[)a].]\n\n[Footnote 36: A-ee-v[)a]-ee.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Poo-r[)a]-ree.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Ee-[)a]-l[)a].]\n\n[Footnote 39: He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island\nof Rarotonga and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of\nPapua (New Guinea).]\n\n[Footnote 40: V[=a][=a]-boo-ree.]\n\n[Footnote 41: Poo-o-t[)a].]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nA SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN\n\n_Ruatoka_ (Date of Incident, about 1878)\n\n\nIt was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping of the waters on\nthe Port Moresby beach on the southern shore of the immense island of\nNew Guinea, filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation.\n\nIn a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his wife. The man\nwas Ruatoka. If you had asked \"Who is Ruatoka?\" of all the Papuans for\nmiles around Port Moresby, they would have wondered at your ignorance.\n\"Ruatoka,\" they would have told you, was a \"Jesus man.\" He walked\namong their villages, and did not fear them when they threatened him\nwith spears and clubs. He gave them medicines when they were ill, and\nnursed them. He spoke strong words to them which made their hearts\nturn to water within them when he showed that they did wrong. He often\nstopped them from fighting.\n\nRuatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South Sea Islands with\nTamate,[42] who was to them their great hero.\n\n\"My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the island of Mangaia,\"\nhe would say. \"The white men came to them and brought the story\nof Jesus. Now we are happy. But we, too, must go to the men of New\nGuinea, just as the white men came to us. To-day the New Guinea\nPapuans are savage cannibals and heathen. To-morrow they will know\nJesus and be as happy as we are.\"\n\nSo Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and preacher as well as a\nhouse-builder and carpenter; and his wife was taught how to teach\nchildren as well as good housekeeping.\n\nThis was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night in his little\nhouse at Port Moresby on the shore behind the great reef of Papua.\nSuddenly there came a knock at his door. The door opened, and the\nblack, frightened faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at him.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" he asked.\n\nAnd they told him that, as they came at sunset along the path from the\npeople of Larogi to Port Moresby, they found by the side of the path a\nwhite man. \"He was dying,\" they said. \"We were afraid to touch him. If\nwe touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore.\"\n\nRuatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to\nthe men said:\n\n\"Come and guide me to the place.\"\n\nThey said, \"No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The\nman will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go.\"\n\nRuatoka's father had told him when he was a boy how his own people in\nthe years before had dreaded the spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that\nhe must learn that there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great\nFather-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of His children,\nand that all those children must love one another.\n\nSo Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white man who lay sick\nby the roadside in the night, though of another colour, was yet a\nbrother, and knowing that no demon spirit could harm him in the dark,\nlighted his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long piece of\ncloth, folded it up, and started out under the stars.\n\nHe walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys\nalong the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird.\nAt last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could\never find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side\nand all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he\nfound the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found\nthere, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly\ndead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious.\n\nTaking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of\nthe man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville,\ntook the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained\nwith all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack\nupon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that\nrose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man\non his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the\nhill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking\nover the eastern hills, Ruatoka staggered into his home, laid the\nsick man upon the only bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the\nfloor, wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife nursed\nand tended the fever-stricken Neville back to life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOver a thousand years before that day Wilfrid[43] had brought life and\njoy to the starving Saxons of the South coast of England. A hundred\nyears before that day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of\nthose Saxons, had started out in _The Duff_ and, sailing across the\nworld, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror of demons and\nthe death by the club to the men of the Islands of the Seas.\n\nNow Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his heart the same\nbrave spirit of the Good Shepherd--that spirit of the Good Samaritan,\nof help and preparedness, of courage and of chivalry, had carried life\nand joy back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had fallen by\nthe roadside in Papua.\n\nRuatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him as it must be with all\nbrave sons who serve that great Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be\nin the front of the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and eaten\nby the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a letter to a missionary\nwho lived and still lives in Papua. This is the end of the letter:\n\n\"Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder of my strength I\nwould spend in the place where Tamate was killed. In that village I\nwould live. In that place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name\nand His word I would teach to the people that they may become Jesus'\nchildren. My wish is just this. You know it. I have spoken.\n\n  RUATOKA.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 42: James Chalmers: see Chapter XIII.]\n\n[Footnote 43: See Chapter II.]\n\n\n\n\nBook Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON\n\n_David Livingstone_\n\n(Dates born 1813, died 1873)\n\n\nThere was a deathly stillness in the hot African air as two bronzed\nScots strode along the narrow forest path.\n\nThe one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,[44] glanced quickly through the\ntrees and occasionally turned aside to pick some strange orchid and to\nslip it into his collecting case. The other strode steadily along\nwith that curious, \"resolute forward tread\" of his.[45] He was David\nLivingstone. Behind them came a string of African bearers carrying in\nbundles on their heads the tents and food of the explorers.\n\nSuddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went through a white\nobject half hidden in the long grass--a thing like an ostrich's egg.\nHe stooped--and his strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled\nsorrow and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger friend, he\ngritted out between his clenched teeth, \"The slave-raiders again!\"\n\nIt was the whitening skull of an African boy.\n\nFor weeks those two Britons had driven their little steamer (the\n_Asthmatic_ they called her, because of her wheezing engines) up the\nZambesi river and were now exploring its tributary the Shire.\n\nEach morning, before they could start the ship's engines, they had\nbeen obliged to take poles and push from between the paddles of the\nwheels the dead bodies of Africans--men, women, and children--slain\nbodies which had floated down from the villages that the Arab\nslave-raiders had burned and sacked. Livingstone was out on the long,\nbloody trail of the slaver, the trail that stretched on and on into\nthe heart of Africa where no white man had ever been.\n\nThis negro boy's skull, whitening on the path, was only one more\nlink in the long, sickening shackle-chain of slavery that girdled\ndown-trodden Africa.\n\nThe two men strode on. The forest path opened out to a broad clearing.\nThey were in an African village. But no voice was heard and no step\nbroke the horrible silence. It was a village of death. The sun blazed\non the charred heaps which now marked the sites of happy African\nhomes; the gardens were desolate and utterly destroyed. The village\nwas wiped out. Those who had submitted were far away, trudging through\nthe forest, under the lash of the slaver; those who had been too old\nto walk or too brave to be taken without fight were slain.\n\nThe heart of Livingstone burned with one great resolve--he would track\nthis foul thing into the very heart of Africa and then blazon its\nhorrors to the whole world.\n\nThe two men trudged back to the river bank again. Now, with their\nbrown companions, they took the shallow boat that they had brought\non the deck of the _Asthmatic_, and headed still farther up the Shire\nriver from the Zambesi toward the unknown Highlands of Central Africa.\n\n\n_Facing Spears and Arrows_\n\nOnly the sing-song chant of the Africans as they swung their paddles,\nand the frightened shriek of a glittering parrot, broke the stillness\nas the boat pushed northward against the river current.\n\nThe paddles flashed again, and as the boat came round a curve in the\nriver they were faced by a sight that made every man sit, paddle in\nhand, motionless with horror. The bank facing them in the next curve\nof the river was black with men. The ranks of savages bristled with\nspears and arrows. A chief yelled to them to turn back. Then a cloud\nof arrows flew over the boat.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Livingstone quietly to the Africans. Their paddles took\nthe water and the boat leapt toward the savage semi-circle on the\nbank. The water was shallower now. Before any one realised what was\nhappening Livingstone had swung over the edge of the boat and, up to\nhis waist in water, was wading ashore with his arms above his head.\n\n\"It is peace!\" he called out, and waded on toward the barbs of a\nhundred arrows and spears. The men in the boat sat breathless, waiting\nto see their leader fall with a score of spears through his body.\nBut the savages on the bank were transfixed with amazement at\nLivingstone's sheer audacity. Awed by something god-like in this\nunflinching and unarmed courage, no finger let fly a single arrow.\n\n\"You think,\" he called to the chief, \"that I am a slave-raider.\" For\nLivingstone knew that he had never in all his wanderings been attacked\nby Africans save where they had first been infuriated by the cruel\nraiders.\n\nThe chief scowled.\n\n\"See,\" cried Livingstone, baring his arm to show his white skin as\nhe again and again had done when threatened by Africans, \"is this the\ncolour of the men who come to make slaves and to kill?\"\n\nThe savages gazed with astonishment. They had never before seen so\nwhite a skin.\n\n\"No,\" Livingstone went on, \"this is the skin of the tribe that has\nheart toward the African.\"\n\nAlmost unconsciously the man had dropped the spear points and arrow\nheads as he was speaking. The chief listened while Livingstone, who\nwas now on the bank, told the savages how he had come across the great\nwaters from a far-off land with a message of peace and goodwill.\n\nUnarmed and with a dauntless heroism the \"white man who would go on\"\nhad won a great victory over that tribe. He now passed on in his boat\nup the river and over rapids toward the wonderful shining Highlands in\nthe heart of Africa.\n\n\n_\"Deliverance to the Captives\"_\n\nDr. Kirk was recalled to England by the British Government; but\nLivingstone trudged on in increasing loneliness over mountains and\nacross rivers and lakes, plunging through marshes, racked a score of\ntimes with fever, robbed of his medicines, threatened again and again\nby the guns of the slave-raiding Arabs and the spears and clubs of\nsavage head-hunters, bearing on his bent shoulders the Cross of the\nnegroes' agony--slavery, till at last, alone and on his knees in\nthe dead of night, our Greatheart crossed his last River, into the\npresence of his Father in heaven.\n\nYet still, though his body was dead, his spirit would go on. For the\nlife Livingstone lived, the death he died, and the record he wrote\nof the slave-raiders' horrible cruelties thrilled all Britain to heal\nthat \"open sore of the world.\" Queen Victoria made Dr. Kirk her consul\nat Zanzibar, and told him to make the Sultan of Zanzibar order all\nslave-trading through that great market to cease. And to-day, because\nof David Livingstone, through all the thousands of miles of Africa\nover which he trod, no man dare lay the shackles of slavery on\nanother. To-day, where Livingstone saw the slave-market in Zanzibar,\na grand church stands, built by negro hands, and in that cathedral you\nmay hear the negro clergy reading such words as--\n\n  \"The voice of one crying in the wilderness,\n  Prepare ye the way of the Lord,\n  Make His paths straight,\"\n\nand African boys singing in their own tongue words that sum up the\nwhole life of David Livingstone.\n\n  \"He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,\n  To preach deliverance to the captives.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 44: Dr Kirk, now Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., who, leaning upon\nhis African ebony stick and gazing with his now dimmed eyes into\nthe glow of the fire, told me many stories of his adventures with\nLivingstone on his Zambesi journeyings, including this one. See next\nchapter.]\n\n[Footnote 45: A friend of mine asked a very old African in\nMatabeleland whether--as a boy--he remembered Dr. Livingstone. \"Oh,\nyes,\" replied the aged Matabele, \"he came into our village out of\nthe bush walking thus,\" and the old man got up and stumped along,\nimitating the determined tread of Livingstone, which, after sixty\nyears, was the one thing he remembered.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA\n\n_Khama_\n\n(Dates 1850--the present day)\n\n\nOne day men came running into a village in South Africa to say that\na strange man, whose body was covered with clothes and whose face\nwas not black, was walking toward their homes. He was coming from the\nSouth.\n\nNever before had such a man been seen in their tribe. So there was\ngreat excitement and a mighty chattering went through the round wattle\nof mud huts with their circular thatched roofs.\n\nThe African Chief, Sekhome--who was the head of this Bamangwato tribe\nand who was also a noted witch-doctor--started out along the southward\ntrail to meet the white man. By his side ran his eldest son. He was a\nlithe, blithe boy; his chocolate coloured skin shone and the muscles\nrippled as he trotted along. He was so swift that his name was the\nname of the antelope that gallops across the veldt. Cama is what the\nBamangwato call the antelope. Khama is how we spell the boy's name.\n\nHe gazed in wonder as he saw a sturdy man wearing clothes such as he\nhad not seen before--what we call coat and hat, trousers and boots.\nHe looked into the bronzed face of the white man and saw that his eyes\nand mouth were kind. Together they walked back into the village. Chief\nSekhome found that the white man's name was David Livingstone; and\nthat he was a kind doctor who could make boys and men better when they\nwere ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box.\n\nWhen evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another\nbox and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of\nhundreds and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such a thing\nin his life and he could not understand why Livingstone opened it\nand kept looking at it for a long time, for he had never seen a book\nbefore and did not even know what letters were or what reading was.\n\nIt seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that book could speak\nto Livingstone without making any sound and that it told him about\nthe One Infinite, Holy, Loving God, Who is Father of all men, black or\nbrown or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach us all to\nlove God and to love one another. For the book was the Bible which\nLivingstone all through his heroic exploring of Africa read each day.\n\nSo Livingstone passed on from the village; but this boy Khama never\nforgot him, and in time--as we shall see--other white men came and\ntaught Khama himself to read that same book and worship that same God.\n\n\n_The Fight with the Lion_\n\nMeanwhile strange adventures came to the growing young Khama. This is\nthe story of some of them:\n\nThe leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon the dark\nbackground of thorn trees weird shadows of the men who squatted in a\ncircle on the ground, talking.\n\nThe men were all Africans, the picked hunters from the tribe of the\nBamangwato. They were out on the spoor of a great lion that had made\nhimself the terror of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt\namong their oxen and had slain the choicest in the chief's herds.\nAgain and again the hunters had gone out on the trail of the ferocious\nbeast; but always they returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly\nof what they would do when they should face the lion.\n\n\"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow,\" cried a young Bamangwato hunter rolling\nhis eyes, \"I will slay _tau e bogale_--the fierce lion.\"\n\nThe voices of the men rose on the night air as the whole group\ndeclared that the beast should ravage their herds no more--the whole\ngroup, except one. This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that\nglowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so\nmuch and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief.\nThe wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of\ntireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in\nebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that could keep pace with a\ngalloping horse, gave him the right to his name, Khama--the Antelope.\n\nThe voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves in the skins of\nwild beasts, lay down and slept--all except one, whose eyes watched in\nthe darkness as sleeplessly as the stars. When they were asleep Khama\ntook up his gun and went out into the starry night.\n\nThe night passed. As the first flush of dawn paled the stars, and\nthe men around the cold ashes of the fire sat up, they gazed in\nawed amazement. For they saw, striding toward them, their tall young\nchieftain; and over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a\nfull-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain the terror of\nthe tribe!\n\nThe men who had boasted of what they meant to do and had never\nperformed, never heard Khama--either at that time or later--make any\nmention of this great feat.\n\nIt was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall,\nsilent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty\nfather Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane,\nsaid, \"Khama is our _boikanyo_--our confidence.\"\n\n\n_The Fight with the Witch-doctors_\n\nThe years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and\nlaid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who\nfollowed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to\nhis tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the\nknowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had become a Christian,\nthough Sekhome his father was still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama\nwould have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the\nboys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on\nthe heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with\nanger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama\nstood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating\nwith respect his unnatural father.\n\n\"You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other wives,\" said\nold Sekhome, whose wives could not be numbered. Young Khama firmly\nrefused, for the Word of God which ruled his life told him that he\nmust have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage.\n\n\"You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain,\" said Sekhome, as\nthe parched earth cracked under the flaming sun. Khama knew that their\nwild incantations had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled\nthe heavens. So he refused.\n\nSekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a\nwitch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish\nincantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils.\n\nOne night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound of strange clashing\nand chanting. Looking out he saw the fitful flame of a fire. Going out\nfrom his hut, he saw the _lolwapa_ or court in front of it lit up\nwith weird flames round which the black wizards danced with horns and\nlions' teeth clashing about their necks, and with manes of beasts'\nhair waving above their horrible faces. As they danced they cast\ncharms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses\non Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the\npower to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more\nthan human if he had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid\nand horrible dance of death.\n\nYet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt\non his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping\nfull upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its\nembers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night.\n\n\n_The Fight with the Kaffir Beer_\n\nAt last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was\nacclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.[46] He galloped out\nat the head of his horsemen to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief\nof the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato for many\nyears. Even Lobengula, who to his dying day carried in his neck a\nbullet from Khama's gun, said of him, \"The Bamangwato are dogs, but\nKhama is a man.\"\n\nKhama had now freed his people from the terror of the lion, the\ntyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of the Matabele. Yet the\ndeadliest enemy of Khama and the most loathsome tyrant of the\nBamangwato was still in power,--the strong drink which degrades the\nAfrican to unspeakable depths.\n\nEven as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks\nof the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in\ncharge of his city in his absence, said to the people: \"You may brew\nbeer again now.\" Many of the people did not obey, but others took the\ncorn of the tribe and brewed beer from it.\n\nAt night the cries of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of\nincantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the\nolder men together around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to\nhand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful.\nKhamane then spoke to them and said, \"Why should Khama rule you?\nRemember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away\nwith the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or\nthrow enchanted dice or make incantations for rain. He is a Christian.\nIf I ruled you, you should do all these things.\"\n\nWhen Khama rode back again into his town he saw men and women lying\ndrunk under the eaves of their huts and others reeling along the road.\nAt night the sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air.\n\nHis anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. He seized a\nburning torch and running to the hut of Khamane set fire to the roof\nand burned the house down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered\nall the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured it out\nupon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a fiercer enemy than\nthe Matabele, a foe that would throttle his tribe and destroy all his\npeople if he did not conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered\nagainst him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. His eyes\nflashed.\n\n\"When I was still a lad,\" he said, \"I used to think how I would\ngovern my town and what kind of a kingdom it should be. One thing I\ndetermined, I would not rule over a drunken town or people. I WILL NOT\nHAVE DRINK IN THIS TOWN. If you must have it you must go.\"\n\n\n_The Fight with the White Man's \"Fire-water\"_\n\nKhama had conquered for the moment. But white men, Englishmen, came\nto the town. They set up stores. And in the stores they began to sell\nbrandy from large casks.\n\nThe drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on the African than\neven on white men. Once he starts drinking, the African cannot\nstop and is turned into a sot. The ships of the white man have been\nresponsible to a terrible extent for sending out the \"fire-water\" to\nAfrica.\n\nKhama called the white traders in the tribe together.\n\n\"It is my desire,\" he said, \"that no strong drink shall be sold in my\ntown.\"\n\n\"We will not bring the great casks of brandy,\" they replied, \"but\nwe hope you will allow us to have cases of bottles as they are for\nmedicine.\"\n\n\"I consent,\" said Khama, \"but there must be no drunkenness.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" the white men replied, \"there shall be no drunkenness.\"\n\nIn a few days one of the white traders had locked himself into his\nhouse in drunken delirium, naked and raving. Morning after morning\nKhama rose before daybreak to try and get to the man when he was\nsober, but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this man\ngathered other white men together in a house and they sat drinking and\nthen started fighting one another.\n\nA boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode\nin. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white\nshirts stained with blood.\n\nKhama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he\noften went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the\nmissionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the\nwhite men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own\nfellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose\nand went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as\nKhama said.\n\n\"I will clear them all out of my town,\" cried the chief.\n\nIt was Saturday night.\n\n\n_Khama's Decisive Hour_\n\nOn the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come\nto him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the\n_Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn,\nthe missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as\nthey looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him\nfrom his decisions that day.\n\n\"You white men,\"[48] he said to them sternly, \"have insulted and\ndespised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us\nblack men, what do you want here in the country that God has given to\nus? Go back to your own country.\"\n\nHis voice became hard with a tragic sternness.\n\n\"I am trying,\" he went on, \"to lead my people to act according to\nthe word of God which we have received from you white people, and yet\n_you_ show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You,\"\nand his voice rose in burning scorn, \"you, the people of the word\nof God! You know that some of my own brothers\"--he was referring to\nKhamane especially--\"have learned to like the drink, and you know that\nI do not want them to see it even, that they may forget the habit. Yet\nyou not only bring it in and offer it to them, but you try to tempt\n_me_ with it.\n\n\"I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle and leave my town\nand _never come back again_!\"\n\nNo man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed and bewildered. Then\none white man, who had lived in the town since he was a lad, pleaded\nwith Khama for pity as an old friend.\n\n\"You,\" said the chief with biting irony, \"my friend? You--the\nringleader of those who despise my laws. You are my worst enemy. You\npray for pity? No! for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity\non my people over whom God placed me, and I am going to show them pity\nto-day; and that is my duty to them and to God.... Go!\"\n\nAnd they all went.\n\nThen the chief ordered in his young warriors and huntsmen.\n\n\"No one of you,\" he said, \"is to drink beer.\" Then he called a great\nmeeting of the whole town. In serried masses thousand upon thousand\nthe Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice:\n\n\"I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take\nthe corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you\ndestroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it\nthat causes mischief among you.\"\n\nThere was some murmuring.\n\nHis eyes flashed like steel.\n\n\"You can kill me,\" he said, \"but you cannot conquer me.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_The Black Prince of Eighty_\n\nIf you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over seventy years after\nthose far-off days when Livingstone first went there, as you came in\nsight of the great stone church that the chief has built, you would\nsee tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. It would\nrace toward you, with the soft thunder of hoofs in the loose soil.\nWhen the horses were almost upon you--with a hand of steel--chief\nKhama would rein in his charger and his bodyguard would pull up behind\nhim.\n\nOver eighty years old, grey and wrinkled, he would spring from his\nhorse, without help, to greet you--still Khama, the Antelope. Old\nas he is, he is as alert as ever. He heard that a great all Africa\naeroplane route was planned after the Great War. At once he offered\nto make a great aerodrome, and the day at last came when\nKhama--eighty-five years old--who had seen Livingstone, the first\nwhite man to visit his tribe--stood watching the first aeroplane come\nbringing a young officer from the clouds.\n\nHe stands there, the splendid chief of the Bamangwato--\"steel-true,\nblade-straight.\" He is the Black Prince of Africa--who has indeed won\nhis spurs against the enemies of his people.\n\nAnd if you were to ask him the secret of the power by which he has\ndone these things, Khama the silent, who is not used to boasting,\nwould no doubt lead you at dawn to the _Kgotla_ before his huts. There\nat every sunrise he gathers his people together for their morning\nprayers at the feet of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the\nCaptain and King of our Great Crusade for the saving of Africa.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 46: In 1875.]\n\n[Footnote 47: The chiefs open-air enclosure for official meetings.]\n\n[Footnote 48: These are Khama's own words taken down at the time by\nHepburn.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS\n\n_George Grenfell_\n\n(Dates, b. 1849, d. 1906)\n\n\n_The Building of the Steamship_\n\nWhen David Livingstone lay dying in his hastily-built hut, in the\nheart of Africa, with his black companions Susi and Chumah attending\nhim, almost his last words were, \"How far away is the Luapula?\"\n\nHe knew that the river to which the Africans gave that name was only\na short distance away and that it flowed northward. He thought that it\nmight be the upper reaches of the Nile, which had been sought by men\nthrough thousands of years, but which none had ever explored.\n\nLivingstone died in that hut (1873) and never knew what Stanley,\nfollowing in his footsteps, discovered later (1876-7), viz., that the\nLuapula was really the upper stretch of the Congo, the second largest\nriver in the world (3000 miles long), flowing into the Atlantic. The\nbasin of the Congo would cover the whole of Europe from the Black Sea\nto the English Channel.\n\nIn the year when Livingstone died, and before Stanley started to\nexplore the Congo, a young man, who had been thrilled by reading the\ntravels of Livingstone, sailed to the West Coast of Africa to the\nKameruns.\n\nHis name was George Grenfell, a Cornish boy (born at Sancreed, four\nmiles from Penzance, in England), who was brought up in Birmingham.\nHe was apprenticed at fifteen to a firm of hardware and machinery\ndealers. Here he picked up, as a lad, some knowledge of machinery that\nhelped him later on the Congo. He had been thrilled to meet at Bristol\nCollege, where he was trained for his missionary work, a thin, worn,\nheroic man of tried steel, Alfred Saker, the great Kamerun missionary,\nand Grenfell leapt for joy to go out to the dangerous West Coast of\nAfrica, where he worked hard, teaching the Africans to make tables and\nbricks and to print and read, healing them and preaching to them.\n\nWhen Stanley came down the Congo to the sea and electrified the world\nby the story of the great river, Grenfell and the Baptist Missionary\nSociety which he served conceived the daring and splendid plan of\nstarting a chain of mission stations right from the mouth of the\nCongo eastward across Africa. In 1878 Grenfell was on his way up the\nriver--travelling along narrow paths flanked by grass often fifteen\nfeet high, and crossing swamps and rivers, till after thirteen\nattempts and in eighteen months he reached Stanley Pool, February\n1881. A thousand miles of river lay between Stanley Pool and Stanley\nFalls, and even above Stanley Falls lay thirteen hundred miles of\nnavigable river. Canoes were perilous. Hippopotami upset them, and men\nwere dragged down and eaten by crocodiles. They must have a steamer\nright up there beyond the Falls in the very heart of Africa.\n\nGrenfell went home to England, and the steamer _Peace_ was built on\nthe Thames, Grenfell watching everything being made from the crank\nto the funnel. She was built, launched, and tried on the Thames; then\ntaken to pieces and packed in 800 packages, weighing 65 lbs. each,\nand taken to the mouth of the Congo. On the heads and shoulders of\na thousand men the whole ship and the food of the party were carried\npast the rapids, over a thousand miles along narrow paths, in peril of\nsnakes and leopards and enemy savages, over streams crossed by bridges\nof vine-creepers, through swamps, across ravines.\n\nGrenfell's engineer, who was to have put the ship together, died. At\nlast they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with eight negroes started\nto try to build the ship. It was a tremendous task. Grenfell said\nthe _Peace_ was \"prayed together.\" It was prayer and hard work and\ngumption. At last the ship was launched, steam was up, the _Peace_\nbegan to move. \"She lives, master, she lives!\" shouted the excited\nAfricans.\n\nA thousand thrilling adventures came to him as he steamed up and\ndown the river, teaching and preaching, often in the face of\npoisoned arrows and spears. We are now going to hear the story of one\nadventure.\n\n_The Steamer's Journey_\n\nThe crocodiles drowsily dosing in the slime of the Congo river bank\nstirred uneasily as a strange sound broke the silence of the blazing\nAfrican morning. They lifted their heavy jaws and swung their heads\ndown stream. Their beady eyes caught sight of a Thing mightier than a\nthousand crocodiles. It was pushing its way slowly up stream.\n\nThe sound was the throb of the screw of the steamer from whose funnel\na light ribbon of smoke floated across the river. An awning shaded the\nwhole deck from bow to stern. On the top of the awning, under a little\nsquare canopy, stood a tall young negro; the muscles in his sturdy\narms and his broad shoulders rippled under his dark skin as the wheel\nswung round in his swift, strong hands.\n\nThe steamer drove up stream while the crocodiles, startled by the wash\nof the boat, slid sullenly down the bank and dived.\n\nA short, bearded man, dressed in white duck, stood on deck at the\nbows, where the steamer's name, _Peace_, was painted. He was George\nGrenfell. His keen eyes gleamed through the spectacles that rested on\nhis strong, arched nose. By his side stood his wife, looking out up\nthe river. They were searching for the landing-place and the hut-roofs\nof some friendly river-side town.\n\nAt last as the bows swung round the next bend in the river they saw\na village. The Africans rushed to the bank and hurriedly pushed out\ntheir tree-trunk canoes. Grenfell shouted an order. A bell rang. The\nscrew stopped and the steamer lay-to while he climbed down into the\nship's canoe and was paddled ashore. The wondering people pushed and\njostled around them to see this strange man with his white face.\n\n\n_The Slave Girls_\n\nAs they walked up among the huts, speaking with the men of the town,\nGrenfell came to an open space. As his quick eyes looked about he saw\ntwo little girls standing bound with cords. They were tethered\nlike goats to a stake. Their little faces and round eyes looked all\nforlorn. Even the wonder of the strange bearded white man hardly kept\nback the tears that filled their eyes.\n\n\"What are these?\" he asked, turning to the chief.\n\nThe African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart burned in him,\nas the chief told how he and his men had swept up the river in their\ncanoes armed with their spears and bows and arrows and had raided\nanother tribe.\n\n\"And these,\" said the chief, pointing to the girls, who began\nto wonder what was going to happen, \"these are two girls that we\ncaptured. They are some of our booty. They are slaves. They are tied\nthere till someone will come and buy them.\"\n\nGrenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful faces.\nQuickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, and took the little\ngirls back with him down to the river bank. As they jumped into the\ncanoe to go aboard the S.S. _Peace_, the two girls wondered what this\nstrange new master would do with them. Would he be cruel? Yet his eyes\nlooked kind through those funny, round, shining things balanced on his\nnose.\n\nThe girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board\nthis wonderful river monster. They felt it shiver and throb and begin\nto move. The bank went farther and farther away. The _Peace_ had again\nstarted up stream.\n\nThe girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid\npast. They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface\nof the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the\nriver like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo.\nTheir quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning\nthemselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then\ndropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed.\n\n\n_The Slave Girl's Brother_\n\nThen, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was\nchanged. There ahead Grenfell saw a river town. The canoes were being\nmanned rapidly by warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands\nof ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and\nloathsome tattooing. In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands\nand arrows drawn to the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The\nship slowed up. But the canoes came on.\n\nThe men of this Congo town only knew one thing. Enemies had, only a\nfew weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town,\nburned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their\nchildren. Here were men who had also come from down the river. They\nmust, therefore, be enemies.\n\nTheir chief shouted an order. In an instant a score of spears hurtled\nat the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck. The yell\nof the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river.\n\nGrenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly one of them with\ndancing eyes shouted and waved her arms.\n\n\"What is it?\" cried Grenfell to her.\n\n\"See--see!\" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just\npoising a spear, \"that is my brother! That is my brother! This is my\ntown!\"\n\n\"Call to him,\" said Grenfell.\n\nHer thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard it among the\nwarriors. Again she cried out to her brother. The only answer was a\nhail of spears and arrows.\n\nGrenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer.\nInstantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells\nof the whole tribe, rent the air. Again the shriek went up. The\nwarriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues\nin ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful silence. They had\nnever before heard the whistle of a steamer!\n\n\"Shout again--quickly,\" whispered Grenfell to the little African\ngirl.\n\nIn a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the silence across\nthe water, crying first her brother's name, and then her own.\n\nThe astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle\nand--in a few swift strokes--drove his canoe towards the steamer. His\nastonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of\nthis shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles.\n\nQuickly she told her story of how the strange white man in the great\ncanoe that smoked had found her in the village of their enemies, had\nsaved her from slavery, and--now, had brought her safely home again.\nThe story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and arrow was\ndropped.\n\nThe girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell walked up the\nvillage street every warrior who had but a few moments before been\nseeking his blood was now gazing at this strange friend who had\nbrought back to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had\nlost for ever.\n\n    Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal\n    fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter\n    at funerals, witch-killing--and in some ways worse still, the\n    horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders--for over a\n    quarter of a century.\n\n    In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he lay at\n    Yalemba, sick with fever. Two of the Africans wrote a letter for\n    help to other missionaries:\n\n    \"We are very sorrow,\" they wrote, \"because out Master is very\n    sick. So now we beging you one of you let him come to help Mr\n    Grenfell please. We think now is near to die, but we don't know\n    how to do with him. Yours,\n\n                                                    DISASI MAKULO,\n                                                    MASCOO LUVUSU.\"\n\n    To-day all up the fifteen hundred miles of Congo waterway the\n    power of the work done by Grenfell and the men who came with him\n    and after him has changed all the life. Gone are the slave-raiders,\n    the inter-tribal wars, the cruelties of the white men, along that\n    line. There stand instead negroes who cap make bricks, build\n    houses, turn a lathe; engineers, printers, bookbinders,\n    blacksmiths, carpenters, worshipping in churches built with their\n    own hands. But beyond, and among the myriad tributaries and the\n    vast forests millions of men have never yet even heard of the love\n    of God in Jesus Christ, and still work their hideous cruelties.\n\n    So Grenfell, like Livingstone, opened a door. It stands open.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n\"A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING\"\n\n_Alexander Mackay_\n\n(Dates 1863-1876)\n\n\nThe inquisitive village folk stared over their garden gates at Mr.\nMackay, the minister of the Free Kirk of Rhynie, a small Aberdeenshire\nvillage, as he stood with his thirteen-year-old boy gazing into the\nroad at their feet. The father was apparently scratching at the stones\nand dust with his stick. The villagers shook their heads.\n\n\"Fat's the minister glowerin' at, wi' his loon Alic, among the stoor\no' the turnpike?\"[49] asked the villagers of one another.\n\nThe minister certainly was powerful in the pulpit, but his ways were\nmore than they could understand. He was for ever hammering at the\nrocks on the moor and lugging ugly lumps of useless stone homeward,\ncontaining \"fossils\" as he called them.\n\nNow Mr. Mackay was standing looking as though he were trying to find\nsomething that he had lost in the road. If they had been near enough\nto Alec and his father they would have heard words like these:\n\n\"You see, Alec, this is the Zambesi River running down from the heart\nof Africa into the Indian Ocean, and here running into the Zambesi\nfrom the north is a tributary, the Shire. Livingstone going up that\nriver found wild savages who ...\"\n\nSo the father was tracing in the dust of the road with the point\nof his stick the course of the Zambesi which Livingstone had just\nexplored for the first time.\n\nOn these walks with his father Alec, with his blue eyes wide open,\nused to listen to stories like the Yarn we have read of the marvellous\nadventures of Livingstone.[50] Sometimes Mr. Mackay would stop and\ndraw triangles and circles with his stick. Then Alec would be learning\na problem in Euclid on this strange \"blackboard\" of the road. He\nlearned the Euclid--but he preferred the Zambesi and Livingstone!\n\nOne day Alec was off by himself trudging down the road with a fixed\npurpose in his mind, a purpose that seemed to have nothing in the\nworld to do with either Africa or Euclid. He marched away from his\nlittle village of Rhynie, where the burn runs around the foot of\nthe great granite mountain across the strath. He trudged on for four\nmiles. Then he heard a shrill whistle. Would he be late after all?\nHe ran swiftly toward the little railway station. A ribbon of smoke\nshowed over the cutting, away to the right. Alec entered the station\nand ran to one end of the platform as the train slowed down and the\nengine stopped just opposite where he stood.\n\nHe gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. He followed\nevery movement as the driver came round the engine with his long-nosed\noil-can, and opened and shut small brass lids and felt the bearings\nwith his hand to see whether they were hot. The guard waved his green\nflag. The whistle of the engine shrieked, and the train steamed out of\nthe station along the burnside toward Huntly. Alec gazed down the line\ntill the train was out of sight and then, turning, left the station\nand trudged homeward. When he reached Rhynie he had walked eight miles\nto look at a railway engine for two and a half minutes--and he was\nhappy!\n\nAs he went along the village street he heard a familiar sound.\n\n\"Clang-a-clang clang!--ssssssss!\" It was irresistible. He stopped,\nand stepped into the magic cavern of darkness, gleaming with the\nforge-fire, where George Lobban, the smith, having hammered a glowing\nhorseshoe into shape, gripped it with his pincers and flung it hissing\ninto the water.\n\nHaving cracked a joke with the laughing smith, Alec dragged himself\naway from the smithy, past the green, and looked in at the stable to\ncurry-comb the pony and enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing\nin his hand for oats.\n\nHe let himself into the manse and ran up to his work-room, where\nhe began to print off some pages that he had set up on his little\nprinting press.\n\nAt supper his mother looked sadly at her boy with his dancing eyes as\nhe told her about the wonders of the railway engine. In her heart she\nwanted him to be a minister. And she did not see any sign that this\nboy would ever become one: this lad of hers who was always running off\nfrom his books to peer into the furnaces of the gas works, or to tease\nthe village carpenter into letting him plane a board, or to sit, with\nchin in hands and elbows on knees, watching the saddler cutting\nand padding and stitching his leather, or to creep into the\ncarding-mill--like the Budge and Toddy whose lives he had read--\"to\nsee weels go wound.\"\n\nIt was a bitter cold night in the Christmas vacation fourteen years\nlater.[51] Alec Mackay, now a young engineering student, was lost to\nall sense of time as he read of the hairbreadth escapes and adventures\ntold by the African explorer, Stanley, in his book, _How I found\nLivingstone_.\n\nHe read these words of Stanley's:\n\n    \"For four months and four days I lived with Livingstone in the\n    same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never\n    found a fault in him.... Each day's life with him added to my\n    admiration for him. His gentleness never forsakes him: his\n    hopefulness never deserts him. His is the Spartan heroism, the\n    inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the\n    Anglo-Saxon. The man has conquered me.\"\n\nAlexander Mackay put down Stanley's book and gazed into the fire.\nSince the days when he had trudged as a boy down to the station to see\nthe railway engine he had been a schoolboy in the Grammar School at\nAberdeen, and a student in Edinburgh, and while there had worked in\nthe great shipbuilding yards at Leith amid the clang and roar of the\nrivetters and the engine shop. He was now studying in Berlin, drawing\nthe designs of great engines far more wonderful than the railway\nengine he had almost worshipped as a boy.\n\nOn the desk at Mackay's side lay his diary in which he wrote his\nthoughts. In that diary were the words that he himself had written:\n\n    \"This day last year[52] Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a\n    Christian--loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa.\n    'Go thou and do likewise.'\"\n\nMackay wondered. Could it ever be that he would go into the heart of\nAfrica like Livingstone? it seemed impossible. What was the good of an\nengineer among the lakes and forests of Central Africa?\n\nOn the table by the side of Stanley's _How I found Livingstone_ lay a\nnewspaper, the Edinburgh _Daily Review_. Mackay glanced at it; then he\nsnatched it up and read eagerly a letter which appeared there. It was\na new call to Central Africa--the call, through Stanley, from King\nM'tesa of Uganda, that home of massacre and torture. These are some of\nthe words that Stanley wrote:\n\n    \"King M'tesa of Uganda has been asking me about the white man's\n    God.... Oh that some practical missionary would come here. M'tesa\n    would give him anything that he desired--houses, land, cattle,\n    ivory. It is the practical Christian who can ... cure their\n    diseases, build dwellings, teach farming and turn his hand to\n    anything like a sailor--this is the man who is wanted. Such a one,\n    if he can be found, would become the saviour of Africa.\"\n\nStanley called for \"a practical man who could turn his hand to\nanything--_if he can be found_.\"\n\nThe words burned their way into Mackay's very soul.\n\n\"If he can be found.\" Why here, here in this very room he sits--the\nboy who has worked in the village at the carpenter's bench and the\nsaddler's table, in the smithy and the mill, when his mother wished\nhim to be at his books; the lad who has watched the ships building in\nthe docks of Aberdeen, and has himself with hammer and file and lathe\nbuilt and made machines in the engineering works--he is here--the \"man\nwho can turn his hand to anything.\" And he had, we remember, already\nwritten in his diary:\n\n    \"Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a Christian--loving God and his\n    neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'\"\n\nMackay did not hesitate. Then and there he took pen and ink and\npaper and wrote to London to the Church Missionary Society which was\noffering, in the daily paper that lay before him, to send men out to\nKing M'tesa. The words that Mackay wrote were these:\n\n    \"My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you can\n    send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone and Stanley\n    have found to be groaning under the curse of the slave-hunter I\n    shall be very glad.\"\n\nWithin four months Mackay, with some other young missionaries who had\nvolunteered for the same great work, was standing on the deck of the\nS.S. _Peshawur_ as she steamed out from Southampton for Zanzibar.\n\nHe was in the footsteps of Livingstone--\"a Scotsman and a\nChristian\"--making for the heart of Africa and \"ready to turn his hand\nto anything\" for the sake of Him who as\n\n  \"... the Carpenter of Nazareth\n  Made common things for God.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 49: \"What is the minister gazing at, with his son Alec, in\nthe dust of the road?\"]\n\n[Footnote 50: See Chapter XV.]\n\n[Footnote 51: December 12, 1875.]\n\n[Footnote 52: May 1, 1873.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nTHE ROADMAKER\n\n_Alexander Mackay_\n\n(Date, 1878)\n\n\nAfter many months of delay at Zanzibar, Mackay with his companions\nand bearers started on his tramp of hundreds of miles along narrow\nfootpaths, often through swamps, delayed by fierce greedy chiefs who\ndemanded many cloths before they would let the travellers pass. One\nof the little band of missionaries had already died of fever. When\nhundreds of miles from the coast, Mackay was stricken with fever\nand nearly died. His companions sent him back to the coast again to\nrecover, and they themselves went on and put together the _Daisy_, the\nboat which the bearers had carried in sections on their heads, on the\nshore of Victoria Nyanza. So Mackay, racked with fever, was carried\nback by his Africans over the weary miles through swamp and forest to\nthe coast. At last he was well again, and with infinite labour he cut\na great wagon road for 230 miles to Mpapwa. With pick and shovel, axe\nand saw, they cleared the road of trees for a hundred days.\n\nMackay wrote home as he sat at night tired by the side of his\nhalf-made road, \"This will certainly yet be a highway for the King\nHimself; and all that pass this way will come to know His Name.\"\n\nAt length, after triumphing by sheer skill and will over a thousand\ndifficulties, Mackay reached the southern shore of Victoria Nyanza at\nKagei, to find that his surviving companions had gone on to Uganda in\nan Arab sailing-dhow, leaving on the shore the _Daisy_, which had been\ntoo small to carry them.\n\nOn the beach by the side of that great inland sea, Victoria Nyanza, in\nthe heart of Africa, Mackay found the now broken and leaking _Daisy_.\nHer cedar planks were twisted and had warped in the blazing sun till\nevery seam gaped. A hippopotamus had crunched her bow between his\nterrible jaws. Many of her timbers had crumbled before the still\ngreater foe of the African boat-builder--the white ant.\n\nNow, under her shadow lay the man \"who could turn his hand to\nanything,\" on his back with hammer and chisel in hand. He was\nrivetting a plate of copper on the hull of the _Daisy_. Already he had\nnailed sheets of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton\nwool picked from the bushes by the lake into the seams to caulk some\nof the leaks. Around the boat stood crowds of Africans, their dark\nfaces full of astonishment at the white man mending his big canoe.\n\n\"Why should a man toil so terribly hard?\" they wondered.\n\nThe tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed out from a\ntree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn together with fibres from the\nbanana tree.\n\nAt last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the Victoria Nyanza.\nThe whole of the length of that great sea, itself larger than his own\nnative Scotland, still separated Mackay from the land of Uganda for\nwhich he had left Britain over fifteen months earlier.\n\nAll through his disappointments and difficulties Mackay fought on.\nWith him, as with Livingstone, nothing had power to break his spirit\nor quench his burning determination to carry on his God-given plan to\nserve Africa.\n\nEvery use of saw and hammer and chisel, every\n\n  \"trick of the tool's true trade,\"\n\nall the training in the shipbuilding yards and engineering shops at\nEdinburgh and in Germany helped Mackay to invent some new, daring and\ningenious way out of every fresh difficulty.\n\n\n_The Wreck of the \"Daisy\"_\n\nNow at last the _Daisy_ was on the water again; and Mackay and his\nbearers went aboard[53] and hoisting sail from Kagei ran northward.\nBefore they had gone far black storm clouds swept across the sky.\nNight fell. Lightning blazed unceasingly and flung up into silhouette\nthe wild outlines of the mountains to the east. The roar of the\nthunder echoed above the wail of the wind and the threshing of the\nwaves.\n\nAll through the dark, Mackay and those of his men who could handle an\noar rowed unceasingly. Again and again he threw out his twenty-fathom\nline, but in vain. He made out a dim line of precipitous cliffs, yet\nthe water seemed fathomless--the only map in existence was a rough\none that Stanley had made. At last the lead touched bottom at fourteen\nfathoms. In the dim light of dawn they rowed and sailed toward a shady\nbeach before the cliffs, and anchored in three and a half fathoms of\nwater.\n\nThe storm passed; but the waves from the open sea came roaring in and\nbroke over the _Daisy_. The bowsprit dipped under the anchor chain,\nand the whole bulwark on the weatherside was carried away. The next\nsea swept into the open and now sinking boat. By frantic efforts they\nheaved up the anchor and the next wave swung the _Daisy_ with a crash\nonto the beach, where the waves pounded her to a complete wreck,\nwrenching the planks from the keel. But Mackay and his men managed to\nrescue her cargo before she went to pieces.\n\nThey were wrecked on a shore where Stanley, the great explorer, had\nyears before had a hairbreadth escape from massacre at the hands\nof the wild savages. But Stanley, living up to the practice he had\nlearned from Livingstone, had turned enemies into friends, and now the\nnatives made no attack on the shipwrecked Mackay.\n\nFor eight weeks Mackay laboured there, hard on the edge of the lake,\nliving on the beach in a tent made of spars and sails. With hammer and\nchisel and saw he worked unsparingly at his task. He cut the middle\neight feet from the boat, and bringing her stern and stem together\npatched the broken ends with wood from the middle part. After two\nmonths' work the now dumpier _Daisy_ took the water again, and carried\nMackay and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria Nyanza to the\ngoal of all his travelling, the capital of M'tesa, King of Uganda.\n\nThe rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall\nof King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa,\nhis dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white\nrobe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets\nsent to him from England blared as Mackay entered. The chiefs squatted\non low stools and on the rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his\nside stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man than the\nKing, but swifter and more far-sighted. The Katikiro was dressed in a\nsnowy-white Arab gown covered by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In\nhis hard, guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty were\nblended.\n\nM'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land on which to build\nhis home. More important to Mackay than even his hut was his workshop,\nwhere he quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and\ngrindstone, for he was now in the place where he could practise his\nskill. It was for this that he had left home and friends, and pressed\non in spite of fever and shipwreck to serve Africa and lead her to the\nworship of Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did when\non earth.\n\nOne day the wide thatched roof of that workshop shaded from the\nflaming rays of the sun a crowded circle of the chiefs of Uganda with\ntheir slaves, who loved to come to \"hear the bellows roar.\" They were\ngazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was swinging his hammer\n\n  \"Clang-a-clang-clang.\"\n\nThen a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers and the\nbronzed face of the white man who in the centre of his workshop was\nblowing up his forge fire. Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that\nwas now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all\nhissing into the bath of water that stood by him.\n\nHardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once\nmore gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on\nthe pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone.\nThe sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood\naround.\n\n\"It is witchcraft,\" they said to one another. \"It is witchcraft by\nwhich Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water.\nIt is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes\nsharp. Surely he is the great wizard.\"\n\nMackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given\nhim--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this\nname because to them it was very strange that any man should work with\nhis own hands.\n\n\"Women are for work,\" said the chiefs. \"Men go to talk with the King,\nand to fight and eat.\"\n\nMackay paused in his work and turned on them.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"you are wrong. God made man with one stomach and with\ntwo hands in order that he may work twice as much as he eats.\" And\nMackay held out before them his own hands blackened with the work of\nthe smithy, rough with the handling of hammer and saw, the file and\nlathe. \"But you,\" and he turned on them with a laugh and pointed to\ntheir sleek bodies as they shone in the glow of the forge fire, \"you\nare all stomach and no hands.\"\n\nThey grinned sheepishly at one another under this attack, and, as\nMackay let down the fire and put away his tools, they strolled off to\nthe hill on which the King's beehive-shaped thatched palace was built.\n\nMackay climbed up the hill on the side of which his workshop stood.\nFrom the ridge he gazed over the low-lying marsh from which the women\nwere bearing on their heads the water-pots. He knew that the men\nand women of the land were suffering from fearful illnesses. He now\nrealised that the fevers came from the poisonous waters of the marsh.\nHe made up his mind how he could help them with his skill. They must\nhave pure water; yet they knew nothing of wells.\n\nMackay at once searched the hill-side with his spade and found a bed\nof clay emerging from the side of the hill. He climbed sixteen feet\nhigher up the hill and, bringing the men who could help him together,\nbegan digging. He knew that he would reach spring water at the level\nof the clay, for the rains that had filtered through the earth would\nstop there.\n\nThe Baganda[54] thought that he was mad. \"Whoever,\" they asked one\nanother, \"heard of digging in the top of a hill for water?\"\n\n\"When the hole is so deep,\" said Mackay, measuring out sixteen feet,\n\"water will come, pure and clean, and you will not need to carry it up\nthe hill from the marsh.\"\n\nThey dug and dug till the hole was too deep to hurl the earth up over\nthe edge. Then Mackay made a pulley, which seemed a magic thing to\nthem, for they could not yet understand the working of wheels; and\nwith rope and bucket the earth was pulled up. Exactly at the depth of\nsixteen feet the water welled in. The Baganda clapped their hands and\ndanced with delight.\n\n\"Mackay is the great wizard. He is the mighty spirit,\" they cried.\n\"The King must come to see this.\"\n\nKing M'tesa himself wondered at the story of the making of the well\nand the finding of the water. He gave orders that he was to be carried\nto view this great wonder. His eyes rolled with astonishment as he saw\nit and heard of the wonders that were wrought by the work of men.\n\nYet M'tesa and his men still wondered why any man should work\nhard. Mackay tried to explain this to the King when he sat in his\nreception-hall. Work, Mackay told M'tesa, is the noblest thing a\nman can do, and he told him how Jesus Christ, the Son of the Great\nFather-Spirit who made all things, did not Himself feel that work\nwas a thing too mean for Him. For our Lord, when He lived on earth at\nNazareth, worked with His own hands at the carpenter's bench, and made\nall labour forever noble.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 53: August 23, 1878.]\n\n[Footnote 54: The people of Uganda.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nFIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE\n\n_Alexander Mackay_\n\n(Date, 1878)\n\n\nIn the court of King M'tesa, Mackay always saw many boys who used to\ndrive away the flies from the King's face with fans, carry stools\nfor the chiefs and visitors to squat upon, run messages and make\nthemselves generally useful. Most of these boys were the sons of\nchiefs. When they were not occupied with some errand, they would\nlounge about playing games with one another in the open space just by\nthe King's hut.\n\nOften when Mackay came to speak with the King, he had to wait in this\nplace before he could have audience of M'tesa. He would bring with\nhim large sheets of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the\nalphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually done with the\nlittle hand-press that Mackay had used in his attic when he was a boy\nin his old home in Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to\nUganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences in a language\nwhich had never been printed before.\n\nThe Baganda boys who had gathered round the White-Man-of-Work with\nwondering eyes, as he with his \"magic\" printed the sheets of paper,\nnow crowded about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with\nthe curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the noise that we call\nA and then B, and pointed to these curious-shaped objects which we\ncall the letters of the alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise\nand point to the letter that represented that sound. At last the\nkeenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet right through and\nbegin to read whole words from another sheet--Baganda words--so that\nat length they could read whole sentences.\n\nTwo of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. One named Mukasa\nbecame a Christian and was baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel);\nanother called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A third boy had\nbeen captured from a tribe in the north, and his skin was of a much\nlighter brown than that of the Baganda boys. This light-skinned\ncaptured slave was named Lugalama.\n\nEach of these boys felt that it was a very proud day when at last he\ncould actually read a whole sheet of printing from beginning to end\nin his own language--from \"Our Father\" down to \"the Kingdom, the power\nand the glory, Amen.\"\n\nOne morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as they heard the\nfamiliar rattle of the drums that heralded the coming of King M'tesa.\nThey bowed as he entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while\nhis chiefs ranged themselves about him.\n\nOn a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. His\nbronzed face was set in grim determination, for he knew that on that\nmorning he had a difficult battle to fight.\n\nAnother loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to\nthe hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes,\nfollowed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and\nguns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured\nturban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader from the coast, who\nhad come from the East to M'tesa in Uganda to buy men and women and\nchildren to carry them away into slavery.\n\nKing M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but a slave-raider.\nHe sent his fierce gangs of warriors out to raid a tribe away in the\nhills to the north. They would dash into a village, slay the men,\nand drag the boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. The\nbronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave who had been captured\non one of these bloodthirsty raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out\nhis executioners to slay his own people by the hundred to please the\ndreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell his people by\nthe hundred to get guns for his soldiers.\n\nThe Arab slave-trader bowed to the earth before King M'tesa, who\nsignalled to him to speak.\n\n\"I have come,\" said the Arab, pointing to the guns on the floor,\n\"to bring you these things in exchange for some men and women and\nchildren. See, I offer you guns and percussion caps and cloth.\" And he\nspread out lengths of the red cloth, and held out one of the guns with\nits gleaming barrel.\n\nKing M'tesa's eyes lighted up with desire as he saw the muskets and\nthe ammunition. These, he thought, are the things that will make me\npowerful against my enemies.\n\n\"I will give you,\" the Arab slave-trader went on, \"one of these\nlengths of red cloth in exchange for one man to be sold to me as\na slave; one of these guns for two men; and one hundred of these\npercussion caps for a woman as a slave.\"\n\nMackay looked into the cruel face of M'tesa, and he could see how the\nambitious King longed for the guns. Should he risk the favour of the\nKing by fighting the battle of a few slaves? Yet Mackay remembered as\nhe sat there, how Livingstone's great fight against the slave-traders\nhad made him, as a student, vow that he too would go out and fight\nslavery in Africa. The memory nerved him for the fight he was now to\nmake.\n\nMackay turned to M'tesa and said words like these:[55]\n\n\"O King M'tesa, you are set as father over all your multitude of\npeople. They are your children. It is they who make you a great King.\n\n\"Remember, O King, that the Sultan of Zanzibar himself has signed a\ndecree that no slaves shall be taken in all these lands and sold to\nother lands down beyond the coast, whither this Arab would lead your\nchildren. Therefore if you sell slaves you break his law.\n\n\"Will you, then, sell your own people that they may be taken out of\ntheir homeland into a strange country? They will be chained to one\nanother, beaten with whips, scourged and kicked, and many will be left\nat the wayside to die; till the peoples of the coast shall laugh at\nUganda and say, 'That is how King M'tesa lets strangers treat his\nchildren!'\"\n\nWe can imagine how the Arab turned and scowled fiercely at Mackay.\nHis heart raged, and he would have given anything to plunge the dagger\nhidden in his robe into Mackay's heart. Who was this white man who\ndared to try to stop his trade? But Mackay went on.\n\n\"See,\" he said, pointing to the boys and the chiefs, \"your children\nare wonderfully made. Their bones, which are linked together, are\nclothed with flesh; and from the heart in their breasts the blood that\ngives men life flows to and fro through their bodies, while the breath\ngoes in and out of their lungs and makes them live. God the Father and\nMaker of all men alone can create such wonders. No men who ever lived\ncould, if they worked all through their lives, make one thing so\nmarvellous as one of these boys. Will you, then, sell one of these\nmiracles, one of your children, for a bit of red rag which any man can\nmake in a day?\"\n\nAll eyes turned to King M'tesa to learn what he would say.\n\nThe King with a wave of his hand dismissed the scowling Arab, while he\ntook counsel with his chiefs, and came to this decision:\n\n\"My people shall no more be made slaves.\"\n\nA decree was written out and King M'tesa put his hand to it. The\ncrestfallen Arab and his men gathered up their guns and cloths,\nmarched down the hill to buy ivory instead of slaves for their bales\nof red cloth, and went out of the dominions of King M'tesa, across the\nGreat Lake homeward.\n\nMackay had won the first battle against slavery. His heart was very\nglad. Yet he knew that, although he had scored a triumph in this fight\nwith the slave-dealer, he had not won in his great campaign. The King\nwas generally kind to Mackay, for he was proud to have so clever a\nwhite man in his country. But he could not make up his mind to become\na Christian. M'tesa's heart had not really changed. His slave-raiding\nof other tribes might still go on. The horrible butcherings of his\npeople to turn away the dreaded anger of the gods would continue.\nMackay felt he must press on with his work. He was slowly opening a\nroad through the jungle of cruelty and the marshes of dread of the\ngods that made the life of the Baganda people dark and dreadful.\n\nAll Uganda waited breathless one day as though the end of the world\nhad come.\n\n\"King M'tesa is dead!\" the cry went out through all the land.\n\nThe people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness till the new\nking was selected by the chiefs from the sons of the dead ruler.\n\nAt last a great cheer went up from the Palace. \"M'wanga has eaten\nUganda!\" they shouted.\n\nBy this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son of M'tesa--only\neighteen years old--had been made King. He was, however, a boy with no\npower--the mere feeble tool of the Katikiro (the Prime Minister) and\nof Mujasi, the Captain of the King's own bodyguard of soldiers. Both\nof these great men of the kingdom fiercely hated Mackay, for they were\njealous of his power over the old King. So they whispered into the\nyoung M'wanga's ears stories like this: \"You know that men say that\nUganda will be eaten up by an enemy from the lands of the rising sun.\nMackay and the other white men are making ready to bring thousands of\nwhite soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill you.\"\n\nSo M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. Then, because the King\nwas afraid to attack him, he began to lay plots against the boys.\n\nOne morning Mackay started out from his house with five or six boys\nand the crew of his boat to march down to the lake. Among the boys\nwere young Lugalama--the fair-haired slave-boy, now a freed-slave and\na servant to Mackay--and Kakumba, who had (you remember) been baptised\nJoseph. The King and the Katikiro had given Mackay permission to go\ndown to the lake and sail across it to take letters to a place called\nMsalala from which the carriers would bear them down to the coast.\n\nDown the hill the party walked, the crew carrying the baggage and the\noars on their heads. Mackay and his colleague Ashe, who had come out\nfrom England to work with him, walked behind.\n\nTo their surprise there came running down the path behind them and\npast them a company of soldiers.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" asked Mackay of one of the soldiers.\n\n\"Mujasi, the Captain of the Bodyguard,\" he replied, \"has sent us to\ncapture some of the King's wives who have run away.\"\n\nAnother and yet another body of soldiers rushed past them. Mackay\nbecame more and more suspicious that some foul plot was being brewed.\nHe and his company had walked ten miles, and the lake was but two\nmiles away, divided from them by a wood. Suddenly there leapt out from\nbehind the trees of the wood hundreds of men headed by Mujasi himself.\n\nThey levelled their guns and spears at Mackay and his friends and\nyelled, \"Go back! Go back!\"\n\n\"We are the King's friends,\" replied Mackay, \"and we have his leave to\ntravel. How dare you insult us?\"\n\nAnd they pushed forward. But the soldiers rushed at them; snatched\ntheir walking-sticks from them and began to jostle them. Mackay and\nAshe sat down by the side of the path. Mujasi came up to them.\n\n\"Where are you walking?\" he asked.\n\n\"We are travelling to the port with the permission of King M'wanga and\nthe Katikiro.\"\n\n\"You are a liar!\" replied Mujasi.\n\nMujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the missionaries, dragged\nthem to their feet and held the muzzles of their guns within a few\ninches of their chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched back\nto the capital.\n\nHe and Ashe were allowed to go back to their own home on the side of\nthe hill, but the five boys were marched to the King's headquarters\nand imprisoned. The Katikiro, when Mackay went to him, refused to\nlisten at first. Then he declared that Mackay was always taking boys\nout of the country, and returning with armies of white men and hiding\nthem with the intention of conquering Uganda.\n\nThe Katikiro waved them aside and the angry waiting mob rushed on the\nmissionaries yelling, \"Mine shall be his coat!\" \"Mine his trousers!\"\n\"No, mine!\" shouted another, as the men scuffled with one another.\n\nMackay and Ashe at last got back to their home and knelt in prayer.\nLater on the same evening, they decided to attempt to win back\nthe King and the Prime Minister and Mujasi by gifts, so that their\nimprisoned boys would be freed from danger.\n\nMackay spoke to his other boys, telling them to go and fly for their\nlives or they would be killed.\n\nIn the morning Mackay heard that three of the boys who had been\ncaptured on the previous day were not only bound as prisoners, but\nthat Mujasi was threatening to burn them to death. The boys were named\nSeruwanga, Kakumba, and Lugalama. The eldest was fifteen, the youngest\ntwelve.\n\nThe boys were led out with a mob of howling men and boys around them.\nMujasi shouted to them: \"Oh, you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ). You\nbelieve you will rise from the dead. I shall burn you, and you will\nsee if this is so.\"\n\nA hideous roar of laughter rose from the mob. The boys were led down\nthe hill towards the edge of a marsh. Behind them was a plantation of\nbanana trees. Some men who had carried bundles of firewood on their\nheads threw the wood into a heap; others laid hold of each of the boys\nand cut off their arms with hideous curved knives so that they should\nnot struggle in the fire.\n\nSeruwanga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he was cut to\npieces, but Kakumba shouted to Mujasi, who was a Mohammedan, \"You\nbelieve in Allah the Merciful. Be merciful!\" But Mujasi had no mercy.\n\nWe are told that the men who were watching held their breath with\nawed amazement as they heard a boy's voice out of the flame and smoke\nsinging,\n\n  \"Daily, daily sing to Jesus,\n  Sing, my soul, His praises due.\"\n\nAs the executioners came towards the youngest and feeblest, Lugalama,\nhe cried, \"Oh, do not cut off my arms. I will not struggle, I will not\nfight--only throw me into the fire.\"\n\nBut they did their ghastly work, and threw the mutilated boy on a\nwooden framework above the slow fire where his cries went up, till at\nlast there was silence.\n\nOne other Christian stood by named Musali. Mujasi, with eyes bloodshot\nand inflamed with cruelty, came towards him and cried:\n\n\"Ah, you are here. I will burn you too and your household. You are a\nfollower of Isa (Jesus).\"\n\n\"Yes, I am,\" replied Musali, \"and I am not ashamed of it.\"\n\nIt was a marvel of courage to say in the face of the executioner's\nfire and knife what Peter dared not say when the servant-maid in\nJerusalem laughed at him. Perhaps the heroism of Musali awed even the\ncruel-hearted Mujasi. In any case he left Musali alone.\n\nFor a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the Christians. But the\nwily Arabs whispered in his ear that the white men were still trying\nto \"eat up\" his country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and\nfear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi said to him: \"There\nis a great white man coming from the rising sun. Behind him will come\nthousands of white soldiers.\"\n\n\"Send at once and kill him,\" cried the demented M'wanga.\n\nA boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not\ncontain himself, but broke out, \"Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going\nto kill a white man? Your father did not do so.\"\n\nBut the soldiers went out, travelled east along the paths till they\nmet the great Bishop Hannington being carried in a litter, stricken\nwith fever. They took him prisoner, and, after some days, slew him as\nhe stood defenceless before them. Hannington had been sent out to help\nMackay and his fellow-Christians.\n\nThen the King fell ill. He believed that the boy Balikudembe, who had\nwarned him not to kill the Bishop, had bewitched him. So M'wanga's\nsoldiers went and caught the lad and led him down to a place where\nthey lit a fire, and placing the boy over it, burned him slowly to\ndeath.\n\nAll through this time Mackay alone had not been really seriously\nthreatened, for his work and what he was made the King and the\nKatikiro and even Mujasi afraid to do him to death.\n\nThen there came a tremendous thunderstorm. A flash of lightning smote\nthe King's house and it flamed up and burned to ashes. Then King\nM'wanga seemed to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself.\n\n\"Take, seize, burn the Christians,\" he cried. And his executioners\nand their minions rushed out, captured forty-six men and boys, slashed\ntheir arms from their bodies with their cruel curved knives so that\nthey could not struggle, and then placed them over the ghastly flames\nwhich slowly wrung the lives from their tortured bodies. Yet the\nnumbers of the Christians seemed to grow with persecution.\n\nThe King himself beat one boy, Apolo Kagwa, with a stick and smote him\non the head, then knocked him down, kicked and stamped upon him. Then\nthe King burned all his books, crying, \"Never read again.\"\n\nThe other men and boys who had become Christians were now scattered\nover the land in fear of their lives. Mackay, however, come what may,\ndetermined to hold on. He set his little printing press to work and\nprinted off a letter which he sent to the scattered Christians. In\nMackay's letter was written these words, \"In days of old Christians\nwere hated, were hunted, were driven out and were persecuted for\nJesus' sake, and thus it is to-day. Our beloved brothers, do not deny\nour Lord Jesus!\"\n\nAt last M'wanga's mad cruelties grew so frightful that all his people\nrose in rebellion and drove him from the throne, so that he had to\nwander an outcast by the lake-side. Mackay at that time was working\nby the lake, and he offered to shelter the deposed King who had only a\nshort time before threatened his life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwo years passed; and Mackay, on the lake-side, was building a new\nboat in which he hoped to sail to other villages to teach the people.\nThen a fever struck him. He lay lingering for some days. Then he\ndied--aged only forty-one.\n\nIf Mackay, instead of becoming a missionary, had entered the\nengineering profession he might have become a great engineer. When he\nwas a missionary in Africa, the British East Africa Company offered\nhim a good position. He refused it. General Gordon offered him a high\nposition in his army in Egypt. He refused it.\n\nHe held on when his friends and the Church Missionary Society called\nhim home. This is what he said to them, \"What is this you write--'Come\nhome'? Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the\ntime for anyone to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men,\nand I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty.\"\n\nHe died when quite young; homeless, after a life in constant danger\nfrom fever and from a half-mad tyrant king--his Christian disciples\nhaving been burned.\n\nWas it worth while?\n\nTo-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo Kagwa, who as a boy\nwas kicked and beaten and stamped upon by King M'wanga for being\na Christian; and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, is a\nChristian. At the capital there stands a fine cathedral in which brown\nBaganda clergy lead the prayers of the Christian people. On the place\nwhere the boys were burned to death there stands a Cross, put there by\n70,000 Baganda Christians in memory of the young martyrs.\n\nWas their martyrdom worth while?\n\nTo-day all the slave raiding has ceased for ever; innocent people are\nnot slaughtered to appease the gods; the burning of boys alive has\nceased.\n\nMackay began the work. He made the first rough road and as he made it\nhe wrote: \"This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself;\nand all that pass this way will come to know His name.\"\n\n\"And a highway shall be there and a way; and it shall be a way of\nholiness.\"\n\nBut the Way is not finished. And the last words that Mackay wrote\nwere: \"Here is a sphere for your energies. Bring with you your highest\neducation and your greatest talents, and you will find scope for the\nexercise of them all.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 55: There is no record of the precise words, but Mackay\ngives the argument in a letter home.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nTHE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE\n\n_Shomolekae_\n\n\nIn the garden in Africa where, you remember, David Livingstone\nplighted troth with Mary Moffat, as they stood under an almond tree,\nthere lived years ago a chocolate-skinned, curly-haired boy. His name\nwas Shomolekae.[56]\n\nHis work was to go among the fruit trees, when the peaches and\napricots were growing and to shout and make a noise to scare away the\nbirds. If he had not done this they would have eaten up all the fruit.\nThis boy was born in Africa over seventy-five years ago, when Victoria\nwas a young queen.\n\nIn the same garden was a grown-up gardener, also an African, with a\ndark face and crisp, curly hair. The grown-up gardener one day stole\nsome of the fruit off the trees, and he went to the little boy,\nShomolekae, and offered him some apricots.\n\nNow, Shomolekae had learned to love the missionary, Mr. Mackenzie,\nwho had come to live in the house at Kuruman. He knew that it was very\nwrong of the gardener to steal the fruit and throw the blame on the\nbirds. So he said that he would not touch the fruit. He went to an old\nblack friend of his named Paul and said to him:\n\n\"The gardener has stolen the apples and plums and has asked me to eat\nthem. He has robbed Mr. Mackenzie. I do not know what to do.\"\n\nAnd old Paul went and told John Mackenzie, who took notice of the boy\nShomolekae and learned to trust him.\n\nMany months passed by; and two years later John Mackenzie was going\nto a place further north in Africa than Kuruman. The name of this town\nwas Shoshong, where Mackenzie would live and teach the people about\nJesus Christ. So he went to the father of Shomolekae, whose name was\nSebolai.\n\n\"Sebolai,\" said John Mackenzie, \"I want to take your son, Shomolekae,\nwith me to Shoshong.\"\n\nSebolai replied: \"I am willing that my son should come to live with\nyou, but one thing I desire. It is that he should be taught his\nreading and to know the stories in the Bible and such things.\"\n\nTo this John Mackenzie quickly agreed, for he too desired that the boy\nshould read.\n\nSo the sixteen oxen were yoked to the big wagon, and amid much\nshouting and cracking of whips and lowing of oxen and creaking of\nwagon-joints, John Mackenzie, Shomolekae, and the others, started from\nKuruman northward to Shoshong.\n\nNow, at Shoshong the chief was Sekhome, who, you remember, in our last\nstory, was father to Khama. So when they were at Shoshong, Shomolekae,\nthe young man who was cook, and Khama, the young man who was the son\nof the chief, worshipped in the same little church together. It was\nnot such a church as you go to in our country--but just a little place\nmade of mud bricks that had been dried in the sun. There were holes\ninstead of windows, and there was no door in the open doorway; and on\nthe top of the little building was a roof of rough, reedy grass.\n\nThese were the days that you heard of in the last story, when Khama,\nseeing his tribe attacked by the fierce Lobengula, rode out on\nhorseback at the head of his regiment of cavalry and fought them and\nbeat them, and drove away Lobengula with a bullet in his neck.\n\nFor two years Shomolekae, learning to read better every day, and\nserving John Mackenzie faithfully in his house, lived at Shoshong.\n\nSometimes Shomolekae took long journeys with wagon and oxen, and at\nthe end of two years he went with Mackenzie a great way in order to\nbuy windows, doors, hinges, nails, corrugated iron, and timber with\nwhich to build a better church at Shoshong.\n\nWhen Shomolekae came back again with the wagons loaded up there was\ngreat excitement in the tribe. Hammers and saws, screw-drivers and\nchisels were busy day after day, and the missionary and his helpers\nlaid the bricks one upon another until there rose up a strong church\nwith windows and a door--a place in which the people went to worship\nGod the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.\n\nAgain Shomolekae went away by wagon, and this time he travelled away\nby the edge of the desert southward until at last he reached the\ngarden at Kuruman where as a boy he used to frighten the birds from\nthe fruit trees. He was now a very clever man at driving wagons and\noxen.\n\nThis, as you know, is not so easy as driving a wagon with two horses\nis in Britain. For there were as many as sixteen and even eighteen\noxen harnessed two by two to the long iron chains in front of the\nwagon.\n\nThere were no roads, only rough tracks, and the wagon would drag\nthrough the deep sand, or bump over great boulders of rock, or sink\ninto wet places by the river. But at such times one of the natives\nalways led the two front oxen through the river with a long thong that\nwas fastened to their horns.\n\nSo, in order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to\nmanage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight\nline. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which\nwere the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which\nin another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging\nat one another with their horns.\n\nShomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, if lions came to\neat the oxen at night, he could go with the gun and either frighten\nthem away or actually shoot them.\n\nSo you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full of good courage.\n\nWhile he was living at Kuruman a man came to him one day and said:\n\n\"John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can\ndrive his wagon well for him.\"\n\nThe man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to\nShoshong, where John Mackenzie lived.\n\n\"Let me go with you,\" said Shomolekae.\n\nSo he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day\nnorthward on the same journey that Shomolekae had taken when he was a\nboy.\n\nSo Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong.\n\nAt last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at\nShoshong--left Khama and all his people--and travelled southward to\nbuild at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young\nblack men to be missionaries to their own people. And Shomolekae\nhimself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to work with his own\nhands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and\nwindows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little\nschool was built.\n\nAnd when it was actually built Shomolekae himself went to be a student\nthere, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher\nto his own people.\n\nFor three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, learning more\nand more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own\npeople to tell them about Him.\n\nAt last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and\ntravelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a\nriver, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called\nPitsani, which means \"The Town of the Little Hyena.\"\n\nIn that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls\ntogether and taught them the things that he knew.\n\nWhile Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a\nnew missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey.\n\nIt was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and\nsettle down by the shores of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David\nLivingstone had discovered long years before.\n\nShomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to\nhelp. So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with\nfood and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along,\nand drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of\ncountry in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they\ncame to the land near Lake Ngami.\n\nWhen they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle\ndown, clever Shomolekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls\ndo in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of\nbricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry.\n\nThe sunshine was very, very hot indeed--so hot that the bricks became\nhard and dry and strong. Day after day Shomolekae worked until he had\nmade a big heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for Mr.\nWookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks soon spoil if they get\nwet, so he had to build a verandah to keep the rain from the walls.\n\nWhen the house was built and Mr. Wookey was settled in it, they\ntravelled still further up the river to learn what people were living\nthere.\n\nAfter a while it was decided that Shomolekae should go and live in a\nsmall village by the river, and there again begin his work of telling\nthe men and women of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to\nread.\n\nIn his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico print of\ndifferent patterns, Shomolekae had a hymn-book with music. The\nhymn-book was written in the language of the people--the Sechuana\nlanguage--and Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The\nmusic was the sol-fa notation.\n\nThis is one of the hymns:\n\n  1. \"Yesu oa me oa nthata,\n      Leha ke le mo dibin;\n      A re yalo mo kwalon,\n      A re yalo mo pedun.\n\n        E, Yesu oa me,\n        E, Yesu oa me,\n        E, Yesu oa me,\n        Oa me, mo loraton.\n\n  2. \"Yesu oa me oa nthata,\n      O ntehetse molato;\n      O mpusitse timelon,\n      O ntlhapisa mo pedun.\n\n      \"E, Yesu oa me,\" etc.\n\nThis is what these words mean in English. I expect you know them very\nwell.\n\n  1. \"Jesus loves me, this I know,\n      For the Bible tells me so;\n      Little ones to Him belong,\n      They are weak, but He is strong.\n\n       \"Yes, Jesus loves me,\n        Yes, Jesus loves me,\n        Yes, Jesus loves me--\n        The Bible tells me so.\n\n  2. \"Jesus loves me, He who died\n      Heaven's gate to open wide;\n      He will wash away my sin,\n      Let His little child come in.\n\n       \"Yes, Jesus loves me,\" etc.\n\nBut, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to\nmake the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse\nreally means:\n\n   \"My Jesus loves me;\n    He has paid my debt;\n    He has brought me back from where I strayed;\n    He has washed my heart.\n\n      Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus.\n      Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love.\"\n\nThey would learn the words off by heart because there was only the\none hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Shomolekae's voice\nleading.\n\nThey learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out\nhoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes\nand fishing in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the\nhymns that they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut.\n\nThen on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over\nShomolekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and\ngirls together--all who would come--and he would teach them to kneel\ndown and pray to the one God, Who is our Father, and they would sing\nthe hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a\nsimple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus.\n\nBut Shomolekae desired always to go further and further, even though\nit was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it\nin the river by the village and paddled further and further up the\nstream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep\npools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived.\n\nHe paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger\nof his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep\nand with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and\nas shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way\nwith difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous\nmosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered\nhippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with\nhis wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous\nteeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to swallow him\nwhole.\n\nOn the banks at night the lions would roar, and then the hyenas would\nhowl; but Shomolekae's brave heart held on, and he pushed on up the\nriver to preach and teach the people in the villages near the river.\n\nSo through many years, with high courage and simple faith, Shomolekae\nworked.\n\nA good many boys and girls in England before they are ten years old\nown many more books than Shomolekae ever had and have read more than\nhe. They also have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one\nmud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all the possessions\nthat he had in the world could be put into the bottom of his canoe.\n\nBut our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, went with him every\nstep of the way. When Shomolekae taught the boys and girls to sing\nhymns in praise of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just\nas He is in the most beautiful church when we worship Him. Now God has\ntaken Shomolekae across the last river to be with Himself.\n\nShomolekae was a negro with dark skin and curly hair. We are white\nchildren with fair faces and light hair. But God is his Father as well\nas ours and loves us all alike and wishes to gather us together round\nHim--loving Him and one another.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 56: Pronounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nTHE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS\n\n_Mary Slessor_\n\n(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915)\n\n\nI. THE MILL-GIRL\n\n_The Calabar Girls at the Station_\n\nAs the train from the south slowed down in Waverley Station,\nEdinburgh, one day in 1898, a black face, with eyes wide open with\nwonder, appeared at the window. The carriage door opened and a little\nAfrican girl was handed down onto the platform.\n\nThe people on the station stopped to glance at the strange negro face.\nBut as a second African girl a little older than the first stepped\nfrom the carriage to the platform, and a third, and then a fourth\nblack girl appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in amused\ncuriosity.\n\nWho was that strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight,\nwith a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair,\nwho smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her\non the railway platform?\n\nThe telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her in astonishment.\nBut they would have been transfixed with amazement if they had known\na tenth of the wonder of the story of that heroic woman who, just\nas simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, had mastered\ncannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs brandishing loaded muskets,\nhad faced hunger and thirst under the flaming heat and burning fevers\nof Africa, and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted by\nferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of frenzied savages\ndrawn up for battle, had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins\nthrown out to be eaten by ants--and had now brought home to Scotland\nfrom West Africa four of these her rescued children.\n\nStill more would those Scottish boys at Waverley Station have\nwondered, as they gazed on the little woman and her group of black\nchildren, if they had known that the woman who had done these things,\nMary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had toiled at her\nweaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the\nwhirr of the belts, the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the\nlooms, and the roar of the great machines.\n\nBorn in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of\na Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman.\nAfter her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working\nin a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was\neleven) she educated herself while at her machine.\n\n_The Call to Africa_\n\nLike Livingstone, she taught herself with her book propped up on\nthe machine at which she worked. She read his travels and heard the\nstories of his fight against slavery for Africa, till he became her\nhero.\n\nOne day the news flashed round the world: \"Livingstone is dead. His\nheart is buried in Central Africa.\" Mary had thrilled as she read the\nstory of his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She heard in\nher heart the words that he had spoken:\n\n\"I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; do you carry out the\nwork which I have begun. I LEAVE IT WITH YOU.\"\n\nAs Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew in the church on\nSunday, and thought of Livingstone's call to Africa, she saw visions\nof far-off places of which she heard from the pulpit and read in her\nmagazines--visions of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa\nwhere the alligators slid from the mud banks into the water; visions\nof the barracoons on the shore in which the captured negroes were\npenned as they waited for the slave-ships; pictures of villages where\ntrembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their\nguilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead chief into the\nspirit-land; visions of the fierce chiefs who could order a score of\nmen to be beheaded for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more\nto be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery--the Calabar\nwhere the missionaries of her church were fighting the black darkness\nof the most savage people of the world.\n\nMary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give her whole life to\nAfrica. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a\nfield with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West\nAfrica.\n\nFor twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission in Calabar\nand then flung herself into pioneer work among the terrible tribe\nof Okoyong. No one had ever been able to influence them. They defied\nBritish administration. For fifteen years she strove there, and won\na power over the ferocious Okoyong savages such as no one has ever\nwielded. \"I'm a wee, wee wifie,\" she said, \"no very bookit, but I grip\non well none the less.\"\n\nTo-day over two thousand square miles of forest and rivers,\nthe dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest\naround their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the\nGreat-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell are like\nthese.\n\n\nII. THE HEALING OF THE CHIEF\n\n_Through the Forest in the Rain_\n\nA strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. For the chief\nlay ill in his hut. The Calabar people were waiting on the tip-toe of\nsuspense. For if the chief died many of them would be slain to go\nwith him into the spirit-world--his wives and some of his soldiers and\nslaves.\n\nSuddenly a strange African woman, who had come over from another\nvillage, entered the chief's harem. She spoke to the wives of the\nchief, saying, \"There lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white\nMa who can cast out by her magic the demons who are killing your\nchief. My son's child was dying, but the white Ma[57] saved her and\nshe is well to-day. Many other wonders has she done by the power of\nher juju. Let your chief send for her and he will not die.\"\n\nThere was silence and then eager chattering, for the women knew that\ntheir very lives depended on the chief getting well. If he died, they\nwould be killed.\n\nThey sent in word to the chief about the strange white Ma.\n\n\"Let her be sent for,\" he ordered. \"Send a bottle and four rods (value\nabout a shilling) and messengers to ask her to come.\"\n\nAll through the day the messengers hurried over stream and hill,\nthrough village after village and along the forest paths till at last,\nafter eight hours' journey, they came to the village of Ekenge. Going\nto the courtyard of the chief they told him the story of their sick\nchief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in his village\nshould come and heal him.\n\n\"She will say for herself what she will do,\" said the chief.\n\nSo he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon came over from her\nlittle house to learn what was needed of her.\n\nThe story of the sick chief was again told.\n\n\"What is the matter with your chief?\" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces\nand nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all.\n\n\"I must go to him,\" she declared. She knew that the way was full of\nperils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but\nshe knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds\nof lives might be sacrificed.\n\nChief Edem said, \"There are warriors out in the woods and you will be\nkilled. You must not go.\"\n\nMa Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary\nSlessor, said, \"No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains\nare come. You could never get there.\"\n\nBut Mary Slessor said, \"I _must_ go.\"\n\n\"Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect\nyou,\" said Chief Edem.\n\nMary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long\ndangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering\nwhether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the\noff-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked\nGod to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go.\n\nIn the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door.\n\n\"The men will join us outside the village,\" they said.\n\nThe skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the\nvillage lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down\nas only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge.\nSoon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She\ntook them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went,\nand she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet.\n\nThey had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear,\nMary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages.\nThe hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned\nand stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their\nmidst and disappeared into the bush beyond.\n\nSo she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever,\nher dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till\nat last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight\nhours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief.\n\n\n_The Healing Hand._\n\nMary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming\nweariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked\nstraight to the chief who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor.\nHaving examined him she took from her little medicine chest a drug and\ngave a dose to the chief. But she could see at once that more of this\nmedicine was needed than she had with her. She knew that, away on the\nother side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary was\nworking.\n\n\"You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" they said, \"we dare not go. They will slay any man who goes\nthere.\"\n\nShe was in despair. Then someone said, \"There is a man of that country\nliving in his canoe on the river. Perhaps he would go?\"\n\nThey ran down to the river and found him. After much persuading he at\nlast went, and returned next day with the medicine.\n\nThe chief, whom the women had believed to be almost dead, gradually\nrecovered consciousness, then sat up and took food. At last he was\nquite well. All the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be\nno slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in grateful wonder at\nher magic powers. She told them that she had come to them because\nshe worshipped the Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the\nFather--God who made all things. Then she gathered them together in\nthe morning and evening, and led them as with bowed heads they all\nthanked God for the healing of the chief.\n\n\nIII. VALIANT IN FIGHT\n\nYears passed by and Mary Slessor's name was known in all the villages\nfor many miles. She was, to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise\nand kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was always rescuing\nthe twin babies whom the Calabar people throw out to die and the\nmothers of twins whom they often kill. But in some strange way they\nfelt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her courage, which\nwas more heroic than that of their bravest warriors, came from the\nSpirit who made all things. She would wrench guns from the hands of\ndrunken savage men who were three times as strong as she was. At last\nshe used to sit with their chief as judge of quarrels, and many times\nin palavers between villages she stopped the people from going to war.\n\n\n_Through the Forest Perilous_\n\nOne day a secret message came to her that, in some villages far away,\na man of one village had wounded the chief in another village and that\nall the warriors were arming and holding councils of war.\n\n\"I must go and stop it,\" said Mary Slessor.\n\n\"You cannot,\" said her friends at Ekenge, \"the steamer is coming to\ntake you home to Britain because you are so ill. You will miss the\nboat. You are too ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill\nyou. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in the dark--not\nknowing who you are.\"\n\n\"But I must go,\" she answered.\n\nThe chief insisted that she must have two armed men with lanterns with\nher, and that she must get the chief of a neighbouring village to send\nout his drummer with her so that people might know--as they heard the\ndrum--that a protected person was travelling who must not be harmed.\n\nIt was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions marched out\ninto the darkness, the lanterns throwing up strange shadows that\nlooked like fierce men in the darkness. Through the night they walked\ntill at midnight they reached the village where they were to ask for\nthe drum.\n\nThe chief was surly.\n\n\"You are going to a warlike people,\" he said. \"They will not listen to\nwhat a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you.\"\n\nMary Slessor was on her mettle.\n\n\"When you think of the woman's power,\" she said to the chief, \"you\nforget the power of the woman's God. I shall go on.\"\n\nAnd to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into\nthe darkness. Surely she must be mad. She defied their chief who had\nthe power to kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious\nleopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were\ndrinking themselves into a fury of war. And for what? To try with a\nwoman's tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant\nwarlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was mad.\n\n\n_Facing the Warriors_\n\nShe pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw the dim outlines\nof huts. Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area. She\nfound the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma.\n\n\"Who is there?\" came a whisper from within.\n\nBut even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet. Out of\nthe darkness leapt a score of armed warriors. They were all round her.\nFrom all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with\ntheir chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening.\n\n\"What have you come for?\" they asked.\n\n\"I have heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to\nfight,\" she replied.\n\nThe chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said--\n\n\"The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that we have to say\nbefore we fight. All the same we shall fight. For here you see are men\nwounded. We _must_ wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she\nmust rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at\ncock-crow when we start.\"\n\nThis meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down in a hut. It seemed\nas though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again. She\nstood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry--\n\n\"Run, Ma, run!\"\n\nThe warriors were off down the hill away to the fight. She ran, but\nthey were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack. Was all her\ntrouble in vain? She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined.\nShe heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The warriors she\nhad followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards\ndistant from the enemy's village.\n\nShe went up to them and spoke sternly.\n\n\"Behave like men,\" she said, \"not like fools. Do not yell and shout.\nHold your peace. I am going into the village there.\"\n\nShe pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. Ahead of her stood\nthe enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid\nwall. She hailed them as she walked forward.\n\nThere was an ominous silence. She laughed.\n\n\"How perfect your manners are!\" she exclaimed. She was about to walk\nforward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped\nout toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet.\n\n\"Ma,\" he said, \"we thank you for coming to us. We own that we wounded\nthe chief over there. It was only one of our men who did it. It was\nnot the act of all our town. We ask you that you will speak with our\nenemy to bring them to peace with us.\"\n\n_The Healed Chief_\n\nShe looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw to her joy that\nthis was the very chief whom she had toiled through the rain to heal\nlong ago. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet\nasking her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the warriors,\nwho a hundred yards away were spoiling for a fight? That was her first\njoyful thought. Then she saw that she must first make her authority\nstronger over the whole band of warriors.\n\n\"Stay where you are,\" she said. \"Some of you find a place where I can\nsit in comfort; and bring me food. I will not starve while men fight.\nChoose two or three men to speak well for you, and we will have two\nmen from your enemies.\"\n\nThese grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a few moments ago,\nobeyed her every word. At length two chiefs came from the other side\nand stood on one side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the\nvillage came and threw down their arms and knelt at their feet.\n\n\"Your chief,\" they said, \"was wounded by a drunken youth. Do not let\nus shed blood through all our villages because of what he did. If\nyou will cease from war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the\nwhite Ma shall say.\"\n\nShe, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word went back to the\nwarriors on both sides, who became wildly excited. Some agreed, others\nstormed and raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even\nover her body? Furious warriors came moving up from both sides. But\nby arguing and appealing at last she persuaded the warlike tribe to\naccept a fine.\n\n\n_The Promise of Peace_\n\nThe town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid\na part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks\nand bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of\ngin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement\nand made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight\nafter all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could\nnot make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind.\nAccording to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over\nanything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her\nskirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the\ngin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out\none portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed\ncontained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them.\n\n\"I am going,\" she said, \"across the Great Waters to my home, and I\nshall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you\nwill not go to war with one another while I am away.\"\n\n\"We promise,\" they said. They gathered around her and she told them\nthe story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them.\n\n\"Now,\" she said, \"go to your rest and fight no more.\" And the tribes\nkept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say,\n\"It is peace.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of\ntimes with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out\nto die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace,\nhealed the sick.\n\nAt last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and\nalong the valleys by some of her \"twins\" now grown to strong children,\nand died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the\nhearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith,\nby which out of weakness she was made strong.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 57: The African uses the word \"Ma\" as mother, (_a_) to\nname a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called\nMa-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.]\n\n\n\n\nBook Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nSONS OF THE DESERT\n\n_Abdallah and Sabat_\n\n(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810)\n\n\n_Two Arab Wanderers_\n\nOne day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and\nSabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the\ntawny hills standing upon the skyline.\n\nThe sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in\nthe direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of\nthe camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look\nof excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset,\ntheir feet would walk the city of their dreams.\n\nThey were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City\ntoward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day\nas he cries, \"There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet\nof Allah.\" To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and\nto have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise\ncertain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs,\nSabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud title of \"Haji\"\nwhich would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the\nHoly of Holies.\n\nSo they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw\nbefore them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness\nrushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels\nknelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah\nalighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep.\n\nThese young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs,\nhad struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum,\nthey were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can\ntake.\n\nAs the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca,\nthe cry came from the minaret: \"Come to prayer. Prayer is better than\nsleep. There is no God but Allah.\"\n\nSabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the\nMohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had\ncome from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople\nand Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber\nPass, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar.\n\nWe do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most\nyoung Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed,\nwith hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black.\n\nHis friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great\ncrowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would\nturn round, for one reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was\njust talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got\nexcited and in a passion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder\nand was louder than most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white\nteeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched\neyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke.\nHis black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings\nswung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He\nwore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing\ntrousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a\ngirdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed\nwith jewels.\n\nAbdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they\ncould both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place\nand read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at\nMecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward,\neven to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first\nnorthward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward.\nIn spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over\nstreams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across\nthe Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by\nrung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia.\n\nAt last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came\nto the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman\nShah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's\ncapacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court.\nSo Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the\nface of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely\ncity of Bokhara.\n\n\n_Abdallah the Daring_\n\nIn Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he\nowned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The\nArmenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so\nAbdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought\nthat he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things,\nand he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four\nshort true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels\naccording to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in\nthe stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who\nwas so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women\nand people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life\nthat God willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil\nmen--our Lord Jesus Christ.\n\n\"I worship Him,\" said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring\nthing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of\nMohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his\nchange of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out\nin the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a\nChristian.\n\nThe Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel\nwestward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew\neven faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of\nBokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat\ndesired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed\nsaid that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery,\nhot-tempered Moslem.\n\n\"I had no pity,\" Sabat told his friends afterward. \"I delivered him up\nto Morad Shah, the King.\"\n\nSo Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend\nSabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone\nStephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier.\n\n\"You shall be given your life and be set free,\" they said, \"if you\nwill spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, 'There is no God\nbut Allah.'\"\n\n\"I refuse,\" said Abdallah.\n\nA sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's arm was\nstretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah's hand,\ncut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his\narm.\n\n\"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim\nAllah and Mohammed as His prophet.\"\n\nThis is how Sabat himself described what happened next. \"Abdallah made\nno answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the\nfirst martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me,\" said\nSabat, \"but it was with the countenance of forgiveness.\"\n\nAbdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and\nfell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding\nand handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword.\nAgain the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had\nridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him\nthe blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the\nmountain--saw Abdallah's head lie there on the ground and the dead\nbody carried away.\n\nAbdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because\nSabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed.\n\n\n_The Old Sabat and the New_\n\nThe news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly\nbelieve that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As\nSabat told his friends afterward, \"All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What\nnew thing is this?'\"\n\nBut Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take\naway from his eyes the vision of his friend's face as Abdallah had\nlooked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on\nto the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he\nwandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured\nmind.\n\nAt last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at\nMadras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they\ngave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder\nof the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town\nnorth of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him\nthere a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another\ntranslation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was\nthe New Testament.[60]\n\nSabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of\nMohammed's law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He\ncompared the two. \"The truth came\"--as he himself said--\"like a flood\nof light.\" He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had\nread now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that\nhe must follow in Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He\nwas then twenty-seven years of age.\n\n\n_The Brother's Dagger_\n\nIn the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing\nship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that\nSabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat's\nbrother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe,\nmounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took\nship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went\nup to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living.\n\nSabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He\nsuspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within\nhis robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow\nat him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, but\nhe was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The\nbrother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness\nof Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent\nloving messages to his mother.\n\nSabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem\nlaw: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian\nFaith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the\ngreat men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into\ndifferent languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for\nwas it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own\nlife had been changed?\n\nBecause Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a\nvery clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was\nbusily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic.\nSo Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn.\n\nSabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab\nspirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for\nthe man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn\nsaid, \"an artless child of the desert.\"\n\nSabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good as he himself\nthought it was, and some of the Indian translators at Calcutta\ncriticised his translation. At this he got furiously angry, and, like\nSt. Peter, the fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and\nspoke against Christianity.\n\nWith his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with\nanger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the\nBay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where\nhe began to live as a trader.\n\nBut by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out. He--again\nlike Peter--remembered his denial of his Master, and when he saw in\na Penang newspaper an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had\nbecome a Christian and then become a Mohammedan again, had come to\nlive in their city, he wrote a letter which was published in the\nnewspaper at Penang declaring that he was now--and for good and all--a\nChristian.\n\nA British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed at Penang.\nSabat went to him. \"My mind is full of great sorrow,\" he said,\n\"because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since\nSatan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to\ndo one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has\ncome through my denial.\"\n\nSabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom he was living in\nPenang. He found an old friend of his named Johannes, an Armenian\nChristian merchant, who had lived in Madras in the very days when\nSabat first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the Armenian\nand Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and far into the night Sabat\nwould explain their meaning to Johannes.\n\n_The Prince from Sumatra_\n\nOne day all Penang was agog with excitement because a brown Prince\nfrom Acheen, a Malay State in the island of Sumatra, had suddenly\nsailed into the harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where\nrebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were wild and ferocious;\nmany of them were cannibals.\n\n\"I will join you in helping to recover your throne,\" said Sabat to the\nfugitive Prince. \"I am going,\" said Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, \"to see\nif I can carry the message of Christianity to this fierce people.\"\n\nSo Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard a sailing ship and\ncrossed the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra. They landed, and for long\nthe struggle with the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was\nso pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. But the\nstruggle dragged on and on; there seemed to be no hope of triumph. At\nlast Sabat decided to go back to Penang. One day he left the Prince\nand started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief Syfoolalim captured\nhim.\n\nGreat was the joy of the rebels--their powerful enemy was in their\nhands! They bound him, threw him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a\nsailing ship and clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As\nhe lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with the blood\nthat came out, wrote on a piece of paper that was smuggled out and\nsent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes.\n\nThe agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and filth of that ship's\nhold no one will ever know. We can learn from the words that he wrote\nin the blood from his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon\nhim because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but out of the\ndarkness comes a voice that makes us feel that Sabat was faithful at\nthe end. In his last letter to Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now\nready (like his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master\nwhom he had in his rage denied.\n\nThen one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold where he lay, and,\nbinding his limbs, thrust him into a sack, which they then closed. In\nthe choking darkness of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged\nto the side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. He felt\nhimself lifted and then hurled out into the air, and down--down with a\ncrash into the waters of the sea, which closed over him for ever.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 58: The inn of the Near East--a square courtyard with all\nthe doors and windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the\ncamelmen, and sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.]\n\n[Footnote 60: The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and\nsent to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge\nin the middle of the eighteenth century.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Baptized \"Nathaniel\" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nA RACE AGAINST TIME\n\n_Henry Martyn_\n\n(Dates, b. 1781, d. 1812. Time of Incident 1810-12)\n\n\nIn the story of Sabat that was told in the previous chapter you will\nremember that, for a part of the time that he lived in India, he\nworked with an Englishman named Henry Martyn.\n\nSabat was almost a giant; Henry Martyn was slight and not very strong.\nYet--as we shall see in the story that follows--Henry Martyn was\nbraver and more constant than Sabat himself.\n\nAs a boy Henry, who was born and went to school in Truro, in Cornwall,\nin the West of England, was violently passionate, sensitive, and\nphysically rather fragile, and at school was protected from bullies by\na big boy, the son of Admiral Kempthorne.\n\nHe left school at the age of fifteen and shot and read till he was\nseventeen. In 1797 he became an undergraduate at St. John's College,\nCambridge. He was still very passionate.\n\nFor instance, when a man was \"ragging\" him in the College Hall at\ndinner, he was so furious that he flung a knife at him, which stuck\nquivering in the panelling of the wall. Kempthorne, his old friend,\nwas at Cambridge with him. They used to read the Bible together and\nMartyn became a real Christian and fought hard to overcome his violent\ntemper.\n\nHe was a very clever scholar and became a Fellow of Jesus College in\n1802. He at that time took orders in the Church of England. He became\nvery keen on reading about missionary work, e.g. Carey's story of\nnine years' work in _Periodical Accounts_, and the L.M.S. Report on\nVanderkemp in South Africa. \"I read nothing else while it lasted,\" he\nsaid of the Vanderkemp report.\n\nHe was accepted as a chaplain of the East India Company. They could\nnot sail till Admiral Nelson gave the word, because the French were\nwaiting to capture all the British ships. Five men-of-war convoyed\nthem when they sailed in 1805. They waited off Ireland, because the\nimmediate invasion of England by Napoleon was threatened. On board\nMartyn worked hard at Hindustani, Bengali and Portuguese. He already\nknew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He arrived at Madras (South India) and\nCalcutta and thence went to Cawnpore. It is at this point that our\nyarn begins.\n\nA voice like thunder, speaking in a strange tongue, shouted across an\nIndian garden one night in 1809.\n\nThe new moon, looking \"like a ball of ebony in an ivory cup,\"--as one\nwho was there that night said--threw a cold light over the palm trees\nand aloes, on the man who was speaking and on those who were seated\naround him at the table in the bungalow.\n\nBeyond the garden the life of Cawnpore moved in its many streets;\nthe shout of a donkey-driver, the shrill of a bugle from the barracks\nbroke sharply through the muffled sounds of the city. The June wind,\nheavy with the waters of the Ganges which flows past Cawnpore, made\nthe night insufferably hot. But the heat did not trouble Sabat, the\nwild son of the Arabian desert, who was talking--as he always did--in\na roaring voice that was louder than most men's shouting. He was\ntelling the story of Abdallah's brave death as a Christian martyr.[62]\n\nQuietly listening to Sabat's voice--though he could not understand\nwhat he was saying--was a young Italian, Padre Julius Caesar, a monk of\nthe order of the Jesuits. On his head was a little skull-cap, over his\nbody a robe of fine purple satin held with a girdle of twisted silk.\n\nNear him sat an Indian scholar--on his dark head a full turban, and\nabout him richly-coloured robes. On the other side sat a little, thin,\ncopper-coloured Bengali dressed in white, and a British officer in his\nscarlet and gold uniform, with his wife, who has told us the story of\nthat evening.\n\nNot one of these brightly dressed people was, however, the strongest\npower there. A man in black clothes was the real centre of the group.\nVery slight in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead\nand sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling beside the\nflaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his sound and fury, was no match for\nthe swift-witted, clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was a\nchaplain in the army of the East India Company, which then ruled in\nIndia.\n\nHe was the only one of those who were listening to Sabat who could\nunderstand what he was saying. When Sabat had finished his story,\nMartyn turned, and, in his clear, musical voice translated it from\nthe Persian into Latin mixed with Italian for Padre Julius Caesar,\ninto Hindustani for the Indian scholar, into Bengali for the Bengal\ngentleman, and into English for the British officer and his wife.\nMartyn could also talk to Sabat himself both in Arabic and in Persian.\n\nAs Martyn listened to the rolling sentences of Sabat, the Christian\nArab, he seemed to see the lands beyond India, away across the Khyber\nPass, where Sabat had travelled--Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia.\n\nHenry Martyn knew that in all those lands the people were Mohammedans.\nHe wanted one thing above everything else in the world: that was\nto give them all the chance of doing what Sabat and Abdallah had\ndone--the chance of reading in their own languages the one book in the\nworld that could tell them that God was a Father--the book of letters\nand of biographies that we call the New Testament.\n\n\n_The Toil of Brain_\n\nThere was not in the world a copy of the New Testament in good\nPersian. To make one Henry Martyn slaved hard, far into the hot,\nsultry Indian nights, with scores of mosquitoes \"pinging\" round his\nlamp and his head, grinding at his Persian grammar, so that he could\ntranslate the life of Jesus Christ into that language.\n\nEven while he was listening to Sabat's story in the bungalow at\nCawnpore, Martyn knew that he was so ill that he could not live for\nmany years more. The doctor said that he must leave India for a time\nto be in a healthier place. Should he go home to England, where all\nhis friends were? He wanted that; but much more he wanted to go on\nwith his work. So he asked the doctor if he might go to Persia on the\nway home, and he agreed.\n\nSo Martyn went down from Cawnpore to Calcutta, and in a boat down the\nHoogli river to the little Arab coasting sailing ship the _Hummoudi_,\nwhich hoisted sail and started on its voyage round India to Bombay.\nMartyn read while on board the Old Testament in the original Hebrew\nand the New Testament in the original Greek, so that he might\nunderstand them better and make a more perfect translation into\nPersian. He read the Koran of Mohammed so that he could argue with\nthe Persians about it. And he worked hard at Arabic grammar, and read\nbooks in Persian. Yet he was for ever cracking jokes with his fellow\ntravellers, cooped up in the little ship on the hot tropical seas.\n\nFrom Bombay the governor granted Martyn a passage up the Persian Gulf\nin the _Benares_, a ship in the Indian Navy that was going on a cruise\nto finish the exciting work of hunting down the fierce Arab pirates\nof the Persian Gulf. So on Lady Day, 1811, the sailors got her under\nweigh and tacked northward up the Gulf, till at last, on May 21, the\nroofs and minarets of Bushire hove in sight. Martyn, leaning over the\nbulwarks, could see the town jutting out into the Gulf on a spit of\nsand and the sea almost surrounding it. That day he set foot for the\nfirst time on the soil of Persia.\n\n_Across Persia on a Pony_\n\nAboard ship Martyn had allowed his beard and moustache to grow. When\nhe landed at Bushire he bought and wore the clothes of a Persian\ngentleman, so that he should escape from attracting everybody's notice\nby wearing clothes such as the people had never seen before.\n\nNo one who had seen the pale, clean-shaven clergyman in black silk\ncoat and trousers in Cawnpore would have recognised the Henry\nMartyn who rode out that night on his pony with an Armenian servant,\nZechariah of Isfahan, on his long one hundred and seventy mile journey\nfrom Bushire to Shiraz. He wore a conical cap of black Astrakhan fur,\ngreat baggy trousers of blue, bright red leather boots, a light tunic\nof chintz, and over that a flowing cloak.\n\nThey went out through the gates of Bushire on to the great plain of\nburning sand that stretched away for ninety miles ahead of them. They\ntravelled by night, because the day was intolerably hot, but even at\nmidnight the heat was over 100 degrees. It was a fine moonlight night;\nthe stars sparkled over the plain. The bells tinkled on the mules'\nnecks as they walked across the sand. All else was silent.\n\nAt last dawn broke. Martyn pitched his little tent under a tree,\nthe only shelter he could get. Gradually the heat grew more and more\nintense. He was already so ill that it was difficult to travel.\n\n\"When the thermometer was above 112 degrees--fever heat,\" says Martyn,\n\"I began to lose my strength fast. It became intolerable. I wrapped\nmyself up in a blanket and all the covering I could get to defend\nmyself from the air. By this means the moisture was kept a little\nlonger upon the body. I thought I should have lost my senses. The\nthermometer at last stood at 126 degrees. I concluded that death was\ninevitable.\"\n\nAt last the sun went down: the thermometer crept lower: it was night\nand time to start again. But Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could\nhardly sit upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on\nthrough the night.\n\nNext morning he had a little shelter of leaves and branches made, and\nan Arab poured water on the leaves and on Martyn all day to try to\nkeep some of the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat\nalmost slew him. So they marched on through another night and then\ncamped under a grove of date palms.\n\n\"I threw myself on the burning ground and slept,\" Martyn wrote. \"When\nthe tent came up I awoke in a burning fever. All day I had recourse to\nthe wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no sleep.\"\n\nAt nine that night they struck camp. The ground threw up the heat that\nit had taken from the sun during the day. So frightfully hot was the\nair that even at midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel\nround his face and neck.\n\nAs the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it began to rise\nto the foothills and mountains. At last the pony and mules were\nclambering up rough steep paths so wild that there was (as Martyn\nsaid) \"nothing to mark the road but the rocks being a little more\nworn in one place than in another.\" Suddenly in the darkness the pony\nstopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn could see that they were on\nthe edge of a tremendous precipice. A single step more would have\nplunged him over, to be smashed on the rocks hundreds of feet below.\nMartyn did not move or try to guide the beast: he knew that the pony\nhimself was the safest guide. In a minute or two the animal moved, and\nstep by step clambered carefully up the rock-strewn mountain-side.\n\nAt last they came out on the mountain top, but only to find that they\nwere on the edge of a flat high plain--a tableland. The air was pure\nand fresher; the mules and the travellers revived. Martyn's pony began\nto trot briskly along. So, as dawn came up, they came in sight of a\ngreat courtyard built by the king of that country to refresh pilgrims.\n\nThrough night after night they tramped, across plateau and mountain\nrange, till they climbed the third range, and then plunged by a\nwinding rocky path into a wide valley where, at a great town called\nKazrun, in a garden of cypress trees was a summer-house.\n\nMartyn lay down on the floor but could not sleep, though he was\nhorribly weary. \"There seemed,\" he said, \"to be fire within my head,\nmy skin like a cinder.\" His heart beat like a hammer.\n\nThey went on climbing another range of mountains, first tormented\nby mosquitoes, then frozen with cold; Martyn was so overwhelmed with\nsleep that he could not sit on his pony and had to hurry ahead to keep\nawake and then sit down with his back against a rock where he fell\nasleep in a second, and had to be shaken to wake up when Zechariah,\nthe Armenian mule driver, came up to where he was.\n\nThey had at last climbed the four mountain rungs of the ladder to\nPersia, and came out on June 11th, 1811, on the great plain where the\ncity of Shiraz stands. Here he found the host Jaffir Ali Khan, to whom\nhe carried his letters of introduction. Martyn in his Persian dress,\nseated on the ground, was feasted with curries and rice, sweets cooled\nwith snow and perfumed with rose water, and coffee.\n\nAli Khan had a lovely garden of orange trees, and in the garden Martyn\nsat. Ill as he was, he worked day in and day out to translate the life\nof Jesus Christ in the New Testament from the Greek language into\npure and simple Persian. The kind host put up a tent for Martyn in the\ngarden, close to some beautiful vines, from which hung lovely bunches\nof purple grapes. By the side of his tent ran a clear stream\nof running water. All the evening nightingales sang sweetly and\nmournfully.\n\nAs he sat there at his work, men came hundreds of miles to talk with\nthis holy man, as they felt him to be. Moslems--they yet travelled\neven from Baghdad and Bosra and Isfahan to hear this \"infidel\" speak\nof Jesus Christ, and to argue as to which was the true religion.\nPrince Abbas Mirza invited him to come to speak with him; and as\nMartyn entered the Prince's courtyard a hundred fountains began to\nsend up jets of water in his honour.\n\nAt last they came to him in such numbers that Martyn was obliged to\nsay to many of them that he could not see them. He hated sending them\naway. What was it forced him to do so?\n\n_The Race against Time_\n\nIt was because he was running a race against time. He knew that he\ncould not live very long, because the disease that had smitten his\nlungs was gaining ground every day. And the thing that he had come\nto Persia for--the object that had made him face the long voyage,\nthe frightful heat and the freezing cold of the journey, the life\nthousands of miles from his home in Cornwall--was that he might finish\nsuch a translation of the New Testament into Persian that men should\nlove to read years and years after he had died.\n\nSo each day Martyn finished another page or two of the book, written\nin lovely Persian letters. He began the work within a week of reaching\nShiraz, and in seven months (February, 1812) it was finished. Three\nmore months were spent in writing out very beautiful copies of the\nwhole of the New Testament in this new translation, to be presented to\nthe Shah of Persia and to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza.\n\nThen he started away on a journey right across Persia to find the Shah\nand Prince so that he might give his precious books to them. On the\nway he fell ill with great fever; he was so weak and giddy that he\ncould not stand. One night his head ached so that it almost drove him\nmad; he shook all over with fever; then a great sweat broke out. He\nwas almost unconscious with weakness, but at midnight when the call\ncame to start he mounted his horse and, as he says, \"set out, rather\ndead than alive.\" So he pressed on in great weakness till he reached\nTabriz, and there met the British Ambassador.\n\nMartyn was rejoiced, and felt that all his pains were repaid when Sir\nGore Ouseley said that he himself would present the Sacred Book to\nthe Shah and the Prince. When the day came to give the book to Prince\nAbbas, poor Henry Martyn was so weak that he could not rise from his\nbed. Before the other copy could be presented to the Shah, Martyn had\ndied. This is how it came about.\n\n\n_The Last Trail_\n\nHis great work was done. The New Testament was finished. He sent a\ncopy to the printers in India. He could now go home to England and\ntry to get well again. He started out on horseback with two Armenian\nservants and a Turkish guide. He was making along the old track that\nhas been the road from Asia to Europe for thousands of years. His plan\nwas to travel across Persia, through Armenia and over the Black Sea to\nConstantinople, and so back to England.\n\nFor forty-five days he moved on, often going as much as ninety miles,\nand generally as much as sixty in a day. He slept in filthy inns where\nfleas and lice abounded and mosquitoes tormented him. Horses, cows,\nbuffaloes and sheep would pass through his sleeping-room, and the\nstench of the stables nearly poisoned him. Yet he was so ill that\noften he could hardly keep his seat on his horse.\n\nHe travelled through deep ravines and over high mountain passes and\nacross vast plains. His head ached till he felt it would split; he\ncould not eat; fever came on. He shook with ague. Yet his remorseless\nTurkish guide, Hassan, dragged him along, because he wanted to get the\njourney over and go back home.\n\nAt last one day Martyn got rest on damp ground in a hovel, his eyes\nand forehead feeling as though a great fire burnt in them. \"I was\nalmost frantic,\" he wrote. Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan\ncompelled him to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track to\nTokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his journal:\n\n\"No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard\nand thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God--in solitude my\nCompany, my Friend, my Comforter.\"\n\nIt was the last word he was ever to write.\n\nAlone, without a human friend by him, he fell asleep. But the book\nthat he had written with his life-blood, the Persian New Testament,\nwas printed, and has told thousands of Persians in far places, where\nno Christian man has penetrated, that story of the love of God that is\nshown in Jesus Christ.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 62: See Chapter XXIII.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nTHE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS\n\n_William Ambrose Shedd_\n\n(1865-1918)\n\n\nI\n\nA dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes that looked you\nsteadily in the face, and sparkled with light when he laughed, sat on\na chair in a hall in 1918 in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of\nAssyria where Persia and Turkey meet.\n\nHis face was as brown with the sunshine of this eastern land as were\nthe wrinkled faces of the turbaned Assyrian village men who stood\nbefore him. For he was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.[63]\nAnd he had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time when his\nsplendid American father had sent him to Marietta, Ohio, for some of\nhis schooling, and to Princeton for his final training. His dark brown\nmoustache and short beard covered a firm mouth and a strong chin.\nHis vigorous expression and his strongly Roman nose added to the\ncommanding effect of his presence.\n\nA haunting terror had driven these ragged village people into the city\nof Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful American leader whom they\nalmost worshipped because he was so strong and just and good.\n\nFor the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel and wilder Kurds\nof the mountains were marching on the land. The Great War was raging\nacross the world and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain\nland were swept into its terrible flames.\n\nFor Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end of the extremely\nsalt lake of the same name. It is about 150 miles west from the\nCaspian Sea and the same distance north of the site of ancient\nNineveh. It stands on a small plain and in that tangle of lakes,\nmountains and valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia and\nTurkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians of one of the\nmost ancient churches in the world, which in the early centuries had\na chain of missions from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking),\nthe Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks and the\nRussians struggled together.\n\nIn front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood an old man from\nthe villages. His long grey hair and beard and his wrinkled face were\nagitated as he told the American his story. The old man's dress was\ncovered with patches--an eyewitness counted thirty-seven patches--all\nof different colours on one side of his cloak and loose baggy\ntrousers.\n\n\"My field in my village I cannot plough,\" he said, \"for we have no ox.\nThe Kurds have taken our possessions, you are our father. Grant us an\nox to plough and draw for us.\"\n\nDr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he scribbled a few words\non a slip of paper and the old man went out satisfied.\n\nSo for hour after hour, men and women from all the country round\ncame to this strange missionary who had been asked by the American\nGovernment to administer relief, yes, and to be the Consul\nrepresenting America itself in that great territory.\n\nThey came to him from the villages where, around the fire in the\nKhans at night, men still tell stories of him as one of the great\nhero-leaders of their race. These are the kind of stories that they\ntell of the courage and the gentleness of this man who--while he was a\nfine American scholar--yet knew the very heart of the Eastern peoples\nin northwestern Persia as no American has ever done in all our\nhistory.\n\n\"One day,\" says one old village Assyrian greybeard, \"Dr. Shedd was\nsitting at meat in his house when his servant, Meshadi, ran into the\nroom crying, 'The Kurds have been among our people. They have taken\nthree girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them off. They\nhave just passed the gate.' The Kurds were all bristling with daggers\nand pistols. Dr. Shedd simply picked up the cane that he holds in his\nhand when he walks. He hurried out of the house with Meshadi, ran up\nthe hill to the Kurd village that lies there, entered, said to the\nfierce Kurds, 'Give back those girls to us.' And they, as they looked\ninto his face, could not resist him though they were armed and he was\nnot. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to him and he led them down\nthe hill to their homes.\"\n\nSo he also stood single-handed between Turks and five hundred\nAssyrians who had taken refuge in the missionary compound, and stopped\nthe Turks from massacring the Christians.\n\nBut even as he worked in this way the tide of the great war flowed\ntowards Urumia. The people there were mostly Assyrians with some\nArmenians; they were Christians. They looked southward across the\nmountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia for aid.\n\nBut, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the north they could\nalready see the first Turks coming down upon the city. Thousands upon\nthousands of the Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the\ncity and into the American missionary compound, till actually even in\nthe mission school-rooms they were sleeping three deep--one lot on the\nfloor, another lot on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of\nthe desks themselves.\n\n\"Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come,\" said Dr. Shedd\nto the people. \"Agha Petros with a thousand of our men has gone to\nmeet the British and he will come back with them and will throw back\nthe Turks.\"\n\nThe Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; many of the Armenian\nand Assyrian men were out across the plains to the east getting in the\nharvest; and no sign of succour came from the south.\n\n\nII\n\nThrough the fierce hot days of July the people held on because Dr.\nShedd said that they must; but at last on the afternoon of July 30th\nthere came over all the people a strange irresistible panic. They\ngathered all their goods together and piled them in wagons--food,\nclothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old women,\nmothers,--all were huddled and jumbled together.\n\nThe wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the roads to the south, the\nlittle children cried with hunger and fright, the boys trudged\nalong rather excited at the adventure yet rather scared at the awful\nhullabaloo and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish\nhorsemen and of the crafty Turk.\n\nDr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the people to hold on\nto their city; but it was impossible--they had gone, as it seemed, mad\nwith fright.\n\nHe and his wife went to bed that night but not to sleep. At two\no'clock the telephone bell rang.\n\n\"The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people are leaving,\" came\nthe message.\n\n\"It is impossible to hold on any longer,\" said Dr. Shedd to his wife.\n\"I will go and tell all in the compound. You get things ready.\"\n\nMrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was needed: she packed\nup food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, raisins and so on), a frying pan,\na kettle, a saucepan, water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes,\nlanterns, a spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and two\nRed Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. Shedd got up into the\nwagon; the driver cried to his horses and they started.\n\nAs they went out of the city on the south the Turks and Kurds came\nraging in on the north. Within two hours the Turks and Kurds were\ncrashing into houses and burning them to the ground; but most of\nthe people had gone--for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to leave\nUrumia.\n\nAhead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in flight. They came to\na little bridge--a mass of sticks with mud thrown over them. Here, and\nat every bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. Shedd describes\nthe scene:\n\n\"The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of\nvehicle that you could imagine--ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross\ncarts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian\nphaetons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The\nanimals--donkeys, horses, buffaloes, oxen, cows with their calves,\nmules and herds of thousands of sheep and goats.\"\n\nAll through the day they moved on, at the end of the procession--Dr.\nShedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from\nthe Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain\nto the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons\nclose to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz\nriver. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia.\n\nSo they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and\nat two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove\non for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before\nthem.\n\nThe poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened.\nAssyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky\nmountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way\nalong. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea\nurns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body\nof someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a\nbaby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath.\n\nSo for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last\nat midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of\nLake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A\nhorseman galloped up.\n\n\"The Turks are in Hadarabad,\" he said. \"They are attacking the rear of\nthe procession.\"\n\n\"It seemed,\" said Mrs. Shedd, \"as if at any moment we should hear the\nscreams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them.\"\n\nThe wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr.\nShedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything\nthat they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his\nBible and a small volume of Browning's Poems.\n\nThen they started again, along a road that was littered with the\ndiscarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little\nbaby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old\nand sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd\nlooked at his wife and she at him.\n\nHe pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her\nin the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here\nthey found a Kurdish mother.\n\n\"Take care of this little girl till we come back,\" said Dr. Shedd,\n\"and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more\nwhen we come back if she is well looked after.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nSuddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in\npanic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the\nmountain passes. They passed on to the plain, and then as they were\nin a village guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians\nwere attacking under Majdi--Sultana of Urumia. Dr. Shedd, riding his\nhorse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and\nstayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women\ndrove on. He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but\nwithout thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it. For he felt\nlike a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his\nduty to protect.\n\nPanic seized the people. Strong men left their old mothers to die.\nMothers dropped their babies and ran.\n\n\"One of my school-girls,\" Mrs. Shedd says, \"afterward told me how she\nhad left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through\nthe river when the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry\nboth. The memory of her deserted baby is always with her.\"\n\nThe line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road. The enemy\nfired from behind boulders on the mountain sides. The Armenians and\nSyrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase\nthem. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr.\nShedd's object was to hold them off till help came. So he went up and\ndown on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over\nthe wagons.\n\n\"I feared,\" said Mrs. Shedd, \"that the enemy might get the better of\nus and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While\nthey were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I\nlooked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May,\nsix years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had\nunconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a\nlittle bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag\nof money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd\nif they should swoop down upon us.\"\n\nAll day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired\nhorses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the\nhorizon. What would happen in the darkness?\n\nThen they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in\nkhaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under\nCaptain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved\nup from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession.\nThe little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved\nforward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther\non was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like\nHoratius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove\noff the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp.\n\n\"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?\" asked one of the\nSyrian young men who had hurried forward into safety.\n\n\"I would much rather be there,\" said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in\nhis voice, \"than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the\nwomen and the children to the mercy of the enemy.\"\n\nHe was rejoiced that the British had come.\n\n\"There was,\" said Mrs. Shedd, \"a ring in his voice, a light in his\neyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months.\"\n\nHe had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and\nmen and women through the mountains into the protection of the British\nsquadron of troops.\n\n\nIV\n\nLater that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the\nAugust day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which\nhad a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler\nthan a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the\nAssyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on\nthe floor of the cart.\n\nThe English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and\ndispersing the Turkish force.\n\nThen a British officer came and said: \"We are moving the camp forward\nunder the protection of the mountains.\"\n\nIt was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering\ndarkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the\ncart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they\ncame to the British Camp.\n\nFor hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At\nlast it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were\nin a gully and could not go forward.\n\n\"Where is the British camp?\" asked Mrs. Shedd.\n\n\"We passed it miles back on the road,\" was the reply.\n\nIt was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the\nnursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he\nwas so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough\nmountain track in the inky darkness of the night.\n\nThere was nothing to do but just stay where they were, send a\nmessenger to the camp for the doctor, and wait for the morning.\n\n\"Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern,\" Mrs. Shedd tells\nus, \"but I lighted it and looked at Mr. Shedd. I could see that he was\nvery sick indeed and asked two of the men to go back for the doctor.\nIt was midnight before the doctor reached us.\n\n\"The men,\" Mrs. Shedd continues, \"set fire to a deserted cart left\nby the refugees and this furnished fire and light all night. They\narranged for guards in turn and lay down to rest on the roadside.\nHour after hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging his\nlimbs when cramps attacked him, giving him water frequently, for while\nhe was very cold to the touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot\nwater bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; we\nhad no other nourishment. He got weaker and weaker, and a terrible\nfear tugged at my heart.\n\n\"Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had passed on; the\ndesolate, rocky mountains loomed above us, darkness was all about us\nand heaven seemed too far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby\nwailed all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave two\nhypodermic injections and returned to the camp saying we should wait\nthere for him to catch up to us in the morning. After the injections\nMr. Shedd rested better but he did not again regain consciousness.\n\n\"When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change\nin his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly\nafter light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard\nfighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in\nhis dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After\nan hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the\ncart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp\nbreaths--and I was alone.\"\n\nSo the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug\nthe grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life\nin defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the\ngrave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead\ngrass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had\nbraved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But\nthe great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the\nAssyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies\nthere dreamless on the mountain side.\n\nThese are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they\nheard of his death:\n\n\"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the\nlast breath of his life.\n\n\"As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his lead we were safe\nand prosperous, but when we ceased to do that destruction came upon\nus. He was, and ever will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people.\"\n\nHe lies there where his heart always was--in that land in which the\nTurk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Persian, the Russian and the\nArab meet; he is there waiting for the others who will go out and\ntake up the work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those\neastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd died in serving.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 63: Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College,\nOhio, 1887, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nAN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR\n\n_E.D. Cushman_\n\n(Time 1914-1920)\n\n\n_The Turk in Bed_\n\nThe cold, clear sunlight of a winter morning on the high plateau of\nAsia Minor shone into the clean, white ward of a hospital in Konia\n(the greatest city in the heart of that land). The hospital in which\nthe events that I am going to tell in this story happened is supported\nby Christian folk in America, and was established by two American\nmedical missionaries, Dr. William S. Dodd, and Dr. Wilfred Post, with\nMiss Cushman, the head nurse, sharing the general superintendence:\nother members of the staff are Haralambos, their Armenian dispenser\nand druggist, and Kleoniki, a Greek nurse trained by Miss Cushman. The\nauthor spent the early spring of 1914 at the hospital in Konia, when\nall the people named above were at work there.\n\nThe tinkle of camel-bells as a caravan of laden beasts swung by, the\nquick pad-pad of donkeys' hoofs, the howl of a Turkish dog, the cry\nof a child--these and other sounds of the city came through the open\nwindow of the ward.\n\nOn a bed in the corner of the ward lay a bearded man--a Turk--who\nlived in this ancient city of Konia (the Iconium of St. Paul's day).\nHis brown face and grizzled beard were oddly framed in the white of\nthe spotless pillow and sheets.\n\nHis face turned to the door as it opened and the matron entered. The\neyes of the Turk as he lay there followed her as she walked toward\none of her deft, gentle-handed assistant nurses who, in their neat\nuniforms with their olive-brown faces framed in dark hair, went\nfrom bed to bed tending the patients; giving medicine to a boy\nhere, shaking up a pillow for a sick man there, taking a patient's\ntemperature yonder. Those skilled nurses were Armenian girls. The\nArmenians are a Christian nation, who have been ruled by the Turks for\ncenturies and often have been massacred by them; yet these Armenian\ngirls were nursing the Turks in the hospital. But the matron of the\nhospital was not a Turk, nor an Armenian. She had come four thousand\nmiles across the sea to heal the Turks and the Armenians in this land.\nShe was an American.\n\nThe Turk in bed turned his eyes from the nurses to a picture on the\nwall. A frown came on his face. He began to mutter angry words into\nhis beard.\n\nAs a Turk he had always been taught, even as a little boy, that the\ngreat Prophet Mohammed had told them they must have no pictures of\nprophets, and he knew from what he had heard that the picture on the\nwall showed the face of a prophet. It was a picture of a man with a\nkind, strong face, dressed in garments of the lands of the East, and\nwearing a short beard. He was stooping down healing a little child. It\nwas our Lord Jesus Christ the Great Physician.\n\nAs Miss Cushman--for that was the name of the matron--moved toward his\nbed, the Turk burst into angry speech.\n\n\"Have that picture taken down,\" he said roughly, pointing to it. She\nturned to look at the picture and then back at him, and said words\nlike these: \"No, that is the picture of Jesus, the great Doctor who\nlived long ago and taught the people that God is Love. It is because\nHe taught that, and has called me to follow in His steps, that I am\nhere to help to heal you.\"\n\nBut the Turk, who was not used to having women disobey his commands,\nagain ordered angrily that the picture should be taken down. But the\nAmerican missionary-nurse said gently, but firmly: \"No, the picture\nmust stay there to remind us of Jesus. If you cannot endure to see\nthe picture there, then if you wish you may leave the hospital, of\ncourse.\"\n\nAnd so she passed on. The Turk lay in his bed and thought it over. He\nwished to get well. If the doctors in this hospital--Dr. Dodd and\nDr. Post--did not attend him, and if the nurses did not give him his\nmedicine, he would not. He therefore decided to make no more fuss\nabout the picture. So he lay looking at it, and was rather surprised\nto find in a few days that he liked to see it there, and that he\nwanted to hear more and more about the great Prophet-Doctor, Jesus.\n\nThen he had another tussle of wills with Miss Cushman, the white\nnurse from across the seas. It came about in this way. Women who are\nMohammedans keep their faces veiled, but the Armenian Christian nurses\nhad their faces uncovered.\n\n\"Surely they are shameless women,\" he thought in his heart. \"And they\nare Armenians too--Christian infidels!\" So he began to treat them\nrudely. But the white nurse would not stand that.\n\nMiss Cushman went and stood by his bed and said: \"I want you to\nremember that these nurses of mine are here to help you to get well.\nThey are to you even as daughters tending their father; and you must\nbehave to them as a good father to good daughters.\"\n\nSo the Turk lay in bed and thought about that also. It took him a\nlong time to take it in, for he had always been taught to hate the\nArmenians and to think low thoughts about their womenfolk. But in the\nend he learnt that lesson also.\n\nAt last the Turk got well, left his bed, and went away. He was so\nthankful that he was better that he was ready to do just anything in\nthe world that Miss Cushman wanted him to do. The days passed on in\nthe hospital, and always the white nurse from across the seas and the\nArmenian nurses tended the Turkish and other patients, and healed them\nthrough the heats of that summer.\n\n\n_War and Massacre_\n\nAs summer came near to its end there broke on the world the dreadful\nday when all Europe went to war. Miss Cushman's colleagues, the\nAmerican doctors at the hospital, left Konia for service in the\nwar. Soon Turkey entered the war. The fury of the Turks against the\nArmenians burst out into a flame. You might see in Konia two or three\nTurks sitting in the shadow of a little saddler's shop by the street\nsmoking their hubble-bubble water-pipes, and saying words like these:\n\n\"The Armenians are plotting to help the enemies of Turkey. We shall\nhave to kill them all.\"\n\n\"Yes, wipe them out--the accursed infidels!\"\n\nThe Turks hate the Armenians because their religion, Islam, teaches\nthem to hate the \"infidel\" Christians; they are of a foreign race and\nforeign religion in countries ruled by Turks, though the Armenians\nwere there first, and the Armenians are cleverer business men than the\nTurks, who hate to see their subjects richer than themselves, and hope\nby massacre to seize Armenian wealth.\n\nYet all the time, as the wounded Turks were sent from the Gallipoli\nfront back to Konia, the Armenian nurses in the hospital there were\nhealing them. But the Turkish Government gave its orders. Vile bands\nof Turkish soldiers rushed down on the different cities and villages\nof the Armenians.[64] One sunny morning a troop of Turkish soldiers\ncame dashing into a quiet little Armenian town among the hills. An\norder was given. The Turks smashed in the doors of the houses. A\nfather stood up before his family; a bayonet was driven through him\nand soldiers dashed over his dead body; they looted the house; they\nsmashed up his home; others seized the mother and the daughters--the\nmother had a baby in her arms; the baby was flung on the ground and\nthen picked up dead on the point of a bayonet; and, though the mother\nand daughters were not bayoneted then, it would have been better to\ndie at once than to suffer the unspeakable horrors that came to them.\n\nAnd that happened in hundreds of villages and cities to hundred of\nthousands of Armenians, while hundreds of thousands more scattered\ndown the mountain passes in flight towards Konia.\n\n\n_The Orphan Boys and Girls_\n\nAs Miss Cushman and her Armenian nurses looked out through the windows\nof the hospital, their hearts were sad as they saw some of these\nArmenian refugees trailing along the road like walking skeletons. What\nwas to happen to them? It was very dangerous for anyone to show that\nthey were friends with the Armenians, but the white matron was as\nbrave as she was kind; so she went out to do what she could to help\nthem.\n\nOne day she saw a little boy so thin that the bones seemed almost to\nbe coming through his skin. He was very dirty; his hair was all matted\ntogether; and there were bugs and fleas in his clothes and in his\nhair. The hospital was so full that not another could be taken in. But\nthe boy would certainly die if he were not looked after properly. His\nfather and his mother had both been slain by the Turks; he did not\nknow where his brothers were. He was an orphan alone in all the world.\n\nMiss Cushman knew Armenian people in Konia, and she went to one of\nthese homes and told them about the poor boy and arranged to pay them\nsome money for the cost of his food. So she made a new home for him.\nThe next day she found another boy, and then a girl, and so she went\non and on, discovering little orphan Armenian boys and girls who had\nnobody to care for them, and finding them homes--until she had over\nsix hundred orphans being cared for. It is certain that nearly all of\nthem would have died if she had not looked after them.\n\nSo Miss Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian children together\ninto an orphanage, that was half for the boys and half for the girls.\nShe was a hundred times better than the \"Woman who Lived in a Shoe,\"\nbecause, though she had so many children, she _did_ know what to\ndo. She taught them to make nearly everything for themselves. In the\nmornings you would see half the boys figuring away at their sums or\nlearning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and\nsawing and planing at the carpenter's bench; cutting leather and\nsewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol\ntins up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting\nand stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American Red Cross\nofficer who went to see them wrote home, \"The kids look happy and\nhealthy and as clean as a whistle.\"\n\n\n_The People on the Plain_\n\nAs Miss Cushman looked out again from the hospital window she saw men\ncoming from the country into the city jogging along on little donkeys.\n\n\"In the villages all across the plain,\" they said to her, \"are\nArmenian boys and girls, and men and women. They are starving. Many\nare without homes, wandering about in rags till they simply lie down\non the ground, worn out, and die.\"\n\nMiss Cushman sent word to friends far away in America, and they sent\nfood from America to Turkey in ships, and a million dollars of money\nto help the starving children. So Miss Cushman got together her boys\nand girls and some other helpers, and soon they were very busy all day\nand every day wrapping food and clothes into parcels.\n\nNext a caravan of snorting camels came swinging in to the courtyard\nand, grumbling and rumbling, knelt down, to be loaded up. The parcels\nwere done up in big bales and strapped on to the camels' backs. Then\nat a word from the driver the camels rose from their knees and went\nlurching out from Konia into the country, over the rough, rolling\ntracks, to carry to the people the food and clothes that would keep\nthem alive.\n\nThe wonderful thing is that these camels were led by a Turk belonging\nto the people who hate the Armenians, yet he was carrying food and\nclothes to them! Why did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys,\ntravelling over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of parcels\ncontaining wheat for bread and new shirts and skirts and other clothes\nfor the Armenians whom he had always hated, and never lose a single\nparcel?\n\nWhy did he do it?\n\nThis is the reason. Before the war when he was ill in the hospital\nMiss Cushman had nursed him with the help of her Armenian girls, and\nhad made him better; he was so thankful that he would just run to do\nanything that she wished him to do.\n\n\n_To Stay or not to Stay?_\n\nBut at last Miss Cushman--worn out with all this work--fell ill with\na terrible fever. For some time it was not certain that she would not\ndie of it; for a whole month she lay sick in great weakness. President\nWilson had at this time broken off relations between America and\nTurkey. The Turk now thought of the American as an enemy; and Miss\nCushman was an American. She was in peril. What was she to do?\n\n\"It is not safe to stay,\" said her friends. \"You will be practically a\nprisoner of war. You will be at the mercy of the Turks. You know what\nthe Turk is--as treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish,\nrob you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while the path is\nopen--before it is too late. You are in the very middle of Turkey,\nhundreds of miles from any help. The dangers are terrible.\"\n\nAs soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went to the Turkish\nGovernor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan who had organised the massacre\nof forty thousand Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back\nto America.\n\n\"What shall you do if I stay?\" she asked.\n\n\"I beg you to stay,\" said the Governor. \"You shall be protected. You\nneed have no fear.\"\n\n\"Your words are beautiful,\" she replied. \"But if American and Turkey\ngo to war you will deport me.\"\n\nIf she stayed she knew the risks under his rule. She was still weak\nfrom her illness. There was no colleague by her side to help her.\nThere seemed to be every reason why she should sail away back to\nAmerica. But as she sat thinking it over she saw before her the\nhospital full of wounded soldiers, the six hundred orphans who looked\nto her for help, the plain of a hundred villages to which she was\nsending food. No one could take her place.\n\nYet she was weak and tired after her illness and, in America, rest and\nhome, friends and safety called to her.\n\n\"It was,\" she wrote later to her friends, \"a heavy problem to know\nwhat to do with the orphans and other helpless people who depended on\nme for life.\"\n\nWhat would you have done? What do you think she did? For what reason\nshould she face these perils?\n\nNot in the heat of battle, but in cool quiet thought, all alone among\nenemies, she saw her path and took it. She did not count her life her\nown. She was ready to give her life for her friends of all nations.\nShe decided to stay in the heart of the enemies' country and serve her\nGod and the children. Many a man has had the cross of Honour for an\nact that called for less calm courage. That deed showed her to be one\nof the great undecorated heroes and heroines of the lonely path.\n\nSo she stayed on.\n\nFrom all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were sent to Konia. There\nwas great confusion in dealing with them, so the people of Konia\nasked Miss Cushman to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish\nGovernment at Constantinople to tell them to write to her to invite\nher to do this work. There was a regular hue and cry that she should\nbe appointed, because everyone knew her strong will, her power of\norganising, her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving\nheart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners of eleven\ndifferent nationalities she helped--including British, French,\nItalian, Russian, Indians and Arabs. She arranged for the nursing of\nthe sick, the feeding of the hungry, the freeing of some from prison.\n\nShe went on right through the war to the end and beyond the end,\ncaring for her orphans, looking after the sick in hospital, sending\nfood and clothes to all parts of the country, helping the prisoners.\nWithout caring whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or\nIndian, she gave her help to those who needed it. And because of her\nsplendid courage thousands of boys and girls and men and women are\nalive and well, who--without her--would have starved and frozen to\ndeath.\n\nTo-day, in and around Konia (an Army officer who has been there tells\nus), the people do not say, \"If Allah wills,\" but \"If Miss Cushman\nwills!\" It is that officer's way of letting us see how, through her\nbrave daring, her love, and her hard work, that served everybody,\nBritish, Armenian, Turk, Indian, and Arab, she has become the\nuncrowned Queen of Konia, whose bidding all the people do because she\nonly cares to serve them, not counting her own life dear to her.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 64: In reading this part of the story to younger children\ndiscretion should be exercised. Some of the details on this page are\nhorrible; but it is right that older children should realize the evil\nand how Miss Cushman's courage faced it.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL\n\n_Archibald Forder_\n\n(Time of Incident 1900-1901)\n\n\n_The Boy Who Listened_\n\nAn eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a crowded meeting in\nSalisbury, his eyes wide open with wonder as he heard a bronzed and\nbearded man on the platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The\nman was Robert Moffat.\n\nIt was a hot summer night in August (1874). The walls of the building\nwhere the meeting was held seemed to have disappeared and the boy\nArchibald Forder could in imagination see \"the plain of a thousand\nvillages,\" that Livingstone had seen when this same Robert Moffat had\ncalled him to Africa many years before. As the boy Archibald heard\nMoffat he too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many things\nhappened as he grew up; but he never forgot that evening.\n\nAt the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed to the grocery\nand baking business. In 1888 he married. At this time he read in a\nmagazine about missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan--in\nMoab among the Arabs--where a young married man ready to rough it was\nneeded. He sailed with his wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and\nleft Jerusalem by camel on September 30, on the four days' journey\nacross Jordan to Kerak. Three times they were robbed by brigands on\nthis journey. Mr. Forder worked there till 1896. He then left\nand travelled through America to secure support for an attempt to\npenetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry the Gospel of\nJesus Christ there.\n\nThe story that follows tells how Forder made his pioneer journey into\nthe Arabian desert.\n\n\n_The Adventure into the Desert_\n\nTwo pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently outside a house\nin Jerusalem in the early morning a week or two before Christmas.[65]\nInside the house a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three\nchildren. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long scarf wrapped about\nhis head and on the top the black rope of twisted goats' hair that the\nArab puts on when he becomes a man.\n\n\"Will you be long, Father?\" asked his little four-year-old boy.\n\nThe father could not answer, for he was going out from Jerusalem for\nhundreds of miles into the sun and the thirst of the desert, to the\nland of the fiercest Arabs--Moslems whose religion tells them that\nthey must kill the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear\nhimself from his wife and his children and go out to face death in\nthe desert. But he had come out here to carry to the Arab the story of\nJesus Christ, who Himself had died on a Cross outside this very city.\n\nSo he kissed his little boy \"good-bye,\" wrenched himself away, climbed\non top of the load on one of the pack horses and rode out through the\ngate into the unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way down\nthe road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how Jesus Christ had been\nput to death in this very land. Over his left shoulder he saw the\nslopes of the Mount of Olives; down below across the ravine on his\nright was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was passing\nthrough Bethany where Mary and Martha lived. Down the steep winding\nroad amongst the rocks he went, and took a cup of cold water at the\ninn of the Good Samaritan.\n\nThen with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching its tawny tumbled\ndesert hills away to the left, he moved onward, down and down until\nthe road came out a thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and\nsheepfolds of Jericho, where he slept that night.\n\nWith his face toward the dawn that came up over the hills of Moab in\nthe distance, he was off again over the plain with the Dead Sea on\nhis right, across the swiftly flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines\nthat lead into the mountains of Gilead.\n\nThat night he stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of\nonly one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two\ndonkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and\nhens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a\ngreat multitude of fleas.\n\nThe mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, and after it he\nshowed them something that they had never seen before. He took out of\nhis pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He\nread bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God.\n\nEarly next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves\nwhich the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for\nhim, he set out again.\n\nHow could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The\nloaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a\nkind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it,\npushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall\nof a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire\nof twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the\ncooked bread falls on to it.\n\nSo Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high\nplain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of\nglowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles\neastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in\nall those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their\nhouses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the\nsand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry\nor die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks from oasis to oasis,\nwhere they could find a well of water, therefore drink for man and\ncamel, and date-palms.\n\nSo turning north he pressed on[67] till on the sixth day out from\nJerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, and hail and rain, carried\nby a biting east wind, beat down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the\nhorizon he saw ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient\ncity of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the narrow winding\nstreets, he met, to his disgust, a man whose dress showed that he was\na Turkish Government official. He knew that the Turkish Government\nwould be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their land.\n\n\"Who are you?\" asked the official, stopping him. \"Where are you from?\nWhere are you going?\"\n\nForder told him, and the man said. \"Come with me. I will find you and\nyour horses shelter at the Governor's house.\" Forder followed him into\na large room in the middle of which on the floor a fire was burning.\n\n\"I must examine all your cases,\" said the official. \"Get up. Open your\nboxes.\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Forder. \"This is not a custom-house.\"\n\n\"Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs against the\nTurkish Government,\" replied the official.\n\n\"I will not open them,\" said Forder, \"unless you bring me written\norders from the Turkish Governor in Damascus and from the British\nConsul.\"\n\nOff went the official to consult the headman (the equivalent of the\nMayor) of the city. The headman came and asked many questions. At last\nhe said:\n\n\"Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and not to let any\nstay in these parts. However, as you seem to be almost an Arab, may\nGod go with you and give you peace.\"\n\nSo Forder and the headman of the ancient city of Bosra got talking\ntogether. Forder opened his satchel and drew out an Arabic New\nTestament, and together they read parts of the story of the life of\nJesus Christ and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the\nheadman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he\ngladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for\nhimself.\n\n\n_Saved by the Mist_\n\nNext morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with\nhis face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of\nSulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles\naway, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail\nbuffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned\naside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass\nshowed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could\nnot strike the narrow, broken, stony trail.\n\nSuddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses\nloomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, \"Welcome!\"\nHe went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire\nof dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the\ntears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and\nhung his own up in the smoke to dry.\n\n\"Where are we?\" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and\na half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he\nhad left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to\nsee the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic\nNew Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could\nread quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some\nof the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs,\nflour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor;\nand in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell\nasleep.\n\nAs dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of\nthe hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund.\nHe knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land\nof the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered\nback. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle,\nand on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no\nway by which he could creep past.\n\nAt last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very\nmoment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and\nfound it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could\nnot see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that\nhe was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on\nthe open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it.\nFive minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was\npassed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him.\n\nIn an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the\ndesert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses\nwere sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts,\nhe would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep\nmoving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels.\nWhile he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the\nArabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward\nKaf--an oasis town across the desert.\n\n\"Don't go,\" the Chief and his people said, \"the Arabs there are bad:\nwhen we go we never let our rifles out of our hands.\"\n\nSo the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; death from\nthirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf.\n\n\"I am trusting God to protect and keep me,\" said Forder. \"I believe He\nwill do so.\"\n\nSo Forder handed the Chief most of his money to take care of, and\nsewed up the rest into the waistband of his trousers. (It is as safe\nas a bank to hand your money to an Arab chief who has entertained you\nin his tent. If you have \"eaten his salt\" he will not betray or rob\nyou. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten law that no true\nArab ever breaks.)\n\n\n_The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels_\n\nAt last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get\na camel, load up Forder's things on it, and pass him on to the first\nArab tent that he found. Two days passed before they found a group\nof Bedouin tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early in the\nmorning he woke with a jump. The whole of the tent had fallen right\non him; he crawled out. He saw the Arab women standing round; they had\npulled the tent down.\n\n\"Why do you do this so early?\" he asked.\n\n\"The men,\" they replied, \"have ordered us to move to another place;\nthey fear to give shelter to a Christian--one that is unclean and\nwould cause trouble to come on us.\"\n\nSo the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder,\nhis guide, and the camel alone in the desert. That afternoon he found\na tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night\non the way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. Forder\nsat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up\nto them.\n\n\"I hear the bells of the camels,\" he said. Quickly Forder's goods\nwere loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open\nplain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark\nmass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.\n\nArabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses\nshouting, \"Who are you? What do you want?\" Then came fifty horsemen\nwith long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders,\nswords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes.\nThey were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels.\nThere were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors.\n\nAs they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends\nof his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred\ncamels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the\nlast section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the\nmen. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were\nfound. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to\nKaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a\nfew minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two\nthousand others into the east.\n\nFor hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts\non a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky\nin which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them;\nahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed\non. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung\nhimself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a\nfew seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened\nhim. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon,\nfrom noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon,\nthe camels moved on and on, \"unhasting, unresting.\" As the camels were\nkneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten\nrobbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors\ngalloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and\ndragged them back to the camp.\n\n\"Start again,\" the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two\nthousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail\nof the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All\nthrough the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and\nthrough the morning from dawn till ten o'clock--for they dared not\nrest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could\nget near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back,\nfor on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they\nsought.\n\nThe camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With\ngrunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from\ntheir loads, and began hungrily to eat their food.\n\nForder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some\npalm gardens close by and sang \"Praise God from Whom all blessings\nflow,\" jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from\nhimself in a hot spring of sulphur water.\n\nLying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he\nslept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset.\n\nAt sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return\njourney. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him.\n\n\"Come back with us,\" they said. \"Why will you stay with these cursed\npeople of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian.\"\n\nIt was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that\nland before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out\nto risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed.\n\nWhat made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and\nhate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about\nthem at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might\nhave gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him\nthe love of all men, and, in obeying His command to \"Go into all the\nworld,\" he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good\nNews in the New Testament.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.]\n\n[Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.]\n\n[Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in\nBashan.]\n\n[Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nTHE FRIEND OF THE ARAB\n\n_Archibald Forder_\n\n(Date of Incident, 1901)\n\n\n_The Lone Trail of Friendship_\n\nSo the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now\nwas alone in Kaf.\n\n\"Never,\" he says, \"shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came\nover me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was\nthe only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well\ndescribe.\"\n\nAs Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one\nanother, \"_Nisraney_[69]--one of the cursed ones--the enemy of Allah!\"\nHe remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were\nfierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he\nput on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down\nwith the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great\niron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with\nthem.\n\n\"Why have you come here?\" they asked him.\n\n\"My desire is,\" he replied, \"to pass on to the Jowf.\"\n\nNow the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert--the most\nimportant in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north,\nsouth, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments\nwould be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia.\n\n\"The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there,\" they said, pointing\nto the south-east.\n\n\n[Illustration: FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF.]\n\n\"Go back to Orman,\" said the Chief, whose name was Mohammed-el-Bady,\n\"it is at your peril that you go forward.\"\n\nHe sent a servant to bring in the headman of his caravan. \"This\n_Nisraney_ wishes to go with the caravan to the Jowf,\" said the Chief.\n\"What do you think of it?\"\n\n\"If I took a Christian to the Jowf,\" replied the caravan leader, \"I am\nafraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I\ncannot do it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" another said, turning to Forder, \"if you ever want to see the\nJowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live\nthere many days.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Chief, closing the discussion, \"I will see more about\nthis to-morrow.\"\n\nAs the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled a book out from\nhis pouch. They watched him curiously.\n\n\"Can any of you read?\" he asked. There were a number who could; so\nForder opened the book--which was an Arabic New Testament--at St.\nJohn's Gospel, Chapter III.\n\n\"Will you read?\" he asked.\n\nSo the Arab read in his own language this chapter. As we read the\nchapter through ourselves it is interesting to wonder which of the\nverses would be most easily understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who\nwas reading came to the words:\n\n\"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that\nwhosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting\nlife,\" Forder talked to them telling what the words meant. They\nlistened very closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new\nto them.\n\n\"Will you give me the book?\" asked the Arab who was reading. Forder\nknew that he would only value it if he bought it, so he sold it to him\nfor some dates, and eight or nine men bought copies from him.\n\nNext day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs to conduct Forder\nto the Jowf, but none would take the risk. So at last he lent him two\nof his own servants to lead him to Ithera--an oasis four hours' camel\nride across the desert. So away they went across the desert and in the\nlate afternoon saw the palms of Ithera.\n\n\"We have brought you a Christian,\" shouted the servants as they led\nForder into a room full of men, and dumped his goods down on the\nfloor. \"We stick him on to you; do what you can with him.\"\n\n\"This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel,\" shouted\none of the men, \"but a pig.\" He did not know that Forder understood\nArabic.\n\n\"Men,\" he replied boldly, \"I am neither pig, infidel, nor Jew. I am a\nChristian, one that worships God, the same God as you do.\"\n\n\"If you are a Christian,\" exclaimed the old Chief, \"go and sit among\nthe cattle!\" So Forder went to the further end of the room and sat\nbetween an old white mare and a camel.\n\nSoon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put his hand out and\nshook his. He sat down by him and, talking very quietly so that the\nothers should not hear, said: \"Who are you, and from where do you\ncome?\"\n\n\"From Jerusalem,\" said Forder. \"I am a Christian preacher.\"\n\n\"If you value your life,\" went on the stranger, \"you will get out of\nthis as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill\nyou. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem.\"\n\n\"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?\" asked Forder.\n\n\"Very kind,\" was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder\nlistened carefully to the talk.\n\n\"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep,\" said one man.\n\n\"No,\" said the Chief. \"I will not have the blood of a Christian on my\nhouse and town.\"\n\n\"Let us poison his supper,\" said another. But the Chief would not\nagree.\n\n\"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst,\" suggested\na third. \"No,\" said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, \"we will\nleave him till the morning.\"\n\nForder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards\nthe Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence\nshould not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would\nspoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy\ntent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had\nthrust him out of the village to die.\n\nThe next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself\nwas going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers,\nForder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and\nwent off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room.\n\nWalking up to him Forder held out the money saying, \"If you will let\nme go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give\nyou these four pieces.\"\n\n\"Give them to me now,\" said Khy-Khevan, \"and we will start after\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"No,\" replied Forder, \"you come outside, and before the men of the\nplace I will give them to you; they must be witnesses.\" So in the\npresence of the men the bargain was made.\n\nIn the morning the camels were got together--about a hundred and\ntwenty of them--with eighty men, some of whom came round Forder, and\npatting their daggers and guns said, \"These things are for using on\nChristians. We shall leave your dead body in the sand if you do not\nchange your religion and be a follower of Mohammed.\"\n\nAfter these cheerful encouragements the caravan started at one\no'clock. For four hours they travelled. Then a shout went up--\"Look\nbehind!\"\n\nLooking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin robbers galloping\nafter them as hard as they could ride. The camels were rushed together\nin a group: the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after\nthem. After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men\nsettled down where they were for the night, during which they had to\nbeat off another attack by the robbers.\n\nForder said, \"What brave fellows you are!\" This praise pleased them\nimmensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that\nthey had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still\ntold him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days they travelled\non without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only\nfound it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made\na hole over six feet deep where they found some.\n\n_In the Heart of the Desert_\n\nAt last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, \"no one knows\nhow old,\" that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its\nthousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous\nocean of desert.\n\nMen, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends: for a\ndesert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and\nthe caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do\nto the harbour to meet friends from across the sea.\n\n\"May Allah curse him!\" they cried, scowling, when they heard that a\nChristian stranger was in the caravan. \"The enemy of Allah and the\nprophet! Unclean! Infidel!\"\n\nJohar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be\nbrought into his presence, and proceeded to question him:\n\n\"Did you come over here alone?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.\n\n\"Were you not afraid?\"\n\n\"No,\" he replied.\n\n\"Have you no fear of anyone?\"\n\n\"Yes, I fear God and the devil.\"\n\n\"Do you not fear me?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But I could cut your head off.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Forder, \"I know you could. But you wouldn't treat a\nguest thus.\"\n\n\"You must become a follower of Mohammed,\" said Johar, \"for we are\ntaught to kill Christians. Say to me, 'There is no God but God and\nMohammed is His prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and\na house and palms.\" Everybody sat listening for the answer. Forder\npaused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on\nhis answer life or death would depend.\n\n\"Chief Johar,\" said Forder, \"if you were in the land of the\nChristians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to\nbecome a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Johar proudly, \"not if the ruler had my head cut off.\"\n\n\"Secondly,\" he said to Johar, \"which do you think it best to do, to\nplease God or to please man?\"\n\n\"To please God,\" said the Chief.\n\n\"Johar,\" said Forder, \"I am just like you; I cannot change my\nreligion, not if you cut off two heads; and I must please God\nby remaining a Christian.... I cannot do what you ask me. It is\nimpossible.\" Johar rose up and went out much displeased.\n\n\n_\"Kill the Christian!\"_\n\nOne day soon after this there was fierce anger because the mud tower\nin which Johar was sitting fell in, and Johar was covered with the\ndebris. \"This is the Christian's doing,\" someone cried. \"He looked\nat the tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen.\" At once the cry was\nraised, \"Kill the Christian--kill him--kill him! The Christian! The\nChristian!\"\n\nAn angry mob dashed toward Forder with clubs, daggers and revolvers.\nHe stood still awaiting them. They were within eighty yards when, to\nhis own amazement, three men came from behind him, and standing\nin front of Forder between him and his assailants pulled out their\nrevolvers and shouted, \"Not one of you come near this Christian!\"\nThe murderous crowd halted. Forder slowly walked backwards toward his\nroom, his defenders doing the same, and the crowd melted away.\n\nHe then turned to his three defenders and said, \"What made you come to\ndefend me as you did?\"\n\n\"We have been to India,\" they answered, \"and we have seen the\nChristians there, and we know that they do no harm to any man. We have\nalso seen the effect of the rule of you English in that land and in\nEgypt, and we will always help Christians when we can. We wish the\nEnglish would come here; Christians are better than Moslems.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOther adventures came to Forder in the Jowf, and he read the New\nTestament with some of the men who bought the books from him to read.\nAt last Khy-Khevan, the Chief of Ithera, who had brought Forder to the\nJowf, said that he must go back, and Forder, who had now learned what\nhe wished about the Jowf, and had put the books of the Gospel into the\nhands of the men, decided to return to his wife and boys in Jerusalem\nto prepare to bring them over to live with him in that land of the\nArabs. So he said farewell to the Chief Johar, and rode away on a\ncamel with Khy-Khevan. Many things he suffered--from fever and hunger,\nfrom heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last he reached Jerusalem\nonce more; and his little four-year-old boy clapped hands with joy\nas he saw his father come back after those long months of peril and\nhardship.\n\nFifteen hundred miles he had ridden on horse and camel, or walked. Two\nhundred and fifty Arabic Gospels and Psalms had been sold to people\nwho had never seen them before. Hundreds of men and women had heard\nhim tell them of the love of Jesus. And friends had been made among\nArabs all over those desert tracks, to whom he could go back again in\nthe days that were to come. The Arabs of the Syrian Desert all think\nof Archibald Forder to-day as their friend and listen to him because\nhe has proved to them that he wishes them well.\n\n  +------------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | \"SEEING THEN THAT WE ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A         |\n  | CLOUD OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT AND THE        |\n  | SIN WHICH DOTH SO EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PATIENCE  |\n  | THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR   |\n  | AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH, WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE  |\n  | HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, DESPISING THE SHAME.\"                     |\n  +------------------------------------------------------------------+\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 69: That is _Nasarene_ (or _Christian_).]\n\n[Footnote 70: The Druzes are a separate nation and sect whose religion\nis a kind of Islam mixed with relics of old Eastern faiths, _e.g._,\nsun-worship.]\n\n[Footnote 71: The Jowf is a large oasis town with about 40,000\ninhabitants, about 250 miles from the edge of the desert. The water\nsupply is drawn up by camels from deep down in the earth.]","title":"The Book of Missionary Heroes","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":67331}